WI - Qing in the Napoleonic Wars

Kaze

Banned
OTL. There was some trade between France and the Qing. The crown prince even received a modern musket as a gift from the King of France - he used it to defeat the 8-Trigrams Uprising of 1813 . The British insulted the Qing emperor in the Macartney Embassy.

This leads easily for the Qing to declare on the side of the French in the Napoleonic Wars.
They invade India to intervene in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, but turn back after the death of Tippu.
They invade Russia in 1812 hoping to meet up with Napoleon at Moscow.
 

Maoistic

Banned
Balaur said:
That was Genghis fucking Khan. The rules don't apply to him.
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Genghis didn't even invade Central Asia and Eastern Europe from Siberia in the first place. He invaded through the Asian steppe.

This is an interesting scenario. The problem with it is that China was still overall too weak and too remote to be of any help to Napoleon. Invading India was almost impossible thanks to the deserts and the Himalayan mountain range that separate the Chinese from the Indians. It's the reason why there never were that many wars between Indian and Chinese states and empires throughout history. Add to that the British possessed technological superiority for its army (however small) and a superior navy, and China would have been defeated soundly in India without having done much.

As for Russia, invading through Siberia is just dumb and suicidial. That leaves the Central Asian steppe as the other place China could use to invade Russia. The problem is that by then Russia had complete control of almost all Central Asia, with British help as well thanks to the semi-colony of Afghanistan, which really was all but nominally part of the Raj. And since the Russians also had a better army and just better military in general than the Chinese, a Chinese invasion through the Central Asian steppe would have also been defeated as well.

An alliance with Napoleon would have only hastened the fall of the Qing, seeing how utterly unstable they were, constantly suffering from internal wars and foreign invasions, plus an economy that was by then being monopolised by Britain
 

Kaze

Banned
Genghis Khan was not the only one that used the same route - the Scythians, Sarmatians, and the Western branch of the Huns marched that direction. He was not that special - the only thing special in him invading Russia is that he did it in the middle of WINTER!
There was a lesser branch of the Silk Road that ran through Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and into Russia. If second rate merchants on camels can move through that route - so can an army. It would be a hard slog - as evidenced by the 1907 Peking to Paris Road race & the 1908 New York to Paris Road Race - many cars failed in that region and did not make it.

There is the Burma route of the Silk Road into India. If Merchants can use it, so can an army.
 

Maoistic

Banned
Kaze said:
Genghis Khan was not the only one that used the same route - the Scythians, Sarmatians, and the Western branch of the Huns marched that direction. He was not that special - the only thing special in him invading Russia is that he did it in the middle of WINTER!
There was a lesser branch of the Silk Road that ran through Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and into Russia. If second rate merchants on camels can move through that route - so can an army. It would be a hard slog - as evidenced by the 1907 Peking to Paris Road race & the 1908 New York to Paris Road Race - many cars failed in that region and did not make it.

There is the Burma route of the Silk Road into India. If Merchants can use it, so can an army.
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That is so true. Genghis Khan has always been somewhat overrated in my opinion. Attila the Hun did very much the same things Genghis did, he just invaded at a time when there weren't that many historians to record his deeds, unlike Temujin.
 

BellaGerant

Kaze said:
Genghis Khan was not the only one that used the same route - the Scythians, Sarmatians, and the Western branch of the Huns marched that direction. He was not that special - the only thing special in him invading Russia is that he did it in the middle of WINTER!
There was a lesser branch of the Silk Road that ran through Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and into Russia. If second rate merchants on camels can move through that route - so can an army. It would be a hard slog - as evidenced by the 1907 Peking to Paris Road race & the 1908 New York to Paris Road Race - many cars failed in that region and did not make it.

There is the Burma route of the Silk Road into India. If Merchants can use it, so can an army.
Click to expand...
Those are all nomadic steppe peoples. Qing armies in the 19th century used guns and cannons. Steppe nomad logistics worked a bit simpler than those of gunpowder armies who need to resupply in enemy territory. Not only that, nomads could move much faster and travel lighter. Qing military discipline was already in the gutter by this point and who wants to march thousands of miles across deserts, swamps, etc.?

Merchants!=armies. Merchants don't have complex supply chains, merchants don't travel in the tens or hundreds of thousands, merchants have intimate experience traveling the roads through the years and generations most of the army would never have known. Just because a bunch of 'second rate merchants' can use that route doesn't mean a massive army set on breaking an empire would be able to.

The Qing tried their luck in Burma. Didn't work out so well. Burmese, not very fond of the Qing after the invasion attempt.

