Rome vs Han China

reasons why i'm not planning to translate this any time soon, maybe in future:
1) it's written in a old style chinese that's hard for me to understand, traslating will be more challenging. it's not like modern chinese. it's like trying to translate shakesphere into some other modern language.

2) i'm very lazy

3) it's midterm week right now, and i'm getting raped in almost every exam.

4) did i mention i'm lazy.

I somewhat stick to my belief that Han would have discipline problems, that a Han army would be more prone to breaking and fleeing than a Roman Legion.

The ZGN is also marginal in effect, it has a horrible armor piercing ability, and also has horrible range. It was mostly a civilian weapon that had limited uses in defending besieged towns.

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I think Han army are just as discipline as Romans. I believe you got that idea from a movie.

What you mean by AP? Armour? Why would you type in AP for armour? Did you get this AP(armour points) from GunZ Online?

Gollevainen's merged post vol.29876...or something like those figures...

PiSigma said:

i basically just posted the entire book of 六韜, it's a military philosophy book kind of like "art of war" except it's older. so the material is pretty much military related.

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It's more taoist than the art of war.

tphuang said:

Actually, the one thing that is consistently ignored about Qenghis khan is his strategies. He actually would not have defeated the two dynasties governing northern and southern china that time if he didn't do the maneouvering that he did. Actually, even the later Mongol rulers were good at this. This is how they kept on ruling Russia for so long even after their demise in China.

As for their armies abilities, it could be argued that they easily had the most fearsome army in the pre-firearm days. The reason is because the speed that they come at you with the knights and crossbowmen on horses is so fast that most armies just don't know how to deal with them in an open battlefield. That's why the great wall was built. As strong and technologically advanced as Han was, even it had trouble defending the Mongols with a wall in front of it.

Personally, I would've liked to see the Huns vs the pre-100AD roman soldiers go at it or seeing at Alexander the great army vs Hannibal lead army.

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I agree. It's very easy for somebody to say oh he united disunited tribes.

Ghengis was a genius in organizational ability as well as strategy.
Of course he may have had a harder time if the Shi'ites had not betrayed
the Persian empire or if China had not been betrayed but none of that
is to take away from him.

However Ghengis was not a statesman or great leader

However Ghengis was not a statesman or great leader

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Bullshit, where do you draw that conclusion? Genghis revolutionized the Mongol tribes, and devised that troops based on multiple of 10s, and still used by modern military today. United the Mongol tribes and ended inter-tribal wars, completely transform the Mongol society, and that is not consider a statesman/great leader?:roll:

A great statesman /great leader has the ability appoint/choose people willingly to get his/her objectives done. And Genghis had appointed generals and others to administrated his empire and amassed the largest land empire in the world to this date, introduce laws, encourage trades. And Genghis had tha abilities to do all this, and he should be called a great leader. While history focused on this military skills, strategies, it often overlook the above mention.

And his strategies was to have greater mobility, but most of the fight began w/ a small # of troop that attacted and lured the enemy into an area. Then smokes were created to blind the enemy, thousands and thousands of arrows would be shoot into the smoked area. Just cleaned up after the smokes cleared. Most of the time, he prefer no war but his opponents surrender. But if that did not happen, then he had to make an example of his enemy and make so bloody and savage like. Though make the world know of the conquences that anyone that does not accept him as the ruler.

A lot of people have been saying that the chinese had better technology than the Romans, and that China had a lot more people than Rome. My impression is that in reality, both countries had about the same level of technology and about the same number of people.

Both countries were advanced for their time and both had some technologies that the other didn't. While it is true that China has been technalogically ahead of Europe for most of recorded history, Rome's technology was actually better than what the Europeans were using 1000 years later and China did not invent stirrups or gunpowder until later.

In terms of number of people, when the Roman empire was at its peak it had a population of about 70 million, which is at least as big as the population of China at the time. The reason why the Roman army was not as big as the Chinese army was because the Romans simply did not need a larger army. During the peak of the Roman Empire ("5 good emperors period") Rome fought did not fight many major battles because its relatively small but well-trained and well-equiped professional army was more than enough to defeat any enemy. During this period Rome was not very expanshonist (like China they built walls to keep the barbarians out) and few countries were crazy enough to attack Rome.

Latter on, the armies of Rome became less loyal and civil wars became common. The Roman armies started to fight each other more often than the fought agains other countries. I consider this to be the main reason why Rome declined in later years.

Subjects and slaves do not fight as well as homegrown soldiers. Reason? They are less inclined to fight for an empire that conquered their homes, raped their women, pillaged their stores and burnt their crops.

Furthermore, Chinese technology was FAR more advanced than anything the rest of the world had to offer till the industrial revolution.

In terms of population, it is difficult to comprehend how some would think that Rome and Han had roughly equal populations.

TJJH said:

Furthermore, Chinese technology was FAR more advanced than anything the rest of the world had to offer till the industrial revolution.

In terms of population, it is difficult to comprehend how some would think that Rome and Han had roughly equal populations.

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There were some periods where Chinese technology was much more advanced than anywhere else in the world, but I don't think the Han dynasty is one of them. The Romans inherited the Greek knowledge of science and mathematics, which was the best in the world at the time. They also made some of their own inventions like concrete and the arch, which were not available in China until much later. The Romans had excellent seige weapons, and the average Roman legionare had much better armor than the average chinese soldier.

In terms of population, the archeologist say that the populations were close to the same. Rome was a big empire, it not only had Europe but also Turkey, the middle east, Egypt, and North Africa. Rome itself was the world's largest city with a population of over 1 million.

rome was never able to truly conquer the middle east due to unrest and lack of troops to garrison it. and slaves shouldn't be counted into the population. once the slaves were removed, rome's numbers will go down a lot.

and who needs the roman concrete which is not very strong compared to modern concrete when china mass produce bricks that almost as strong as modern concrete (which means the bricks china produce is stronger than roman concrete). the arch is not used in military buildings.

romans had excellent seige weapons, so you are saying han china didn't?? because they also had great seige weapons, considering how obsessed with building city walls chinese people are. seige weapons are very important.

having a empire that covers large area of land means nothing in terms of military size, rome can't men from newly conquered areas, because they are not loyal to rome. the bulk of roman forces still comes from europe (italy, spain, greece, france) during the height of its power.

rome might of had better armor, but china had way better weapons, the materials for chinese swords are superior. han china was able to mass produce swords with pearlite interior with martinsite edges, giving it the flexibility and hardness/sharpness needed. and no matter how well the troops are armored, 1 guy can't take on 10 guys at the same time.

To some people who really into Roman history or period...etc sometimes, it is hard for them to accept that there is an empire out that much better than Roman Empire. Espcially, when it is Chinese Empire. I am not pointing at anyone here, just speaking from my exp.

trkl said:

There were some periods where Chinese technology was much more advanced than anywhere else in the world, but I don't think the Han dynasty is one of them. The Romans inherited the Greek knowledge of science and mathematics, which was the best in the world at the time. They also made some of their own inventions like concrete and the arch, which were not available in China until much later. The Romans had excellent seige weapons, and the average Roman legionare had much better armor than the average chinese soldier.

In terms of population, the archeologist say that the populations were close to the same. Rome was a big empire, it not only had Europe but also Turkey, the middle east, Egypt, and North Africa. Rome itself was the world's largest city with a population of over 1 million.

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Rome DID NOT have the Middle East...it didn't have Persia for a start
or Arabia and all of the areas it did have were occupied with periodic liberation movements followed by the usual genocides of the european tribes by the romans