Cannons probably damaged the walls with their recoil, which is why they used them at first outside of them, this was a problem in Europe as well and would have required redesign and reconstruction of ramparts.
Lack of bastion forts really hurt the Ming. They attempted to implement them. But it was too little too late. The Qing, like the Ottomans being mostly on the offensive, had little use for expensive artillery forts.
I would imagine they put them down cause of blind spots under the wall, they look rather slim so i guess its not going to reach as far as western cannon.
@@Gravitatis the recoil does not act on the wall though. It acts on the cannon and causes it to roll back. You only have to redirect most the force down into the wall if the rampart is narrow, but most Chinese city walls were extremely wide and would allow a fair roll distance. In that case, you can let the cannon roll and catch it on a ramp after a few meters when it has significantly less kinetic energy remaining. So the wall damage problem should only be a factor with quite big cannons on fairly narrow walls. For reference of how well the recoil could be controlled within limited space, look at western naval artillery during the age of sail. They fit some big guns on wooden plank floors in pretty constrained spaces.
I have an entire book on ottoman border fortresses somewhere, after the the initial conquests the ottomans and Austrians were engaged in over two centuries of siege warfare, fort construction and raiding by irregular and semi-regular forces. The Hungarian border was perhaps the biggest centre of fortress warfare in the early modern period, even if the French are more famous for their innovation in the field.
@@samsonsoturian6013 The west was definitely not more developed throughout most of imperial China, especially between the 3rd and the 15th century. Your claim that Chinese mostly fought other Chinese is also illogical. They are only known as Chinese now because they are conquered and assimilated. It's like saying Romans mostly fought other Romans if their empire lasts for 2000 years and everyone within it consider themselves Romans.
@@sephiroxicalcloud3771 I mean you're right but this transition to the qing was the beginning of the end for china. they failed to keep up and innovate esp because of the tense situation between jurchen and han.
Putting the cannons in front of the wall makes sense when your walls aren’t build for cannons Rdger Crowly mentions that the walls of Constantinople where damaged by cannons put onto of it…
the walls of Constantinople were tall and thin walls of stone, Chinese walls were lower and wider Earthworks. they probably just put the cannons outside for better aim until proper positions could be prepared.
@@semi-useful5178 there are variation in wall construction, but one style was to make the back side (toward the city center) as slopes, so no wall on the back side. in which case, there would be no problem to place canon on the wall.
Kind of crazy how China was on the road to modernizing their military into a proper force that would be the indisputable most powerful in the world. But the Qing grew complacent, and decided to revert back to old methods, even going so far as banning their tributaries from modernizing and using firearms.
@@Gravitatis They didn't grow "complacent". Their economy just declined so much they couldn't implement all their modernizing efforts. The Qing on the other hand went through a long prosperous period after 1700, during which their military went from hero to zero by the 1800s.
@@GravitatisIn the late Ming Dynasty, there were still many excellent generals. Even in the last period of the Ming Dynasty, there were still generals such as Yuan Chonghuan, Lu Xiangsheng, Hong Chengchou, and Zu Dashou who had excellent combat capabilities in large armies. However, this is not mentioned in many foreign historical knowledge. The Chinese people generally believe that there are three reasons for the decline of the Ming Dynasty's military. The first is that the bureaucratic system of the Ming Dynasty emphasized the suppression of the military and military officers. The military officers of the same rank in the Ming Dynasty often need to kneel down when facing civilian officials. This situation reached its peak during the period of Wanli, the fourth last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and he did not even rise to some excellent grassroots generals. As a result, the front-line generals in the late Wanli Dynasty were generally over 60 years old, which made it difficult to cope with the complex and volatile war situation. On the other hand, the Ming Dynasty also relied too much on the military personnel system "garrison system" that he had established more than 200 years ago, but apparently did not apply to the situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The reform has been carried out in the later period of the reign, but the interest groups have been deeply rooted and cannot be shaken. The second reason is that the late Ming Dynasty did not have the right to mint coins. The Ming Dynasty highly relied on silver circulating from the Spanish through trade as currency. However, the Thirty Years' War led to a significant decrease in the amount of silver flowing into China. Due to corruption, land mergers, and other reasons, this situation was further exacerbated in the Ming Dynasty. Military salaries were often delayed for months or even years, and military strength was greatly reduced as a result. Third, the army building of the Ming Dynasty was a small-scale war against the Mongols, which was somewhat similar to the experience of the U.S. military in Afghanistan. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming army had rarely sent tens of thousands of people to large-scale and high intensity wars (the Korean War against Japan was not a big loss in the eyes of the Chinese, and the war intensity was not high). Until they met the Jurchen army, the battle of Sarhu was a large group of more than 100000 people when the two sides combined, and the Ming Dynasty was not familiar with the terrain. The group of 60 year old generals were obviously inexperienced, and eventually buried the most elite field troops of the Ming Dynasty, resulting in the Ming Dynasty being completely in a defensive state.
@@GravitatisAs for the Eight Banners system, given Nurhaci's experience and actual performance, it is more like a Jurchen style garrison system. So there is a joke in the Chinese historical circle that the Qing Dynasty replaced the corrupt and bankrupt Wei system of the Ming Dynasty with a healthy and perfect Wei system. The Ming Dynasty did not just join forces with the Jurchen people, but also provided assistance. The incident of "Gao Huai causing chaos in Liaodong" is well-known in the Chinese historical circle. The process was that Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty decided to impose high taxes on the front line facing the Jurchen people in Liaodong, which led to a large number of Han people in Liaodong turning to the Jurchen people. At that time, there was a folk song that said, "It's better to turn to the Mongols or Jurchen people than to be born in Liaodong." "Liaodong people have lost their brains because they were all taken away by Gao Huai." This heinous event ultimately resulted in a quarter of the organizational structure of the Eight Banners being Han people and only half being Jurchen people. This is also a concept that you foreigners often fail to understand, that is, Manchuria and Jurchen are not equal. Manchuria is a military interest group concept, while Jurchen is a national concept. For example, in the statistics of the reign of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, the proportion of Han people in Manchuria has been close to half, which has exceeded the number of Jurchen people.
Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty attached great importance to the development of firearms, and his officials imitated many European firearms and cannons. The reason why China truly lagged behind Europe was due to its conservative thinking under the small-scale agricultural economy, which missed the Industrial Revolution
The Qing conquest of Ming is way oversimplified. First of all, the main reason was the imperial coffer was already dried up from previous wars, e.g. Imjin War (1592 - 1598). Secondly, the Ming Empire had to deal with multiple fronts, e.g. Mongols from the North, rebellions in the South, and Wokou Pirates from the seas. Thirdly, by this late period of Ming, most of the Imperial Palace was run by Eunuchs who were the most corrupt & self-serving. Finally the main reason for the Manchu conquest was a a Ming General, Wu Sangui, was faced with a dilemma: either let the Souther Rebels take over the country and who also held his dad as hostage, or let the Manchus in through the Great Wall and assist him against the rebels. He chose the latter and ultimately led to the Fall of Ming.
Idk how true this is but as far as I understood Wu was initially leaning towards siding with the rebel, who held his father... This changed he found out that rebels had executed his father. So out of vengeance and family, he sided with the Manchus. Executing Wu's father was Li Zhicheng's biggest mistake... Wu didn't like Qing's rule not long afterwards and tried to start something south, but it didn't succeeded.
TBH the biggest reason for the Qing conquest was that the ming were disunited and feuding aswell as falling apart from the inside because of rebellions
If anything, it showed that even game changing technology is only as good as the regime itself. Hong Taiji was a master of propaganda, portraying himself as the carrier of the Mandate of Heaven to replace an old, corrupt regime falling apart.
Every time China gets conquered I'm pretty sure this is the reason. And that is probably why Sun Yat-Sen said that the Chinese people were like sand in a pan, alongside the fact China was also in a similar state during his time.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, an elite army equipped with Portuguese firearms was unable to receive supplies during their march, resulting in a hungry soldier stealing a chicken from a senior official's house. This was originally a small matter, but the official was very stingy and ordered the soldier to be executed. At this moment, the resentment of the army that had been oppressed by corrupt officials for a long time finally erupted, and the army mutinied and eventually fled the border to join the Qing Dynasty. Such incidents often occurred in the late Ming Dynasty
Similar things happened at the end of almost every Chinese dynasty, because China was so large that it controlled almost all habitable areas in the Yangtze and Yellow River basins, and the Siberian frigid zone, the Taklimakan Desert, and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau were all difficult to live in and pass through in ancient times. So under normal circumstances, ancient China could hardly collapse simply because of external military problems. Almost all of them were total collapses caused by the continuous accumulation of internal problems, the continuous expansion of corruption, and the continuous occurrence of riots.
