How many real martial artists/kungfu masters are needed to defeat a Mongol tumen in close combat?

Fenestella

Banned
Say the Mongols break into the martial artists' lines, could each martial artist (armed with the type of close combat weapon he's specialized in) neutralize multiple Mongols?
 
Probably, but the Mongols must be doing pretty poorly to let people get that close to them to begin with. And I'd assume any soldier you'd call a "martial artist" is one of the best soldiers available to whatever Chinese commander has recruited them, so a group of them could be pretty useful in combat. Not that they'd be Dynasty Warriors "slice up hundreds of soldiers like you're cutting grass"-tier good of course. Or that it's very likely the Chinese could train a substantial number of people to be this good AND get them all in one place. Catching an arrow is a neat trick, but if you can catch/avoid multiple arrows coming at you from multiple directions then you likely have some sort of incredible superpower.
 
Tumen is roughly 10 000 horsemen, including heavy cavalry. Usually martial artists are trained in fighting outside formation, without horses and without weapon (or with weapon which works poorly against cavalry). Even without their bows Mongols would be very dangerous against unorganised light infantry.
So, I don't know... 30-50 000 with excelent morale? It's deserves Vlad Tsepesh award for cruel scenario.
 
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Say the Mongols break into the martial artists' lines, could each martial artist (armed with the type of close combat weapon he's specialized in) neutralize multiple Mongols?
Short answer: no.

Longer answer: Cavalry usually beats infantry at this time period. Close combat against an enemy that is faster than you, taller than you, outwieghs you be several hundred pounds and can brain you with a kick to the head tends to go poorly.
 
Say a tumen has breached the wall and entered the city; thousands of martial artists fight thousands of Mongols street by street, house to house - what will the result and casualties be?
Don't know details about mongol's tactics in city fighting, but they were quite experienced in taking cities, including such megapolisis as Kiev, Baghdad, Otrar etc. So I guess they will win against unorganised (you never mentioned that martial arists have some chain of command or plan) enemy.
 

Kaze

Banned
Try reading the Condor Trilogy - where in the martial artists lose. The problem with martial arts / artists is that they are individual fighters working in a group fight is not going to happen - they are more likely going to fight each other than the Mongols.

Even if they do work together you get to the other problem of what happened to the Boxers - where in a group of martial artists decide to stop fighting each other (in order to decide which technique is superior) and decide to fight as a group... it worked well, until they discovered that no matter how good of a martial artist you are a well-trained, well-equipped army is far superior (it also did not help that the well-trained army had artillery and machine guns).
 
Depends. If they fight with the Wu-Tang sword style and Shaolin shadowboxing, these hypothetical martial artists could be dangerous.

But seriously, martial arts is just military training. Doesn't have to be kung fu taught in a school. The Mamluk oldiers who defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut had a form of martial arts training so... I'd say about that many, with the caveat that they be well armed and disciplined cavalrymen.

However, the kind of monastic self-defense martial arts I think OP is referring to had a pretty strong track record against roving bandits and the like iirc, but you'd probably have better luck if you just drilled a few thousand peasants to make shield walls and use crossbows.
 
Depends. If they fight with the Wu-Tang sword style and Shaolin shadowboxing, these hypothetical martial artists could be dangerous.

Underrated comment, tbh.

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