The greatest military strategist in Chinese history?

you must also consider the practical conditions of the armies they commanded. the reason that subotai and Chengis khan and all those ppl were able to pull off sweet maneuvers is because they had a good military system that ALLOWS them to do that, not because they were the only ones that could think of such move. look at the 03 invasion on iraq. i think it was the 3rd division that took off from kuwait and simply bypassed all the iraqi cities and went straight for baghdad. now not a lot of armies in the world can do that, but it doesnt mean that the American commanders were the only ones that can come up with this kind of maneuver. its because they had a better system to work with. so you must take into account of what they had to work with and work against at the time. by that standard, there is no one i can think of anywhere that can match Mao. maybe cept for Chengis khan cuz he created the Mongol's military system, but then again it was the only thing he worked with, Mao had to go from guerilla warfare to large army corps, and all of his enemies were much stronger than he was.

pla101prc said:

buddy look at the adverse conditions Mao had to deal with. he was on the verge of being completely wiped out yet he manages to recover. many ppl say that it was the Japanese invasion that saved him, but look at the comparison of the forces in 1947: Chiang-4.8million professional army, significant portion of which were trained and equipped to German and American standard,have air force and navy, control of all major cities. Mao-1.2million peasant armies, half of which are guerilla forces,does not control any major cities,very poorly equipped.
the only other emperor comparable to that is Zhu Yuanzhang. Liu Bang was great but he's advantage is that he was able to max out the talents of his ministers and generals.

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Actually... I agreed with what you say most. However if you are looking at comparable emperor... I did believe that Liu Bang came in close to Mao. If you look at recorded history, Liu Bang is also a peasant when he started out. And from that, how good an army can be when started off as peasants and with no real military training at all. His enemy at that time was the Qin dynasty and Xiang Yu (who is a descendant from great generals).

Xiang Yu is among the greatest warriors at that time and led a huge army, much better equip than Liu Bang. No doubt he is great at using the right person for the right job. But don't you agree that that is also a form of strategy? and in actual fact, I believe that is the most important of strategies. One cannot be an expert in everything.

In terms of Mao, he is also a talent user, without the help from his ten marshals, I don't believe he could have achieve much and without political advisers such as Zhou En Lai, Deng Xiao Ping, etc, he couldn't have achieve much in the politics too. All these are actually very similar to what Liu Bang is.

Which begs the question. Mao was an inspirational leader and took his small band of a few thousand guerrilla fighters after the Long March and transformed them into a large army and united the country.

But would he have been able to without the generals under him, such as the ones I mentioned?

Did he achieve his accomplishments despite those generals or due to those generals?

no one said that Mao would do it without anyone's help, the fact that he was able to use those advisors and generals is a virtue in itself. yes Liu Bang was in a similar situation as Mao, but in the end his military accomplishments were far less than his political ones, remember Han Xin said he can at most command 100000 men, and that was an overstatement since he was already an emperor at the time, every battle he led against Xiang Yu was a failure. and Liu Bang made no contribution in terms of military theory.
by Mao's assessment, the most talented military geniuses among the emperors were Li Shimin, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhao Kuangyin.

ccL1 said:

Which begs the question. Mao was an inspirational leader and took his small band of a few thousand guerrilla fighters after the Long March and transformed them into a large army and united the country.

But would he have been able to without the generals under him, such as the ones I mentioned?

Did he achieve his accomplishments despite those generals or due to those generals?

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I believe all great strategists or leaders needed help from certain group of peoples irregardless of how good he or she is individually. As I believe and will always believe, no one is good in everything, and that is really not the point to be an expert in everything.

A good strategist is one that could see an opportunity and grab it. this opportunity doesn't need to be directly linked to the ultimate goal whatever it is, but it will strenghten the position of the said strategist and further his or her ambition. The said opportunity can come in all forms even the meeting of talented peoples etc.

Mao is a man who know talents and can make use of these talents to do what these talents do best. So I believe that in a certain degree he could still accomplish his feat without the same group of talents potraited, because he would still recognise and use other talents.

