[General_Zhaoyun]

One of the main reason for the strength of the Qin army was that they were situated in the western region of China in borderline with many northern war-like nomads. Pitched at constant warfare, the Qin army gradually learnt and accumulated much experience in warfare. It then gradually unify the western region.

In 356 BC, the Shang Yang legalist reform caused Qin to be the most powerful states during Warring States period, in terms of political, economic and military strength. It then began a series of military campaign towards all the other states in the east.

According to the site http://www.camerauni...threadid=199934

In 293 BC, Qin army killed over 240,000 Wei troops, which caused state of Wei to lose its military strength.

In 278 BC, Qin army sacked Ying 郢, the capital of Chu, forcing the state of Chu to go into decline.

In 260 BC, Qin army killed over 450,000 Zhao troops (in the battle of Changping), causing Zhao to lose its military strength.

From 356 - 230 BC, Qin army killed over a combined forces of 1.6 million (of the 6 states), gradually consuming the military strength of other states, such that by 230 BC, no other state was a match to challenge the Qin army.

In 230 BC, Qinshihuang began a large scale military campaign to unify China. Within the next 10 years, the Qin army inflicted a total casualty of over 2 million (for the 6 states combined). This figure is astonishing.

Thus from 356 - 221 BC, Qin army killed over 3.6 million soldiers in China. I'm somewhat amazed about whether this figure is true. Qin army has a total combined forces of up to 1 million and another 1 million logistics. 600,000 forces was used in the campaign against Chu during Qin Shihuang's unification campaign.

How much enemy forces did the Qin Army annihilated during its military campaign from 356 BC - 221 BC?
Any comments are appreciated.

[Bao Pu]

Hi Zhaoyun

I am a bit skeptical. How do we come up with these numbers? Have we unearthed some ancient documents recording a head count of the dead?

General_Zhaoyun, on Jun 30 2006, 01:22 AM, said:

In 293 BC, Qin army killed over 240,000 Wei troops, which caused state of Wei to lose its military strength.

In 278 BC, Qin army sacked Ying 郢, the capital of Chu, forcing the state of Chu to go into decline.

In 260 BC, Qin army killed over 450,000 Zhao troops (in the battle of Changping), causing Zhao to lose its military strength.

From 356 - 230 BC, Qin army killed over a combined forces of 1.6 million (of the 6 states), gradually consuming the military strength of other states, such that by 230 BC, no other state was a match to challenge the Qin army.

In 230 BC, Qinshihuang began a large scale military campaign to unify China. Within the next 10 years, the Qin army inflicted a total casualty of over 2 million (for the 6 states combined). This figure is astonishing.

Thus from 356 - 221 BC, Qin army killed over 3.6 million soldiers in China. I'm somewhat amazed about whether this figure is true. Qin army has a total combined forces of up to 1 million and another 1 million logistics. 600,000 forces was used in the campaign against Chu during Qin Shihuang's unification campaign.

I have a question: How many troops did Qin lose in each of these battles? We should expect millions as well.

[fcharton]

Bao Pu, on Jun 30 2006, 12:54 PM, said:

I am a bit skeptical. How do we come up with these numbers? Have we unearthed some ancient documents recording a head count of the dead?

The Shiji gives this with apparent precision. Qin law promoted soldiers according to the number of enemy heads they took, so the text (which probably comes from a now lost history of the Qin state) gives tallies of the number of enemy heads cut.

Obviously, this does not mean that the accounts are reliable. Official histories do have a tendency to exaggerate, and it was probably tempting for a general to inflate the number of enemy deaths to get better promotion (normally, the heads should be brought back, but I doubt victorious armies came back home with 60 000 heads in chariots...)

I will try to post the relevant passages from the Shiji (mostly from chapters 5 and 6) later. But the 2 millions total dead in 10 years (the final conquest), without even counting the Qin deaths (which could hardly be lower than half a million), or the later deaths through epidemics, are just unbelievable. This would put the Qin conquest on par (maybe even slightly higher) with WWI in Europe... Given the relative populations of Western Europe in 1900, and Central China in 200 BC (remember that the conflict was much mocalised), the lower lethality of weapons, etc.

Over time, I came to doubt the meaning of the word 万 which is used to count both armies and casualties. This is about the only case it is used in ancient text, and it now means 10 000, but could it be possible that it had a different meaning back then, like 1000 say... in which case the sizes of armies (eg 50 000 instead of 500 000), or of casualties (6000 instead of 60 000 for a relatively short campaign) would become more believable.

