Roman Empire vs Han Empire

[Audio]

technological advantage? don't kid yourself. Han China was at the forefront of human technological advancement at a time - many key technologies of the Han were literally 100s years ahead of anything the Romans, and the rest of the world for that matter, could come up with.

Roman artileries? what are you talking about? siege weaponaies? - go youtube the Han empire siege weaponaries which would make the Roman ones look like childplay.



You're welcome, panda. But my ancestors were amongst them, too!





Now go educate yourself and compare it with the true technological superpower at a time- the Han (Note that the following was only Qin empire - The Han was much more powerful and larger than Qin):

Terracotta Army was an awesome fighting machine with weapons so powerful they could kill an enemy with a single arrow | Daily Mail Online

Making Weapons for the Terracotta Army | Martinón-Torres | Archaeology International

Exquisite Weaponry Excavated from Terra Cotta Warriors Pits

China's Terra-Cotta Army: 5 Things You Should Know | TIME.com

What’s so special… and spatial… about the Terracotta Army?

Ancient Impossible (2014) s01e04 Episode Script | SS

There's absolutely nothing of superior value in these links you quoted, except perhaps standardization. If you are refering to arrows that could penetrate armor, well, the lance could do it too, furthermore it was designed to penetrate shield with its enlarged tip, so the rest of the body of the spear can travel the distance to the body, being pushed from behind with it's own weight. If it did not do that, it was designed to deform after impact, causing the shield bearer to either discard the shield or be forced to carry an unwieldy shield with a spear attached, quite inconvenient in melee combat.
The crossbow aspect, while good, would be easily negated in open field with Roman artillery. Furthermore, crossbow arrow is not as long to penetrate both shield and armor, plus i doubt it has the force required to fully penetrate them both, causing fatal injury.

Mate, look, you quoting me is highly unwanted. You are rude and uninformed and have a severe complex disorder. You probably have noticed noone really replies to you, except the ones who are paid to. It's for a reason, so, please, keep interacting with me to a minimum until you manage to grow up.

 

[yusheng]

"The art of war" was 500 years earlier than the Rome , as the military Scripture, still affects the world today,

have you seen the Rome army to seize the camp? Night fight? Fire attack? Sports annihilation? Encirclement and counter encirclement?

In Rome the 6000 people in a fixed square was called formation, or throwing the javelin was tactics, Trebuchet would be final weapon; there military articl even could not distinguish the history and the military.

what is the else that ancient Rome can still offer to todays military?

 

[powastick]

This is a weak argument. In between China was raped numerous times, but due to the power of it's culture, the rapists managed to identify with it (similarly to what happened to Egyptians, their conquerors up to Roman time also took their culture).
On top of this China decided for a civilizational state, while here in the west we decided on a state based on nations.

Similarly weak was 4Gorrillas apesomething comment a few pages earlier, he claims that a guy from ancient times could have easily spoken and read newspaper in modern Beijing. He says it like it's a strong point, in some sense i do agree, but on another level, that's a sign of stagnation for the past millenium.
Stagnation evident from the fact that the people who descended from this Roman empire had to pull you out from the unenviable position (through FDI, tech transfer etc etc) in which you have found yourselves in due to the divine "wisdom" of your emperors of old and the unmatched wisdom of Mao.

As for past glory, Latin is the language of science and medicine, remnants of Roman law are still in use throughout the western world, go see any judicial building and i bet 10€'s it has Roman architectural elements in it (even the modern ones).




The problem is, Roman shield goes all the way down to the ground and if needed a person carrying it can hide behind it. Like this:

View attachment 161808



I suspect Romans would come up with a tactic to combat these roughly looking like:

first row would advance with shields, when people with hooks/dagger axes would emerge and thus expose themselves, a second line of legionaires would probably start throwing lances (each one had 2 which they threw before engaging in hand to hand combat) or alternatively the lances would be used to spear incoming infantry. This is also the way i suspect they would have tried to deal with long sword equipped infantry @Nan Yang

View attachment 161804

^^ standard legionaire. Note the two pilums (lances)

Yes I'm aware of that, dagger axe will be trust between gaps and you twisted and pulled attack from behind the enemy. It's a weapon design specifically for that purpose. If spears were to be trusted or deflected into the gaps, they don't do damage, and longer pike would risk getting hacked off from the people behind.

For pillum, they are mostly absorb by light/shock infantry. Only to be followed by the main body. Mind you this is Qin not Han dynasty.

