Alexander and China

The Chinese were using cast iron, wroght iron, steel. Large factories of iron workers with blast irons were common in ancient china. I think there was a saying that goes something like "iron should be used only for war not petty stuff". Basically iron were mass produced on large scales for warfare purposes by the state during the warring states period. One such is obviously crossbows and swords and such.

Macedonians didn't have that technology. Cast iron in the west didn't become a thing until ~15th century.

I would say metallurgy was China's forte at the time, probably the most advanced iron/metal work of the period.

How popular were the Qin rulers with their people? IIRC the Qin dynasty was the shortest dynasty because everyone hated the tyrannical rule and the revolts got out of hand once the emperor died, did this apply to the Qin state before it conquered China?

Interesting, thanks user.

The Gastraphetes was around and used at Tyre, so they had crossbows, just not as good

For the most part they were popular, but then one of the emperors died, and different officials tried to make different sons kings and then everything went to shit.

Ah, thanks user.

OP here, so basically things would have been pretty bad for him in more or less every way, and India was pretty much the limit of where he realistically could have gotten anyway?

Fighting India would be similar to fighting China, similar yet different. India would be similar in China in terms of empire size but not warfare. Chinese were under few centuries into constant warfare. Meanwhile India wasn't such the case. There were few battles here and there, but not a large scale war like the ones taking place in China.

But you're right in assessment. Edge of India would be where Alexander's army would be halted.

Basically India is the final level, China is the postgame secret level but you're not allowed to heal up before being thrown into the secret level.

No chance of this ever happening OP his troops almost mutinied when he got to India and wanted to keep going. His army wasn't willing to go any further from home, and he was a shell of his younger self by the time he got there.

Even with fresh troops and conquering to borders of Qin by taking Tarim Basin, he would still not be breaching Qin anytime soon.

Level of warfare was on different scale all together.

>on different scale all together
In numbers?

Numbers weren't the issue for Alexander he was outnumbered in every battle against the Persians but a lot and still won

Even if Alexander got past the Qin, he would then be up against the Chu who were the Qin's main rival, and the Zhao who had adopted the horse archer cavalry tactics of the Xiongnu that the Greek phalanx would have been absolutely shattered by.

Yeah, India would have been his last conquest barring something weird.

You have to remember that one of the big reasons he conquered Persia with relative ease is that Persia was already collapsing. Egypt has basically broken away and become a separate country, other satraps were in revolt, and Darius III was an incompetent military leader.

India and China were getting stronger.

What is more believable is the idea that Alexander could have maybe, MAYBE, turned west and sought to conquer Arabia, Carthage, or Italy. I honestly don't know why he gave a fuck about Arabia (it's not like they knew what to do with oil). Italy was going through the Samnite Wars, and Carthage was at it's peak, so maybe Italy would have been the best target.

Link related, Carthage every year.

youtube.com/watch?v=L-wdrIFfIOA

And technology.

Yeah but Darius III was an idiot. Compare Alexander's performance in Persia to that in India. I'm not saying Alexander wasn't a great commander, but the poor Persian performance compared to the relatively strong Indian showing is telling.

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Maling
600K vs 300K
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yique
120K vs 240K
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changping
450K vs 550K

Greeks mention Persian empire's 1M army battle vs 50K, but this number in modern is estimated around 50-100K. Greeks do have a history of exaggerating enemy numbers due to hero worship syndrome.

Something to note, Qin state also boasts the ability to field 1 million conscripts. Due to their recent reforms that took place few decades ago.

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bai_Qi
This Qin general is supposed to be responsible for death of >1M people.

While we can't be certain of the 1M claims, the other numbers seem to be right around the fairly accurate ballpark in terms of level of complexity China was developing into at this time period.

Is there reason to take the Chinese numbers as trustworthy when the Greek numbers are known to be exaggerated?

Tax records and historical numbers are officially written down and kept throughout the dynasties.

The numbers are also fairly consistent throughout the Chinese histories, so even if few upper bounds may be inaccurate/lies, the average number should be fairly accurate. This is why I called the 1M numbers into question as these numbers are bit above the normal Chinese army size throughout history.

To add to this, the Qin of ~320 BCE would have something similar to a universal conscription for all males > 15. I think this was due to the Shang Yang reform that Qin underwent. This quickly made them into a powerhouse in the region.

Its sorta like the Selective Service of the US. Where every male @ 18 are required to register.

