Japanese soldiers who fought in the Imjin War were raised as child soldiers from age 4 in what was a 120 year long civil war in which it was every village, town and city for itself. Japanese soldiers were just as good as their European counterparts and in many cases even better during this time. To bring up quality of the soldiers in context of the time period and the lead up to the Imjin War has only one answer - the Korean army was inexperienced but the invading and aiding Japanese and Chinese armies were respectively not only experienced veterans but extremely qualified professional troops who conducted maneuvers which European armies could not replicate on that level until a century later. The Chinese star pronged formation, the Japanese five column formations were massive formations that were devastating on a total war level that no European power could achieve until the Great Northern War a century later. The technological and quality disparity between Asia and Europe during this time was non-existent during this time and talking about the Asian Great Powers, in many cases their technological prowess was even better.
WI: Spanish invasion of China
- Thread starter Taunay
- Start date
1- No? Japan had the largest density of firearm equipped infantry in the world by the late 16th century, and how is Spain maintaining a fucking huge army halfway across the world while fighting France, the Netherlands and the Ottomans at the same time, note Suez and Panama canals aren't a thing yet?Now I will go to bad, so let's be quick.
1. Isn't the basic premise the Spanish ships mainlain regular troops to China? Also, wouldn't proportion of firearm infantry lower in Japan than Spain, let alone Holland?
2. Then why Ming didn't transfer northern frontier armies to the south in Wakou era? And if Spanish establish a stronghold, the administration will fall to Captaincy General of the Philippines, so no problem either
3. Now that is problem, but considering methods of Jesuit missionaries, Spain will at least try to accommodate tradition and interests of local Chinese.
Why?
2- ...Why would they, the wakou were a bunch of pirates who just raided costal settlements and then left, not a conquering army.
3- Wouldn't last long enough
For Mexico and the Andes i've seen it mentioned more than once that the deciding factor was not firearms but swords and armor made out of steel. There's no real technological gap in that.
You perfectly encapsulate my judgement. Reciprocated
Fair points.
Contemporary Japanese units, while heavily focused on firearms by East Asian standards, had higher ratios of other weapons to arquebuses compared to late 16th to early 17th century European formations. When Japan invaded Korea in 1592, 30% of Japanese soldiers had firearms, and the rest were equipped with pikes, swords, and bows. Firearms usage declined after 1603. In addition, and probably most critically, Japan totally lacks artillery.
Because Wakou actually threatened Nanjing, southern capital.
Probably.
Then why Asian Great Powers imported and copied European weapons, from guns to cannons? As I said, technology gap had already existed, even if it was a bridgeable gap as opposed to later centuries.
In addition, don't pretend such formations are unique or superior to European counterparts; during Spanish-Holland War, the standard battalion consisted of 250 pikemen and 240 musketeers divided over five blocks, with rows of five pike men across and ten deep and six blocks of four musketeers across and ten deep. After firing, half the musketeers went to the left and half to the right, retreating along the lanes between the blocks. In this way the total frontline measured not more than about 57 metres, which significantly reduced its vulnerability. They also tried alternative formations, with two rows of musketeers preparing to fire within a combination of three battalions into one brigade – which resulted in the simultaneous fire of 72 musketeers (three times 24 per battalion) – and the placing of musketeers alternately before and behind the pikemen. Regular exercises increased the rate of fire, making it a unit of continuous production.
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You mean the Chinese who produced their own firearms of their own design? The Chinese Breech Loading Canons were made independently of the Europeans with normal trading of ideas through the Silk Road with the Turkish merchants buying the ideas from the Portuguese who sold it to the Iranians who traded it with the Chinese in the 1520s in return for silk luxuries. That's called normal commerce. It's also how Chinese gunpowder reached Europe from East Asia in the first place. Or Ming matchlocks which outmatched the Dutch and French ones which they made up on their own in the 1540s under the tutelage of Qi Jiguang?
Or the Japanese? Who since the 1270s independently traded firearms with China and Korea that they had their own stocks? It was simply not used to the same scale as Europe because the topography of Japan lent itself until the 1480s for more slash and flee attacks that were so common in the Ashikaga Shogunate?