Rather unfortunate most of the weapon missing. As you can see the Chinese would bring a variety of weapon.

Hey no hard feelings, I do admire Romans. A lot of Romans achievements are admirable. I'm not to be taken seriously since I'm not an expert. Just an opinion.

 

[+4vsgorillas-Apebane]

Forget about arguing with the Roman fanbois. In their opinion, a dude with a large wooden board and short sword is the ultimate fighting machine.

Impervious to arrows!
Impervious to cavalry!
Impervious to hairy bearskin clothed barbarians!

This is a weak argument. In between China was raped numerous times, but due to the power of it's culture, the rapists managed to identify with it (similarly to what happened to Egyptians, their conquerors up to Roman time also took their culture).
On top of this China decided for a civilizational state, while here in the west we decided on a state based on nations.

Similarly weak was 4Gorrillas apesomething comment a few pages earlier, he claims that a guy from ancient times could have easily spoken and read newspaper in modern Beijing. He says it like it's a strong point, in some sense i do agree, but on another level, that's a sign of stagnation for the past millenium.
Stagnation evident from the fact that the people who descended from this Roman empire had to pull you out from the unenviable position (through FDI, tech transfer etc etc) in which you have found yourselves in due to the divine "wisdom" of your emperors of old and the unmatched wisdom of Mao.

As for past glory, Latin is the language of science and medicine, remnants of Roman law are still in use throughout the western world, go see any judicial building and i bet 10€'s it has Roman architectural elements in it (even the modern ones).




The problem is, Roman shield goes all the way down to the ground and if needed a person carrying it can hide behind it. Like this:

View attachment 161808



I suspect Romans would come up with a tactic to combat these roughly looking like:

first row would advance with shields, when people with hooks/dagger axes would emerge and thus expose themselves, a second line of legionaires would probably start throwing lances (each one had 2 which they threw before engaging in hand to hand combat) or alternatively the lances would be used to spear incoming infantry. This is also the way i suspect they would have tried to deal with long sword equipped infantry @Nan Yang

View attachment 161804

^^ standard legionaire. Note the two pilums (lances)

Rome was trashed by hairy shirtless dudes in bear skins and runes of protection. The current remnant of the empire shares very little similarity with the pas glories of Rome from language to land mass. The usual argument from Roman fanbois is to ignore the tangible and to grasp at abstract quasi continuations of the long dead empire.

China just went through the worst 200 years in its history and still managed to maintain territorial and cultural integrity. The country is overwhelmingly still Han and is making a massive comeback on the world stage. Where is Rome?

Its tiny tiny Italy where you have to squint to find it on an atlas and seldom makes the world news.

 

[Nan Yang]

"The art of war" was 500 years earlier than the Rome , as the military Scripture, still affects the world today,

have you seen the Rome army to seize the camp? Night fight? Fire attack? Sports annihilation? Encirclement and counter encirclement?

In Rome the 6000 people in a fixed square was called formation, or throwing the javelin was tactics, Trebuchet would be final weapon; there military articl even could not distinguish the history and the military.

what is the else that ancient Rome can still offer to todays military?

Further more. By the warring states period, army of 100,000 or more were standard and led by professional general learned in the art of war. The warring states lasted over 300 years. That is 300 years of continuous warfare and war against the Huns and other barbarians as well. So by the Han dynasty they had over 300 years of recorded warfare experience to learn from.

Also China fought more barbarians than the rest of the world combined. Its not easy to fight these nomadic tribes. They have no permanent cities to destroy and are always on the move in the vast grassland. They can appear out of nowhere, attack you and disappear into the vast emptiness. That is why the long wall was build. And why the Huns ended up in Europe.

 

[sicsheep]

Belonging to the 7 strongest economies of the world is quite impressive. That our income per person is almost 15 times higher than that of a chinese even more so. Bear in mind that an unemployed italian gets 8 times the money that a working chinese gets.

Huns and turks never reached italy. Funny how they could have killed our people. But they reached china, conquered china and ruled it for decades...killing millions of chinese. And nope, roman culture is not discontinued. holy roman church. holy roman empire. China on the other side is dead and was replaced from western culture. First communism. Now capitalism. Its good you finally put your old culture into the grave it belongs too. A culture that never went into industrialisation is worthless anyways.

Rome was a famous city, because it was sacked by everyone who was short of money.

and where did you get your facts from LOL? Huns never ruled China for a day.