Does any one knows whether scholars proposed such a theory (ie that Wan didn't necessarily mean 10 000)?

Francois

[bayonet]

I ve heard from somewhere(a tv programme from the CCTV maybe) that the population of the whole China during the warring states period is around 20,000,000 in which 5,000,000 are soldiers. If it is true, that would be astonishing which means that almost every male adult was serving in the army.

anyway, not all resourses are reliable esp from those long times ago. I guess the famous ChangPing campaign could be a reference since there are lot of records about it. According to Shiji and other records, the Zhao has 450,000 men in this campaign while the Qin has two times more than the Zhao's ( some say about 600,000 or so, but more scholars claim that the number is above 1 million). Both of this two states did their utmost of the human resources. '' every man above 15 years old in Qin is ordered to fight'' according to Heyan, a historian who lived during the Three Kingdoms era. The casualties of Qin and Zhao of the war are also shocking, ''half of the men died and there is almost no man in the domestic'' said by the Qin's commander Baiqi himself. That means around 500,000 died. The troops of Zhao was totally annihilated according to the history record.

The war with Chu made Qin mobilize 600,000 troops. Except for these two, wars with other states should be less scaled and the casualties be much lower. I dont know where did GZ get so accurate figures and not sure they are reliable or not. But definitely the casualties would be astonishing during that bloody period.

[Mei Houwang]

I don't consider "hundreds of thousands" hard to believe as long as they are no greater than 300,000 to 400,000. Look at the Napoleonic wars, in which the French at the time(with a population of 30 million) were able to mass up to 200,000 to even 600,000 troops in one expedition(although I find the latter doubtful). That's what happens when you have mass conscription, a system I find similar in China's warring states(and after) and Napoleonic levee en mass.

[fcharton]

Anthrophobia, on Jul 1 2006, 09:35 PM, said:

I don't consider "hundreds of thousands" hard to believe as long as they are no greater than 300,000 to 400,000. Look at the Napoleonic wars, in which the French at the time(with a population of 30 million) were able to mass up to 200,000 to even 600,000 troops in one expedition(although I find the latter doubtful). That's what happens when you have mass conscription, a system I find similar in China's warring states(and after) and Napoleonic levee en mass.

That's exactly the problem, using mass conscription, in an economy which depended less on human labour than in 200 BC, France , with 30 million inhabitants, was able to mobilise something like half a million soldiers (note though that note all of them were not French, by a large measure, the largest Napoleonic armies had lots of people of other nationalities, germans, poles, etc. in them). Now, we are told that, whereas the overall population of China (ie Qin and the 6 states, which covered a very large region), was around 20 millions. What was the population of Zhao, then? 5 millions, maybe, and Zhao would have lost *in one battle* some 400 000 men? which mean they had mobilised at least the double...

In my opinion, these figures (ie 2 million deaths over 10 years) pose several problems :

1- the size of the armies involved, which meant rates of conscriptions which were not feasible even in the modern era (which depended less on human labour). Conscripting all men over 15 might be theoretically possible, but for 10 years? and with the losses we are told happened?
2- in an ancient setting, even if such conscription rates were reached, whether such huge armies could be used is also doubtful : how do you move half a million men (most of them on foot)? how do you feed them (no, they certainly cannot live off the land, especially if the land is empty because of the conscription rates mentioned above)?
3- Then, there is the problem of the battles themselves. In Changping, if we believe the sources, the armies might have had more and 1.5 million men. Not all of them might have been committed to battle (although if the whole of the Zhao army was destroyed, it must have had a lot of men in the field, and Qin even more), it means that these are among the largest battles in the history of world (I am not sure there ever was a battle with more than a million soldiers, they just wouldn't fit in one place).
4- and finally, we have the casualty rate. Armies never fight to the last man. At some point, soldiers flee or desert en masse. The figures found in the Shiji imply a lethality of battle which didn't even happen in our modern time of artillery, machineguns and mortars...

All in all, I must say I am a bit surprised that some military historians still take these figures seriously... I mean, you could imagine a very high conscription rate at a single moment, you could imagine a very bloody battle, but 2 millions deaths in 10 years, 450 000 deaths in one battle? and this repeating year after year over 10 years, in 200 BC...