While this video does a great job of covering artillery reforms, another thing to note is the introduction and integration of arquebus into the Ming arsenal. The arquebus was introduced to Ming China in the 16th century, and became popularised in Souther China, which had more coastal regions that would have contact with European traders, as well as with Japanese "Wokou" pirates (who also used arquebus). General Qi Jiguang, a military reformer and veteran in Southern campaign against the Wokou pirates, was a major advocate of the arquebus, and would develop formations, tactics, and drills to integrate arquebus with pikes and sabres, similar to western pike and shots developing in the same time. In the later years of his career Qi Jiguang would express his frustrations regarding Northern Ming Chinese soldiers refusing to adopt the newer and clearly superior arquebus, and stubbornly sticking to older and simpler hand cannons. It is likely that by the end of the Ming dynasty that the transition from traditional hand cannons and bows to arqebus was not fully complete, especially in the face of the declining finances of the corrupt and collapsing Ming empire, even if they recognised the superiority of western firearms. By contrast, once the conquest of China was complete, the Qing Manchurian elite had little incentive in having readily available firearms that any Han Chinese peasant can learn to use and overthrow their Manchurian overlords, and instead would have tried to monopolise their military dominance over the Han majority by limiting proliferation of firearms, so that Manchurian cavalry would remain decisive in putting down potential rebellions. Thus, Chinese firearm developments more or less halted after the 17th century until the Opium wars.
Yeah, the Ming was also on the verge of adopting bastion forts on a larger scale. Sun Yuanhua was a leading supporter of it, but he was executed on false charges in 1632. His death and the rapid decline of Ming finances in the 1630s meant that bastion forts were never implemented again in China.
The Qing really did screw it over for China. Granted, The Ming would have probably collapsed, but if the Qing hadn't taken over, The Chinese would have likely had a much better run of things coming into the 19th Century.
@@Gravitatis It's not strange when you realize that every decision in the Late Ming is dominated by factionalism. Sun Yuanhua and his teacher, Xu Guangqi, were some of the first Christian officials in Chinese history. But they belonged to a minority faction that supported better relations with the Europeans. Sun also had good relations with Yuan Chonghuan, who was executed in 1630 on.....false charges. This is the nature of Chinese court politics. One faction is always trying to get the other killed through any means necessary. This means that if the emperor (Chongzhen in this case) was swayed by one side to execute a member of a faction, then every other member should immediately disassociate themselves from the guilty members' history and ideology. One execution is often used as an excuse for further executions of the person's friends, allies, and family. Sun or Yuan Chonghuan's rivals in the Ming court would rather see them LOSE against the Manchus so that the emperor can favor their own faction. The portuguese were already unpopular with the majority of the Chinese gentry, which made Sun a prime target for his rivals. The Ming economy was also going down the drains, so it is unknown how many forts the Ming could have constructed even if Sun was still alive.
@@Gravitatis In fact, it was because the factional struggle within the Ming Dynasty had reached an irreversible and hopeless point. Even when the Qing Dynasty almost occupied the whole of China, some princes of the Ming Dynasty were still attacking each other.
@@Gravitatis That is to say, as he said, the factional struggles in the late Ming Dynasty had reached the point where they would completely eliminate their political enemies even if they had to actively cause a major military defeat, let the Qing Dynasty occupy Beijing, let the Liaodong fortress group fall, withhold supplies and funds for the front-line troops, and destroy hundreds of thousands of field troops.
Your videos are always refereshing either cos no one else talk about the topic or cos your take is a nice addition to trite topics. Such consistency is rare!
In the 17th century, the biggest advantage of China compared with Europe was that the Chinese people had more mature technology in steel forging, which was also talked about by Portuguese missionaries. However, because China had no demand for large guns, they did not explore how to forge a powerful gun. The Ming Qing War changed this point. It was a small-scale weapons revolution in Chinese history, but unfortunately it did not last long.
The Chinese had respectively, Blast furnaces and finery forges circa ~700 B.C and ~400-300 B.C respectively and had manufactured crucible steel since at least ~100 B.C On one hand, I don't agree with the original poster. Chinese and European metallurgy were practically similar by that point in history (16-17th century). Europe had access to Blast furnaces circa ~1100-1200A.D and finery forges somewhere in the 14th Century and were comparable. The real superiority that the Chinese had over Europe is that they had a considerably greater pool of knowledge and technical expertise to draw from when it came to working with Cast iron. In Europe at the time, Cannons were largely made from wrought iron staves and Cast-iron was only really utilized in cannon development towards the middle of the 17th Century. Bronze/Brass cannons were still highly preferred over Cast-iron cannons until at least the 18th Century, when their ability to cast iron cannons with fewer flaws was steadily improving. Portugal actually tried to hire Chinese casters specifically so that they could set up a cannon foundry in Goa to manufacture cannons for them, but this venture failed. There are a fair amount of European accounts remarking on the capability of Chinese cannons. It is true that Native Chinese cannons were antiquated in the 16th Century, The Ming very quickly caught up with Europe when they acquired and adapted the design. In fact the Ming made some advancements in the field. The Ming utilized their expertise with casting to manufacture composite bronze/cast-iron guns and also Cast-iron/wrought-iron composite guns. The big difference between European and Chinese cannons is that China had an emphasis on manufacturing lighter pieces. They preferred longer-barreled but lower calibre guns, or smaller pieces designed to fire heavy bombs from a higher angle, somewhat like a howitzer.
This is by far the best channel on Chinese military history on YT, although the pronunciation of the Chinese names is left to be desired. Something to point out, Nurhaci being killed by a cannonball during Yuan Chonghuan's defence of Ningyuan is something of a legend among the Han Chinese but never mentioned in any official Qing histories. He lived 8 more months after the battle, and fought against the Khalkha Mongols in the meantime. Modern historians believe he died of a disease rather than from a wound suffered from the cannon fire.
Seems like a lot of battles are determined by who has the longer-ranged artillery pieces. If you can out-range your foe, you can break their army up into smaller pieces, classic divide-and-conquer tactics. The ancients' ability to innovate and adapt to new war tactics never ceases to amaze me.
that's pretty much the way of it. Napoleon was famously an artillery officer before he was emperor and part of the reason why the Prussians won the Franco-Prussian war was because they had new steel cannons that massively out-ranged the French. sometimes in particular battles other stuff was more important but most of the time artillery ends up being the important thing on the large scale.
Thanks for the video! Every time I watch one of these, I find myself impressed enough to scroll up and subscribe (only to remember that I'm already subscribed). Please keep up the quality work! Especially on topics like this, the hard-to-find ones that we don't hear much about. No matter how good the creator, I'd much rather learn something new (or learn more about something niche) than hear the same story told a few dozen times. Your channel is a rare gem for that
It's basically like the Roman Military during the classical period, at first they have Greek style armies, later they adopted Manipular system and military gear from the Celts.
The Romans got the sword/armor design from the Celts but their tactics weren't a direct copy of anyone. They originally copied the Greeks because it is unclear to what extent they were Greeks. The Ming evolution of armaments is really the same process you see in most turdworld countries today where they use both what they have and what they can import and/or copy resulting in some interesting tactics
Well, it's 'basically like' that in the sense that military theory evolved to meet new challenges, just as it has all over the world at many different times in history. What's your point?
@@samsonsoturian6013 Not quite. The Ming didn’t just ‘copy’ others; they adapted and improved on what they encountered, just like many empires throughout history. They developed unique tactics suited to their own challenges, especially with nomadic threats in the north and maritime issues along the coast. Borrowing ideas wasn’t about blindly copying-it was about making strategic improvements.
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I love the illustration in the video thumbnail, it's very direct and attractive. The topic in question is very interesting, since there is nothing cooler than seeing how European military reforms were applied in other places like China. Now I would like to see the Japanese case, which was a century before China and has battles like Nagashino (the Pavia of Japan) and if you talk about the Korean case afterwards, even better.
9:31 It is worth noting that the wages given to the defectors were genuinely much better than what the late Ming court offered their soldiers on the average, which would later be unsustainable and be one of the many reasons that lead to the revolt of the three feudatories in the early Qing rule. Thus the effects leading to defections to what would later become the green standard army were not only from propaganda but also from legitimate pay
Except the Ming weren't "isolated" like let's say Edo period Japan. They just stopped funding naval voyages and forbade them. Which made sense considering they were in big military and financial trouble at the time from the mongol threat. Trade too wasn't that restricted. The Ming went on the catch up well in armaments. They were in the process of overhauling their fortification designs to artillery forts as well. But then their economy gave out. The Qing dominated in 1700. Afterwards there was a long period of prosperous peace that quickly deteriorated their military. Just goes to show that peace that equate progress. Without a free market, most tech innovations come from the need of war.
I hope this guy could do Vietnam during the Trinh-Nguyen war period, that was when Vietnam’s army was at it’s peak, period saw many cool combinations of swords, spears, elephant, guns and cannons
The ming wernt isolationist they innovated with their weapons combined European guns with chinese chasting techniques created the hong yi pao. So stop saying ming was isolation qing was a han engineer invented a machine gun but was killed by qing due to fear of tech would help han overthrow tyrants also you forgot to mention the battle of bejing which was a ming victory
Well, to out it simply, why Ming Dynasty fell: *They lost the mandate of heaven.* Mongols in the north, rebels in the south, pirates in the east, corrupt politics, coffers empty, outdated armies, famine, disease, etc.
