I want an answer

>>3108654
China.

There, you have an answer.

Already had these debates and its concluded that Han crossbows will pierce roman armors and roman shields easily. The power of those crossbows /easily/ match the infamous English Longbows on their standard crossbow models. The larger ones will completely eclipse it.

Add to the fact that they huge 10x the number and have mass produced those those crossbows, its a game changer.

>muh roman steel
Chinese had steel

>muh roman professional army
Chinese had professional army

>muh chinese are peasant conscripts
Somewhat true. Not really "peasant" conscripts, as they're more like national guards system we have in the US. Training for a 1 year + 1 year active service + a month every year service till 50s. They're more professional in this regard that recruiting villagers with not training.

>muh long distance logistics
Fight never happens, GO HOME EVERYONE. Do not have any hypotheticals ever since they're not going to happen nyway.

Also the Chinese professional shock cavalries...

>>3108654
Chiniggers, unfortunately. There's too fucking many of them, and they aren't undisciplined treeniggers like the celts, so the romans would prolly lose.

>>3108985
>>muh long distance logistics
>Fight never happens, GO HOME EVERYONE. Do not have any hypotheticals ever since they're not going to happen nyway.
Even then, Han China had insane logistics capabilities. During the wars against the Xiongnu, campaigns were traveling longer distances than Alexander did, and the campaigns just kept on happening until the Xiongnu were finished.

>>3108654

Play Tiger Knight...

https://youtu.be/JQI4r_-khCg

Find out for yourself.

>>3108985

i don't think the logistics have to do with the actual reach of the armies over long distance or their ability to meet the other at all.

Roman legions carried their own castrum, they carried their own stakes, tents, building tools, supplies and siege engines, they were builders and engineers as much as soldiers.

antique battles involved a lot of posturing and probing before the main clash, Romans would manouver their whole force faster and prepare their defensive positions better, unless something extraordinary happens they'll get to pick the terrain.

also they had their own heavy cavalry depending on the period, they would at least have something to slow the chinese down.

>>3109101
The Han dynasty cavalry corps numbered ~250K at the height of their war against Xiongnu.

I know Romans had cavalry, but again, the factor of number is just too large.


Logistics is not just reaching the place, all armies can do that. Its about how long it can be kept there and with what amount and with what security.

An army cut off from its supply/reinforcement base will not last long against another army with robust supply lines. Certainly they can make preparations when that happens, but against another with a robust line will not work.

>>3108654

I really hate questions like this that ignore the massive logistical effort required to actually conduct war. Chinese armies had no way to reach Rome, and Roman armies had no way to reach China.

>>3109508
Motun Khan BTFO them all in Baideng

>>3109597
>founder of the Empire was its only good ruler.
Pathetic.

Even more pathetic is that Panturkshits only know Modu Chanyus name from Chinese sources.

>>3109609
Ha, reminds me of Japan claiming to be an older civilization than China when they only know the names of the earliest Japanese rulers from Chinese sources.

>>3108985
Reminder the chinese dug the longest artificial canal for moving troops across the country.

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I believe that that the Han have the edge but it all depends on the commanders. If the Romans have a better commander i think they can defeat the Han.

>>3109790
The Han Great Wall was also further north than the modern one.

>>3108654
Not
This
Thread
Again

>>3108985
Didn't the romans produce steel on a much larger scale though?

>>3109508

we're talking of the whole of the Chinese military vs a single Roman legion now?

did the Han have a single army or did they have independent units like Rome kept her legions?

>>3109839
There were many smaller groups of unit. I think the smallest is 5 man group with 1 logistics support that relayed flag signals and such. Unlike the Romans, the Chinese had clear chain of command. 100 m leader, 1000m leader, 10k, 80k, and so on. The largest maybe 80k or so, then groups of general join together to lead multiple fronts. Central gov also had ~100k standby army for its own personal use.

>>3109871

okay, but what would amount to a single independent, self-reliant "army"?

>>3109883
~80k led by a general.

>>3109906

that's around the size of a legion plus auxilia and cavalry alae

suppose for the time it was just optimal numbers.

>>3109919
Umm legion is 5000, aux:legion is around 50:50 so it would be ~@10k. There are smaller 10k subdivisions in the Han army. The 10k man also there. Then again we can divide even further in smaller independent units of 5k or 1k or so on. As each small units have a clear leader, they can all theoretically operate independently.

chinks can't beat europeans. they're inferior

>>3108985
But but muh western power. Nothing in the face of this earth us superior to the western civilization...