>Drunk himself to death
t. Cassander
we have no idea whether he died from poison, alcohol, malaria, a complication with his lung etc.
Alexander's army reached 120k during his Indian campaigns according to his admlral, Nerachus.
>India and China were getting stronger.
yes and no. India as a whole might have been, but the Nanda Empire that dominated it was a decaying husk that was overthrown just 20 years after Alexander reached India's border.

>those numbers

I'm always super curious out how these armies worked. Like, that is a crazily stupid amount of people. How did they march? How were enough supplies mustered to keep them feed, you can't forage at that size.
The number of troops at Leipzig number less than that, despite vastly superior organisational structures and the numbers coming from many different armies (with separate supply structures).
How did a single commander direct this shit pre-radio? Napoleon was already struggling with the dizzying heights armies reached during the 1810s, despite the advantages of the corp system.

>Crossbows
Alexander had Siege Crossbows(Gastraphetes) from Syracuse in his army. The Diadochi and big A probably knew how to handle them. Don't forget that.

>Would the other Warring States band together with Alexander to defeat the Qin or just sit back and let them fight each other?

Alexander would do what he had done with persia: divide and and rule.
The proverb of Louis XI was widely used even in ancient times. While I do not realistically see any cahnce for Alexander to even make to China, let's say for the sake of the argument, that he shows up with his prime Macedonian army.

I see two things happen.
1.) All of China is fucking annoyed that yet another Barbarian enters the fray.
2.) At least one of the warring states gets obliterated by Alexander. the other two either make deals with Alexander or unite against him.

Either way, I don't see a feasable way for the Macedonians to hold a lasting position in China. There are just too many people, retarded amounts of resources for his enemies and little to way to meaningfully communicate with the greek homeland.

I'm not huge on Chinese history, but a number of generals, Origins of Political Order for instance, cite modern scholars as saying Chinese numbers were highly inflated.

They were still likely quite large, but they literally claim Verdun numbers in antiquity. It's akin to the Persian army being one million.

might as well ask what would have happened if he marched his men to the moon

Even if we let him start in the eastern most areas he conquered do you realize how hard it would be to get an army to China from there?

Until the 19th century whenever China is attacked it is from the Steppes to the north and there was a reason for that, because the country is damn difficult to approach from any other direction

Is the southern border (to Vietnam) so disadvantageus? I'd say it would be easier to take a foothold in Indochina and attack from there, rather than push an army through the Tarim basin

>large scale warfare
yeah, its not like the nandas expanded out of magadha a generation before Alexander's conquest or anything

>webm
Damn

Vietnam is not an easy place to take and move through, the climate in Indochina is way too tropical, disease would slaughter large armies

more over its populations are known for being quite hostile to invasion, while not quite impossible or a graveyard of empire like people see Afghanistan, its not as nice as say India itself

Its probably a preferable way to approach, considering the other is mountains/desert or attempting to fight through near endless steppe tribes but its still not a good approach

>Let's imagine Alexander hadn't drunk himself to death and kept going east
Yeah, sure, he ''drunk'' himself to death.
The man who ate the and healthiest food, drank the cleanest water, had the best medicine and physicians by his side and was in peak physical and mental condition died of a little too much wine.
>Would the other Warring States band together with Alexander to defeat the Qin or just sit back and let them fight each other
Pretty much like put it

yeah, I was using "India" as a shorthand for "the Maurya empire"

The book was saying the number of deaths is unverifiable not the large army size. The >1M kills by that one qin general and other battles which supposedly killed >200k-500k

Thousands of years later you would get WEWUZ QINS and WEWUZ GREEKS posting here so probably not much would have changed

Gramps here. I've been reading Alex books for 45 years. This is most likely scenario.

He beat the original horse archers, the Scythians
.

To be fair, the culprit is less likely to be he army itself, which loved him, but rather Cassander and his brothers (possibly on orders from their father)

If Alexander ever made it to China it would be a one way trip. Much like Hannibal's crossing of the Alps, the vast majority of his veteran troops would be killed by attrition, and the campaign would mostly depend on his ability to recruit mercenaries from the various hill tribes. The invasion force would likely resemble the usual barbarians that stalked the periphery of Chinese civilization.

So it depends on Alexander doing something he hasn't yet had to do, which is inspire and successfully lead a highly diversified army, without the core of Hellenic troops that he has thus far depended on. It isn't going to be a faithful matchup of a classic Phillipian Macedonian army, if anything it would be much like the army of Atilla the Hun. Hannibal certainly was capable of this but he knew the underlying political rivalries and how to exploit them, and had a monolithic entity to rally against. Alexander has no such luxuries.

