What were some significant military advancements in medieval and ancient China?

OT, of course:
France was the greatest military power in Europe from the decline of Spain at the end of the 16th century to the rise of Prussia in the middle of the 19th century. From the middle of the 17th to the middle of the 18th century its main opponent was the Dutch republic, with England sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. In an interesting book, "The Rise of Modern Warfare 1618-1815", by H. W. Koch, a major subject is the organisational changes necessary on the Dutch and the French sides to prepare for the next war. This book made it clear to me that comparing armies that have never met seldom makes sense.

Addendum: Napoleon was too early for the use of railways.

shen said:

Able men always rises to the top, especially in times of social chaos. Ancient China had plenty able generals, but no great man can overcome the far more powerful forces that governed his place and time. At best, able men can latch onto the prevailing tread and do his little bit of service to march of history.
Great men are just pawns of history.
Strategy, tactic, doctrinal change can't change history either. Remember the Ever Victorious Army of Chinese soldiers armed with Western weapons and trained in Western drills? I've heard many fanciful stories from my American friends (even professors of history) about the adventures of Charles Gordon, the savior of China from the Taiping. The truth is Ever Victorious Army was a tiny footnote in the Taiping Rebellion. Like the movie Sand Pebbles.
None of those mattered in the long run.
Revolutionary France certainly wasn't a great nation, but it was very good at mobilization its national resources for to wage wars. I thought that's what we are discussing. My argument was that pre-modern China didn't have the institutional structure necessary to raise that kind of resources, and social geographic situation of China precluded that level of governance until modern communication and transportation technologies became available.

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montyp165 said:

Shen clarified the points I was trying to get at but hadn't spelled out in specific detail. In a way things seem to indicate how much the issue of organization affected Chinese military effectiveness compared to European armies of the same period during the 19th century compared to earlier periods regardless of availability of modern arms tech.

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Again with a comparison that make no sense at all. You are comparing an era that was centuries later as compared to ancient era of the Chinese. Military powers are tied tightly with the culture, politics and economy of a nation in that particular era. And politics as well as economic of an era was also closely linked to the culture of that era, as well as a culture was actually created through the different needs or perceived needs at that time.

Even if you transferred the entire Napoleon taxation or politic system into China of say the Qin period, it will not work. The whole time period don't work, people's mindset, culture of that time, enemies, etc are all different.

You simply couldn't use a more modern systems and think it is all that good then dump it to an ancient era or period.

It is also like... in the Song dynasty when technology in China rose to its peak... with massive factory that was never before seen anywhere in the world at that time.... so if we take the political systems of the Song... or say... the Tang dynasty and dump it in to the more backward systems in... say the more barbaric civilizations of... maybe the Southern area... could it work? They don't...

And it is like, if I use the Chinese system and dump it to France at that time (same era or even if I dump the system of a more modern Ming era into the France which was 400 years earlier than Ming) and see if it could actually bring the France's military up? I doubt it.

If you want a fair comparison, do it apple to apple.

rhino123 said:

Again with a comparison that make no sense at all. You are comparing an era that was centuries later as compared to ancient era of the Chinese. Military powers are tied tightly with the culture, politics and economy of a nation in that particular era. And politics as well as economic of an era was also closely linked to the culture of that era, as well as a culture was actually created through the different needs or perceived needs at that time.

Even if you transferred the entire Napoleon taxation or politic system into China of say the Qin period, it will not work. The whole time period don't work, people's mindset, culture of that time, enemies, etc are all different.

You simply couldn't use a more modern systems and think it is all that good then dump it to an ancient era or period.

It is also like... in the Song dynasty when technology in China rose to its peak... with massive factory that was never before seen anywhere in the world at that time.... so if we take the political systems of the Song... or say... the Tang dynasty and dump it in to the more backward systems in... say the more barbaric civilizations of... maybe the Southern area... could it work? They don't...