In the thousands of years of Imperial Chinese history, not one Chinese empire has ever sent forces to India by land. The terrain is just too hostile for massed movement, especially for those without immunity to the diseases endemic to the region.

Maoistic said:
That is so true. Genghis Khan has always been somewhat overrated in my opinion. Attila the Hun did very much the same things Genghis did, he just invaded at a time when there weren't that many historians to record his deeds, unlike Temujin.
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Attila had quite impressive accomplishments but his empire didn't survive him. Genghis Khan's empire outlived him and stretched from the Black Sea to the Yellow Sea and would not be surpassed in total area until the British six centuries later and is still the largest land empire to ever exist. I'm not well versed on the intricacies of their individual achievements and reigns but the duration and size of their empires are the most obvious differences.
 

Kyro92

Maoistic said:
Invading India was almost impossible thanks to the deserts and the Himalayan mountain range that separate the Chinese from the Indians. It's the reason why there never were that many wars between Indian and Chinese states and empires throughout history.
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Wouldn't invading Bengal via Burma have been logistically simpler(not withstanding the unlikeliness of either receiving permission from the Burmese empire for passage through their territory or overcoming the Burmese while also at war with Britain)?
 

Maoistic

Banned
Kyro92 said:
Wouldn't invading Bengal via Burma have been logistically simpler(not withstanding the unlikeliness of either receiving permission from the Burmese empire for passage through their territory or overcoming the Burmese while also at war with Britain)?
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It's the Battle of the Thermopylae all over again. A narrow pass that would have involved Burma defending itself. By the time the Chinese army, reduced by fighting the Burmese, reached Bengal the British will be waiting them with troops stationed there with superior rifles and artillery plus local soldiers.
 

dandan_noodles

Maoistic said:
It's the Battle of the Thermopylae all over again. A narrow pass that would have involved Burma defending itself. By the time the Chinese army, reduced by fighting the Burmese, reached Bengal the British will be waiting them with troops stationed there with superior rifles and artillery plus local soldiers.
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You think the Burmese could have held the Qing until 1851?

[Shut up about the Baker Rifle, not a service rifle, totally doesn't count]
 

Maoistic

Banned
dandan_noodles said:
You think the Burmese could have held the Qing until 1851?

[Shut up about the Baker Rifle, not a service rifle, totally doesn't count]
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Just long enough to weaken the Qing invasion and render it totally useless against the British, if the Qing decide to use the Burmese passage to invade India.
 

Kaze

Banned
At the time of Tippu, the British did not hold Pakistan or Afghanistan. There is another route - but getting through there would be very difficult.

The bonus with a Burma / China war in 1799 is that the Chinese would see a value in buying military arms, improving military tactics, improving their military, and building better military weapons.
 

Jürgen

The question is; will the Russians ever discover the Qing have invaded them? I mean there's a good chance this end up in a clusterfuck in Central Asia wioth the Chinese fighting the local khanates only to give up and return home, and the Russians never discovering that the Chinese meant to invade them.
 

Kaze

Banned
Jürgen said:
The question is; will the Russians ever discover the Qing have invaded them? I mean there's a good chance this end up in a clusterfuck in Central Asia wioth the Chinese fighting the local khanates only to give up and return home, and the Russians never discovering that the Chinese meant to invade them.
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That is probably the case there.
 

BellaGerant

Kaze said:
At the time of Tippu, the British did not hold Pakistan or Afghanistan. There is another route - but getting through there would be very difficult.

The bonus with a Burma / China war in 1799 is that the Chinese would see a value in buying military arms, improving military tactics, improving their military, and building better military weapons.
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I mean, the IRL invasion didn't really spur any military renaissance by the Qing.
 

Petros >Peter Fergus<

Maoistic said:
That is so true. Genghis Khan has always been somewhat overrated in my opinion. Attila the Hun did very much the same things Genghis did, he just invaded at a time when there weren't that many historians to record his deeds, unlike Temujin.
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I rate him highly (in ability) for his whole story. Check out that early life segment on wikipedia.

They're both equally evil, of course.
 

Southern pride

Let's see Qing Empire is a backwater declaring war on British coalition here's how I think it will go


Siberian front-Qing seize important settlements but nothing more after an initial Qing advance to take strategic locations front is static.

Steppe front- Qing will face Khans nominally under Russian Authority. Qing will stay on defensive after an initial advance which sees there army take attrition which is not worth it for a steppe.

India front- Static just soldiers staring at each other front- Little fighting likely some small British landings secure Hong Kong Island Hainan Island and Tiwan Island.
 
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