Qing Dynasty never defeated Ming Dynasty before it collapsed to a huge peasant rebellion. Not sure why this is not mentioned in the video. When the rebel leader conquered Beijing, the commander of the northern armies (one of the strongest armies) was too late to help the Emperor who died so he decided to turn to the Qing Dynasty in an alliance to defeat the rebels. With the Great wall being opened by the commander and the army being allied they quickly defeated the rebels and pushed further south. Southern Ming Dynasty was no longer able to defeat Qing Armies allied with Ming turncloaks and the chaos. Eventually Ming Dynasty was defeated. The Turncloak commander was made a prince vassal along some other former Ming commanders but had to rebel too when it became clear that Qing Dynasty want to eliminate them too after several decades. It is uncertain if Ming Dynasty would have collapsed in this century without the two front war against Qing and rebels as Ming Dynasty was still powerful and had strong armies available. Possibly could survive long enough to take out the momentum of the Qing Dynasty. Or without the turncloaks they might have repeated the same situation as Southern Song Dynasty and Jin Dynasty splitting China.
The Ming were very weak internally. Sure, you can explain the loss of the north due to the rebellion. But had they gotten their shit together they could have held the south of the Yangtze like the Southern Song did. Even Koxinga with far less resources was able to hold on to the Ming cause better than the Southern Ming.
@@majungasaurusaaaaThe reason why the Ming Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty are different is that the Ming Dynasty was a dynasty that lasted for more than 200 years and nearly 300 years, while the predecessor of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Northern Song Dynasty, actually only lasted for 150 years and was still at the peak of its culture, population, and other fields before its downfall. The downfall of the Ming Dynasty was like an elderly person dying peacefully, while the downfall of the Northern Song Dynasty was like a sudden heart attack on a young person. This may explain why the Southern Ming and Southern Song dynasties are vastly different.
@majungasaurusaaaa its not entirely comparable. Song Dynasty was an economic miracle, Jin Dynasty didnt want to conquer China yet and stopped, even they were surprised by their victory when they captured the capital and emperor and they didnt have the most veteran and strongest army turncoat. Also the Ming emperor killed himself. While the rebellion had destroyed the empire to the core. The Song Dynasty lost bc of a strategic mistake, the empire wasnt in chaos by civil war. In the Ming Dynasty nobody knew who sits the throne with the rebellion declaring Emperor, the Qing conquering the north and the Ming being headless
@majungasaurusaaaa your argument was that the rebellion didnt matter for the loss of the entirety of the realm. When they not only could pass through the great wall bc of it but also gotten Ming Dynasty largest army as ally to conquer Ming Dynasty.
It’s worth mentioning also that Hong Taiji incorporated the Old Han Army into eight banners themselves in 1642. the Old Han Army Eight Banners or Hanjun.
The relationship between the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty is very similar to the relationship between the Holy Roman Empire and the Prussian Empire
I wouldn’t really say that as the Ming were still kinda a unified force. The Hre by the rise of Prussia was more of a regional outline with almost zero power with each and every province, duchy, kingdom, fief, bishoprics considered to be basically their own independent nations with their own interests, conflicts, governments with the Hre acting no more than a vague sense that these nations should fight major outside wars in a slightly unified manner.
@kylezdancewicz7346 At that time, the Ming Dynasty had already split, with two rebel armies and warlords in the south who did not obey the emperor's orders. The Qing Dynasty was also a force that emerged after the split of China at that time
This video portrays as if China didn't use cannons only rockets prior to the Manchu attacks and arrival of western imports. Ming Dynasty did have cannons which were mainly used for the battlefield, especially against cavalry charges of the Mongol armies (Northen Yuan Dynasty, the fragmented weaker successor of the Yuan dynasty). Ming China didn't develop siege cannons bc it made no sense in China. Mongols didn't have fortresses and Chinese walls are several times thicker than european walls. So to develop an effective siege cannons in preparation of a civil war makes little sense and would require the foresight of developing/investing in siege cannons even when they seem not to be able to penetrate chinese walls until skipping many iterations. So chinese did focus on developing field artilleries and Ming dynasty did import western and middle eastern cannons for their armies and for research much earlier. Ming Dynasty was a gun powder focused empire with vast use of hand cannons like tripple hand cannons which are effective to stop cavalry charges. They also developed tactics against infantry against japanese pirate armies where they have something like pike and shot, with tree branch like spears. They also developed volley shots and later ranked shots.
This makes me want to re-read Flashman and the Dragon. Such an epic novel. It's about a british soldier who lives tru the opium wars, meets the taiping heavenly kingdom, gets captured by the qing and is made a cocubine of the empress, and ultimately participates in the sack of the summer palace. Flashman is a fictional character but the setting is insanely well researched.
About Cannons outside walls, do we know how big was number of defenders? Becouse something like that actually happened in Easter europe during the sidge of Zbaraż castle. Defenders were entrenched outside the castle walls dude to fact that castle wasn't able to accommodate very high number of defenders.
1. Cannons on walls need support structure to keep attackers at distance, else you’d better have them down to avoid blind spots. 2. They did have mostly smaller field cannons. Not much range to start with. 3. Rocketry was used to be launched at the bottom in a volley, once spent abandoned. So, failure to adapt that old tactic. 4. Though the walls had some depth, they did neither have cranes nor ramps, making relocation slow whereas attackers were mostly fast horse units.
@@Gravitatistoo true. It’s not entirely clear if things will change for the better, the developer Creative Assembly actually blew $100 million on a mediocre looking hero shooter that got canned before it even released. Instead of using that cash to improve the seriously shitty Warscape engine or at least improve their developmental stack which disgruntled former employees say is infamously bad as well…
@ they need to make a rich historical simulator, one that has crazy attention to detail, where it can replicate the exact circumstances of historical battles, in addition to dramatic fictions
Manchuria is not a barren steppe but has fertile river valleys and large forests. The Manchu also were settled people with cities by the time of the declaration of the Seven Greviences. Also, no mention of the formation of the Eight Han Banners formed alongside the Mongol eight banners?
Europe: after a decade of political, and economical successes the king, supported by the pope, and all of Europe, could muster 20k troops. China: the battle turned out to be particularly bloody, and the warlord used the nearby village to replenish his losses of 80k men.
@@GravitatisThat was the total size of the french army and If I'm right the biggest battle napoleon fouhht he had around 190 000 men but france was one of the more developed nations in that time period
@@Gravitatis I don't know why you added that but there is a mistake in my sentance I ment to say the biggest army that he commanded and fought with on one day was around 190k
If Jinzhou and Songshan were combined into one big city that encompassed the rivers and surrounded on all sides with walls that kept being supplied all the times by trade through rivers, would the outcome be different? Just imagined the troops of the Eight Banner and the Green Standard Army have to take on the fortified city that big that have the complete control of the rivers and also equipped with a lot of cannons must be quite challenging.
The Liaodong defensive line established by Li ChengLiang way earlier woud've likely been more effective had he not abandoned them voluntarily. Overall, the reason the Ming were defeated can be attributed to administrative and organisational shortcomings rather than anything else. Considering that with just the frankish engine (swivel gun) and rocket artillery etc that the Ming already had the technological advantage against the Jurchens initially, an increase in military tech, European or otherwise likely would've done little in the long run.
The biggest problem lies in internal corruption and political struggles, which means that the stationed troops in these areas are actually short of food and pay, and this is almost the last combat ready army of the Ming Dynasty. The shortage of personnel in other places will be even more serious. Through time tracing, we can also know that there are still a large number of falsely reported soldier positions to defraud military pay, but the actual number of combat troops is nearly half less than the book. The book number of troops in the late Ming Dynasty was 2.7 million, but in reality, there were only less than 1.06 million military personnel, and the actual combat ready troops would be even fewer. In contrast, the number of troops in the Qing army was 0.63 million. According to history, we know that these 1.06 million troops were shattered by 0.63 million
After all, in the front-line fortress area of Liaodong, the Qing army served as a strong quality inspector, so the combat effectiveness and combat readiness of the Ming army stationed here can be considered acceptable
Crazy to think on one side->boom sticks. On the other blooming arrow launchers of death. Oddly enough if you ended up using both. Then you would be screwed.
There're some wrong opinions with the Battle of Pine Brocade. First, the Ming army defeated the advance party of the Qing army in the early outposts of the battle, and tried to carry out a war of attrition through the mountainous terrain in order to offset the cavalry advantage of the later Jin. At first this tactic did work, but as the peasant rebels within the Great Wall began to operate in large scale again, the Chongzhen Emperor forced the Ming army commander Hong Chengchou to launch an assault on the later Jin. In the end, the Ming army was surrounded by the later Jin due to the lack of troops, and the general Wang Pu and Wu Sangui fled successively, and the remaining Ming army fell into a rout. General Cao Changjiao attacked Huang Taiji during the breakout, but was killed by his guards. Hong and some Ming troops hid in Songshan and held out for several months, while others were ambushed and killed by Qing troops along the Bohai Coast. A total of 53,780 Ming soldiers and 10,400 Jin soldiers were killed in the battle.