Francois

[Mei Houwang]

Quote

That's exactly the problem, using mass conscription, in an economy which depended less on human labour than in 200 BC, France , with 30 million inhabitants, was able to mobilise something like half a million soldiers (note though that note all of them were not French, by a large measure, the largest Napoleonic armies had lots of people of other nationalities, germans, poles, etc. in them). Now, we are told that, whereas the overall population of China (ie Qin and the 6 states, which covered a very large region), was around 20 millions. What was the population of Zhao, then? 5 millions, maybe, and Zhao would have lost *in one battle* some 400 000 men? which mean they had mobilised at least the double...

True, I was thinking of the unified Qin(20 million) and onwards(60 million and up), which means several hundred thousand was no problem at all. During the Warring States? That could pose a problem. However, we should also note that Suntzu described costs of an army of 100,000 men. Thus I can make an educated guess that for a large state during the Warring States, 100,000 men would be the max number. Numbers such as 600,000 or 300,000 could possibly be closer to the total amount of soldiers in the state, instead of just in one of its armies.

This post has been edited by Anthrophobia: 01 July 2006 - 07:15 PM

[Bao Pu]

Hi

You raise some excellent questions François. Myself, I was thinking the same thing, especially:

Quote

in an ancient setting, even if such conscription rates were reached, whether such huge armies could be used is also doubtful : how do you move half a million men (most of them on foot)? how do you feed them (no, they certainly cannot live off the land, especially if the land is empty because of the conscription rates mentioned above)?

and also this:

Quote

I doubt victorious armies came back home with 60 000 heads in chariots

let alone 450 000 heads! That's laughable.

This post has been edited by Bao Pu: 02 July 2006 - 07:20 AM

[Howard Fu]

The numbers about Qin’s army, the enemy army Qin annihilated and the labour in the big engineering projects are so large, it’s natural response for one to doubt if they are reliable. Not only western scholars but also Chinese scholars doubted them. I read Cambridge History of China. The reason I briefed as this 1) The Chinese word ‘万’ is used as a figure of speech, like that in ‘万里长城’, shouldn’t be taken literally or in fact means a thousand. 2) The later Han empire in its major campaigns against Xiongnu deployed ‘only’ 130,000 to 300,000 army. Napoleon in his invasion of Russia deployed 435,000. If Shiji is accurate, Qin with much less population( generally believed to be 5 or 6 million) than Han and Napoleon’s empire, could deploy an army twice the size of them, which is unbelievable. Although the Cambridge history highly doubt the numbers of Qin soldiers, they believe the numbers of labout involved in building Mausoleum of First Emperor(700,000) and the Great Wall(300,000) is believable given the scale of the projects. The Cambridge history I read is published in 1986. It’s not updated to the new archaeology discovery and research. For example, they speculated one of the reason of Qin’s victory is that they used iron weapon which gave them an edge over other states’ bronze weapon. In reality, it might be just the contrary. The Qin sword excavated in Hubei and in the terracotta army pit are all made of bronze, while in the state of Yan high quality iron sword was excavated. Whatever, they presented the most often used reasons to doubt the numbers in Shiji.

This is puzzling. Sima Qian is usually known for his rigorousness not coarseness. If possible, he often go to the locale where the events he recorded took place. What Sima Qian recorded often turned out to be amazingly accurate. For instance, Sima Qian recorded the palace of A-pang can sit ten thousand people(东西五百步，南北五十丈，上可以坐万人，下可以建五丈旗。秦始皇本纪第六). The Cambridge history take this out as an example of inaccuracy and compare it with the palaces in forbidden city(much smaller ones). But in the place which was Qin’s Shanglinyuan(上林苑, the place A-pang is said to built) an earth base of a palace and the ruin of a mini model was discovered beside it. The palace is of the size of Sima Qian’s description but never been finished.

I also tend to believe the numbers Sima Qian cited are quoted from ‘秦史’(Qin’s history). When Liu Bang entered Qin’s capital Xianyang. Xiao He collected all the books of high officers of Qin(何独先入收秦丞相御史律令图书藏之, 萧相国世家第二十三). Sima Qian is the history officer of Han(太史公). He almost certainly has read Qin’s history. Everything we know about Qin is that they are obsessed with standards and accuracy. Why they are so careless about the most important thing of their state, the numbers of the army. Furthermore, Taishigong is the official post that can first access any books of the country(集解如淳曰：“汉仪注太史公，武帝置,…天下计书先上太史公，副上丞相) If any other resources available, Sima Qian must have the advantage to read them first and compare them with Qin’s history. Also, Sima Qian lived in the age of Wudi, big campaigns against Xiongnu happened during his life time and he recorded them himself. Why didn’t Sima Qian himself find the number difference of Qin and Han campaigns unbelievable? Maybe he did, but he never wrote down!