In his first battle against Horse Archers (battle of jaxartes) , Alexander outmaneuvered the nomadic force with light cavalry and infantry. It's also one of the first recorded uses of field artillery. While horse archers could prove troublesome, they were defeat several times by Alexander and his generals during the sogdian campaign (although Spitamenes wrecked some Macedonians hard)

Mohist of the warring states were already well aware of how to use traction trebuchet. They even have a manual on it it should be popular enough during the time.

They also have another large crossbow-type weapon for artillery, I forgot the name, but it was something corny I believe. It was also used during the warring states period.

Artillery is not unique. Warring states ~ 320 BCE would have transitioned towards heavy pike-axe infantry + crossbow infantry + heavy cavalry forces.

Only the Mohists?

Mohist manuals are the ones that survived. Single mohist student could spread it all across China.

Its not like any of the states would ignore the benefits of heavy machinery.

>traction trebuchet.
I don't know much about siege weapons, but at a glance it seems really primative and labor intensive compared to the torsion weapons the Greeks were using

Yea it does seem primitive, we don't really know its dimensions and projectile force, but I would assume it was effective enough and improved upon later enough that it was only later replaced by large muslim counter weight by the mongols.

How good were the crossbows of the Chinese at the time? How would it have compared to say the Scythian composite bow, or a maybe a medieval European crossbow from the 15th century?

Not sure, however Han dynasty crossbows can pierce Roman armor/Shield in the Battle of Zhizhi.

If we assume the power of the crossbows are roughly similar between the 300 years, they should be able to penetrate Greek armors/shields relatively easy. There is also the fact that Roman shield/armor improved over those 300 years too. So Greek shields/armor might be weaker.

>an pierce Roman armor/Shield in the Battle of Zhizhi.
>stating controversial and unverified theories as fact.
Nice one, Zhang

...

There is nothing controversial about my post. I never said it was the Romans but rather Roman shields/armors. Given that the some small number of soldiers at Zhizhi were described as utilizing a unknown fish scale formation and used shields and tight formations, there is atleast the indication of armors and shields with Roman peculiarities.

Far as we know, it could just be mercenaries using Roman formation and shield or captive Roman soldiers under Parthian control. With tombs being found to contain european ancesterial people that averaged ~1.8 m tall. Either way, these group were related to Romans and utilizing similar formation/armors.

its just Chinese propaganda. You're in a chink shill thread. They have been known to straight up make up and change their history so its not crazy to assume its all bs.

>he writes as he fervently insists soviets photoshopped german war crimes

polniggers OUT

>no archaeological evidence
>no genetic evidence
>what little Indo-European influence is there was more likely to be carried by various Turks raping their way across the steppes

sorry mate, gonna have to go with "that story is bs" for $5

His logistics train would have collapsed before he was halfway trough India. It wouldn't be a matter of his army being weak but him not being able to field and feed enough of it to face even the smaller local rulers.

If the Chinese crossbow could punch through any infantry armor and shields then how did combat with crossbow-based armies work? Were they literally just running around the battlefield pouring masses of crossbow bolts into each other until they were all dead?

Crossbows weren't modern rifles that hit where you aimed them at and a charge by a large body of men could disperse your shit.

I sincerely doubt he would've been successful.

Qin China was massive, and Alexander's power base was in Persia.

Qin was a states that began from a small no name backwater almost pushed out of its existence and became a militarized and ruthless centralized state through Legalist reforms from the bottom up. If Alexander invaded at the height of its power while Qin Shihuang still lived Qin would stand a very good chance.

Qin Shi Huang was a few decades after Alexander, in Alexander's time the Qin were still rising

Kill yourself /pol/

You fuckers claimed the Shang Dynasty was fake as well. Now it is extensively proven.

China had 150-200 million people. That's a lot

The reformed happend sometime around ~370 BCE. By 320 BCE, Qin was a major force that engaged in more than half of all the battles fought since then.

By Qin Shin Huang era, Qin was largely the dominant force on earth.

>You fuckers claimed the Shang Dynasty was fake as well. Now it is extensively proven.
The Shang was proven in the early 20th century. I don't think /pol/ is that old.

He still fucked the poo in Loos tho

I'm exaggerating to make a point

This
>le chinese fake history meme
has been going on for centuries. Europeans and whites always try to prove other nations' histories are fake, while our's is "proven by science!"

Many western "educated" Chinese even believed the Shang were mythical.
Now we have evidence that the Xia existed in some form, although how "sinitic" it was is still unknown.

We have evidence that there was a society of peoples living in the Yellow River valley and that they left relics at Erlitou. We have no evidence that they were established by a sage king who ended the great flood and that they were the ones who would later be overthrown by the people that became the Shang after their last king built a lake of wine so he could have orgies while soldiers drowned in it.

