This was a great article by Warhead in AE.

General info. on chinese warfare

by warhead

Introduction:

Chinese warfare is divided into different periods, most chinese armies emphasize firepower rather than shock. Cavalry are different for they are used to fight nomads and expand westwards. The Chinese long had the idea of dividing army into smaller forces, each composed of different arms in proportion This was considered a great innovation in the eighteenth century Europe but was standard Chinese practice as far back as separate arms can be traced.

Zhou dynasty army

In Western Zhou(1122?_771) the warchariot carrying an archer of noble birth was the basic military unit. Warfare is coded by honour like feudal europe and japan. The Zhou king controlled a large standing army and could also summon troops of feudal lords through a system of beacon towers. Each chariot was supported by a platoon of 25 infantry divided into 5 squads. Companies of 4 chariot were then organized by multiples of five into brigades(yu) of 500 men. Then into divisions(shi) of 2500 men, and then into armies(jun) of 12,500 men

(all multiples of fives). This specific pattern of organization has been repeatly revived.

The late warring state warfare changed, its no longer a battle of honour, but effectiveness, the state of zhao developed cavalry from nomads, and the state of qinbased its military system on conscription and its social system on noble ranks achieved only through war or agriculture. This policy along with cavalries made qin the strongest of the seven states.


Han dynasty army

During the han, conscription continued, soldiers are required to train for 1 year and serve for another, then they will be dismissed and recalled when necessary, they will then be calssified as infantry, cavalry, or sailor according to their skill. Most of the soldiers serve under commandery governors, who thus have military and civil authority as well. Some of the conscriptions serve in the imperial capital, which also holds a large professional army. Others were served to defend the great wall. When a large expedition is taken, one or more leaders will be commisioned as general. Large campains often consists of professional soldiers drawn from the garrisons in the west and the capital. Under the emperor there were six supreme generals guarding the military.

Most of han dynasty soldiers fought as spear bearing infantry, but han tactics unlike the greek phalanx and legion did not emphasize shock. Rather the spearmen is to provide a defense behind which archers and crossbow men destroy their opponent. by fire. Later professional cavalry was adopted to fight the xiongnu in the north.The success of the han dynasty is probably due to its near universal incidence of conscription system and pervasiveness of military skill and value of governing class.



Sui and Tang dynasty army


During the sui, a full professional army was adopted. This is called the fubing system. In which 600,000 soldiers were placed under 600 battalion level headquarters (fu) to farm. They perform active service at the capital for 2 months out of every 18, or more frequently depending on the distance from teh capital.

Approximately 50,000 fubing soldiers on duty any one time were under twelve guard(wei) headquarters.

The fubing is very similar to the byzantine theme system.

Durign the tang the fubing system continued, and like the han, the tang capital garrison included a heavy professional cavalry force called the northern barracks.

Tang general li jing's army organization is as followed:

In a army of 20,000 some 6000 would guard the baggage trains, the 14,000 effectives would be divided into a center with 2,800 men and 6 flanking divisions. The 6 flanking divisions had smaller men but arms in proportion, the center has 1,000 cavalry, 400 archers, 4 hundred crossbow men, 500 skirmishers, 500 heavy infnatry. All five arms were organized into platoons of 50 men each. Many chinese armies are adopted this way, and as you can see the weapons and arms are divided in proportion.

During the the early 700s the army became a full time professional force settled in the wall, this number grew to 490,000 strong. (decreased a little under taizhong)

However this led to the division and powerful warlords. Such as an lu shan.

Song dynasty armies

Song army's quality have declined, the officers had low wages compared to civil officials, and the song valued control over efficiency of the army. so they shuffled the personnel of individual units, drawn off the best to form new elite units. This greatly effected the effectiveness of the army. song troops rose from 378000 men at the begging to over 1,250,000 in the 1040s, but the quality of the troops did not increase. After driving south by the jin, the empire developed strong navies that dominated the east china sea. and built fortifications and siege crafts thats probably the most advanced for its days, yet the quality of the troops still did not increase.

Yuan dynasty army

The yuan dynasty troops blended the mongol cavalry with the song technology and made it a powerful fighting force. The yuan still used the decimal organization adopted by mongols and added infantry and naval units to their forces, but they imposed decimal organization and hereditary recruitment of officers throughout.