All these often came down to another explanation. The use fo ‘Wan’. I found this explanation more unbelievable. This is related to some delicacy in Chinese. The word ‘万’ or ‘百万’ are often referred to a larger number, like in ‘万里长城’ or ‘带甲百万’. ‘万’ can also referred to the number of 10,000. This caused some ambiguity. Like in ‘可以坐万人’, it can be taken literally or figuratively. But if ‘万’ was used after a exact number, like in ‘非六十万人不可’, it is never a figure of speech. The difference is like that of ‘thousands’ and ‘ten thousand’ in English. I also found the theory of ‘万’ equals to ‘千’ incredible. They already have the number of ‘千’, why don’t they just use ‘千’ as in ‘千乘之国’ if they want to referred to a thousand? BTW, if the Great Wall is built just by 30,000 people, it would be really an engineering wonder.

The paragraphs in Shijin concerning these numbers

-- The battle of Changping(白起王翦列传第十三)
In July, Zhao make walls and defend it. … . Qin heard Zhao Kuo is the general, so secretly make Bai Qi general commander, … , and order who dare to leak that Bai Qi is the commander would be executed. Zhao Kuo arrived, got soldiers out of walls to attack Qin. Qin pretend to be defeated and prepare two ambush army. Zhao pursuit Qin to Qin’s walls. Qin’s defensive walls are strong and Zhao can’t break in., while one of Qin’s ambush army 25,000 man cut off Zhao’s connection with base at back and another 5,000 cavalry cut Zhao between Qin’s walls. Zhao was divided into two pieces and the way of supply was cut off. And Qin let out light army(doubtfully to be light chariots) to hit Zhao. Zhao fight disadvantagely, so make walls to defend, and waiting for save. Qin’s king heard Zhao’s way of food supply was cut off, the king arrived at Henei himself, granted one military rank to all the people, and mobilized all above fifteen to enforce Changping, to cut off Zhao’s food supply and save absolutely.

Till September, Zhao soldiers hadn’t get food supply for 46 days, and killed each other to eat secretly. (Zhao ) come to attack Qin’s fort to break out. (Zhao’s army) divided into four teams and attacked one after another, but still can’t break out. The general Zhao Kuo selected elite soldiers and went into battle himself, Qin’s army shot Zhao Kuo. Kuo’s army was defeated, 400,000 soldiers surrendered to Bai Qi. … Bai Qi massacred them all except 240 young were returned to Zhao.

-- Conqueing Chu(白起王翦列传第十三)
The First Emperor has annihilated Han, Wei, Zhao, dispersed Yan’ king and broke Chu’s army several times. Qin’s general Li Xin(ancestor of Han famous general Li Guang) are young and brave, used to pursue Qin’s prince Dan to river Yan and get his head with just a few thousand army. The First Emperor think he is brave and wise. So the emperor asked Li Xin, ‘I want to conquer Chu. How many soldiers General Li think are enough? ’ Li Xin answered, ‘Not more than 200,000.’ The emperor asked Wang Jian, Wang Jian said, ‘Impossible without 600,000.’ The emperor said, ‘General Wang is old, how timid you are! General Li is really brave. His words are right’ Therefore, let Li Xin and Meng Tian command 200,000 soldiers to conquer
Chu. Wang Jian retired…. Li Xin was routed. …

The First Emperor heard this, and got angry, ride to Pinyang himself to met Wang Jian and said, ‘Because I don’t use your plan, Li Xin humiliated Qin’s army. I heard Chu’s army are march west everyday, although General Wang is in sickness, really has the heart to forsake your king?’ Wang Jian said, ‘The old man is sick and and stupid. The king please choose a better general.’ The empero said, ‘Say no more!’ Wang Jian said, ‘If the king has to use me, it’s impossible without 600,000 soldiers.’ The emperor said, ‘Just as your plan.’ So Wang Jian command 600,000 soldiers to conquer Chu, The emperor accompany him to Bashang himself. Wang Jian asked for farm fileds and houses in big numbers. The emperor said, ‘Just go, why are you worried about poverty?’ Wang Jian said, ‘To be a general of your greatness, one can’t get fief even with conquering feat. So when the king is using me, I have to take the chance to ask some fortunes for my children.’ The emperor laughed hard. … Someone asked Wang Jian, ‘Your highness’ way of asking for fortunes is quite over the top.’ Wang Jian said, ‘Nope, The Qin king doesn’t believe in anybody. Now the whole kindom’s armored soldiers are emptied and trusted to me. I don’t ask for fields and houses to entrust myself, just to make the king sitting there and doubt me?’