And it is like, if I use the Chinese system and dump it to France at that time (same era or even if I dump the system of a more modern Ming era into the France which was 400 years earlier than Ming) and see if it could actually bring the France's military up? I doubt it.

If you want a fair comparison, do it apple to apple.

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You are missing my point, which was comparing Qing era armies to Napoleonic era European armies of the same time period (circa 1793). This has nothing to do with using Ancien regime French bureaucracy in Qin era China or Song dynasty government in Plantagenet England as an example. The crux of my point was that prior to the advent of advanced chemical knowledge in Europe such as smokeless powder or electrical devices the material and technological basis of Qing era China had the means to mass deploy flintlock muskets or equivalents to the Gribeauval artillery system. Hell, Chinese armies were using 3 rank musket lines like the French or Prussians were, so if anything the lack of organizational coherence and focus by the Qing administration was much more of a problem than any issue of technology.

Same era China, same era Europe as point in comparison, nothing else.

montyp165 said:

You are missing my point, which was comparing Qing era armies to Napoleonic era European armies of the same time period (circa 1793). This has nothing to do with using Ancien regime French bureaucracy in Qin era China or Song dynasty government in Plantagenet England as an example. The crux of my point was that prior to the advent of advanced chemical knowledge in Europe such as smokeless powder or electrical devices the material and technological basis of Qing era China had the means to mass deploy flintlock muskets or equivalents to the Gribeauval artillery system. Hell, Chinese armies were using 3 rank musket lines like the French or Prussians were, so if anything the lack of organizational coherence and focus by the Qing administration was much more of a problem than any issue of technology.

Same era China, same era Europe as point in comparison, nothing else.

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The main difference is than that the Chinese state has been so large and powerful compared to its neighbors that there hadn't been a mortal danger to the state for a long time while in Europe many states have been snuffed out over the centuries and thus states were primarily interested in warfare.Think of Portugal being conquered by Spain in 1580, the many wars in Italy. Think of Brittany, Burgundy, Savoy and France Comte as some of the states taken over by France. Think of the partition of Poland at the end of the 18th century. Of the wars between the Dutch Republic and France when the French purpose was to destroy the power of the Republic and take over what is now Belgium from Spain and later from Austria.
In short the bureaucracies of European countries had a different balance between defense against neighbors and suppression of their own populations than China.

siegecrossbow said:

Actually, they were made from bamboo, which were hollow to begin with. In Northern China presided over by the Jin Dynasty, where bamboo wasn't easily available, they used something similar to rolled up butcher paper for the hollow tube in which the gunpowder and projectiles were placed.

There is no doubt that China was at the forefront of using gunpowder as a propellant, since we have archaeological and historical documentation back up. Disregarding controversial evidence such as the Buddhist painting of a fire lance wielding demon and the stone bas relief of a cannon wielding soldier, we have documentation support of rocket propelled arrows and a true gun, as recorded by Song Shi (history of Song compiled by Yuan scholars) dating to the mid-13th century. In fact, we can trace the lineage of the development through the evolution of indigenous Chinese firearms. Fir fire lances were primarily single shot flame throwers that had the added bonus of spewing metal and porcelain shards. As the formula improved, however, we began to see fire lances that primarily shoot projectiles, like the ones improvised by the defending general Chen Gui. To me, there is a clear evolutionary progression between the first firelance and handgonnes fashioned from metal (some of the early bronze firearms even had rings similar to those of a bamboo that are placed to prevent the barrels from bursting). On the otherhand, 13th century English scholar Roger Bacon, who was a huge advocate of gunpowders weapons, only foresaw their use as bombs, not as guns. To me, this is an indication that the idea for constructing firearms traveled from East to West, instead of the other way around.

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It did indeed travel from East to West and West to East, from Muslim lands to Europe and China. You must look at the Muslim sources. These are furusiyya books dedicated to military arts of the Song-period/High Middle Ages.

