WI a militant Song Dynasty.

[Namayan]

If the Song Dynasty had a competent army,the Mongols wouldn't be owning half of China to begin with.They lost over half of China to the Jurchens and the Tanguts due to their incompetence.They were so pathetic that they couldn't even conquer land from the Khitans who were at the same time getting badly mowed by the Jurchens.If the Song Dynasty was at least competent,they'd be able to reconquer the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun from the Khitans,and from there get a natural boundary to easily defend against northern nomads.There's also the fact that if they didn't lose half of China to the Jurchens and the Tanguts the Mongols wouldn't be able to get any of their engineers.

So your pod is before genghis time. You want a northern song army competent at the period of jurchens. Which may or may not butterfly the Mongols under temujin.

If temujin did exist, can the northern song remain competent for next 100 years? If they do remain competent, will genghis attack or not? Will the northern song do the same mistake as getting the ire of genghis or not? Can the northern song stop the Mongols breaching the Great Wall?

If temujin sees the northern song too stable, will a smart general like genghis attack or not?

So by your pod alone it may butterfly the intent of Mongols to conquer China even its northern half. In short your pod is to butterfly the whole Mongol empire rather having a pod during the time of the southern song and Kublai khan.

 

[darthfanta]

So your pod is before genghis time. You want a northern song army competent at the period of jurchens. Which may or may not butterfly the Mongols under temujin.

If temujin did exist, can the northern song remain competent for next 100 years? If they do remain competent, will genghis attack or not? Will the northern song do the same mistake as getting the ire of genghis or not? Can the northern song stop the Mongols breaching the Great Wall?

If temujin sees the northern song too stable, will a smart general like genghis attack or not?

So by your pod alone it may butterfly the intent of Mongols to conquer China even its northern half. In short your pod is to butterfly the whole Mongol empire rather having a pod during the time of the southern song and Kublai khan.

Probably yes.I'd say they would have been able to defend China successfully against Temujin,if he attacked that is.No idea if he will still do that.

 

[Green Painting]

YOU know NOTHING about Chinese history.With the GDP Song has,if it was as martial as the Tang Dynasty,it would totally destroy the Jurchens,Tanguts and the Mongols.

A favourite quotation I've read about the Song Dynasty was basically this:It has the GDP(comparative) level of the United States,the military spending of Nazi Germany and the military prowess of Fascist Italy.

While Song was undoubtedly a very wealthy economy, the method of calculation could be disputed. We can take all days discussing why it's unreliable to deduce the GDP numbers based on fiscal income, food price, or workers' wages, it doesn't matter because wealth doesn't necessarily translate into military power.

Often, an over sophisticated economy makes it hard to manage for a state with an inadequate legal and management system, or extract resources from it. An over monetized economy is often more fragile than a simpler agrarian economy. In short, possessing a sophisticated economy often works against military performance.

You know, while you can compare across dynasties, or across countries, you can never say one is "more martial" and another is less. Martial prowess isn't a linear feature. Different dynasties has to fight different enemies in different forms of wars and shape their armies accordingly, and their domestic conditions, which are often their predecessor's making, varied as well. (Let alone comparing it to countries in XX Century.)

Tang's campaigns against the Eastern and Western Turks were splendid successes, but even they were bogged down in fighting the Tibetans (Remember Du Fu's Bing Che Xing?) and the Khitans (Yes, the same Khitans as the Liao.) and often suffered defeats.

Liao and Jin, while keeping their nomadic characters, had their own agriculture, industry and writing system were much, much stronger and well established than purely nomadic people like the Xiongnu, the Turks, the Northern Yuan or the Dzungars.)

The odds were not stacked against the Song Dynasty.

I've just explained why they were.

The problem with the Song Dynasty was that it prioritised civilian control over the military so much that they would generally place complete amateurs(bureaucrats) over the control of the army,who would sometimes try to command the army in battle miles away from the front as if they have invented radios.Successful generals,no matter how loyal they were,were executed or removed from power from baseless charges due the the bureaucrats' jealousy of military success.They generally see successful generals as competitors for power.Another problem the Song army had was that it's soldiers were so badly treated that morale and discipline was inevitably poor.This also meant that the brightest would serve as civil servants rather than join the military.A final problem is the so-called 'lack of cavalry'.Unlike what plenty of people have said,the Song Dynasty,while it has less horses than the Tang Dynasty,could have still formed reasonably large cavalry forces(smaller than the Tang of course),the problem however was that instead of making an independent cavalry force,they tend to intersperse their cavalry all over the army,mixing them with infantry(a bit like what the French did with their tanks during WWII). Organizationally,the entire Song army was a complete mess.