Reviewing the situation of the battle, in fact, the Ming army has always had the upper hand, only because Chongzhen pushed the war, it lost in the last twelve days. During the 21 day Ming army main body test break out of the mentality of Huangtaiji almost broke, indicating that even so may not stop, enough to prove the combat effectiveness of the regular Ming army. Finally, the Ming army on the night of the 21, due to the internal conflict caused by the breakthrough, only led to a systematic defeat, the Song Jin War of the Manchu Qing more than 30 red cannons exploded one day, the shelling of the most tragic Bai Guangen of the Chinese Federation Fen Lian Town was only 119 soldiers killed, 18 seriously wounded soldiers, 80 lightly wounded soldiers, and the casualties before and after the army were not all caused by shelling losses. I mean, who knows how many. And the Ming army will not have 130,000 troops, similar to the Sarhu war, the total strength of about 80,000 people, basically from the town of regimental training and standard battalions, but this time is 80,000 people together. But even so according to the previous historical data, there were still some Ming troops who successfully broke through the siege in the battle of the 20th, but by the battle of the 21st, the Ming army failed to break through the siege, and a systematic defeat occurred that night. The Qing army has a strength of at least 200,000 people, and Huang Taiji has almost all the men over the age of 15 in the country on the battlefield, and it is estimated that the Qing Army has 240,000 troops in the North of the Ming Dynasty. Author: Han Yangxi Link: www.zhihu.com/question/487643820/answer/3251654804 Source: Zhihu The copyright belongs to the author. For commercial reprinting, please contact the author for authorization. For non-commercial reprinting, please indicate the source.
At that time, solid shells were all used. He was hit by a large iron ball weighing 68 pounds moving at high speed and was able to lie in bed for 8 months before dying. This is impossible, so I analyzed that it was probably the shell hitting the ground that caused the splashing stones to injure him
The records of the Qing Dynasty did not acknowledge that his failure was due to Myanmar's weapons, but rather to Myanmar's climate. Two thirds of the casualties in the Qing Dynasty's Burma Expeditionary Force were caused by malaria and climate discomfort.
When the Ming Dynasty was founded, it defeated the Mongol cavalry of the Yuan Dynasty with better cavalry. When the Qing Dynasty was founded, it defeated the firearms of the Ming Dynasty with better firearms. Later, the Qing Dynasty faced Britain after the Industrial Revolution
@@linshitaolst4936 The industrial revolution had very little effect on the first opium war though, as the war ended before some of the new prototypes entered production. The Nemesis was the only product of the Industrial revolution, and it was a small paddle prototype that had an outsized psychological effect. Most of the British tech used during the first opium war was still from the napoleonic era. The main ships were 74 gun ships of the line and this was the last major war where the British used the Brown Bess musket as their main weapon. Morse code was invented in 1838, but that technology wasn't ready to change communication yet (first use was Crimean war) . The First Opium War was the end of an era for the preindustrial British military, and even that defeated China handily.
@@yuchenchen8012good points to counteract the natural tendency of people today to "compress" history when looking back. I would say that technological deterministic narratives are so popular because 1) they are simple and 2) they serve western interests and legitimacy
This is not the main thesis of the video, but it's important to note that the Chinese did develelop their own canon technology (not guns), and used gunpowder technology extensively in warfare. However, they later adopted Western canon and gun technologies starting in the Ming Dynasty.
i feel this video lacks context on the difference between the artilleries pre-adoption of european cannons, or even the artilleries adopted by the Qing. using rocket artillery visually as an example of chinese artillery is a bit misleading since the video even mentions that the ming first tried using their own cannons but the switched to euro style guns. the benefits was chalked up to "efficiency" which is lacking. we also know that the ming had cannons , it was used during the imjin war and was something that the korean and the ming had that was better then the japanese. so it would be a good area of analysis of what were the actual difference between the cannon styles
The Ming had plenty of tube artillery used mostly as light field pieces. It was the heavy siege culverins and demi culverins that they lacked prior to hiring foreigners to assist. But rocket carts look cool and exotic for a thumbnail.
… there is something wrong with the division of the video… like 7:07 now i see climate change as the title of this part, and the previous ona was „nuclear war” is it just me?
@@bvillafuerte179 The last one had Ming troops images to illustrate a Qing-Russia siege. And while their gear may have been somewhat similar, the Chinese characters on their helmets and armor as well as hairstyles are indicators which side they're on. The Qing had a very distinct hair style that they enforced upon the entire Chinese population on the pain of death. They beheaded violators and had their heads displayed outside of barber shops. Missing that shows the content creator is woefully new to far eastern history.
This video doesn’t go into much detail about the Ming-Qing transition with regard to Western technology, but it can be summarized by saying that the Qing used their own technology to conquer the Ming, who were relying on European weaponry.
Before the Qing Dynasty unified the whole of China, the Ming Dynasty had already been overthrown by peasant uprisings. After seizing power, the peasant uprisings chose to suppress officials and nobles, seize their property, and after the Qing army entered Beijing, they chose to win over Ming officials and troops, giving them special treatment. Therefore, the peasant uprisings were no match for the Qing Dynasty
@anyiouo3814 To be precise, the peasant uprising army of the Ming Dynasty received a portion of soldiers who were owed wages. These soldiers were equipped with imitation Ottoman guns and Portugal farangi.but their firearms were not comparable to those of the Qing Dynasty army. The Qing Dynasty absorbed military technology from the Ming border troops, including imitation British cannons and better quality matchlock
@@linshitaolst4936 How equipped was the Qing army with European-style military technology, in percentage terms, compared to the Ming army during their invasion?
@anyiouo3814 The development of firearms technology in the Qing Dynasty was very limited, with the only advantage being the increase in production, which led to a high rate of firearms equipment in the Qing army, at most exceeding 80%. However, most of them were matchlock , and there were also 17th century technological cannons. The Qing emperor also considered imitating 18th century European weapons, such as flintlock, but the ability of domestic craftsmen was limited and could only rely on European missionaries to complete them
Cannons probably damaged the walls with their recoil, which is why they used them at first outside of them, this was a problem in Europe as well and would have required redesign and reconstruction of ramparts.
Lack of bastion forts really hurt the Ming. They attempted to implement them. But it was too little too late. The Qing, like the Ottomans being mostly on the offensive, had little use for expensive artillery forts.
I would imagine they put them down cause of blind spots under the wall, they look rather slim so i guess its not going to reach as far as western cannon.
how does recoil damage walls?
@@Gravitatis the recoil does not act on the wall though. It acts on the cannon and causes it to roll back.
You only have to redirect most the force down into the wall if the rampart is narrow, but most Chinese city walls were extremely wide and would allow a fair roll distance. In that case, you can let the cannon roll and catch it on a ramp after a few meters when it has significantly less kinetic energy remaining.
So the wall damage problem should only be a factor with quite big cannons on fairly narrow walls.
For reference of how well the recoil could be controlled within limited space, look at western naval artillery during the age of sail. They fit some big guns on wooden plank floors in pretty constrained spaces.
I have an entire book on ottoman border fortresses somewhere, after the the initial conquests the ottomans and Austrians were engaged in over two centuries of siege warfare, fort construction and raiding by irregular and semi-regular forces. The Hungarian border was perhaps the biggest centre of fortress warfare in the early modern period, even if the French are more famous for their innovation in the field.
Its always interesting seeing old Chinese weapons and war tactics that are rarely discussed much
Because the Chinese mostly fought other Chinese and didn't effect affairs in the developed world
@@samsonsoturian6013 The west was definitely not more developed throughout most of imperial China, especially between the 3rd and the 15th century. Your claim that Chinese mostly fought other Chinese is also illogical. They are only known as Chinese now because they are conquered and assimilated. It's like saying Romans mostly fought other Romans if their empire lasts for 2000 years and everyone within it consider themselves Romans.
@@samsonsoturian6013 "Developed world" as if China wasn't more developed than Europe for hundreds, and going back, thousands of years.
@@samsonsoturian6013 Chinese mostly fighting other Chinese, resulting in Hun tribes to scourge most of Roman Europe into the feudal ages.
@@sephiroxicalcloud3771 I mean you're right but this transition to the qing was the beginning of the end for china. they failed to keep up and innovate esp because of the tense situation between jurchen and han.
Very accurate depiction of late Ming cloth face armor, for both parties.
Putting the cannons in front of the wall makes sense when your walls aren’t build for cannons Rdger Crowly mentions that the walls of Constantinople where damaged by cannons put onto of it…
the walls of Constantinople were tall and thin walls of stone, Chinese walls were lower and wider Earthworks. they probably just put the cannons outside for better aim until proper positions could be prepared.
Fair
@@semi-useful5178 there are variation in wall construction, but one style was to make the back side (toward the city center) as slopes, so no wall on the back side.
in which case, there would be no problem to place canon on the wall.
@@simhopp
Thanks for Clarification, that makes sense.
Kind of crazy how China was on the road to modernizing their military into a proper force that would be the indisputable most powerful in the world. But the Qing grew complacent, and decided to revert back to old methods, even going so far as banning their tributaries from modernizing and using firearms.
>the old method
manchus weren't good at fire arms to begin with, their artillery forces were all chinese captives.
