Ancient Chinese Army

"Well , yes but the Greeks and Romans were the only ones useing Greek Fire that I know off...  Thus name Greek fire!"

 

No, the Byzantines were the first to use real Greek fire. Then it's the Indians and Chinese a little bit later, as the book states.

LOL! Dude and how less do you think how we get are history.

Dude I did not say �actually the crossbow's not medieval at all, it is in europe, but not in china. The crossbow was around since the Han dynasty.� did you see that I quoted!!

Umm dude, western history has many records as well!!

Ever herd of woodchips that the Romans use to rite on! Historians fine them and some still have ink on them. But some do not have ink, because the ink faded away so they take infrared pictures, and you CAN READ WHAT THE ROMANS OR GREEKS OR WHO EVER ROTE ON THEM!!! There are records that are out there to fine, and there ARE records that had bin pass down from the past! ( Why do you think we still have Roman alphabets and we can read Latin!) As for Western experts they too said stuff about the Romans, they thought that the Roman can not main as DEEP as modern mariners until they fond 16 big  Roman WHEELS that went deeper then some modern mariners! (They thought the mineing wheels were a �myth.� The same they said about the Trojan War and that is a good example how records are passed or survived!).  Dude I can keep going on so I�m going to stop. And if I said any thing rong then sorry I�m human as well as those Historians experts. But I�m rite about them haveing the death rays, crossbows, and hand held flame throwers.

And are you shore the Romans did not have Greek fire?

Edited by Praetorian

Dude I did not say �actually the crossbow's not medieval at all, it is in europe, but not in china. The crossbow was around since the Han dynasty.� did you see that I quoted!!

 

The first sentence of crossbows not being in China is blatantly wrong. As for the second sentence, crossbows were around since the late Spring and Autumn, not the Han dynasty.

 

And are you shore the Romans did not have Greek fire?

 

What's all this about how great Rome is? Greek fire was invented by the Byzantine empire. You're getting a little too excited when you said Romans had death rays . They did use mirrors to burn ships(actually that's the Greeks).

Edited by Omnipotence

Rome had a crossbow called a Gatastraphae but it really wasnt very effective thus the romans dont mention it in battle often.

Other ancient chinese weapons include Giant crossbow,trebuchets,Mustard gas.

Originally posted by dej2 Military formations of ancient China.

Ancient means Qin and Han Dynasty? How come I didn't notice any Cavalry (I just see Chariots and Infantry). Very cool graphic!

I've been scouring the web for historical/ancient Chinese Army information (uniforms,  Army/troop structures, troop types/weapons, high level military history etc.) so I'm considered "green" when it comes to learning my cultural roots! So much Chinese/(East) Asian history I don't and didn't know! Learning a lot here!

In fact, most of the info on historical Chinese Army uniforms I found here(thanks to Poirot (....and courtesy of Ospray?)!

Anyway, I'm more into wargaming miniatures painting/collecting, not so much as a historian so I'm just searching for general knowledge to add a certain level of authenticity. I realised that there isn't so much popularity/information on historical chinese armies as compared to say the Romans, Greeks, Alexander the Great, Napoleonics(huge wargaming base!), European Medieval knights(one of most popular), American Civil War, American Independance War, Musketeers and the very famous Mongol campaigns/invasions (high awareness level in Western countries as evidenced by the number of miniature collections) as compared to Chinese Armies! To most people, the most that comes to mind about Chinese forces are:

-  the "Chinese Boxer Rebellion"(due to no small part of western military involvement of course)

- Marco Polo's visits to China;

- Qin Dynasty (first empire);

I hope that the historical Chinese military history will be more publicised and more knowledge will be "unearthed" (like the fantastic "Terracotta Warriors") just like any mighty army in the ancient/medieval world!

But I wonder for the "Rectangle formation" :

1.what does "...exaggerate power" mean? If one were to stand on same level, one cannot see the soldiers behind unless we were to stand on a higher ground, say a hill etc. It only projects (if that's what's meant with "exaggerate", or did they mean "under exaggerate"?)

2."Less soldiers in centre"...what benefit is that? I can only think of "under exxagerate" or deceive the enemy (ie.show less troops than what you got).

Hehe...and by the way, my first post! (will update a little about myself in introduction section later, if got such section).

For now: Hello everyone and nice to meet you!

Edited by Chinese Soldier

Oh I think I see the meaning... no gaps between the troops (ie.no "columns"), so shows like a continous front line of soldiers, like a large united front!

Ten Deployments

Sun Pin the great grandson of Sun Tzu, also an accomplished Military Strategist, wrote a book called �Military Methods�. Chapter 16 is called �Ten Deployments�

�In General, there are ten deployments: square, circular, diffuse, concentrated, Awl, Wild Geese, Hooked, Dark Rising, incendiary, and aquatic. Each of them has its advantages:
        The square deployment is for cutting.
        The circular deployment is for unifying.
        The diffuse deployment is for rapid flexible response.
        The concentrated deployment is to prevent being cut off and taken.
        Awl Formation is for decisively severing the enemy.
        Wild Geese Formation is for exchanging archery fire.
        Hooked Formation is the means by which to change targets and alter plans.
        Dark Rising deployment is for causing doubts in the enemy�s masses and difficulty for his plans.
        Incendiary deployment is the means to seize enemy encampments.
        Aquatic deployment is the means to inundate the solid.

Unfortunately the details are not clear on the definitions of all the formations. My source is Ralph Sawyers book "The Complete Art of War" which includes the works of Sun Tzu and Sun Bin.

China has some fairly large rivers, the Yellow and the Yangtz, I'm assuming that the reference may be directed twords a specialized marine fighting division of the army. Maybe not a actual formation that was used by deploying troops on land? (still just speculation)

Originally posted by babyblue Originally posted by Tobodai lol Im just kidding, China has invented alot of great war stuff like gunpowder, trebuchets, crossbow etc etc, but this was more medieval then ancient so I dont think it applies to this thread so much. actually the crossbow's not  medieval at all, it is in europe, but not in china. The crossbow was around since the Han dynasty.