Okay, regardless of the degree of sophistication of medieval Chinese firearms, I think that they have not had much of an impact on the battlefield. For example, the early Qing eschewed pretty much all firearms except cannons and they were still pretty powerful militarily.

solarz said:

Okay, regardless of the degree of sophistication of medieval Chinese firearms, I think that they have not had much of an impact on the battlefield. For example, the early Qing eschewed pretty much all firearms except cannons and they were still pretty powerful militarily.

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That, unfortunately, is a myth propagated by Ming fanboys and Chinese TV drama directors who don't have a very good grasp of history.

The Qing Dynasty employed a very high number of arquebuses during their reign - a trend started in the Mid-16th century when they began reverse-engineering Japanese/Portuguese matchlock technology. Their usage was restricted mostly to Southern China, but they still saw significant action in Qi Jiguang's battles against the Wokou as well as the later Imjin War. Korean scholars of the period commented on how the Southern troops let by General Wu, who formerly served as Qi Jiguang, employed similar arquebus to those fielded by the Japanese.

Contrary to popular beliefs, the usage of matchlock firearms didn't cease with the end of the Ming Dynasty. Qing Troops during the reign of Kangxi and Yongzhen employed a very large number of arquebusiers. So widespread was the use of guns that Yong Zhen actually criticized the Bannermen for neglecting archery practice.

What is true, however, is that firearms technology stagnated during the Qing Dynasty. The same Ming matchlock technology failed to progress, and the only "innovation" was the elongation of the barrel. While the Europeans progressed from matchlock to miquelet, doglock, widespread adaptation of flintlock and eventually percussion caps/rifling/self contained cartridges, the Qing stuck with their matchlock arquebuses. This prompted McCartney to comment that the Qing soldiers used the same guns as those of the old Spanish Conquistadors. When the two Opium Wars broke out, they were used, with predictable effects, against the far superior British weapons. Think of a two century generation gap in firearms technology.

With the self contained cartridge came a massive increase in rate of fire. Most of the early ones were so called "trap door" rifles this is because they had been converted from muzzle loading to breach loading and eventually early bolt actions. Loading of a match lock required tipping the gun up opening a powder packet (if you had preloaded powder) ramming it down inserting a wad of fabric placing the ball on top ramming that down presenting cocking and firing.
loading a self contained cartridge bullet into a trap door? Open the door insert the bullet, close the door locking the breach cock the hammer fire. That's maybe three seconds to thirty seconds. And early repeaters were on there way.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

With the self contained cartridge came a massive increase in rate of fire. Most of the early ones were so called "trap door" rifles this is because they had been converted from muzzle loading to breach loading and eventually early bolt actions. Loading of a match lock required tipping the gun up opening a powder packet (if you had preloaded powder) ramming it down inserting a wad of fabric placing the ball on top ramming that down presenting cocking and firing.
loading a self contained cartridge bullet into a trap door? Open the door insert the bullet, close the door locking the breach cock the hammer fire. That's maybe three seconds to thirty seconds. And early repeaters were on there way.

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After the introduction of the musket in Europe, originally a match lock - later a flint lock, followed the development of the cartridge consisting of a ball and powder wrapped in paper that was used as a wad. This decreased the loading time and let to a reduction of the ranks of musketeers from ten to three or even two - the thin red line. Such muskets were still used at the First Battle of Bull Run and probably even later in the US Civil War. I don't think the British already used breach loaders in the Opium Wars. So long before the introduction of breach loading the effectiveness of European muskets had been massively improved. To what extent did Chinese musketry exceed the level of the 16th century, if at all?

Paper cartridges were not true ready to load bullets. It was a paper pouches with a premeasured amount of powder and a ball. The shooter had to tip the weapon up, open the pouch pour down the powder, ram it then ram the ball and paper, present cock and fire. Still at best no where near as fast as a bullet. And you start to see that fact play out when massed lines form up against bullets and repeaters in the high casualty counts of the American civil war battles.