Ming dynasty army

The ming adopted the wei suo organization, under this system officer ranks were made heriditary. The soldiers were divided into guards(wei, 5,600men) subdivided into batallions(suo, 1,190 men). By 1393 there were 326 guards and 65 independent batallions making it nearly 1,900,000 men army. Ming navy also dominated the eastern ocean, under yongole ming made extensive use of cannon and other firearms, after invading vietnam, the ming set up department for firearm training in beijing using viet instructors.

Qi Ji guan and the mandarin duck formation

The great general qi ji guan developed a tactic to fight the japanese pirates,

on land he made a force of 12 men units; 2 shield carriers, 2 long bamboo lancers, 2 short bamboo lancers, swordsmen, archers, a cook, and a commander.

If the commander dies in battle the rest was put to death, so all the unit has to do everything it can to protect the commander. The bamboo lances are used to trap the swords of the japanese and the other lancers will chop the samurai into pieces. The shields men are used to stop japanese long bow arrows.

4 of this twelve men unit makes up a platoon, and 4 platoons make up a campany, and 3 campanies make up a batallion. Each company is accompanied by musketiers, and each batallion include cannons.

This organization was effective and drove the japanese pirates out of land.

On ocean qi ji guan adopted a encirclement of spikes to prevent the samurais climbing on board, however this was never used, for naval battles was few. However the great korean admiral yi sun shin later learned and used this tactic and proven effective.



Qing dynasty army


I have already explained much in the manchurian army section, so i will just add a few more details, the eight banner system in the south is called the green standard armies composed mainly of han chinese conquering the south and using artillery and navy. Those that conquered turkestan are manchurian banner units with mongol and han chinese units as well.

During the rein of kang xi, firearm batallions were developted, infantries carried muskets and cannons apeared, accompanied by cavalry and foot soldiers. Armours were lighter during this period. And heavy crossbow fell out of use. repeated firing crossbows however remained in use in navy and is still used until teh sino japanese war. The firearms and mobility of the troops enabled the qing armies to defeat the tussians and the mongols.

Thanks for the List, really like it.

Song dynasty armies

Song army's quality have declined, the officers had low wages compared to civil officials, and the song valued control over efficiency of the army. so they shuffled the personnel of individual units, drawn off the best to form new elite units. This greatly effected the effectiveness of the army. song troops rose from 378000 men at the begging to over 1,250,000 in the 1040s, but the quality of the troops did not increase. After driving south by the jin, the empire developed strong navies that dominated the east china sea. and built fortifications and siege crafts thats probably the most advanced for its days, yet the quality of the troops still did not increase.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
NO NO NO !

All of them are wrong.

Dear General,

I am to make a little correction about Ming & Qing armies.

Ming:
1) 1 wei consists of 5683 men including civil and military officers and 1 suo consists of 1120 men excluding civil officers
2) Ming troops started to use firearms (handguns) widely in the end of XIV century. We can refer to Sun Laichen paper regarding the matter. Widely spread version about 1407+ is not true. Only truth of this version according to Sun Laichen is usage of some Vietnamese improvements in handgun's construction.
3) As Mandarine Duck array has 2 shield-bearers the 1 one was intended entirely for close combat, and the 2 one - to protect others from arrows as the 1 one had a round shield (tengpai) and the 2 one had paviso type shield (lipai).
4) Archers were not included by General Qi as he used 2 shield-bearers, 2 "wolf brush" pikes, 4 long pikes, 2 tridents, 2 poles? a commander and a cook in a "dui". But tridents were used to shot fire-arrows.

Qing:
1) Turkestan was conquered by Mongol bannermen in 1755. Then some Manchu and Han bannermen were sent to strengthen banner garrisons. Most part of soldiers anyway were Mongols.
2) Manchu troops started to use firearms widely since 1621 (see paper of Nicola Di Cosmo) according the decree edited by Nuerhachi (according to the Decree more than 60% of manchu troops should have firearms). Artillery of European style appeared in Manchu troops since 1631. Special regiment (Huoqiying) was established in 1691, but Manchu actively used firearms before.
3) In small wars with Cossaks in 1650-th and 1685-1686 Manchu had much more troops and firearms then Russians (e.g. 400 Russians with 6 cannons and 1400 Manchu+Koreans with 300 matchlocks & 40 folanjipao in 1658, 450 Russians with 300 muskets and 3 cannons and 3000 Manchus with 20 hongyipao in 1685 etc.).
4) Armour of Qing army was different. There were light armour and chain-mail as well as heavy armour with visors (all armour of Koxinga "iron men" were captured from Qing cavalry).