There is a reason though. Chinese history is being written by the CCP and there's a political note when you read stuff by them.

The question of reliability of Chinese history claims will still be a question until CCP relaxes its hold on freedom of speech and education and politics. Until then, there'll always be suspicion on the CCP's narrative.

Xia is still mythical. All we know is that settled peoples were in China during the time the Xia supposedly existed.

Is this a fucking joke? You think the CCP wrote the Twenty-Four Histories?

>China had 150-200 million people. That's a lot
The late Warring States had a population of 20-40 million.

>Now we have evidence that the Xia existed in some form, although how "sinitic" it was is still unknown.
There isn't enough evidence Erlitou was the the Xia or whether they spoke Sinitic.

What is clear is Sinitic predates the late Shang period as well as genetic continuity from Erlitou-late Shang sites.

Those numbers are doubtlessly inflated aswell, I'd be surprised if they even involved half those numbers.

Keep in mind that Chinese records also liked to include non-combatant support staff in their army figures, which can easily double or triple the claimed size of an army.

Their records are still far trustworthy than your random make up shitposts. It's perfectly safe to assume shitposts without any proofs like yours are all bs.

The CCP can suppress any attempt to question the veracity of the traditional historical records.

The Communist Party has a political interest in twisting the historical narrative so as to show it progressing according to Marxist theory of class struggle i.e. Slave society > Feudal society > Capitalist society >Socialist society > Communist society.

Hence official Chinese histories are forced to pigeonhole the dynasties to fit Marxist historical theory - the Shang were a slave society, the Zhou to the Qing were a feudal society, the ROC were a capitalist society, and the PRC is a socialist state, all progressing scientifically through class struggle. This forcing of a Eurocentric view of history into a Chinese context is surely to be taken cautiously.

Modern military also includes staff agencies and logistics support.

If they are part of the military operations, then they are included.

>The CCP can suppress any attempt to question the veracity of the traditional historical records.
Utter nonsense. I suppose scholarly work arguing against the historicity of Sage-Kings,modern revisions of historical censuses or cross referencing archaeological finds with textual sources wouldn't exist if the PRC had these draconian policies.

So what does the formation of the 24 histories have to with the PRC?

Not to excuse the shoddiness of some mainland authors but there's definitely isn't a systemic attempt at enforcing Marxist historiography for Chinese history.

The worst you are going to get a "multi ethnic" narrative of Chinese history,association of modern ethnic groups with various polities/ethnicities that formed within the boundaries of the PRC and attempts at linking mythology with archaeological complexes. Many of the aforementioned pitfalls aren't limited to Chinese scholars and can be easily applied to Western Sinologists or other countries.

All texts pushed in China has to go through PRC ministry of truth.

This historical records printed as source will not have any texts/documents/pov/information that brings negative light to PRC.

Historical source from PRC China have that taint. Anyone not seeing is a PRC shillbot.

>All texts pushed in China has to go through PRC ministry of truth.
You are so fixated on PRC censorship that you don't seem to realize the 24 histories were promulgated far before the current regime ever held sway.

>This historical records printed as source will not have any texts/documents/pov/information that brings negative light to PRC.
That's nonsensical,why would historical texts from hundreds/thousands of years ago threaten the current regime?

>Historical source from PRC China have that taint. Anyone not seeing is a PRC shillbot.
We are talking about historical sources,not articles published since the PRC was founded(which I judge based on their content not their authors).

There are legitimate criticisms brought up against the veracity of numerical records detailing the Warring States(scribal error,second hand sources,conflation of civilian populations with soldiers).

It is ludicrous to assume the PRC would alter numerical inscriptions within historical texts just for the sake of the current regime. If such as thing were to happen you can always cross reference extant copies from other nations within the Sinosphere.

The 24 histories were written by newly established dynasties to chronicle the previous dynasty. Each one would have had a vested interest in legitimizing their ascendence, and the creation of a narrative of rise, peak, and decline to demonstrate the passing of heaven's mandate.

Perhaps, for example, the PRC's official historical narrative that the Kuomintang were dragging their feet and refusing to fight the Japanese and that it was really the CCP who resisted the invaders may only be the latest in this long history of new regimes twisting the record to denigrate their predecessors?

Do you guys even have any idea of what you are talking about? If what you are saying about modern CCP historiography being fitting history into the Marxist model is true, then modern CCP historiography is nothing but questioning and reinterpreting the canonical 24 histories. And if you hate modern CCP historiography so much, wouldn't you be arguing in favor of the 24 histories?