Or the Koreans, who invented the Byeol-hwangja-chongtong which when used by the Chinese devastated the Dutch in Taiwan even 100 years later? And the fact that they had entire caches of firearms that as per Science and Technology in Korean History: Excursions, Innovations, and Issues by Song-Nae Pak (2005) matched the European ones used by the Wokou pirates and Japanese with every punch? To say nothing of the Hwacha itself.
Or the Iranians under the Safavids, one of the legendary Gunpowder Empires, which stood toe to toe with the Ottomans who themselves stood toe to toe with their European rivals? The Safavids definitely did use captured Ottoman firearms to supplement and improve their own, but they also had thousands of foundries of their own which made Safavid matchlocks and canons, most famously the ترکیدن شیر (Sher) that pushed the Portuguese privateers out?
Or the Delhi Sultanate or Suri Empire or finally the Mughals? The very same Mughals which in 1656 produced the most artillery and matchlocks in the entire world, even outstripping half of Europe? (Source: Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and High Roads to Empire, 1500–1700 by Jos Gommans)
The tradition of Asian great powers importing firearms and materials for warfare from Europeans is 90% - 95% a post-1700 phenomenon. Previous to that the Asian Great Powers - the Mughals, Chinese, Japanese, Iranians and Ottomans made their own, supplied their own, designed their own firearms which were more than a match for European firearms. The Great Divergence is dated at 1700 AD for a very good reason. The Collapse of the Ming Dynasty, the Start of the Edo Period and the Decline of the Mughal Empire collectively alongside the Asfarid Transition in Iran had much more to do with the technological gap than anything the Europeans had done previously or at all. (Source for Great Divergence: Great Divergence and Great Convergence: A Global Perspective by Leonid Grinin)
So? The Jixiao Xinshu, or the wartime guide to all Ming Soldiers in the 1550s and 1560s issued the Volley Fire of the Star Prong doctrine that ensured 1080 musketeers firing volley fires repeatedly at enemy positions, with at least 600 musketeers firing simultaneously while the rest reloaded. These musketeers were hidden in infantry divisions of 3400 where the rest supported the musketeers whilst the cavalry conducted a two-pronged assault from the side with artillery canon fire from the back. Devastated the Japanese at Pyongyang to the horror of the Portuguese and Dutch onlookers. Or the Japanese Five Columns which arrayed the Japanese formations in bent lines that increased their range of muskets from 80m to around 140m which laid waste to the unsuspected Koreans during the early stages of the war? Both of these were tried to be replicated in Europe in the early 1600s and was only replicated successfully by Gustavus Adolphus partially during the 30 years war and then fully by the Habsburgs and Swedes during the 1680s. This is fact. (Source - The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History by Tonio Andrade, and Firearms: A Global History to 1700 by Kenneth Chase and Jixiao Xinshu)
And these weapons had replaced indigenous weapons by the late 16th century. I'm sure you know that China imported European and Ottoman guns and then made their own. China copied European weapons, not reverse. This is a simple fact. How many times I have to articulate it?
What is the peculiar topography of Japan?
And you must be aware of how inefficient early modern rocket weaponry are.
And devastated? If you read Tonio Andrade, then you must be aware of how Koxinga struggled mightily against a scant number of Europeans. Compare siege of Zeelandia to his other sieges.
So what? Safavids gunpowder technology never managed to exceed Ottoman, let alone European (to be fair, Ottoman gunpowder technology was on par with Europe till the late 16th century, and may be even superior to earlier).
And Murghal firearm technology was lagged behind the Safavids. Since medieval era, India had always struggled to keep pace with Islamic military. And your source just demonstrates no more than half of Europe could match weapon production of entire Murghal realm.
50-70% of 16th century European soldiers equipped with gunpower weapons. In some cases, especially in the later half of century, 80% or higher. What can be said with regards to Murgal, or other Asiatic powers?
Copied and made their own. As I said, technology gap was bridgeable by then. It basically means non-European powers could reverse-enginner and replicate European technology.
And no, Great Divergence should be dated at 17th century at most, and in all probability, earlier.
And you say they are superior to Nassau's innovations?
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Play the Ball.Now I will go to bad, so let's be quick.
1. Isn't the basic premise the Spanish ships mainlain regular troops to China? Also, wouldn't proportion of firearm infantry lower in Japan than Spain, let alone Holland?