-- Meng Tian attacked Xiongnu and build Great Wall(蒙恬列传第二十八)
Qin has united all under heaven, so let Meng Tian command 300,000 army to pursue northern barbarians and build Great Wall.

And let Meng Tian build the road, from Jiuyuan to Ganquan, chase the mountains and filled up valleys, 1,800 li. The road is not finished.

--Conqure of Hundred Yue(平津侯主父列传第五十二)
Also make military officer Tu Sui command floor ship(楼船) soldiers to attact Hundred Yue, and make officer Lu to dig canal to convey food, (the army went) deep into Yue, the Yue people fled. The campaign was protracted, food became short of supply, the Yue people hit back, Qin’s army was routed. (Tu Sui was killed) Qin so let military officer Tuo(赵佗. Fouder of Southern Yue kingdom) to command army to guard Yue.

What’s special is that Sima Qian did not mention how many soldiers were deployed in this campaign anywhere in Shiji. (except the commenter. 集解徐广曰：“五十万人守五岭。”) The number of 500,000 is often cited. Most of them are quoted from Huainanzi(淮南子.人间训) but Huainanzi is a book of philosophy, it can not be taken as reliable source. This link is an articl questioning this number. I think the author is reasonable. http://www.guxiang.c...00011280029.htm

But the conquer of Hundred Yue is a large and protracted campaign. Qin’s army had to fight in a region unfamiliar to them, jungle. They even lost their commander, which has not been seen by Qin for many years. They built a canal to connect Xiang river and Li river (湘江和漓江, Yangtzi river and Zhu river’s branch accordingly) so that food supply ships can reach Guangxi from Sichuan via water. The cannal is called Lingqu(灵渠). It’s still in use today! Given the above, I think it’s reasonable to put the number of this army around 300,000. The same as that attacked Xiongnu and built Great Wall.

-- The army defeated and slaughtered by Xiangyu(秦始皇本纪第六)
The second year, Chen She sent Zhou Zhang west and reach Xi. Soldiers are in number of hundred of thousand. The Second Emperor is shocked, ask plan from the officers, ‘What to do?’ Zhang Han said, ‘The bandits have arrived, strong in number, it’s already too late to mobilize the near counties. There are plenty of criminals working at Lishan(the mausoleum). Please pardon them and give them weapons to fight.’ The Second Emperor so ordered a general pardon, and make Zhang Han the general commander. (Zhang Han) routed Zhou Zhang’s army. …

The Qin army Xiangyu massacred is said to be 200,000 (於是楚军夜击阬秦卒二十馀万人新安城南。项羽本纪第七)

Unfortunately, the history of Qin has been lost. We have no ways to check them with the origin. But few people doubt Sima Qian has inflated them. If they are inflated, they must have been inflated by the Qin officers or generals.

I found these numbers are basically consistent with each other. If one of them are accurate, it can support other numbers. The battle of Changping in fact has two phases, before Bai Qi and Zhao Kuo came in charge. The Zhao and Qin army has been holding each other for two years! If Zhao has 450,000 soldiers in Changping, Qin must has the same size or even more. After Zhao’s food way was cut off, Qin mobilized every male above 15 to cut off Zhao Kuo totally. That would make Qin’s army over a million.

Chu is a big state only second to Qin. It’s reasonable that Qin has to use its whole reserve to conquer it. Qin attacked Chu with 200,000 at first but was defeated, then attacked again with 600,000. That would make Qin has an army between 600,000 to 800,000.

The campaigns against Xiongnu and Hundred Yue draged in Qin’s army between 600,000 and 800,000. That would explain why Qin’s capital was left undefended when Chen She rebelled. But Qin mobilized another 200,000 army within very short period.

All the three above cases imply that Qin can deploy 600,000 to 800,000 army in major campaigns and can mobilize over a million in a life or death situation.

So the problem is if any of these numbers can be proven proper or not!!!