I personally think it would be unwise to compare the generals/emperors from different eras as they happened in a time period long before ours and understand different situation.
Secondly, many stories/books about the ancient Chinese battles/wars were inaccurate. For example, in the famous San Guo, during the battle of Chi Bi Cao supposely had over close to 1 million soldiers during the invasion but in reality the battle only involved less than 6 hundred thousand soldiers altogether.
The most brillriant and intellgent military strategist in the Modern Chinese history would go under Su Yu, who's army almost single handedly annihilated 1/3 of KMT's forces and more than half of the Elite America-equipped KMT armies. Many people now a days argue that Lin Biao was the greatest generial during the Civil war, but he really is not compareable to Su Yu if you actually read the details of the history of the Chinese Civil war. Su Yu was the first General mao asked to command the PVA, which he could not do due to serious injuries. Lin was the second choice but literally chickened out with various excuses, even when he know that most of the PLA that would go to Korea would be from his fourth fiend army or "dongbei" field army.(Mao is excluded, It would be stupid to argue that anyone in the modern Chinese era is better than him)

ccL1 said:

Which begs the question. Mao was an inspirational leader and took his small band of a few thousand guerrilla fighters after the Long March and transformed them into a large army and united the country.

But would he have been able to without the generals under him, such as the ones I mentioned?

Did he achieve his accomplishments despite those generals or due to those generals?

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I am reminded of a legendary conversation between Liu Bang and Han Xin. Liu said to Han:"you are such a great general. Why won't you simply take my place and be the leader?" Han said:"I know how to command troops, but you know how to command generals."

That's the difference between a great leader and a bad one. You can have all the great generals in the world who also happen to have the greatest egoes in the world. If you don't know how to command them and use them, you'll have a huge mess, such as internal power struggle among the generals or even mutiny. I mean who wants to serve an idiot? You have to be a great leader to command great generals.

The great Martial Emperor of Han dynasty once said:"alway watch the sharpest swords in your possession. They can help you hurt your enemy. They can also come back and hurt you." It takes a lot to able to wilt the most dangerous weapons.

ccL1 said:

Lin Biao, Liu Bocheng, and Peng Dehuai all helped direct campaigns and battles, and they were all the underdogs. Tacticians merely dictate on-field battle maneuvers. I personally consider strategists as those who do that, as well as direct pre- and post-battle movements and help to influence where to attack next (thus, initiating new campaigns). I feel all three did that.

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I really respect Peng Dehuai, but not so much Lin Biao. AFAIK, his army had always been some of the best equipped divisions in the PLA, which makes his victories less impressive, compared to the other generals. Plus, he chickened out of fighting against the Americans in Korea.

Now Peng, on the other hand, took on a job he knew was going to be bloody and most likely thankless, and routed the most advanced military force in the world at the time with nothing but good strategy and indomitable spirit.

I don't think most medieval era emperors could compare with Mao. The difference in armament and firepower those emperors faced were much, much less than the gap Mao faced. Whereas Liu Bang had to lead a peasant army of spearmen and archers against Xiang Yu's heavy cavalry, Mao had to lead a peasant army of riflemen with very few heavy weapons and no mechanized unit whatsoever against the artillery, armor, and air force of the KMT.

solarz said:

I really respect Peng Dehuai, but not so much Lin Biao. AFAIK, his army had always been some of the best equipped divisions in the PLA, which makes his victories less impressive, compared to the other generals. Plus, he chickened out of fighting against the Americans in Korea.

Now Peng, on the other hand, took on a job he knew was going to be bloody and most likely thankless, and routed the most advanced military force in the world at the time with nothing but good strategy and indomitable spirit.

I don't think most medieval era emperors could compare with Mao. The difference in armament and firepower those emperors faced were much, much less than the gap Mao faced. Whereas Liu Bang had to lead a peasant army of spearmen and archers against Xiang Yu's heavy cavalry, Mao had to lead a peasant army of riflemen with very few heavy weapons and no mechanized unit whatsoever against the artillery, armor, and air force of the KMT.

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Yes, the difference in weapons are great between different era. But think of it this way, Mao never actually ride into battle with his men and I believe he never even fire a shot in his entire life. It was his generals and marshals that have won those battles with great usage of tactics and whatever resource they have. This was the same with medival emperors such as Liu Bang.

Strategies and tactics are born out of circumstances and different circumstances, be it weapons developement, geography, culture, etc. Thus we couldn't just dismiss medival emperors in the face of Mao.

you guys are all wrong about Lin Biao. sidewinder, your theory of Lin Biao chickening out is only there because he betrayed the CCP, who knows what the real reason was. as for injury of Shu Yu, that excuse would have suited Lin Biao a lot better, he was injured during Ping Xing Guan. Shu Yu was one of the best military leaders but he too recorded a loss at Jin men. so nobody is perfect.
and whoever that said Lin Biao always had the best equipment. yes that was the case when PLA battled for Dongbei, but immediately after the Japanese surrender when Chiang was hunting down the communists, Lin's soldiers in south manchuria were walking in snow with straw shoes. so dont jump to conclusions there and back up what you guys say with evidence.
rhino, true Mao never fired a shot in his life,but he did direct battles such as four crossings of Chi Shui.