Quote
"In reality, Italy had suffered from a terrible famine in 451 and her crops were faring little better in 452; Attila's devastating invasion of the plains of northern Italy this year did not improve the harvest"

Source

Quote:
"In 67 BC, the Han empire gained absolute control over the Turfan Depression after inflicting a significant defeat to the Xiongnu.[152] During the former Xiongnu rule of the Western Regions, the area was under the jurisdiction of the Rizhu King (日逐王) with the office "Commandant in Charge of Slaves".[154] However, in 60 BC, the Rizhu King surrendered to Protector General Zheng Ji.[154] Afterwards (60 BC), the Han imperial court established the Protectorate of the Western Regions.[64][152][155] The Han empire, now in absolute control of the Western Regions, placed it under the jurisdiction of its Protector General.[156][157] As its dominance of the area was established, the Han were effectively controlling the trade and shaping the early history of what would be known as the Silk Road.[64]"

Source

LOL Italy,
We thank you for losing WWII for hitler,

and Communism and Capitalism are cultures now?

 

[+4vsgorillas-Apebane]

Belonging to the 7 strongest economies of the world is quite impressive. That our income per person is almost 15 times higher than that of a chinese even more so. Bear in mind that an unemployed italian gets 8 times the money that a working chinese gets.

Huns and turks never reached italy. Funny how they could have killed our people. But they reached china, conquered china and ruled it for decades...killing millions of chinese. And nope, roman culture is not discontinued. holy roman church. holy roman empire. China on the other side is dead and was replaced from western culture. First communism. Now capitalism. Its good you finally put your old culture into the grave it belongs too. A culture that never went into industrialisation is worthless anyways.

15 times? China has a gdp per capita of 6800 in 2013 and its growing. Factor in the cheaper cost of living and it makes your post a sad pathetic lie.

Again you mention cheap spiritual successors for Rome but nothing tangible. Do you go to the store and say:

"I have no money but I will pay you in honor and Roman spirit"?

Grasping and desperate you are.

I too would be sad if the Han empire collapsed. I would also try to make up bull shit about how the empire lives on in the hearts of people.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Atatwolf cries all the time for the fracturing of the Ottoman empire. It made him sour and bitter. Marcus is the italian equivalent.

 

[MarkusS]

15 times? China has a gdp per capita of 6800 in 2013 and its growing. Factor in the cheaper cost of living and it makes your post a sad pathetic lie.

Again you mention cheap spiritual successors for Rome but nothing tangible. Do you go to the store and say:

"I have no money but I will pay you in honor and Roman spirit"?

Grasping and desperate you are.

I too would be sad if the Han empire collapsed. I would also try to make up bull shit about how the empire lives on in the hearts of people.

Problem is the world gives a shit about china and its history. Rome is the foundation of the west. But you? All left of it was Mulan

 

[Sanchez]

Belonging to the 7 strongest economies of the world is quite impressive. That our income per person is almost 15 times higher than that of a chinese even more so. Bear in mind that an unemployed italian gets 8 times the money that a working chinese gets.

Huns and turks never reached italy. Funny how they could have killed our people. But they reached china, conquered china and ruled it for decades...killing millions of chinese. And nope, roman culture is not discontinued. holy roman church. holy roman empire. China on the other side is dead and was replaced from western culture. First communism. Now capitalism. Its good you finally put your old culture into the grave it belongs too. A culture that never went into industrialisation is worthless anyways.

Your economy and your so called income are out of date, fool. I spent many years in Europe and been to Italy several times. I know what Italy is and how many thieves you got in the streets. I hope you are not one of those trash looking Italians that are not typical of anything! Italy is in fact a poor member of EU reveiving compensation from Northern European countries.

Huns or Turks never ruled China, instead, they escaped from China's reach. You must be an idiot that needs a repeated education? Or you are trolling.

What does an Italian know about industrialization or technology? Funny...

 

[+4vsgorillas-Apebane]

Problem is the world gives a shit about china and its history. Rome is the foundation of the west. But you? All left of it was Mulan

China is the foundation of the East. We also didnt collapse into a tiny sliver of land and grasp at tenuous connections to the old empire because China never collapsed!

Face it, Rome is reduced into significance while China is on the ascendency again. Italy falls into the basket of Iraq and egypt. The basket of broken civilisation.