2. Then why Ming didn't transfer northern frontier armies to the south in Wakou era? And if Spanish establish a stronghold, the administration will fall to Captaincy General of the Philippines, so no problem either
3. Now that is problem, but considering methods of Jesuit missionaries, Spain will at least try to accommodate tradition and interests of local Chinese.
Why?
Oh really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1582_Cagayan_battles
I think you may have dyslexia. Spanish will not send their third-rate colonial troops and adventurers operating in Asia, but mainland troops.
Armor, weapon, discipline and tactics. Did the Japanese employ pike-and-shot tactics?
Autonomy of Southern portion of China has always been greater than the North. There are great many unaligned local powers in the South. And Spanish could make overtures and seek to affiliate with them, just as they did in Americas and Asia.
The Great Ming, did not make that decision due to Sui past precedence but because the Great Ming had difficulties actually raising an army. Finances were poor, factions in the Great Ming urged caution or blamed the Koreans for the war and hence did not care, common view by the Ming was that passive wu-wei policy in diplomacy was ideal and finally the Great Ming armies were very atrophied and declined except in choice areas. Great Ming was definitely and indeed a paper tiger in terms of needing to combat enemies in warfare. They may be able to get serious and crush an enemy in a long protracted war, but that may require a serious realignment in the Central Court that otherwise is disinterested in the external affairs outside of the capitol and the idealisms of Confucianism.
The Mexica Triple Alliance was defeated by a very fearsome Spanish army and suffered a catastrophic and potentially avoidable battle at Otumba, however I think it should be noted that the Mexica Triple Alliance was a more effective martial state than the Great Ming. Despite the definite situation where there were certain independent states in Mexico to oppose the Mexica Triple Alliance, the Mexica could quickly rally several armies of large size and high skill to crush enemies and further Mexica state apparatus, keenly focused on martial expansionism, espionage and political maneuvers, was not caught aback by Spanish intervention. Great Ming on the other hand would likely have difficulties understanding the threat that opposed them until it was a dire issue and this was the same problem faced by the Great Qing in their later phase in the middle 1800s. Very nearly, the Great Ming were almost caught unaware by the Japanese who not only advanced through a close tributary but also were closing in on the border only a short distance from the capitol. A Spanish invasion of the southern coast of the Great Ming might barely warrant a Great Ming response for months and said response will be haphazard at best and surrounded by passive negotiation.
The Great Ming survived in the south as a form of local warlords who upheld a faux Great Ming. The Central Court was destroyed, and in theory the Central Court in this hypothetical scenario would probably allow local officials in southern China to deal with a Spanish attack and only take action if there were inclement issues and otherwise not feel much danger. Regarding the Mexica, the other states may have disliked the Mexica, but no particular Indigenous state in Mexico was willing to combat the Mexica alongside Cortes in fact until Cortes managed a phenomenal victory at Otumba. Mexica had no issues with epidemics until the final stages of the war when the result was already decided due to Mexica defeat at Otumba.
There might be though. Spanish forces will not face a standard Great Ming army most likely, but a sort of Yong-Ying militia force, which will not carry heavy armor of any kind and will use primarily cold weapons of relatively low quality. While the Great Ming possessed supposed large numbers of trained soldiers, the reality was that most of their soldiers were relative serfs who possessed poor training and had squalid command and tended to spend most of their year doing odd jobs to make up for the fact that Great Ming budget was notoriously frugal.
We should compare these empires though not by what they produced but how their imperial power existed at the time. Simply because the Great Ming had skilled foundries, does not meant hat these productions were correctly utilized. Further, simply because these realms produced canons and ones that could be useful, does not mean that their canons are equal to that which Spain could bring. Likewise, Ming doctrine in the period is what is the problem, as if the Spanish have an in depth plan and coordinate their attacks well, they could tack on a huge victory and cause a cascading event in the Great Ming of rebellions and civil unrest that could see the dynasty overthrown.