Best regards,

Alexey.

Hello Solid_Snake,

I wonder how guerrilla war fare develop? please have me a clue.

thanks!

The guerrilla warfare was developed gradually

The basic concept by Mao is, “The foe comes forth, we retreat; the foe stays, we harass; the foe wear out, we attack; the foe retreat, we come forth"

but this is a variation of a Qing General Zeng GuoFan, who is good at military operations as well as writing books

and this general happened to be Mao's fellow-townsman, although they never met.

by 1938, when the europeans were still at peace, the chinese has made an joint front against the Japanese invasion. while the Chiang Kai-shek army, guided by German military concepts, suffering great losses, Mao decided not jumping into same suicidal operations. but his general's disagree, as they never met any Japanese before.

so there was the PingXing Pass battle, an ambush by the chinese red army, killing 1000 Japanese in one battle for the first time, and suffering 200 death and 800 wounds.
and it was after this battle, seeing the Japanese a very hard foe, that the guerrilla war fare became extensively accepted within the red army, later the eighth army

[EDIT BY Yang Zongbao: Welcome. A nice first post, but please be a little more mindful, it gets difficult to read when every "the" becomes a "de" or "this" becomes "dis". So as a courtesy to other members, it would be nice to see these done right. =)]

>The guerrilla warfare was developed gradually
Could you please explain your point?

Hi Manuelrodriguez

Here is my take on how guerilla war fare developed in China.....no proof just one man" opinion.

According to General Sam Griffith battles in China before 500 B.C. were primitive. Two sides encamped opposite each other for several days while diviners divined, sacrifices were made, when the soothsayers on one side said attack.... now: the entire attacking array threw itself upon the enemy. Griffith goes on to say “ either the attacker was repulsed and allowed to withdraw “ “or he broke through the formations , and etc.etc.”

The point being, before 500 B.C. there was very little need for what we call guerilla warfare because there was no organized army to use it against.

I have no authorities to quote, but from my experience in military art ( a long ago experience that is) one can deduce the side without the organized army, usually operating in their own home area, finally reasoned, by suddenly springing into being , attacking and inflicting damage, then vanishing in thin air, was the most effective way to fight an organized visible group. An army can not in the traditional formation fight, what they can not find or engage. As the ancients would say….."like a ghost in the moonlight, now you see it , now you don't." The the damage inflicted, however could be seen and could be felt by the enemy.

Why the name "guerilla" I do not even have a clue.

Agreed w. MGV. The "idea guerilla" exploit is when there is no trace of anyone being there. Whether it can be achieved time after time, is a different story.

In most cases, where they can skillfuly operate "without a trace". They are no longer guerilla warfare specialists. They have climbed in the value chain in terms of skills.

But this is inaccurate. The Romans had all kinds of combined arms operations, from special reconnassance units to combat engineers. Even after the dark ages, the English beat the French using special longbow troop units at Agincourt, while their cavalry and pikemen were used in distinct separate manouver. The 18th century may have shown the use of dedicated artillery units but separate arms use in Europe was much earlier.

The term was coined by Americans to develop their counter-insurgency operations against communist forces through out the world during the cold war period. I believe that such fighting tactics started when a smaller group of stone age men were invaded by a larger force. They did not call it "guerilla" war, but something like "arghh rrugrhh rawwerrr"

No guerrilla warfare was coined during the Napoleonic war in the Spanish theatre or the Peninsular War, that's why it is a dimintive of Spanish war guerra, or war.

Warhead (or anyone else lurking) - can you point me towards any of the sources for your article, particularly the Zhou and Han periods? I'm anxiously seeking detailed period source data that describes exactly what you outline here, e.g. composition of armies chariot vs. infantry, the "fivefold" platoon structure, armament and tactics etc.

Thanks!

Steve Welch