>>3109801
How about this.
Scipio Afrikanus vs Zhuge Liang
Who will win?

>>3110554
scipio if it rains

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>in less than 500 years a single city conquered more area than an entire race in less in its entirety .

Gee I wonder who's better at war

>>3111194
That's a comfy map.

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Not this x vs y bullshit again. This discovery channel pop history has nothing to do with actual history. There's no way to actually predict how a possible fight between the two would've gone

Please off yourselves, even if you're trolling

>>3110554
This match-up makes no sense. If you're looking for a Chinese counterpart for Scipio then you want Han Xin or Bai Qi. Zhuge Liang was a statesman and politician.

>>3111194
>trees on the Arabian peninsula

>>3109871
Romans had pretty clear chains of command on the smaller scale, with the decanus (10 man unit), centurion, then the centurion of the primus pilus rank heading up the cohort (~600 men). The whole point of the Romans adopting the cohort and abandoning the maniple was so that legions, when in combat, were made of essentially "replaceable parts" that could be moved from one unit to the next, as opposed to the 3-4 rank system used before.

Admittedly, once you get to auxiliaries and higher chains of command, stuff gets a little fucky with legates, tribunes, etc., but to say that there wasn't a clear chain of command is too discrediting to the romans.

>>3108985
And the Romans somehow can't reverse engineer the crossbow after the first battle because...?

>>3112753
There's trees in the arabian peninsula. To put them in the atabian desert is still retarded.

>>3112857
This. They adopted literally every enemy weapon they saw as useful, and less advanced crossbows were not unknown in the Mediterranean so the concept was not alien to romans.

>>3112857
Romans couldn't really "reverse" engineer the horse nomads.

>>3112857
Because that just opens up more questions on what the current situation is and what resources both sides have at their disposal.

Reverse engineering will go both ways, too, making questions of terrain, geographic location, and resources doubly important.

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the chinese defeated their steppe nomads

>>3112958
Steppe nomads that numbered 10-20x larger

The Xiongnu at one point had ~300K cavalry army trapped the Han emperor and his army.

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some oc

daily reminder the chinkbow wasn't even levered, it was just a bow placed sideways on a stick. daily reminder the parthian bow was far far more deadly

>>3108654
Late Roman legions fought the Han Chinese I believe. They did well against them and mixed with the locals.
The lost legion.

>>3112857
They already had ballistae, which is best crossbow.

>>3110554
Fabius btfo Liang.

>>3113388
saved desu
>muh slips, muh 1200 lbs draw-weight

>>3113407
nah bro thats a proved fake story

>>3113388
can anybody prove this or is it just bait?

>>3113485
yeah no, they likely didn't fight the Han. But there were legit Romans in Central Asia. Like dude the Black Sea literally exists.

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>>3113500
Just look at this pos
>chinese engineering

>>3113485
Not sure if it was the Han, but the Chinese have documented stories of battles against people whose strategy greatly resembled that of a Roman legion.

>>3113526
don't forget they used commonly used *horn* as a composite.

>>3113500
Prove that Parthian bow is stronger? Absolutely not.

>>3113407
The only evidence for that is a group of soldiers that fought in a "fish scale formation" and a village called Liqian where they have green eyes.

>>3113500
>can anybody prove this or is it just bait?
Shitty bait. Han crossbows had high draw weights and long power strokes,both of which are attested by archaeology.

The only thing that remains to be tested is efficiency and quarrel weight.
http://historum.com/asian-history/69030-han-dynasty-crossbow.html

>>3113566
yeah dude. Do you have a better explanation?
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liqian#Theories_regarding_origins_of_inhabitants

HOMER
H
DUBS
>People with normatively Caucasoid traits and/or who spoke Indo-European languages lived in areas that are now part of Gansu and Xinjiang centuries before the Romans, including the Yuezhi, Wusun, Basmyls, Tocharians, and some prehistoric Siberian populations

PREHISTORIC
SIBERIAN
POPULATIONS
>Genetic testing in 2005 revealed that 56% of the DNA of some Zhelaizhai residents could be classified as Caucasoid, but did not determine their origins.[9]

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>>3113596
>>3113500
Its possible the guy is confusing the repeating crossbow with the actual crossbow. The repeating crossbow is bit weaker in draw weight but makes up for that by making it semi-automatic.