@@Gravitatis They didn't grow "complacent". Their economy just declined so much they couldn't implement all their modernizing efforts. The Qing on the other hand went through a long prosperous period after 1700, during which their military went from hero to zero by the 1800s.
@@GravitatisIn the late Ming Dynasty, there were still many excellent generals. Even in the last period of the Ming Dynasty, there were still generals such as Yuan Chonghuan, Lu Xiangsheng, Hong Chengchou, and Zu Dashou who had excellent combat capabilities in large armies. However, this is not mentioned in many foreign historical knowledge. The Chinese people generally believe that there are three reasons for the decline of the Ming Dynasty's military. The first is that the bureaucratic system of the Ming Dynasty emphasized the suppression of the military and military officers. The military officers of the same rank in the Ming Dynasty often need to kneel down when facing civilian officials. This situation reached its peak during the period of Wanli, the fourth last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and he did not even rise to some excellent grassroots generals. As a result, the front-line generals in the late Wanli Dynasty were generally over 60 years old, which made it difficult to cope with the complex and volatile war situation. On the other hand, the Ming Dynasty also relied too much on the military personnel system "garrison system" that he had established more than 200 years ago, but apparently did not apply to the situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The reform has been carried out in the later period of the reign, but the interest groups have been deeply rooted and cannot be shaken. The second reason is that the late Ming Dynasty did not have the right to mint coins. The Ming Dynasty highly relied on silver circulating from the Spanish through trade as currency. However, the Thirty Years' War led to a significant decrease in the amount of silver flowing into China. Due to corruption, land mergers, and other reasons, this situation was further exacerbated in the Ming Dynasty. Military salaries were often delayed for months or even years, and military strength was greatly reduced as a result. Third, the army building of the Ming Dynasty was a small-scale war against the Mongols, which was somewhat similar to the experience of the U.S. military in Afghanistan. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming army had rarely sent tens of thousands of people to large-scale and high intensity wars (the Korean War against Japan was not a big loss in the eyes of the Chinese, and the war intensity was not high). Until they met the Jurchen army, the battle of Sarhu was a large group of more than 100000 people when the two sides combined, and the Ming Dynasty was not familiar with the terrain. The group of 60 year old generals were obviously inexperienced, and eventually buried the most elite field troops of the Ming Dynasty, resulting in the Ming Dynasty being completely in a defensive state.
@@GravitatisAs for the Eight Banners system, given Nurhaci's experience and actual performance, it is more like a Jurchen style garrison system. So there is a joke in the Chinese historical circle that the Qing Dynasty replaced the corrupt and bankrupt Wei system of the Ming Dynasty with a healthy and perfect Wei system. The Ming Dynasty did not just join forces with the Jurchen people, but also provided assistance. The incident of "Gao Huai causing chaos in Liaodong" is well-known in the Chinese historical circle. The process was that Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty decided to impose high taxes on the front line facing the Jurchen people in Liaodong, which led to a large number of Han people in Liaodong turning to the Jurchen people. At that time, there was a folk song that said, "It's better to turn to the Mongols or Jurchen people than to be born in Liaodong." "Liaodong people have lost their brains because they were all taken away by Gao Huai." This heinous event ultimately resulted in a quarter of the organizational structure of the Eight Banners being Han people and only half being Jurchen people. This is also a concept that you foreigners often fail to understand, that is, Manchuria and Jurchen are not equal. Manchuria is a military interest group concept, while Jurchen is a national concept. For example, in the statistics of the reign of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, the proportion of Han people in Manchuria has been close to half, which has exceeded the number of Jurchen people.
Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty attached great importance to the development of firearms, and his officials imitated many European firearms and cannons. The reason why China truly lagged behind Europe was due to its conservative thinking under the small-scale agricultural economy, which missed the Industrial Revolution
The Qing conquest of Ming is way oversimplified. First of all, the main reason was the imperial coffer was already dried up from previous wars, e.g. Imjin War (1592 - 1598). Secondly, the Ming Empire had to deal with multiple fronts, e.g. Mongols from the North, rebellions in the South, and Wokou Pirates from the seas. Thirdly, by this late period of Ming, most of the Imperial Palace was run by Eunuchs who were the most corrupt & self-serving. Finally the main reason for the Manchu conquest was a a Ming General, Wu Sangui, was faced with a dilemma: either let the Souther Rebels take over the country and who also held his dad as hostage, or let the Manchus in through the Great Wall and assist him against the rebels. He chose the latter and ultimately led to the Fall of Ming.
Agree
还有天灾不断 鼠疫之类的传染病
Idk how true this is but as far as I understood
Wu was initially leaning towards siding with the rebel, who held his father... This changed he found out that rebels had executed his father. So out of vengeance and family, he sided with the Manchus. Executing Wu's father was Li Zhicheng's biggest mistake...
Wu didn't like Qing's rule not long afterwards and tried to start something south, but it didn't succeeded.
@@YisangFan事实上投降满族，还是投降叛军没有什么区别，只有皇帝是国家主人的时候，人民没有必要为谁是皇帝苦恼
TBH the biggest reason for the Qing conquest was that the ming were disunited and feuding aswell as falling apart from the inside because of rebellions
If anything, it showed that even game changing technology is only as good as the regime itself. Hong Taiji was a master of propaganda, portraying himself as the carrier of the Mandate of Heaven to replace an old, corrupt regime falling apart.
Every time China gets conquered I'm pretty sure this is the reason. And that is probably why Sun Yat-Sen said that the Chinese people were like sand in a pan, alongside the fact China was also in a similar state during his time.
Nope the ming dynasty ald tried due to imjin war happened 1592-1598
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, an elite army equipped with Portuguese firearms was unable to receive supplies during their march, resulting in a hungry soldier stealing a chicken from a senior official's house. This was originally a small matter, but the official was very stingy and ordered the soldier to be executed. At this moment, the resentment of the army that had been oppressed by corrupt officials for a long time finally erupted, and the army mutinied and eventually fled the border to join the Qing Dynasty. Such incidents often occurred in the late Ming Dynasty
Similar things happened at the end of almost every Chinese dynasty, because China was so large that it controlled almost all habitable areas in the Yangtze and Yellow River basins, and the Siberian frigid zone, the Taklimakan Desert, and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau were all difficult to live in and pass through in ancient times. So under normal circumstances, ancient China could hardly collapse simply because of external military problems. Almost all of them were total collapses caused by the continuous accumulation of internal problems, the continuous expansion of corruption, and the continuous occurrence of riots.
While this video does a great job of covering artillery reforms, another thing to note is the introduction and integration of arquebus into the Ming arsenal.
The arquebus was introduced to Ming China in the 16th century, and became popularised in Souther China, which had more coastal regions that would have contact with European traders, as well as with Japanese "Wokou" pirates (who also used arquebus).
General Qi Jiguang, a military reformer and veteran in Southern campaign against the Wokou pirates, was a major advocate of the arquebus, and would develop formations, tactics, and drills to integrate arquebus with pikes and sabres, similar to western pike and shots developing in the same time. In the later years of his career Qi Jiguang would express his frustrations regarding Northern Ming Chinese soldiers refusing to adopt the newer and clearly superior arquebus, and stubbornly sticking to older and simpler hand cannons.
It is likely that by the end of the Ming dynasty that the transition from traditional hand cannons and bows to arqebus was not fully complete, especially in the face of the declining finances of the corrupt and collapsing Ming empire, even if they recognised the superiority of western firearms.
By contrast, once the conquest of China was complete, the Qing Manchurian elite had little incentive in having readily available firearms that any Han Chinese peasant can learn to use and overthrow their Manchurian overlords, and instead would have tried to monopolise their military dominance over the Han majority by limiting proliferation of firearms, so that Manchurian cavalry would remain decisive in putting down potential rebellions. Thus, Chinese firearm developments more or less halted after the 17th century until the Opium wars.
Yeah, the Ming was also on the verge of adopting bastion forts on a larger scale. Sun Yuanhua was a leading supporter of it, but he was executed on false charges in 1632. His death and the rapid decline of Ming finances in the 1630s meant that bastion forts were never implemented again in China.
The Qing really did screw it over for China. Granted, The Ming would have probably collapsed, but if the Qing hadn't taken over, The Chinese would have likely had a much better run of things coming into the 19th Century.
@@Gravitatis It's not strange when you realize that every decision in the Late Ming is dominated by factionalism. Sun Yuanhua and his teacher, Xu Guangqi, were some of the first Christian officials in Chinese history. But they belonged to a minority faction that supported better relations with the Europeans. Sun also had good relations with Yuan Chonghuan, who was executed in 1630 on.....false charges.
This is the nature of Chinese court politics. One faction is always trying to get the other killed through any means necessary. This means that if the emperor (Chongzhen in this case) was swayed by one side to execute a member of a faction, then every other member should immediately disassociate themselves from the guilty members' history and ideology. One execution is often used as an excuse for further executions of the person's friends, allies, and family. Sun or Yuan Chonghuan's rivals in the Ming court would rather see them LOSE against the Manchus so that the emperor can favor their own faction.
The portuguese were already unpopular with the majority of the Chinese gentry, which made Sun a prime target for his rivals.