I'd like to see some of your sources on Song cavalry tactics. But please bear in mind that horses are needed for message relay, scouting, transportation, as well as civilian purposes.

For military uses, quality of horses vary wildly depending on where they were raised, and how they were raised. There are plenty of discussions on this topic, and both ancient sources and modern discussions agreed that Song horses were vastly inferior in both quality and quantity, and they were utterly dependent on foreign sources, which in turn means that Liao and Xia could cut Song off during wartime, preventing the Song from replenishing its losses. This could explain why the Song could not sustain in long wars against the Liao.

Now compare it to Liao's lavish cavalry forces :

For every formal soldier, there are three horses, one forager, one tent guard. 每正軍一名，馬三匹，打草穀、守營鋪家丁各一人 (遼史: 卷三十四志第四兵衛志上)
Horses reproduce, reaching as much as a million,牧馬蕃息，多至百萬 (遼史/卷24)
The Taizong selected elite troops from all across the country, sending his personal guards into the Army of Pishi. A cavalry of five hundred thousand was assembled, and might of the state was boosted. 太宗益選天下精甲，置諸爪牙為皮室軍。合騎五十萬， 國威壯矣。”(遼史‧兵衛志中)

Granted, these records might be exaggerated, but it's still a far cry from Song documents full of desperate cries of horse shortages.

Things were worse for Southern Song. They were reliant almost sorely on Tibet for battle-worthy horses.

Song only fell decades after he died.By the time Song actually fell,it was decades after the Mongols attempted their conquest.Take note that all of this was against a poorly organized,motivated and trained army that has very little cavalry and competent leadership.

Doesn't all these proves that the Song military wasn't as bad as previously assumed? They held against military pressure from Liao, and Jin, and Yuan, who were all organised states, other than nomadic raiding bands.

Most of the time,the civilian leadership in the capital basically said screw the army and had the army poorly supplied and paid.To prevent coups and mutinies,the best and brightest were discouraged from joining the military,and in the event that a genius level general like Yufei did arise,they would generally have them killed or dismissed from service due to jealousy.

Yue Fei was a special case. The court, feeling insecure after a great disturbance, killed the person with more troop on his hand than all others.

Comparing how Song generals were treated to what was it like in other Chinese dynasties, I'd say Song treated their officers comparatively well.

Also take note that if the Song Dynasty was actually competent,it would have conquered Western Xia (which would have given them better cavalry) and reclaimed the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun(which would have provided a natural barrier against aggression from nomad invasions from the north).

Invading a country with strong cavalry, using infantry forces, to solve the problem of horse shortage? It sounds like a recipe for military disaster, which was exactly what happened.

Sorry,but what I've read is largely in Chinese.

Still do share it please. Many of our members do read Chinese.

If the Song Dynasty had a competent army,the Mongols wouldn't be owning half of China to begin with.They lost over half of China to the Jurchens and the Tanguts due to their incompetence.They were so pathetic that they couldn't even conquer land from the Khitans who were at the same time getting badly mowed by the Jurchens.If the Song Dynasty was at least competent,they'd be able to reconquer the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun from the Khitans,and from there get a natural boundary to easily defend against northern nomads.There's also the fact that if they didn't lose half of China to the Jurchens and the Tanguts the Mongols wouldn't be able to get any of their engineers.We are not talking about the Song suddenly becoming militarized when the Mongols invaded,but when they first began the dynasty.

Even if we are talking about what would happen when they militarized when the Mongols started invading,chances are that with reforms they could have weathered the Mongol storm.Southern China isn't really particularly favorable to horses.There's also the fact that the Song did resist for decades successfully in the south,and that's with a leadership and army that's widely known as incompetent.Just think about the possibilities of what would happen if the leadership was in fact competent.

To sum up, while it's okay to blame "culture", "lack of martial spirit", or "to value letters and belittle arms", doing so often lead us to ignore many real problems Song Dynasty faced, some of them inherited from late Tang and the Five Dynasties.

