Why China Chose Bows over Guns...

If it is, as others have said, that most of China's enemies from 1400 - 1800AD were largely nomadic horseback raiders, then the Firearm would have been largely useless until the Revolver or Carbine was invented.

In Europe warfare was mainly based around massed ranks/columns of slow moving Infantry - ideal targets for early firearms.

siegecrossbow said:

When the hell did the Chinese choose bows over guns?

Handgonnes were produced in very large numbers in the Early Ming Dynasty and special military divisions called "Shen Ji Ying" consisted entirely of firearms wielding troops. The Matchlock arquebus were introduced in the mid-1550s and were commonly fielded in Southern China.

Even the Manchus, who were notorious for their archery skills, fielded large numbers of musketeers during the late 17th century till the 18th century. Although the guns fielded by the Chinese were technologically inferior to their European and American counterparts they were still, as a matter of fact, guns, not bows.

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It was only the decline of Manchus in the late 18th century to 19th century, where the central virtually had no money to purchase or manufacture guns, the decline led to Taiping Revolution and 8 nations invasion of China. Once the Ching Navy even has the so-called mighty navy which is 'the best in Asia, 4th in the world' but defeated by Imperial Japan Navy in the First Sino-Japanese War.

Its all due to money, not preferences. If given a choice, why would anyone wants to be bald if you can have a hairful of hair?

FarkTypeSoldier said:

It was only the decline of Manchus in the late 18th century to 19th century, where the central virtually had no money to purchase or manufacture guns, the decline led to Taiping Revolution and 8 nations invasion of China. Once the Ching Navy even has the so-called mighty navy which is 'the best in Asia, 4th in the world' but defeated by Imperial Japan Navy in the First Sino-Japanese War.

Its all due to money, not preferences. If given a choice, why would anyone wants to be bald if you can have a hairful of hair?

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I'm sorry but that was just an incredibly contradictory statement, you're saying China had no money to modernize and yet had the best fleet in Asia?

You are aware that said fleet was the best not because of size but because it was comprised of modern, top of the line warships built and purchased from Germany, the failure of this fleet was that officers and crewmen weren't trained on modern methods of warfare, adopting western technology but maintaining the old ways.

Player 0 said:

You are aware that said fleet was the best not because of size but because it was comprised of modern, top of the line warships built and purchased from Germany, the failure of this fleet was that officers and crewmen weren't trained on modern methods of warfare, adopting western technology but maintaining the old ways.

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I'm not sure about that. I've always read that the Beiyang fleet was annihilated because of poor maintenance and corruption. It was said that Ci Xi diverted funds for the fleet to construct her summer palace, and that corrupted officials pocketed made fake ammo and pocketed the money themselves, thus causing a severe shortage of ammo for the fleet.

In fact, I believe the Beiyang fleet lost their battle against the Japanese due to their lack of ammo. Several times, the fleet scored direct hits against the Japanese flagship, but the shells failed to detonate.

solarz said:

I'm not sure about that. I've always read that the Beiyang fleet was annihilated because of poor maintenance and corruption. It was said that Ci Xi diverted funds for the fleet to construct her summer palace, and that corrupted officials pocketed made fake ammo and pocketed the money themselves, thus causing a severe shortage of ammo for the fleet.

In fact, I believe the Beiyang fleet lost their battle against the Japanese due to their lack of ammo. Several times, the fleet scored direct hits against the Japanese flagship, but the shells failed to detonate.

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Qing NS fleet ( Beiyang) failure due to many reasons, you mentioned that you had read Beiyang fleet was annihilated because of poor maintenance and corruption, that's correct, lack of ammo is only one reason, if the shell detonated in the Japanese flagship, but it could not destroyed the flogship, both Qing and Japanese warship were very heavy metal sheet warships,the Japanese flagship was advanced and largest new warship,to destroy the warship, it needs many shells detonate, maybe one or two torpeto can destroy the warship.the total tonnage of Japanese fleet warships were more than Qing NS fleet warships, the speed of Japanese warships were faster than Qing warships,the guns shells speed of Japanese warships were faster than Qing warships, Qing NS fleet used to stronger than the Japanese fleet, but the Japanese fleet catch up and past Qing fleet, that could conclude Beiyang fleet must failed the battle.
in the Yellow Sea battle, the chief commander of Beiyang fleet Ding Ruchang丁汝昌 is not a capable navy commander, he was the Qing army officer, he dosn't know much about navy affair, when the sea battle began, he had made mistake, he ordered the fleet to composed of an wrong array,faced to the Japanese fleet, and in the battle, there was a captain of the Qing warship fled,caused the Beiyang fleet some chaos.
so many problems of Qing dynasty and Beiyang fleet.