The Ming economy was also going down the drains, so it is unknown how many forts the Ming could have constructed even if Sun was still alive.
@@Gravitatis In fact, it was because the factional struggle within the Ming Dynasty had reached an irreversible and hopeless point. Even when the Qing Dynasty almost occupied the whole of China, some princes of the Ming Dynasty were still attacking each other.
@@Gravitatis That is to say, as he said, the factional struggles in the late Ming Dynasty had reached the point where they would completely eliminate their political enemies even if they had to actively cause a major military defeat, let the Qing Dynasty occupy Beijing, let the Liaodong fortress group fall, withhold supplies and funds for the front-line troops, and destroy hundreds of thousands of field troops.
Early modern warfare is so fascinating!
Your videos are always refereshing either cos no one else talk about the topic or cos your take is a nice addition to trite topics.
Such consistency is rare!
Thanks!
In the 17th century, the biggest advantage of China compared with Europe was that the Chinese people had more mature technology in steel forging, which was also talked about by Portuguese missionaries. However, because China had no demand for large guns, they did not explore how to forge a powerful gun. The Ming Qing War changed this point. It was a small-scale weapons revolution in Chinese history, but unfortunately it did not last long.
Lol wut
The Chinese had respectively, Blast furnaces and finery forges circa ~700 B.C and ~400-300 B.C respectively and had manufactured crucible steel since at least ~100 B.C
On one hand, I don't agree with the original poster. Chinese and European metallurgy were practically similar by that point in history (16-17th century). Europe had access to Blast furnaces circa ~1100-1200A.D and finery forges somewhere in the 14th Century and were comparable.
The real superiority that the Chinese had over Europe is that they had a considerably greater pool of knowledge and technical expertise to draw from when it came to working with Cast iron. In Europe at the time, Cannons were largely made from wrought iron staves and Cast-iron was only really utilized in cannon development towards the middle of the 17th Century. Bronze/Brass cannons were still highly preferred over Cast-iron cannons until at least the 18th Century, when their ability to cast iron cannons with fewer flaws was steadily improving.
Portugal actually tried to hire Chinese casters specifically so that they could set up a cannon foundry in Goa to manufacture cannons for them, but this venture failed. There are a fair amount of European accounts remarking on the capability of Chinese cannons.
It is true that Native Chinese cannons were antiquated in the 16th Century, The Ming very quickly caught up with Europe when they acquired and adapted the design. In fact the Ming made some advancements in the field. The Ming utilized their expertise with casting to manufacture composite bronze/cast-iron guns and also Cast-iron/wrought-iron composite guns.
The big difference between European and Chinese cannons is that China had an emphasis on manufacturing lighter pieces. They preferred longer-barreled but lower calibre guns, or smaller pieces designed to fire heavy bombs from a higher angle, somewhat like a howitzer.
Never clicked on a notification so fast in my life
This is by far the best channel on Chinese military history on YT, although the pronunciation of the Chinese names is left to be desired. Something to point out, Nurhaci being killed by a cannonball during Yuan Chonghuan's defence of Ningyuan is something of a legend among the Han Chinese but never mentioned in any official Qing histories. He lived 8 more months after the battle, and fought against the Khalkha Mongols in the meantime. Modern historians believe he died of a disease rather than from a wound suffered from the cannon fire.
That's pretty good. You don't expect them to talk about Li Chengliang's relationship with Nurhaci
那时候，努尔哈赤是李成梁亲兵营的奴才。
Love this channel
Loving these artwork
@3:00 Chinese river battles never fail to impress
Seems like a lot of battles are determined by who has the longer-ranged artillery pieces. If you can out-range your foe, you can break their army up into smaller pieces, classic divide-and-conquer tactics. The ancients' ability to innovate and adapt to new war tactics never ceases to amaze me.
that's pretty much the way of it. Napoleon was famously an artillery officer before he was emperor and part of the reason why the Prussians won the Franco-Prussian war was because they had new steel cannons that massively out-ranged the French.
sometimes in particular battles other stuff was more important but most of the time artillery ends up being the important thing on the large scale.
Thanks for the video!
Every time I watch one of these, I find myself impressed enough to scroll up and subscribe (only to remember that I'm already subscribed). Please keep up the quality work! Especially on topics like this, the hard-to-find ones that we don't hear much about. No matter how good the creator, I'd much rather learn something new (or learn more about something niche) than hear the same story told a few dozen times. Your channel is a rare gem for that
It's basically like the Roman Military during the classical period, at first they have Greek style armies, later they adopted Manipular system and military gear from the Celts.
The Romans got the sword/armor design from the Celts but their tactics weren't a direct copy of anyone. They originally copied the Greeks because it is unclear to what extent they were Greeks. The Ming evolution of armaments is really the same process you see in most turdworld countries today where they use both what they have and what they can import and/or copy resulting in some interesting tactics
Well, it's 'basically like' that in the sense that military theory evolved to meet new challenges, just as it has all over the world at many different times in history. What's your point?
@@samsonsoturian6013 Not quite. The Ming didn’t just ‘copy’ others; they adapted and improved on what they encountered, just like many empires throughout history. They developed unique tactics suited to their own challenges, especially with nomadic threats in the north and maritime issues along the coast. Borrowing ideas wasn’t about blindly copying-it was about making strategic improvements.
I love the illustration in the video thumbnail, it's very direct and attractive. The topic in question is very interesting, since there is nothing cooler than seeing how European military reforms were applied in other places like China.
Now I would like to see the Japanese case, which was a century before China and has battles like Nagashino (the Pavia of Japan) and if you talk about the Korean case afterwards, even better.
9:31 It is worth noting that the wages given to the defectors were genuinely much better than what the late Ming court offered their soldiers on the average, which would later be unsustainable and be one of the many reasons that lead to the revolt of the three feudatories in the early Qing rule. Thus the effects leading to defections to what would later become the green standard army were not only from propaganda but also from legitimate pay
明军不满饷,
满饷不可敌,
何处寻满饷,
建州皇太极。
Fantastic video, never thought about this page of chinise warfare!
Isolation was the worst mistake they ever made….
But it's also the same mistake being done know
Except the Ming weren't "isolated" like let's say Edo period Japan. They just stopped funding naval voyages and forbade them. Which made sense considering they were in big military and financial trouble at the time from the mongol threat. Trade too wasn't that restricted. The Ming went on the catch up well in armaments. They were in the process of overhauling their fortification designs to artillery forts as well. But then their economy gave out.
The Qing dominated in 1700. Afterwards there was a long period of prosperous peace that quickly deteriorated their military. Just goes to show that peace that equate progress. Without a free market, most tech innovations come from the need of war.
@majungasaurusaaaa true most innovations come from the needs of war
@@majungasaurusaaaaI mean the Qing
Isolation is never a good hing.
"Defeat was his last - he was hit by a cannonball"
Me: that'll do it
"And died from his injuries a few weeks later"
Me: wait what?!
I hope this guy could do Vietnam during the Trinh-Nguyen war period, that was when Vietnam’s army was at it’s peak, period saw many cool combinations of swords, spears, elephant, guns and cannons
The ming wernt isolationist they innovated with their weapons combined European guns with chinese chasting techniques created the hong yi pao. So stop saying ming was isolation qing was a han engineer invented a machine gun but was killed by qing due to fear of tech would help han overthrow tyrants also you forgot to mention the battle of bejing which was a ming victory
Well, to out it simply, why Ming Dynasty fell:
*They lost the mandate of heaven.*
Mongols in the north, rebels in the south, pirates in the east, corrupt politics, coffers empty, outdated armies, famine, disease, etc.
More like errors of the system and corruption accumulated for a long time until those problem became too serious
Thank you for the awesome content 👍
This channel is great! I loved this video. Thank you!
I love your channel!!
My favorite is siege videos
讲得非常好 尤其是视频里明清军队的服饰都很准确
Best early modern warfare channel ever!
excellent video
first time watching, LOVE the incorporation of sources and historical depictions aswell as your own art, greets from züri!
Thank you for making this! Rare to see Ming army content at all
Really enjoying your Chinese military history series, rarely discussed
Qing Dynasty never defeated Ming Dynasty before it collapsed to a huge peasant rebellion. Not sure why this is not mentioned in the video. When the rebel leader conquered Beijing, the commander of the northern armies (one of the strongest armies) was too late to help the Emperor who died so he decided to turn to the Qing Dynasty in an alliance to defeat the rebels. With the Great wall being opened by the commander and the army being allied they quickly defeated the rebels and pushed further south. Southern Ming Dynasty was no longer able to defeat Qing Armies allied with Ming turncloaks and the chaos. Eventually Ming Dynasty was defeated. The Turncloak commander was made a prince vassal along some other former Ming commanders but had to rebel too when it became clear that Qing Dynasty want to eliminate them too after several decades.
It is uncertain if Ming Dynasty would have collapsed in this century without the two front war against Qing and rebels as Ming Dynasty was still powerful and had strong armies available. Possibly could survive long enough to take out the momentum of the Qing Dynasty. Or without the turncloaks they might have repeated the same situation as Southern Song Dynasty and Jin Dynasty splitting China.