Song had a disadvantageous head start in the first place. No other major dynasty started with its major defensive terrains and horse pastures already lost, or with a well established agro-pastoral state next door, in possession with the pre-mentioned defensive terrain and horse pasture. Qin, Han, Sui and Tang started in the Northwest, and they often fought with the help of nomadic tribes. Ming started against a semi-decayed Yuan, which was too weak to defeat the Southern warlords, but strong enough to keep other nomadic groups suppressed.

 

[darthfanta]

While Song was undoubtedly a very wealthy economy, the method of calculation could be disputed. We can take all days discussing why it's unreliable to deduce the GDP numbers based on fiscal income, food price, or workers' wages, it doesn't matter because wealth doesn't necessarily translate into military power.

The Song Dynasty actually has some of the best equipment for the army in Chinese history,when compared to their opponents.The army was actually very well funded.Problem was that they decided to emphasize on size over quantity.This meant that there's a lot of dead weight in the army.With soldiers being placed at a rank below that of peasants by scholar-bureaucrats,the army generally gets the drapes of society into it's ranks.This is why when Yue Fei first commanded an army,he purged it's ranks of old,infirm or other unsuitable recruits.

You know, while you can compare across dynasties, or across countries, you can never say one is "more martial" and another is less. Martial prowess isn't a linear feature. Different dynasties has to fight different enemies in different forms of wars and shape their armies accordingly, and their domestic conditions, which are often their predecessor's making, varied as well. (Let alone comparing it to countries in XX Century.)

Tang's campaigns against the Eastern and Western Turks were splendid successes, but even they were bogged down in fighting the Tibetans (Remember Du Fu's Bing Che Xing?) and the Khitans (Yes, the same Khitans as the Liao.) and often suffered defeats.

At the very least,the Tang Dynasty most certainly did not put civilian bureaucrats in charge of armies.The Song Emperors put scholar-bureaucrats in charge of armies as if they were the next Zhuge Liang or Zhou Yu.And no,Tang society was quite martial,so was the Han society.Aristocrats were in fact encouraged to join the army.The Song Dynasty in contrast,encouraged it's best to become scholar-officials,and scoffed those who were in the army.During the Song Dynasty,if a military official of comparative rank met a civilian official,the military official was supposed show deference to the civilian official.

Liao and Jin, while keeping their nomadic characters, had their own agriculture, industry and writing system were much, much stronger and well established than purely nomadic people like the Xiongnu, the Turks, the Northern Yuan or the Dzungars.)

I can't argue with you on the Liao Dynasty,but the Jin Dynasty most certainly did not start being sinicized.

I'd like to see some of your sources on Song cavalry tactics. But please bear in mind that horses are needed for message relay, scouting, transportation, as well as civilian purposes.

For military uses, quality of horses vary wildly depending on where they were raised, and how they were raised. There are plenty of discussions on this topic, and both ancient sources and modern discussions agreed that Song horses were vastly inferior in both quality and quantity, and they were utterly dependent on foreign sources, which in turn means that Liao and Xia could cut Song off during wartime, preventing the Song from replenishing its losses. This could explain why the Song could not sustain in long wars against the Liao.

Now compare it to Liao's lavish cavalry forces :

Granted, these records might be exaggerated, but it's still a far cry from Song documents full of desperate cries of horse shortages.

Things were worse for Southern Song. They were reliant almost sorely on Tibet for battle-worthy horses.

辽，西夏，金等举行大规模会战时，往往集中几万至几十万的骑兵，而步兵仅仅负责运输，开挖壕堑.而宋军却不懂的编组骑兵大部队，集中使用的重要性，而是将 骑兵分散在各个战场和部队中，作为步兵的附庸.使数量本以很少的骑兵更显劣势.此状况宛如二战初期的英法联军分散使用坦克，结果一败涂地.
Here is what I found.Baidu probably isn't quite trustworthy,but this claim has been repeated brought up in a number of areas I've been to.I'll admit this might be an untrustworthy claim,but would you mind checking out whether this claim is valid or not?

And by the way,one of your sources clearly stated that the Song Dynasty initially did have a large source of capable warhorses(that aren't excellent,but can do the job no less)but the empire chose not to maintain this supply of horses themselves due to corruption,pacifist elements in the government willing to let the horse raising program slide,fear of angering peasants and the Imperial family requisitioning land that could have been used to raise horses to make imperial farms instead.