IMHO, the most reliable one is the army led by Meng Tian. They driven back Xiongnu over 700 li. They built great wall and guard it. They built the Straight Way(秦直道). You would doubt if 300,000 men are enough to do these. But there is one problem. How much of these 300,000 people are soldiers and how much are just labors? Maybe that’s not a valid question as labors can be easily turned into soldiers. And the most important thing is the food supply. If they can supply 300,000 labors with food, they can also support 300,000 soldiers.

The most controversial one must be the battle of Changping. The battle of Changping and its massacre is well documented and supported by recent archaeological discovery. In 1995, a peasant of Yonglu village discovered some skeletons of warring states. ‘The pit has a irregular rectangle shape, the north line is 9.4m long, 0.3m deep. There are over a hundred skeletons in it. More than 10 similar pits are discovered aroung Yonglu’. The blade shaped money(刀币), which was circulated in Zhao are also found in these pits(《长平之战遗址永录1号尸骨坑发掘简报》) There are also ancient text record large number of skeletons were found. ‘Skeletons exposed in ditches within tens of li around here , collected and buried them’(“以左右前后沟壑数十里暴露之骸，毕集而掩葬”， [金]王庭直《省冤谷记》) These two resources are taken from the book of 《长平之战－中国古代最大战役研究》(Battle of Changping, the biggest campaingn of ancient China. The authors are 靳生禾 and 谢鸿喜, published in March, 1998) There are little doubts that a big massacre happened here, and yes, they also discovered skulls, so the Qin army was not charioting heads home exactly. Is the number of Zhao soldiers slaughtered really as big as 450,000? There are also logical errors in the text. Shiji said 400,000 Zhao soldiers surrendered and were massacred. But later Qin’s king want to attack Zhao’s capital and Bai Qi replied, ‘Now although Qin has broken Zhao in Changping, but Qin’s soldier has died over a half, the nation is empty inside. (If you want to)March over mountains and rivers to conquer another state’s capital, Zhao resist inside and other states attacked from outside, the Qin army will be broken for sure’(今秦虽破长平军，而秦卒死者过半，国内空。远绝河山而争人国都，赵应其内，诸侯攻其外，破秦军必矣。白起王翦列传第十三)
Zhao was surrounded, when Zhao army surrendered, it has only lost 50,000, while the Qin soldiers has died over a half. Clearly, something must be wrong here.

The real challenge of these numbers come from logistic and food supply. If an army of half a million is amazing, the labor needed to support this army is even more incredible. Again from Shiji of how the food was supplied ‘Make all under heaven to convey millets and grass. From Langya to Beihe(From Shandong’s sea coast to the north of Yellow river), approximately only one Dan reached out of thirty Zhong’ (又使天下蜚刍輓粟，起於黄、腄、◇集解徐广曰：“腄在东莱，音縋。”○索隐县名，在东莱，音逐瑞反，注音縋。琅邪负海之郡，转输北河，率三十锺而致一石。平津侯主父列传第五十二)
If the food are conveyed from Shandong to support Mengtian’s campaign against Xiongnu, only one Dan out of 192 Dan can reach the army! A most recent and accurate example is the Chinese civil war. In 1948’s Huaihai campaign, the PLA deployed 600,000 army, the peasants in logistic support are 5.43 million. Every soldier need 9 peasants to supply! If this rate goes for Qin, when they deploy half a million soldiers, they have to put the whole population on yoke to do logistic. Is it possible?

Finally, I think the comarison of Qin with Rome or Napoleonic wars are irrelevant. I’d better not to pretend to be specialist in Roman or Napoleonic history. But from what I know they are not closely as militarized society as Qin and neither Trajan or Napoleon are willing or have the authority and means to stretch their own empires’ potential to the degree of the Qin kings. The comparison with Han is also not very relevant. As said, the major difficulty in deploying a large army is in logistic. If Han can send 100,000 army to Dawan(although only 10,000 returned), it would have no problem to project half a million along its border. But Han is an empire and Qin when fighting the battle of Changping is just a state less than 1/5 of Han’s size.

Maybe the only possible savior of Qin’s unbelievable large army is their rivers. If the food has to be transported by land, the oxes and men transporting it will consume most of it. But if there are convenient water way, it would be totally viable. As Zhang Liang analyzed to Liu Bang the superiority of Guanzhong as capital, ‘… If the vassal states rebel, go down the river(Yellow river and Wei river), (the river) is enough for transportation. This is what called golden city of a thousand li and kindom of heaven.’(诸侯有变，顺流而下，足以委输。此所谓金城千里，天府之国也. 留侯世家第二十五)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An essay I wrote. Please get my permission if anybody want to used it elsewhere.