The Ming were very weak internally. Sure, you can explain the loss of the north due to the rebellion. But had they gotten their shit together they could have held the south of the Yangtze like the Southern Song did. Even Koxinga with far less resources was able to hold on to the Ming cause better than the Southern Ming.
@@majungasaurusaaaaThe reason why the Ming Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty are different is that the Ming Dynasty was a dynasty that lasted for more than 200 years and nearly 300 years, while the predecessor of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Northern Song Dynasty, actually only lasted for 150 years and was still at the peak of its culture, population, and other fields before its downfall. The downfall of the Ming Dynasty was like an elderly person dying peacefully, while the downfall of the Northern Song Dynasty was like a sudden heart attack on a young person. This may explain why the Southern Ming and Southern Song dynasties are vastly different.
@majungasaurusaaaa its not entirely comparable. Song Dynasty was an economic miracle, Jin Dynasty didnt want to conquer China yet and stopped, even they were surprised by their victory when they captured the capital and emperor and they didnt have the most veteran and strongest army turncoat. Also the Ming emperor killed himself. While the rebellion had destroyed the empire to the core. The Song Dynasty lost bc of a strategic mistake, the empire wasnt in chaos by civil war. In the Ming Dynasty nobody knew who sits the throne with the rebellion declaring Emperor, the Qing conquering the north and the Ming being headless
@@ReuterL That's why I said they didn't get shit together. They had the resources, but not the leadership.
@majungasaurusaaaa your argument was that the rebellion didnt matter for the loss of the entirety of the realm. When they not only could pass through the great wall bc of it but also gotten Ming Dynasty largest army as ally to conquer Ming Dynasty.
great video. keep it coming :)
少有的关于明代铠甲正确的插图，视频很精彩👍👍👍
Thanks RhandSoman.
It’s worth mentioning also that Hong Taiji incorporated the Old Han Army into eight banners themselves in 1642. the Old Han Army Eight Banners or Hanjun.
The relationship between the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty is very similar to the relationship between the Holy Roman Empire and the Prussian Empire
I wouldn’t really say that as the Ming were still kinda a unified force. The Hre by the rise of Prussia was more of a regional outline with almost zero power with each and every province, duchy, kingdom, fief, bishoprics considered to be basically their own independent nations with their own interests, conflicts, governments with the Hre acting no more than a vague sense that these nations should fight major outside wars in a slightly unified manner.
@kylezdancewicz7346 At that time, the Ming Dynasty had already split, with two rebel armies and warlords in the south who did not obey the emperor's orders. The Qing Dynasty was also a force that emerged after the split of China at that time
@@linshitaolst4936 the Qing was a revolution/civil war. Prussia was one of the completely independent nations apart of the “Hre”
Very informative article.
Sand and Dan Davis back to back? Thank you very much.
I can’t help but hear the Halo multiplayer announcer saying “MANDATE OF HEAVEN: LOST” while watching this
This video portrays as if China didn't use cannons only rockets prior to the Manchu attacks and arrival of western imports. Ming Dynasty did have cannons which were mainly used for the battlefield, especially against cavalry charges of the Mongol armies (Northen Yuan Dynasty, the fragmented weaker successor of the Yuan dynasty). Ming China didn't develop siege cannons bc it made no sense in China. Mongols didn't have fortresses and Chinese walls are several times thicker than european walls. So to develop an effective siege cannons in preparation of a civil war makes little sense and would require the foresight of developing/investing in siege cannons even when they seem not to be able to penetrate chinese walls until skipping many iterations. So chinese did focus on developing field artilleries and Ming dynasty did import western and middle eastern cannons for their armies and for research much earlier. Ming Dynasty was a gun powder focused empire with vast use of hand cannons like tripple hand cannons which are effective to stop cavalry charges. They also developed tactics against infantry against japanese pirate armies where they have something like pike and shot, with tree branch like spears. They also developed volley shots and later ranked shots.
Very informative ❤
This makes me want to re-read Flashman and the Dragon. Such an epic novel. It's about a british soldier who lives tru the opium wars, meets the taiping heavenly kingdom, gets captured by the qing and is made a cocubine of the empress, and ultimately participates in the sack of the summer palace. Flashman is a fictional character but the setting is insanely well researched.
Love your video never seen it before my intire life😮
The chinese guy looks like he is trying to sell me fireworks
1:57 Having a "wildly pointing at the thing" moment. That's the guy from the Indiana Jones movie!
Thanks for a fascinating video! ⚔🔥🙌
Ok, so the wall-building-around-your-enemy tactic in Age of Empires wasn't that absurd after all. Weird.
Very interesting to leave the usual eurocentric horizon. Thank you very much!
OMG! Nurhaci he must be a very small guy to fit in that vase Indy
About Cannons outside walls, do we know how big was number of defenders? Becouse something like that actually happened in Easter europe during the sidge of Zbaraż castle. Defenders were entrenched outside the castle walls dude to fact that castle wasn't able to accommodate very high number of defenders.
1. Cannons on walls need support structure to keep attackers at distance, else you’d better have them down to avoid blind spots.
2. They did have mostly smaller field cannons. Not much range to start with.
3. Rocketry was used to be launched at the bottom in a volley, once spent abandoned. So, failure to adapt that old tactic.
4. Though the walls had some depth, they did neither have cranes nor ramps, making relocation slow whereas attackers were mostly fast horse units.
Yang in Romanized Chinese is pronounced like "Young" in English.
"Ci" is like "Ts" in English "Lets"
I would like to play a Total War Game based on the 1500s-1700s, especially covering the Imjin War, rise of the Qing, and colonial wars
Only if they remove the godawful engine they’ve been using since Empire
@@Gravitatistoo true. It’s not entirely clear if things will change for the better, the developer Creative Assembly actually blew $100 million on a mediocre looking hero shooter that got canned before it even released. Instead of using that cash to improve the seriously shitty Warscape engine or at least improve their developmental stack which disgruntled former employees say is infamously bad as well…
@ they need to make a rich historical simulator, one that has crazy attention to detail, where it can replicate the exact circumstances of historical battles, in addition to dramatic fictions
Isn't there a shogun 2 mod trying to do that ?
@@Gravitatis well to each his own
Manchuria is not a barren steppe but has fertile river valleys and large forests. The Manchu also were settled people with cities by the time of the declaration of the Seven Greviences.
Also, no mention of the formation of the Eight Han Banners formed alongside the Mongol eight banners?
8:09
You really don't want to go up against an army with a well-trained artillery unit without your own.
Not familiar with Chinese weaponry, I watched this informative and still beautifully illustrated video with great pleasure!👍👍😍😍
The cannon is good, but what if shells were used instead of balls during 1400-1650?
Interesting!
really interesting! would be cool to get a video about india / mughal empire as well. maybe also japan.
Excellent narrative
Europe: after a decade of political, and economical successes the king, supported by the pope, and all of Europe, could muster 20k troops. China: the battle turned out to be particularly bloody, and the warlord used the nearby village to replenish his losses of 80k men.
A chinese province has the population of a medium size european nation state. Some larger ones today have more than 100mil people.
@@GravitatisThat was the total size of the french army and If I'm right the biggest battle napoleon fouhht he had around 190 000 men but france was one of the more developed nations in that time period
@@Gravitatis The biggest number that I have seen is around 600k
@@Gravitatis I don't know why you added that but there is a mistake in my sentance I ment to say the biggest army that he commanded and fought with on one day was around 190k
@@Gravitatis That's also the grand total of how many soldiers they had which included garrisons,small patrols etc.
OH IT'S HERE
-China: 7 grievances
-Germany: 95 theses
History repeats itself in different places
History often rhymes.
Martin Luther had no intention of leaving the Catholic church, much less start a war.
China sent australia the "14 grievences" very recently - so its nice knowing that ol' empire mentality hasnt gone away
@@cyrodillicabut Australia has it coming
1:53 bro what is that genius tactic XD
If Jinzhou and Songshan were combined into one big city that encompassed the rivers and surrounded on all sides with walls that kept being supplied all the times by trade through rivers, would the outcome be different? Just imagined the troops of the Eight Banner and the Green Standard Army have to take on the fortified city that big that have the complete control of the rivers and also equipped with a lot of cannons must be quite challenging.
The Liaodong defensive line established by Li ChengLiang way earlier woud've likely been more effective had he not abandoned them voluntarily. Overall, the reason the Ming were defeated can be attributed to administrative and organisational shortcomings rather than anything else. Considering that with just the frankish engine (swivel gun) and rocket artillery etc that the Ming already had the technological advantage against the Jurchens initially, an increase in military tech, European or otherwise likely would've done little in the long run.
The biggest problem lies in internal corruption and political struggles, which means that the stationed troops in these areas are actually short of food and pay, and this is almost the last combat ready army of the Ming Dynasty. The shortage of personnel in other places will be even more serious. Through time tracing, we can also know that there are still a large number of falsely reported soldier positions to defraud military pay, but the actual number of combat troops is nearly half less than the book.
