InDan Carlin’s Wrath of the Khans podcast, he states that the Chinese military around the time of the Mongol conquests as being like the Major League Baseball, and the Mongols invading Europe being like a major league team playing in the minor leagues. Was this really true of the Chinese military compared to the European militaries at this time, and if it was true, at what point did it stop being true?
13th Century China vs Europe
Anthony Anderson
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Thomas Green
>Was this really true of the Chinese military compared to the European militaries at this time
Yes
>and if it was true, at what point did it stop being true?
Probably around the 19th century
Dominic White
>Yes
In what ways was it true? In terms of number of men that could be mobilized, or tactics and strategies, or technologies?
>Probably around the 19th century
So around industrialization?
Easton Richardson
more like the 17th century, at latest the 18th imo
Jonathan Gray
No, it was around 19th century.
No single European country could push China, it had to be a collective thing + Japan + internal dissents + opium addition endemic.
The US only managed to surpass China's economy right around the end of 19th century. That was after multiple wars/famine/nearing the end of Qing and the collapse of China. The years after Qing was consolidation of power by regional warlords/Republic era, after which the Commies took over and pushed the "muh unitity" into overdrive.
William Jackson
Well, the Han, which is from the 1st century BC had armies in the ballpark of around 100,000 or so that it threw at the Xiongnu pretty much annually.
Dunno nothing about the Song, though, sorry OP.
Christopher Bailey
We all know that Britain and France didn't need the rest pf the European powers, or Japan, or an opium epidemic to push China's shit in the opium wars.
Parker Walker
>InDan Carlin’s Wrath of the Khans
you'd probably be better off just ignoring any claims he makes.
>Chinese military around the time of the Mongol conquests as being like the Major League Baseball, and the Mongols invading Europe being like a major league team playing in the minor leagues
This is one of the shittiest analogies I've seen in a while, it's kinda funny. What the fuck does it even mean? Because I recall the mongols sustaining significant casualties and failing sieges multiple times in their first invasion of Europe and facing complete failures in their second and third.
I hope this is just another mongolaboo/chinaboo bait thread, because boy is it fun to see them get angry.
>Probably around the 19th century
The chinks were still using fucking matchlocks and pikes by the 19th century. Europeans had standardize the vastly superior flintlock by 1700 and actually had navies which could reach all the way to China. China didn't do much sailing to Europe, in fact very little sailing at all.
Robert Morris
> Because I recall the mongols sustaining significant casualties and failing sieges multiple times in their first invasion of Europe and facing complete failures in their second and third.
>Golden Horde
>Equal to Yuan Dynasty
Lmao no.
That's like saying because the Qing could beat some Dutch traders that they could beat the British Navy. The Golden Horde "invasions" of Europe lasted a couple years each, while the conquest of China involved 50 years of continuous warfare.
The Song/Jin armies circa 1150 may not have the best soldiers individually, but they were better organized, more numerous, and possessed better technology than any non-mongol army of the time.
Oliver Gonzalez
So if the Mongols best and brightest were not the ones invading Europe, how does that equal a major league team playing in the minor leagues?
>better organized
In what sense?
>better technology
Just in terms of having gunpowder, or in other ways too?
Ayden Cooper
That's not what Dan Carlin stated.
The reality is that Central Europe was invaded by relatively minor forces for a few years. Song China and the Yuan fought a fifty year long war with millions of soldiers.
Benjamin Clark
You're better off not listening to Dan Carlin. He really reports on historian's perspectives rather than consulting sources himself which leads to him giving weight to some sources that don't deserve the credit specifically so he can go off on another semi-related tangent so he pad out his episodes. He makes terrible analogies like this all the time. If I had a nickel every time he made a Star Wars analogy...
That said, China's logistics and size of its military dwarfed anything found in Europe at the time. The mongol invasion's success had more to do with unconventional tactics rather than some big difference in logistics or technology.
Thomas Brown
He does quote the original sources quite a lot, though.