Doesn't all these proves that the Song military wasn't as bad as previously assumed? They held against military pressure from Liao, and Jin, and Yuan, who were all organised states, other than nomadic raiding bands.

You haven't shown that the Song army wasn't led by a group of incompetents nor did you show it was a well motivated,trained and organised force.The level of civilian officials meddle in military affairs during the Song Dynasty shows just how bad the army is.

Yue Fei was a special case. The court, feeling insecure after a great disturbance, killed the person with more troop on his hand than all others.

Comparing how Song generals were treated to what was it like in other Chinese dynasties, I'd say Song treated their officers comparatively well.

It wasn't just Yue Fei the Song court has badly treated.Other talented commanders like Di Qing were poorly treated as well because of the court's paranoia and jealousy.

Invading a country with strong cavalry, using infantry forces, to solve the problem of horse shortage? It sounds like a recipe for military disaster, which was exactly what happened.

If an army had good leadership,such a problem can be overcome.Just look at the Roman campaigns in the east.Apart from the rare exception of the Battle of Carrhae,the Romans were often able to defeat the Parthians without significant cavalry forces of their own,they mostly relied on infantry.An important fact that needs to be emphasised is that the Chinese often heavily outnumbered the Tanguts and the Jurchens.You have to know that horses aren't dumb,they can't really charge into people.As long as the infantey's well trained and don't break,cavalry can't really beat infantry.As for horse archers,the Song Dynasty has a lot of fancy crossbows to counter that.

Song had a disadvantageous head start in the first place. No other major dynasty started with its major defensive terrains and horse pastures already lost, or with a well established agro-pastoral state next door, in possession with the pre-mentioned defensive terrain and horse pasture. Qin, Han, Sui and Tang started in the Northwest, and they often fought with the help of nomadic tribes. Ming started against a semi-decayed Yuan, which was too weak to defeat the Southern warlords, but strong enough to keep other nomadic groups suppressed.

The Song most certainly was disadvantaged,but they simply exaggerated the difficulty of their circumstance and masked their real problems,which was a largely pacifist government deliberately ensuring that their army was headed by incompetent leadership,which in turn led to poor training and inept organization of their army.

 

[Russian]

What is your claim that the Song had a good army?This was an army that failed to defeat Tanguts and Jurchens.

Hmm, you see, the Tanguts and Jurchens had good armies as well. That was why the Song failed to defeat them. But that doesn't automatically make the Song's army bad.

it (the Song) withstood Ghenghis Khan and all his other 'geniuses' for decades.

That's why I insist the army of the Song was good.
Do you follow my logic?

Besides that, the Mongols most certainly did not and could not conquer Vietnam. They failed there.

IIRC the Mongols never intended to conquer Vietnam. The reason might be the climate which was bad for the Mongols and their horses or any other reasons but the fact is the Mongols started their campaign against Vietnam only when they were provoked by the raids from Vietnam. And the Mongols never meant it as a conquest, it was a punitive expedition which was quite successful by the way.

The Mameluks destroyed the Mongol army. The Mongols were far from invincible.

The Mongols were not invincible. True. It was not the first time when the Mongol army lost a battle. It was the first time when the lost battle was not revenged by the Mongols. The reason was simple - the Mongols started to squabble among themselves, the Ilkhans cannot send an army into Egypt as they were afraid that the Golden Horde (or the Chagatais) would strike them in the back.
And speaking about that famous first victory of the Mamlukes over the Mongols, the main reason was that the core Mongol troops were taken with Ilkhan closer to Mongolia proper where the election of the new Universal Khaan was about to start. What was left were second rate troops, majority of them were not ethnic Mongols but their nomadic Turkic subjects which were a poor substitute to the real ethnic Mongols. Speaking about conquest of the Song - Hubilai Khan there had the best supply of the 'true' ethnic Mongols who were the best fighters of their time.

 

[PhilippeO]

If an army had good leadership,such a problem can be overcome.Just look at the Roman campaigns in the east.Apart from the rare exception of the Battle of Carrhae,the Romans were often able to defeat the Parthians without significant cavalry forces of their own,they mostly relied on infantry.An important fact that needs to be emphasised is that the Chinese often heavily outnumbered the Tanguts and the Jurchens.You have to know that horses aren't dumb,they can't really charge into people.As long as the infantey's well trained and don't break,cavalry can't really beat infantry.As for horse archers,the Song Dynasty has a lot of fancy crossbows to counter that.