An elite Great Ming army was not insufficiently skilled or trained to defeat a Spanish incursion, but we should understand the vast relative distance... Assuming the Spanish invade the far south, the Great Ming would be over 2,000 km. In Korea, the Great Ming had a distance of 800 km and their elite armies nearby and the heartland of their powerbase to draw from. Great Ming finally began to take interest in Japanese expansionism when Japanese forces were present just 700 km from Beijing, and with an army larger than what the Great Ming had stationed in Beijing. I seriously doubt that the Ming will take notice of the problem until the Spanish make considerable gains against militia in the south and then by that time, it may cause civil issues for the Great Ming and destabilize the empire regardless of the decision that they make.
Otherwise, I would put the success of the Spanish in such an invasion to be minimal. While the Great Ming may be a relative paper tiger in terms of its ability to react to threats near it, the Spanish cannot afford the planning and investment needed to make a good try at invasion. Invasion would require a very precise set of plans and skill that the Spanish may not be able to tolerate. Planning in terms of building alliances and using mercantile connections to build alliances with secret societies, bandits, disaffected officials in the region and pirates. Further, a coordination with the Japanese would highly augment their chances but such attempts would be blocked by the Portuguese.
The Ming dynasty did send Northern frontier armies to the South during the Wakou era, but they were largely ineffective because they were too busy looting their own people than fighting the Wakou.Now I will go to bad, so let's be quick.
1. Isn't the basic premise the Spanish ships mainlain regular troops to China? Also, wouldn't proportion of firearm infantry lower in Japan than Spain, let alone Holland?
2. Then why Ming didn't transfer northern frontier armies to the south in Wakou era? And if Spanish establish a stronghold, the administration will fall to Captaincy General of the Philippines, so no problem either
3. Now that is problem, but considering methods of Jesuit missionaries, Spain will at least try to accommodate tradition and interests of local Chinese.
Why?
Oh really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1582_Cagayan_battles
I think you may have dyslexia. Spanish will not send their third-rate colonial troops and adventurers operating in Asia, but mainland troops.
Armor, weapon, discipline and tactics. Did the Japanese employ pike-and-shot tactics?
Autonomy of Southern portion of China has always been greater than the North. There are great many unaligned local powers in the South. And Spanish could make overtures and seek to affiliate with them, just as they did in Americas and Asia.
This is another fact that people may not understand... Great Ming could dispatch an army that does essentially the opposite of its objective and hence either allows allies to Spanish to form or causes a more dangerous situation than the invaders. Indeed the Taiping Tianguo movement gained traction precisely because Green Standard and Yong-Ying armies of the Great Qing disaffected the populace, when their original objective was to suppress the demon devil English, etc...
No they didn't. Again - the Chinese Breech Loading Canon predates the European ones by a good three decades when they were first seen in use against rebels in Canton in the 1500s and 1510s. The Portuguese Breech Loading Tech did reach China - which I mentioned in the above post - but it was deemed inferior and never copied beyond ~40 designs near Liaodong by the Chinese at all. The Chinese matchlocks, flintlocks and muskets including their canons at least until the 1670s and 1680s. The first report of importing European weapons for the military directly by the government of China is dated to the Qing Dynasty in 1693 according to the Qing Annals of China. The ming are conspicuously not included.
And for the matter, indigenous weapons such as bows and swords and long spears never went out of fashion in China until even the late 1870s. During the Ming all were exhaustively used in collaboration with firearms in warfare as per the Jixiao Xinshu.
Early firearms in Japan were unreliable and in the narrow passes that enemy clans fought more troops died due the firearms blasting in their faces than firing at the opposite members at least during the 1280s. The narrow passes emphasized these defects of early firearms leading to early Japanese clan heads to deem them unsuitable in Japanese warfare. This eventually changed during the Ashikaga rule, but topographical problems exacerbated the early defects of guns in Japan all the way to the Battle of Sekigahara, which made their use limited. Which is why Japan deployed over 180,000 gunners to Korea in 1592 but never really seemed to use it back home in anything greater than small numbers. European countries with the same problems like the Swiss and Carpathians faced the same problems during the early days of mass firearms as well. They solved their problems going into the 1660s of course, but mostly because unlike Japan they didn't close themselves off to the rest of the world.
Yes. Early modern rocketry was wildly inefficient and inaccurate and had a tendency to blow up in the gunners face more often than the enemy.