Zachary Gomez
Are you illiterate? I said in their first invasion. Mohi did not go well for the mongol force, they were ambushed themself and had a major contingent of their force cornered between the hungarian force and a river. Batu himself was angry and threatened to leave. The complete failure to siege in croatia is another testament to their military failure.
>better organized
Vague and means nothing
>possessed better technology
Let me guess you're going to ramble on about blackpowder despite its usage being almost completely irrelevant until the advent of the cannon. Or even better you'll start telling me about the crossbow folded 1000000 times and can penetrate mkiv tanks
Asher Bailey
I got to about the point Carlin started unironically saying that the Georgians had 80,000 soldiers and outnumbered the Mongols 4-1 in their battles before I stopped listening. I'm guessing he also went with 80,000 for Kalka River, 100,000+ for Mohi, and 25,000+ for Legnica. Do these fucking idiot Mongolboos think that a handful of eastern dukes dukes or a king of a mountainous kingdom geographically smaller than England could raise more soldiers than the Holy Roman Emperor, the Ayyubid Sultan, or the King of France?
Jason Thomas
> blackpowder despite its usage being almost completely irrelevant until the advent of the cannon
What the fuck, you can't literally be this retarded right?
Besides gunpowder, the Chinese were also using blast furnaces on a large scale, which allowed for much cheaper production of iron than bloomeries. This cheaper iron allowed the Chinese to arm and equip much larger armies.
>better organized
The Song, Jin, and Mongol armies were organized through self-similar recursive units, which was relatively rare in medieval Europe. Soldiers were equipped and armed by the central authority rather than feudal lords, which allowed for more uniform equipment.
Aaron Rogers
>England
>50,301 mi2
>Caucaus mountains
>184,359 mi2
?
Kayden Morris
Europeans were at the forefront of gunpowder tech since 1380.
By the time Europeans met the Chinese in person they typically had better gunned ships and the Chinese didn't catch up until pretty much the last decade.
Lucas Cruz
Don't forget the boxing analogies.
Jonathan Baker
1380 is much too early.
I'd say 1480 is a better number. This is around when matchlocks started appearing in decent numbers. Before that, European guns were handgonnes very similar to the ones used by the Chinese, and indeed, the Turks as well.
While the early matchlocks were superior, Europeans armies still lagged a bit behind in the proliferation of gunpowder small arms. That's not necessarily a bad thing considering the effectiveness of early firearms. It's arguable that the martial capability of the Ming military declined due to over-reliance on firearms.
Jace Lee
>have mass firearms and artillery
>get beaten by horse archers
Poor Ming dynasty
Charles Garcia
In the first invasion and somewhat the second, yes. In the third invasion the Mongols got wrecked hard.
John Cooper
Parker Perry
>I'm guessing he also went with 80,000 for Kalka River, 100,000+ for Mohi, and 25,000+ for Legnica.
He does. He also said that the Georgians had 70,000 cavalry.
Colton Gutierrez
Lmao a Spanish Tercio or 2 would BTFO any Mongol army any time
Cameron Watson
Well as Dan Carlin says he's not a historian, just a history fan. He also quoted IIRC the theory that the Hun invasion of the Roman Empire was a direct result of the Han Chinese destroying the Xiongnu a few of centuries before.
Eli Green
Mongols that invaded the Europe were ~30k mongols + bunch of european steppe warriors recruited along the way.
Mongols that invaded China was ~200K mongols + hundreds of thousands of Chinese + thousands of arabs + thousands of central asian steppe warriors.
The scale of warfare went like this, China-Mongol(~200K + locals + foreigners) > MidEast-Mongol (~60K mongols + locals) > Europe-Mongol (~30k mongols + locals)
The reason for the smaller number is purely due to logistics capabilities of each zones. China could field the biggest and the baddest, so mongol forces concentrated there the most. MidEast had large sums of civilization, so that was the next rational course. Europe was last mainly because it had very little to offer.