On the other hand there are ever larger versions of the crossbows which require multiple people. And some that need to be put on static objects and are similar to the Greek crossbow in regards to siege-tech size. But those are more rarer.

>>3113635
>semi-automatic
>repeating crossbow

>>>/k/

>>3113407
>>3113611
Most likely Greeco-Bactrian soldiers whom utilized Alexander's formation system or may have updated it.

>>3113645
yeah dude it's possible I suppose, cultural diffusion is a thing.

>>3113635
He clearly linked >>3113526 which is the standard 6 stone(375lb) military crossbow.

Repeating crossbows are meme tier weapons.
http://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/09/unique-weapon-of-ming-dynasty-zhu-ge-nu.html

>>3113708
*387lb

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations#Hypothetical_military_contact

>inb4 chinese faggots try to use Y-dna as refutation
lol

>>3113867
Uh... Han won that battle.

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>Roman
>Cavalry

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Omg holy shit. Went to the wiki page for Roman vs Han economy and some butthurt Sinoboo has reversed the stats. Pic related, they used to Be the other way around

https://en.m.wikiversity.org/wiki/Comparison_between_Roman_and_Han_Empires

>>3114743
Zhang's edit aside.

Wagner's estimates are baseless. He uses 19th century Qing's economy and uses that as an estimate to Han dynasty's capacity. And that estimate only accounts for the official iron ore production by the state, not the individuals or guilds.

>>3114822
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourses_on_Salt_and_Iron

An interesting debate took place on whether or not state should continue monopolizing or whether or not it should be left to the free market. Hmmm where have I seen this discussion before. Needless to say, they monopolized the iron industry but the cruel and unusual punishments were abolished (like cutting noses). Needless to say, there probably were a good chunk of blackmarket for privatized iron since the industry doesn't disappear just because the state says so.

braaaaaap

>>3113867
But the Han won, dumbass.

>>3114743
Did you check the source anon? It seems to be legit

>>3108654
I think Rome has better chance because European men are stronger, in time before fire-arms it is important.

>>3117251
Strength is balanced by skill. It's more up to the equipment each Empires had.

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>>3111194
This map is so misleading; as soon as Trajan died Hadrian ceded most of Mesopotamia and other conquered lands back to the original owners, because they couldn't keep hold of it.

You also clearly know fuck all about China too.

Even then, at it's height in 117 AD the Roman Empire was smaller than the Western Han Dynasty Empire was in 50 BC: Rome controlled 5.0 million km2 of land, compared to China's 6 million km2.

China's empire at the time was objectively larger, and they forged it in 200 years.

>>3117316
Here's my source for the land-mass numbers:

>http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/369/381

>>3117316
The commandaries in Korea is misporportioned.

>>3117316
That line is bit small too. The Chinese fighting battles well past that and close to Afghan/Bactria. They were also fighting battles well into inner mongolia/xiongnu holdouts.

>>3108654
Rome can easy hire a lot of mercenaries from Africa

>>3117316
Lol no it was not

>>3117359
China can easy hire a lot of mercenaries from the Steppes

>>3117316
You didn't understand him. For that anon, most of Han territory in the map doesn't count as conquest since they were part of China already. In fact those territories work for the argument that rome did more with less, in the eyes of that anon, and therefore the mention of a "whole race" being unable to match the conquests of "a single city".

Take it as you want.

>>3117359
They did, its called the Auxilla units. They limit that to what the legions numbers are so Romans wont have to deal with barbarian army revolt.

>>3112896
Romans made extensive use of horse nomad auxiliares.

>>3117397
They hired former horse nomads in small numbers. That's extensive?

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>>3114743
Top kek

>>3113659
It's not posible, it's a reality that we had greeks and hellenized locals in central asia.

>>3114743
Chinese are so fucking autistic

>>3113533
You can make 130lb hornbows you dip

>>3117424
Extensive in the sense that they did it all the time. And sarmatians are by no means "former" nomads. Also, the numbers they used in reality are irrelevant since those numbers depend on necessity, you can expect them to recruit more light cavalry if they're fighting an enemy that requires it.