Whooah, this is extreme "great man theory" in military. Good Leader can't magically solve every problem.

The advantage of cavalry over infantry is its "mobility", it could pick and choose place for battle. Rome - Parthia war is unusual example because nearness of Parthia capital to Rome border. Infantry only army used offensively against cavalry will suffer harassment everywhere, in its flank, in its supply line, and cavalry will offer battle when it have advantage, and retreat when infantry has advantage to return later.

And crossbows wouldn't help much, Infantry crossbows (or infantry archer) would have advantage when its defensive, their bow could be heavier for longer range, and they could use wall and other defensive installation to weaken horse archer. Infantry Crossbowmen moving would have a lot disadvantage, they would use smaller crossbow, they need to take care of string supply, horse archer could attack them when they unprepared then immediately retreat, etc.

I can't comment on how badly or kindly Song treated their military officers, but I always thought Song decision regarding Yue Fei was correct, Yue Fei is military warmonger who push song toward war with great risk of losing.

And other dynasty treatment of military affairs is often worse than Song, hiding map until battle, didn't supply adequate resource, and execute general is practiced by a lot of Chinese Emperor, even those who militarily capable. need for military victory should be balanced with risk of rebellion, there are a lot of case of general replacing monarchs after all.

 

[darthfanta]

Whooah, this is extreme "great man theory" in military. Good Leader can't magically solve every problem.

I'm not proposing any great man theory here.The army leadership was either dominated by corrupt incompetents or by civilian officials who think they are the next Zhuge Liang.This led structural and organization deficiency in the army.Most of the army's soldiers were beyond retirement age or were from the lowest parts of society who were only in the army because there's no place to go.In the Song society,being in the army was seen as a demeaning occupation.Morale was low as a result.One can only imagine the effectiveness of such an army.

The advantage of cavalry over infantry is its "mobility", it could pick and choose place for battle. Rome - Parthia war is unusual example because nearness of Parthia capital to Rome border. Infantry only army used offensively against cavalry will suffer harassment everywhere, in its flank, in its supply line, and cavalry will offer battle when it have advantage, and retreat when infantry has advantage to return later.

So is the capital of Western Xia,but the problem isn't with just skirmishes,but with set piece battles.The morale of the Song army was so bad that it's soldiers generally just run in battle.Most notably during the Siege of Kaifeng,the besieging Jurchen army was only twice the size of the Song garrison.Instead of defending the walls,the Song army threw down their arms and fled when the Jurchens attacked.

And crossbows wouldn't help much, Infantry crossbows (or infantry archer) would have advantage when its defensive, their bow could be heavier for longer range, and they could use wall and other defensive installation to weaken horse archer. Infantry Crossbowmen moving would have a lot disadvantage, they would use smaller crossbow, they need to take care of string supply, horse archer could attack them when they unprepared then immediately retreat, etc.

I accept this explanation,but note that in a shootout between infantry crossbowmen and horse archers,the horse archers generally loses.

I can't comment on how badly or kindly Song treated their military officers, but I always thought Song decision regarding Yue Fei was correct, Yue Fei is military warmonger who push song toward war with great risk of losing.

My impression was that it was a combination of multiple factors.The guy was pushing it.Another problem was that the emperor feared that the Jurchens might release his father and brother to endanger his rule.The final problem was that the civilian officials were jealous of him.Even bureaucrats of the war party endorsed his execution.

And other dynasty treatment of military affairs is often worse than Song, hiding map until battle, didn't supply adequate resource, and execute general is practiced by a lot of Chinese Emperor, even those who militarily capable. need for military victory should be balanced with risk of rebellion, there are a lot of case of general replacing monarchs after all.

Except most of them weren't stupid enough to get rid of a commander when they need him to win a war.In most other dynasties,generals were usually replaced/executed only after the emperor has no further use of him.

 

[Russian]

Doesn't all these proves that the Song military wasn't as bad as previously assumed? They held against military pressure from Liao, and Jin, and Yuan, who were all organised states, other than nomadic raiding bands.

shows just how bad the army is.

I guess here we have different definitions of a 'good army'.

Green Painting (and me) presume that if an army holds against other (good) armies, such army is good enough.

darthfanta is of the opinion that if a (Chinese) army cannot unite all China and save it from a foreign (Mongol) occupation such army cannot be good, this army is bad.