The book number of troops in the late Ming Dynasty was 2.7 million, but in reality, there were only less than 1.06 million military personnel, and the actual combat ready troops would be even fewer. In contrast, the number of troops in the Qing army was 0.63 million. According to history, we know that these 1.06 million troops were shattered by 0.63 million
After all, in the front-line fortress area of Liaodong, the Qing army served as a strong quality inspector, so the combat effectiveness and combat readiness of the Ming army stationed here can be considered acceptable
@@zhu_zi4533 Mainly because Emperor Chongzhen was self-willed and made mistakes continuously.
I always love the artistry love and time that goes into these videos. In a time of AI generated trash we need more of this.
Crazy to think on one side->boom sticks. On the other blooming arrow launchers of death.
Oddly enough if you ended up using both. Then you would be screwed.
Do more ancient Chinese stuff please.
Ming the Merciless
Very fascinant 👏 🔥 👏 🔥
Expect to learn about Cannons, learn about Dynasty transitions
anyone know if you can get repros of those Ming kettle helmets? they look sick.
There're some wrong opinions with the Battle of Pine Brocade. First, the Ming army defeated the advance party of the Qing army in the early outposts of the battle, and tried to carry out a war of attrition through the mountainous terrain in order to offset the cavalry advantage of the later Jin. At first this tactic did work, but as the peasant rebels within the Great Wall began to operate in large scale again, the Chongzhen Emperor forced the Ming army commander Hong Chengchou to launch an assault on the later Jin. In the end, the Ming army was surrounded by the later Jin due to the lack of troops, and the general Wang Pu and Wu Sangui fled successively, and the remaining Ming army fell into a rout. General Cao Changjiao attacked Huang Taiji during the breakout, but was killed by his guards. Hong and some Ming troops hid in Songshan and held out for several months, while others were ambushed and killed by Qing troops along the Bohai Coast.
A total of 53,780 Ming soldiers and 10,400 Jin soldiers were killed in the battle.
Reviewing the situation of the battle, in fact, the Ming army has always had the upper hand, only because Chongzhen pushed the war, it lost in the last twelve days. During the 21 day Ming army main body test break out of the mentality of Huangtaiji almost broke, indicating that even so may not stop, enough to prove the combat effectiveness of the regular Ming army. Finally, the Ming army on the night of the 21, due to the internal conflict caused by the breakthrough, only led to a systematic defeat, the Song Jin War of the Manchu Qing more than 30 red cannons exploded one day, the shelling of the most tragic Bai Guangen of the Chinese Federation Fen Lian Town was only 119 soldiers killed, 18 seriously wounded soldiers, 80 lightly wounded soldiers, and the casualties before and after the army were not all caused by shelling losses. I mean, who knows how many. And the Ming army will not have 130,000 troops, similar to the Sarhu war, the total strength of about 80,000 people, basically from the town of regimental training and standard battalions, but this time is 80,000 people together. But even so according to the previous historical data, there were still some Ming troops who successfully broke through the siege in the battle of the 20th, but by the battle of the 21st, the Ming army failed to break through the siege, and a systematic defeat occurred that night. The Qing army has a strength of at least 200,000 people, and Huang Taiji has almost all the men over the age of 15 in the country on the battlefield, and it is estimated that the Qing Army has 240,000 troops in the North of the Ming Dynasty.
Author: Han Yangxi
Link: www.zhihu.com/question/487643820/answer/3251654804
Source: Zhihu
The copyright belongs to the author. For commercial reprinting, please contact the author for authorization. For non-commercial reprinting, please indicate the source.
Can you tell us more about The early men chew artillery production and training?
What is with the changing thumbnails? I swore you guys have changed it like 4 times for this video
Very interesting
I would not want to die a slow death because of cannonball injuries.
At that time, solid shells were all used. He was hit by a large iron ball weighing 68 pounds moving at high speed and was able to lie in bed for 8 months before dying. This is impossible, so I analyzed that it was probably the shell hitting the ground that caused the splashing stones to injure him
Commenting for the algorithm
From Ming emporior Juli to Qing , artillery of east was left behind.
Kinda ironic because the Qing got defeated by the Konbaung who used better cannons and muskets. The Qings got out Qinged.
The records of the Qing Dynasty did not acknowledge that his failure was due to Myanmar's weapons, but rather to Myanmar's climate. Two thirds of the casualties in the Qing Dynasty's Burma Expeditionary Force were caused by malaria and climate discomfort.
When the Ming Dynasty was founded, it defeated the Mongol cavalry of the Yuan Dynasty with better cavalry. When the Qing Dynasty was founded, it defeated the firearms of the Ming Dynasty with better firearms. Later, the Qing Dynasty faced Britain after the Industrial Revolution
@@linshitaolst4936 The industrial revolution had very little effect on the first opium war though, as the war ended before some of the new prototypes entered production. The Nemesis was the only product of the Industrial revolution, and it was a small paddle prototype that had an outsized psychological effect. Most of the British tech used during the first opium war was still from the napoleonic era. The main ships were 74 gun ships of the line and this was the last major war where the British used the Brown Bess musket as their main weapon. Morse code was invented in 1838, but that technology wasn't ready to change communication yet (first use was Crimean war) .
The First Opium War was the end of an era for the preindustrial British military, and even that defeated China handily.
@@yuchenchen8012good points to counteract the natural tendency of people today to "compress" history when looking back. I would say that technological deterministic narratives are so popular because 1) they are simple and 2) they serve western interests and legitimacy
EVERY siege is staggering !!!
This is not the main thesis of the video, but it's important to note that the Chinese did develelop their own canon technology (not guns), and used gunpowder technology extensively in warfare. However, they later adopted Western canon and gun technologies starting in the Ming Dynasty.
i feel this video lacks context on the difference between the artilleries pre-adoption of european cannons, or even the artilleries adopted by the Qing.
using rocket artillery visually as an example of chinese artillery is a bit misleading since the video even mentions that the ming first tried using their own cannons but the switched to euro style guns. the benefits was chalked up to "efficiency" which is lacking.
we also know that the ming had cannons , it was used during the imjin war and was something that the korean and the ming had that was better then the japanese.
so it would be a good area of analysis of what were the actual difference between the cannon styles
The Ming had plenty of tube artillery used mostly as light field pieces. It was the heavy siege culverins and demi culverins that they lacked prior to hiring foreigners to assist. But rocket carts look cool and exotic for a thumbnail.
French Cannon is name for Breech-loading swivel gun that were introduced by Europeans.
before that, all Chinese cannons were muzzle loading.
… there is something wrong with the division of the video… like 7:07 now i see climate change as the title of this part, and the previous ona was „nuclear war” is it just me?
Modernization goes hand in hand with war.
Finally some proper Ming and Qing illustrations after the fiasco last time.
Context, please.
@@bvillafuerte179 The last one had Ming troops images to illustrate a Qing-Russia siege. And while their gear may have been somewhat similar, the Chinese characters on their helmets and armor as well as hairstyles are indicators which side they're on. The Qing had a very distinct hair style that they enforced upon the entire Chinese population on the pain of death. They beheaded violators and had their heads displayed outside of barber shops. Missing that shows the content creator is woefully new to far eastern history.
@@majungasaurusaaaa Thank you.
Minor horse archers are nothing new to any of the dynasties. After all, they’ve been fighting them for god knows how long.
17c, no "russia" but Muscovy
"Muscovy" was Polish-Lithuinian propaganda. XVII century had no "Muscovite Tsardom" but Russian Tsardom.
Next video : How chinese fireworks transformed western warfare .
What is this wall above fortresses like border? Can't they just bypass fortresses by going north?
呢样他们就会被包围，送死
loving the china content
You didn’t talk about Wu Sangui
This video doesn’t go into much detail about the Ming-Qing transition with regard to Western technology, but it can be summarized by saying that the Qing used their own technology to conquer the Ming, who were relying on European weaponry.
Before the Qing Dynasty unified the whole of China, the Ming Dynasty had already been overthrown by peasant uprisings. After seizing power, the peasant uprisings chose to suppress officials and nobles, seize their property, and after the Qing army entered Beijing, they chose to win over Ming officials and troops, giving them special treatment. Therefore, the peasant uprisings were no match for the Qing Dynasty
@@linshitaolst4936 and did these peasant used european military tech?
@anyiouo3814 To be precise, the peasant uprising army of the Ming Dynasty received a portion of soldiers who were owed wages. These soldiers were equipped with imitation Ottoman guns and Portugal farangi.but their firearms were not comparable to those of the Qing Dynasty army. The Qing Dynasty absorbed military technology from the Ming border troops, including imitation British cannons and better quality matchlock
@@linshitaolst4936 How equipped was the Qing army with European-style military technology, in percentage terms, compared to the Ming army during their invasion?
@anyiouo3814 The development of firearms technology in the Qing Dynasty was very limited, with the only advantage being the increase in production, which led to a high rate of firearms equipment in the Qing army, at most exceeding 80%. However, most of them were matchlock , and there were also 17th century technological cannons. The Qing emperor also considered imitating 18th century European weapons, such as flintlock, but the ability of domestic craftsmen was limited and could only rely on European missionaries to complete them