>>3117468
So if you're describing the Roman use of hiring nomads to do it as "extensive", then what does that make the Chinese method? Limitless? Perfect? Godlike? The Chinese employed the steppe nomads all the time like the Romans, but they did so in numbers that dwarfed anything the Romans did. They also created their own internal cavalry division that completely eclipses the entirety of Roman legion.

Come on, use the proper descriptive words for these events. Roman use of the nomads was limited at best. The Chinese would be extensive. Nothing is godlike or perfect.

When you conflate the Roman achievements, it means the equal has to be done to other other side, which creates issues.

Keep the MUH ANCESTORS to minimum and stick to reality.

>>3117499
inflate*

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>>3113526

>meanwhile in rome

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another China Vs Rome thread and another actual conversation derailed by racism

WEW LAD

>>3108654
The question is shit.
The roman republic and empire together existed almost 2000 years. Which period are you even refering to? The respective armies have great differences.

That been said: in the magical case of a war between these two. China would win. It played the game of massive relatively well equipped and trained armies better.

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anime!

>>3108654
The Romans are literally the most advanced people that ever lived go fuck yourself

>>3108654
Who's invading
Rome only fights defensive wars

I'm a total Romaboo, but the Chinese have the edge on this one. It's not that the Romans couldn't win, but everything favors the Chinese.

>>3108654
>Chinese of a particular era, check.
>"The" Romans?

OK, your question kind of went to shit there. Roman military structure, tactics, tech, all changed massively from one end of :the Romans" to the other.

>>3117397
>>3117424

Numbers and extent to which cavalry was relied upon changed drastically over time.

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>>3108654
Goddamn delusional fags thinking China has any chance of beating Rome at their respective peaks. China got BTFO by barbarians through their entire history - the Xiongnu, The Mongols, the Manchus. In fact ever since the Han Empire the chinese barely expanded in any direction - they were completely stagnant. If you look at the territory that the Han has and the Ming has (the last Han chinese dynasty), you would see that there is absolutely no new territorial acquisitions.

The biggest territorial gains in Chinese history were made by non-Chinese ruling dynasties - the Yuan and the Qing. So the Chinese were obviously not that great at war when you consider their history.

There's a popular misconception that the Chinese beat the Xiongnu - that's not really true. The Xiongnu confederation fell apart and various tribes started fighting each other, one of them allied themselves to Han and the other attacked the Han. Now, China didn't even manage to conquer the Xiongnu, they just drove them off at a great cost to the empire. Then you look at Chinese campaigns in Tibet, Vietnam and Korea - mostly complete failures and you'll see that Chinese strength is completely overexaggerated.

I don't know where this myth comes from that China is equal or even stronger than Rome. It seems to me it's because some of your link a longer survival to being better which is quite simply not true. The main reason China survived as long is because of their system of governorship that allowed practically anyone to claim the Mandate of Heaven and establish a new dynasty. The other reason is that they're naturally defended from every frontier - the harsh climate and the steppes in the north, the Tibetan Plateau in the west, the mountains in the south. Literally the only way to invade China is through the scarcely populated North.

The Romans would have quite simply never have been beaten by the Manchus, the Mongols or the Xiongnu. Even at their weakest and divided they beat the Huns.

>>3122860
>China got BTFO by barbarians through their entire history - the Xiongnu, The Mongols, the Manchus.
Might as well extrapolate the Byzantines if you want to go down that route.

A better example of a weak military is the Northern Song's campaigns against the Tanguts,Khitans and Jurchens.

>Xiongnu
Split into two confederations with the Southern Xiongnu under Han vassalage.

>Mongol
The Mongols fought against three splinter states,five if you want to include Dali and Dai Viet.

>Manchus
Welcomed in after the collapse of the central government from peasant rebellions. The bulk of the Mongol/Manchu conquering army consisted of native Chinese defectors.

>The biggest territorial gains in Chinese history were made by non-Chinese ruling dynasties - the Yuan and the Qing.
No. The early Tang was able to obtain suzerainty over the steppes as well as nominal control of lands west of the Tarim Basin as well as the former territories of Goguryeo and Baekje.

> Then you look at Chinese campaigns in Tibet, Vietnam and Korea - mostly complete failures and you'll see that Chinese strength is completely overexaggerated.
Which is completely irrelevant,as the Han were able to subjugate Nan Yue and Gojoseon.

At the end of the day the Romans lacked blast furnaces,universal conscription and crossbows while excelling at other fields.