This post has been edited by Howard Fu: 04 July 2006 - 01:12 AM

[Zuo Zongtang]

Quote

Obviously, this does not mean that the accounts are reliable. Official histories do have a tendency to exaggerate, and it was probably tempting for a general to inflate the number of enemy deaths to get better promotion (normally, the heads should be brought back, but I doubt victorious armies came back home with 60 000 heads in chariots...)

A Qin historian would exaggerate, but Sima Qian, a Han author, would not. In fact, he might be more inclined to round down.

[Mei Houwang]

Why is that? I think Simaqian might exxagerate at least on the stories related to Wudi, considering that Wudi cut his thing off.

[fcharton]

Zuo Zongtang, on Jul 19 2006, 04:27 AM, said:

A Qin historian would exaggerate, but Sima Qian, a Han author, would not. In fact, he might be more inclined to round down.

For most of these passages, Sima Qian actually quotes former texts (probably the history of Qin which Howard refers to). Lots of passages of the Shiji are actual quotes of prior texts, and in every case where the prior texts still exists (and the versions can be compared) Sima Qian keeps the figures unchanged.

Francois

[Howard Fu]

I've planned to post some materials on how much Sima Qian relied on 'Qin Record'(秦记) from 'Research on the books Sima Qian had seen'(司马迁所见书考) after Francois recommend this book to me. But I'm very busy recently, since I'm preparing to go to US for graduate study. The good news is that I don't have to use proxy to come to CHF anymore. The bad news is that I will have very little time to hang around here.

Back to the topic. Some points from the book.
--Sima Qian did see Qin Record. The best proof would be ... himself. 'According Qin Record, ... list six states' affairs'(因秦记... 表六国时事.六国年表序). Also, Shiji's biographies are detailed about Qin persons but much less detailed about others. Sima Qian certainly has no special favour on Qin. The wording, like '35 year, everything under heaven is decided by the Up'(三十五年，天下之事无大小，皆决于上，《始皇本纪》) '上', the up, is only used to refer to an emperor when he is alive. This is likely to be copied from Qin record. Other wording problem is like 'Third year of Huangong, Jin defeated one of our general'(桓公三年，晋败我一将。《秦本纪》)
－－About whether Sima Qian has seen Huainanzi(淮南子). The author believe he has seen. So the number 500,000 appeared in Huainanzi is not adopted by Sima Qian. This might be a side proof that Sima Qian is not taking every number he met into Shiji.
-- The description of battles can be subjective and inaccurate. In fact, sometimes a lost battle may become a victory. In Benji of the First Emperor, Qin conquered Pingyang and killed the general.(十四年攻赵罩于平阳．取宜安，破之，杀其将军,恒崎定平阳，武城《始皇本纪》). But in bio of famous general Li Mu, it's Qin who was routed. (赵以牧为大将军，击秦军于宜安，打破秦军，走秦将恒崎。)

More to come.

If you want to know every aspects of Qin's army. The link GZ provided is a good start. It's a CCTV show, but the historical accuracy is good enough. Of course, they dramatized something. I've also posted the script in this forum. I will translate the parts about Qin's law, millitary rank, food supply, logistic etc. later. The parts about Qin's weapon, formation etc. has actually been posted in the forum before. I found many articles are similiar with the show.

[Yun]

This quote is from Julia Lovell's recent "The Great Wall":

Quote

Sima Qian laconically relates that in the 25 years preceding the First Emperor's acsession to the Qin throne in 247 BC, Qin armies caused the death of up to 756,000 foreign soldiers or civilians in war. His casualty figures for 364-234 BC - currently disputed by historians - are an astounding 1.5 million.

[Sephodwyrm]

It is totally possible for that many people to die in the conflict. But the state has laws to ensure numbers pop back in again by rewarding couples bringing up many children.

With little proper census for people that are not under state-rule (border people, wildmen etc) I wouldn't be surprised if there are a significant number of unregistered population. I would be unregistered myself at those times just to avoid service or tax...and then try not to meet people because that will probably mean slavitude.

This post has been edited by Sephodwyrm: 06 August 2006 - 08:45 PM