 

[sicsheep]

Problem is the world gives a shit about china and its history. Rome is the foundation of the west. But you? All left of it was Mulan

ROME is foundation of what? most Westerner's cant find it on a map, Rome is history, wiped out, like the Ancient Egyptians and the Mayans.

 

[+4vsgorillas-Apebane]

Your economy and your so called income are out of date, fool. I spent many years in Europe and been to Italy several times. I know what Italy is and how many thieves you got in the streets. I hope you are not one of those trash looking Italians that are not typical of anything! Italy is in fact a poor member of EU reveiving compensation from Northern European countries.

Huns or Turks never ruled China, instead, they escaped from China's reach. You must be an idiot that needs a repeated education? Or you are trolling.

What does an Italian know about industrialization or technology? Funny...

He makes stuff up to salve his wounds. Turks ruled China? Yet somehow in the modern day PRC there is this massive province multiple times the size of Italy and Turkey combined full of Turkic speaking people.

 

[sicsheep]

yes we can. We are part of ESA. We can launch payloads far bigger than china is able to do.

Part of ESA LOL = France or UK Launch it for you, so much for high tech.

 

[Audio]

Rome was trashed by hairy shirtless dudes in bear skins and runes of protection.

And China was raided by savages on horses. So much so, they made a wall to repel them out.

The current remnant of the empire shares very little similarity with the pas glories of Rome from language to land mass. The usual argument from Roman fanbois is to ignore the tangible and to grasp at abstract quasi continuations of the long dead empire.

China just went through the worst 200 years in its history and still managed to maintain territorial and cultural integrity. The country is overwhelmingly still Han and is making a massive comeback on the world stage. Where is Rome?

This sort of thing, China having to make a comeback, happens quite often.
First by the savages from the steppe's, then through your emperor's wisdom of selfsufficiency you turned the door on progress and world exploration (burning of Zheng He's fleet), which was followed shortly by gunboat diplomacy (a debacle in itself that your invention-gunpowder, was used against you in such a way, that you couldn't see it's potential beforehand) down to the latest incarnation of this trend, Mao.

Rome has no territorial integrity, with that i agree, but it's cultural legacy is present on four out of the five continents today.

Further more. By the warring states period, army of 100,000 or more were standard and led by professional general learned in the art of war. The warring states lasted over 300 years. That is 300 years of continuous warfare and war against the Huns and other barbarians as well. So by the Han dynasty they had over 300 years of recorded warfare experience to learn from.

Also China fought more barbarians than the rest of the world combined. Its not easy to fight these nomadic tribes. They have no permanent cities to destroy and are always on the move in the vast grassland. They can appear out of nowhere, attack you and disappear into the vast emptiness. That is why the long wall was build. And why the Huns ended up in Europe.

Roman republic was established in 500BC. The times we are debating, are around 0-100AD. So, more than a 500 year history of military expansion and experience.
You speak of proffesional general's, here i can speak of proffesional soldiers, with contracts no less than a few years, up to 30 years max.

The theory you speak of, that Huns were repelled from China by Hans and ended up in Europe is debatable and lies on a theory that Huns were descendants of Xiognu. This theory is not conclusive. In any case, when Attila was born, they were already settled in central Asia, far from Chinese western borders.

"The art of war" was 500 years earlier than the Rome , as the military Scripture, still affects the world today,

have you seen the Rome army to seize the camp? Night fight? Fire attack? Sports annihilation? Encirclement and counter encirclement?

In Rome the 6000 people in a fixed square was called formation, or throwing the javelin was tactics, Trebuchet would be final weapon; there military articl even could not distinguish the history and the military.

what is the else that ancient Rome can still offer to todays military?

LacusCurtius • The Stratagems of Frontinus

A bit of literature. As you can see, it covers most of the points you raised.

 

[Solomon2]

...The crossbow aspect, while good, would be easily negated in open field with Roman artillery. Furthermore, crossbow arrow is not as long to penetrate both shield and armor, plus i doubt it has the force required to fully penetrate them both, causing fatal injury.

"...in the shield of the centurion Scaeva, which was brought to him, were found two hundred and thirty holes. In reward for this man's services both to himself and the republic, Caesar presented to him two hundred thousand pieces of copper money and declared him promoted from the eighth to the first centurion."

- De Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar, Kindle loc 5077 of 6235.

The Romans had been aware of the crossbow for some time. The Greeks used them in battle - probably including the one quoted above, when Caesar's army was besieged by Pompey's forces in Greece.