I am not talking about Koxinga. I will freely admit that by that point the Ming Loyalists were behind the technological scale because they were. I am talking about the Sino-Dutch Conflict of 1622 - 1624 and 1633.
To be fair they did. The Safavid Sher canon outstripped anything the Portuguese had to offer during their Hormuz Conflict. It's faster reorientation capability was later copied by the Ottomans and Portuguese before entering Europe through the two powers.
The Mughal Tufang Matchlock technology only started to lag behind in the 1710s. The Tufang was generally on par with European firearms when they defeated the English in the Anglo-Mughal War and equipped the Corchin with it to help them repulse the French in the 1670s. The Mughals lagged behind in Pistol tech, but musketry and artillery was what helped them gain so much prominence in the first place. The 6.7 feet Mughal swivel guns tore through the East India Company warships.
As to equipment, the Ottomans and Safavids equipped almost the entirety of their infantry with firearms. The Mughal Jazail Troops were equipped with firearms, amounting to 60% of their troops. 180,000 out of 310,000 Japanese troops in the Imjin War were gunners amounting to 58% of their forces. The Ming Provincial Militias were not equipped with firearms, but the entirety of the 300,000 standing infantry of the Ming Regular forces were issued firearms in 1578. These are more than in line with the 50 - 70% standard of European powers at the time.
Yes and No. The scale of which the Chinese and Japanese produced with these formations with over 24,000 musketeers with whom 14,000 were firing constantly countered move for move with Japanese range tactics was something not seen in Europe for a century after. However the context of the matter makes different as the Dutch neither needed so much musketeers or had the population to sustain such a force. They didn't need such a formation to fight their conflicts and never innovated something as such. It is the scale of which that is important to note because such an innovation was not forthcoming in Europe until a 50-100 years later.
fdas
Banned
The Ming dynasty during this time would not be so easily destabilized. Some foreigners in the coastal regions causing some havoc would not lead to massive rebellions throughout the empire that overthrow the dynasty.
More or less. Chinese ‘regular’ armies frequently behaved little more than thugs outside of their home provinces. They were very much recruited from the dregs of society and don’t really see people outside of their provinces as their own people due to language and sub-cultural differences.During the Imjin War itself, armies from various provinces were close to fighting each other instead.
300,000 standing infantry who are in essence a hypothetical force. They are essentially non existent if the Great Ming decide to not send them outward. There is so much court factionalism that inhibits clear sounded policy in the Great Ming alongside a difficulty in discerning issues due to communication problems and court obfuscation. Assuming the Spanish plan their invasion very well and strike with a force of fair quality, they will gain victories against local militia and take areas. More than likely, such news will reach the Great Ming court in distorted and depreciating manners. Court officials will attempt to inhibit state action for many reasons:
1. Action by the Emperor could reveal corruption in the finance bureau and hence cause a strife amongst members of the Court. Confucius argued that unity of the court, even between negative officials was necessary and that unity and stability of the court culture was the highest ideal and objective. Officials seeking reform and martial success will tend to be outdone by fawning officials who maintain stability which is preferred by the ruling Emperors generally. Therefore, officials not wishing to have their corruption revealed will limit reaction by the Central Court so as to not reveal the status of the finance bureau that is in shambles.
2. Officials with connections and patronages in the provinces will want to limit the effects of failures of their allies. Their allies will inevitably send messages that the issue is not so bad and that they can afford to gain victory if given more time. If the court official supporting local officials and militias gives the full truth to the Court, then his allies will be deposed from position and possibly executed and his political rivals will win those positions. Therefore, the court official will obfuscate the threat and advocate for only minor action in support so as to limit the loss of political clout.
3. Court officials in the period tended to advocate for a policy of Wu-Wei or a sort of active inaction and conducting diplomacy via a stylish cadence. For instnace, Great Ming officials would indeed be aware of the Confucian view that if a state meets aggression with aggression then the result is negative, and rather, issues must be met with benevolence and understanding, mercifulness etc... Even in the Imjin War, where a huge Japanese force was within 800 km (further than Spanish forces will be from Beijing) of the capitol, the Great Ming envoys and officials were discussing the idea of not meeting aggression with aggression and trying to negotiate with the Japanese. Ming had no intention to fight any war and their court officials for ideological reasons stood against aggressive military actions and their treatment of an obviously aggressive Japanese army of immense size shows their disinterest in fighting a war even when their imperial mandate was likely at stake. Great Ming actions in their Court displayed their inaction and otherwise treachery to their own subjects by promoting peaceful negotiation and blissful cooperation with Japan, all to the bewilderment of their Korean subjects.