This is somewhat misleading. Shiji, Hanshu, Sanguozhi, and Houhanshu all started as private projects that received official sanction decades to centuries later. Even other official sponsored histories like Jinshu or Tangshu were often done centuries afterward due to intervening periods of instability, not by the immediate successor.

Basically the picture of the histories being done by their successors is due to the special case of Songshi, Yuanshi, and Mingshi being completed so quickly because the transitions between Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing were relatively quick and the tradition of officially sponsored histories had been well esablished.

Questioning and doubting PRC narrative isn't "hating" PRC. However you seem too emotionally attached to this PRC issue, seems like your inner chinkshill is spilling out.

>tfw Duke Nukem Forever was finished before Qingshi

How many times do you have to be told that the Twenty Four Histories are not PRC Narrative? As stated above, if anything PRC narrative is ABOUT questioning and doubting the canonical Twenty Four.

Modern CCP historiography is questioning and examining it, but through the lens of Marxism, which may be even worse than taking it at face value.

>The 24 histories were written by newly established dynasties to chronicle the previous dynasty. Each one would have had a vested interest in legitimizing their ascendence, and the creation of a narrative of rise, peak, and decline to demonstrate the passing of heaven's mandate.
No shit. The dynastic histories are already derived from primary sources written by court bureaucrats,the compiler would be compelled to add his own interpretations and exaggerate the excesses of the previous dynasties.

For example,the Ming Shi's summary of the Imjin was of Armageddon. Fortunately,there are Ming primary sources that contradict these claims while there's a death of sources to cross reference with earlier histories.

>Perhaps, for example, the PRC's official historical narrative that the Kuomintang were dragging their feet and refusing to fight the Japanese and that it was really the CCP who resisted the invaders may only be the latest in this long history of new regimes twisting the record to denigrate their predecessors?
Seems to me you have an axe to grind rather than engaging in critical textual analysis.

The Chinese do not hold a monopoly on fabricating,distorting or excluding prior historical knowledge.

All sources are biased one way or another,unless you only want to rely on administrative records this is the best we got.

>Questioning and doubting PRC narrative isn't "hating" PRC.
This isn't a matter of PRC narrative.

This is a matter of Sima Qian's narrative and no amount of double standards will change this fact.

Twenty Four Histories as an idea isn't the issue, its the idea that's being revisited by PRC and reprinted with PRC slant that is the issue.

Slight noun choices, adjective choices, slight adverb choices to favor PRC's narrative of grand chinese history.

I can make the same argument about people not trusting Bible. People might say, they don't trust the bible because its been written and re-written by the church and the narratives are there to give lend to their agendas. Yet the bible defenders wills say, "how can you not trust the bible? its been in existence since before jesus christ" Fact is neither's existence matter when the people in control write the narrative. While most things maybe true, the angle at which its presented and the focus and attention given to certain factions will always be under the control of the PRC. Thus making it unreliable in anything specific.

>Slight noun choices, adjective choices, slight adverb choices
That's a world away from supposedly making up troop numbers to boost army sizes.

>and was in peak physical and mental condition

Hardly, by the time he reached India he had already been seriously wounded a few times.

Is it? They could change the numbers to fit their bill? Who will contradict some it?

How about the original histories themselves? Even if you don't trust the PRC, the ROC has the same numbers.

>Twenty Four Histories as an idea isn't the issue, its the idea that's being revisited by PRC and reprinted with PRC slant that is the issue.
Then stop bitching and obtain an unedited Qing edition or a copy from overseas.

>Slight noun choices, adjective choices, slight adverb choices to favor PRC's narrative of grand chinese history.
Show me some examples instead of making up hypothetical scenarios.

>I can make the same argument about people not trusting Bible.
Show me evidence the 24 histories underwent constant revisions by later dynasties.

>Is it? They could change the numbers to fit their bill? Who will contradict some it?
As mentioned before the PRC transcriptions can be compared with dynastic editions or copies made in other countries.

This thread has divulged enough from this point of contention

While I certainly don't take the numbers at face value there are factors such as universal conscription,overall population size and archaeological evidence(standardized weapons,extremely wide stamped roads etc.) that can be contrasted with logistical restraints,bureaucratic errors and outright fabrication.

But why do you inherently not trust the PRC for doing this. All societies do this, like India with Indo-Aryan migrations, and Western Europe about the importance of Rome/Greece. All societies, hell all people, are going to approach their own histories with a slant (Feminist History, Marxist History, etc.), if you think one is inherently more wrong than the other you're mistaken