4. Court officials often are overly arrogant and fawning of the might of the ruling dynasty. A court official often would downplay the danger of potential threats as nothing compared to martial Chinese might and would suggest the foreign demon devils to be little more than brigands, hence no need to dispatch serious forces to suppress. Likewise, officials preoccupied with prestige gains would limit their actions to less than satisfactory decisions. For instance, the Great Song despite the knowledge of Mongol prowess, overcommitted consistently on prestige goals and misjudged good strategies as being unmanly. Indeed there will be many court officials who will state in the morning court that that the foreign southeastern barbarians are of little concern to the sagacious Emperor and to allow so and so yong-ying deal with the issue.
5. Court officials will for good reason prioritize different frontiers. Persistent threats from the nomads of the north and west as well as renegade or rebel Tibetan tribes would be the primary focus of the Court. For reasons of local patronage and impetus of position as well as memory, the Central Court will prioritize the threat of the nomadic invasion over any strike from other directions unless the issue becomes unavoidable such as in the Imjin War.
6. Some of the Great Ming officials likely also understood the squalid state of the Great Ming ability to suppress problems in the south... Therefore, they would wisely argue for containment of the foreign menace and then negotiating as opposed to dispatching an army.
It is less about the foreigners and more about the risk of a Great Ming army being dispatched. The Central Court army would become the issue that causes the rebellions and civil unrest, not the fact that Spanish activities cause the rebellions. Just like in the 1-2 Opium Wars, the Europeans presented little threats, but the result of the Qing attempting to suppress the invaders instead caused rebellion because their 'Chinese' Green Standard Armies massacred, looted and devastated the countryside instead of fighting the British or French. In a sense, China around this period is in its own world to a degree and plays a very delicate balance game that can collapse at any moment if the Central Court overcommits to any particular agenda.
The paper strength of the regular standing force was 1,200,000. Going by Qi Jiguang's Numbers in the 1578 Treatise to You Dayou, 300,000 was the actual strength of the regular forces. I'm already disregarding the extra 'paper strength's so not really.
What court factionalism? This is something brought up so much times I don't understand why this stereotype is being reinforced right now. In 1576 the proposed invasion year, China's government was firmly under the united leadership of Empress Li, eunuch Feng Bao and Chief Secretary Zhang Juzheng. Until Zhang's death in 1582, the Ming suffered no factionalism during the Wanli Regency Years. 1573 - 1582 was ironically Wanli Emperor's golden years.
Which is why I find the rest of the 'analysis' of the court 'factions' so near spurious.
Tbf thugs and low lives literally make up contemporary Europeans armies of the same time period . Why else is the 30 years war so devastating. :v
Hence why the Swedes army of the 1600s are consider better than other field army since they have actual discipline and military police
I thought that it was precisely before the Wanli era that things were bad enough that men like Zhang Juzheng pushed for reform in the sea of corruption that had infested the court. Just because the early Wanli era was a time of low corruption doesn't mean that things were great before reforms were made. Quite the reverse, I'd think.
Difference is their tendency to loot their own people during wars. The lack of discipline,patriotism and professionalism in China‘s so-called ’regular’ armies was a serious concern. During one of the battles during the Jurchen invasion of the Song Dynasty for example, the Song army managed to corner the Jurchen army, but the crossbowmen refused to continue firing at the Jurchens demanding they be paid extra in the MIDDLE of the battle. The Jurchens took advantage of the ‘industrial action’ and wiped out the entire Song army.
By contrast, discipline and professionalism actually prevailed during the Qin/Western Han/Early Tang Dynasty because troops were raised from yeoman families on a conscription/land for service model.
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Fair enough just want to point out contemporary European armies and the Japanese soldiers can be unruly and ill disciplined as well.
And to be fair to the song dynasty soldiers. They are often looked down upon, aren’t paid well and generally get treated like crap by their own government so I wouldn’t really blamed them for demanding more pay.