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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.
@@robertkalinic335 well thats a completely different argument than saying that the cannons caused damage to the walls through recoil in fact you could almost say that your argument is the opposite of the op's
@@robertkalinic335 my guess is that they thought they just had a better shot on flat ground for whatever reason maybe they wanted to hit the enemy's horse, which would have been easier to hit on flat ground
@@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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
วันที่ผ่านมา +4
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.
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!
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.
@@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…
@@thenoblepoptart i just got all 3 of the warhammer TW games for like 15 dollars, and im not really that impressed i think the series peaked with shogun like 15 years ago
@ 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
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.
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.
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 and also equipped with a lot of cannons must be quite challenging with complete control of the rivers.
this area of china is so far away from the central plains, i imagine that even a large city would have been besieged and eventually captured by the jurchens they were basically the mongols 2.0, they were very smart guys
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.
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.
Forgotten Weapons has several videos about the guns made in the Qing and Republic periods and yes guns made in China were as cheap and unreliable as you'd think, but many of them were good copies of European guns.
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
China was truly the center of human civilization for so long, with the most arable land, best technology, highest population, most centralized government and robust civil service, ETC… It’s beyond the scope of the video, but the collapse of the Qing dynasty and century of humiliation is, in my opinion, one of the most traumatic events in human history by sheer scale of suffering. Extreme tragedy
@@konradvonschnitzeldorf6506 i read one of the few accounts of the precolombian atlantic coast, sailors would describe smelling smoke at ANY point on the coast within 10 miles of land. The ENTIRE frontage was densely settled, and you could see the massive plumes of smoke from their colossal camps rising into the sky, even just observing from a ship at sea. The population difference between that time, and the post-exchange period, is easily -98%. Absolutely unreal devastating loses of native american civilization, who’s size and capability was such that they triggered a miniature ice age with the scale of their forestry industry and agriculture
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
There is an little error. the Chinese character “Qing(清)" should be directly translated into "clear" or "transparent", rather than pure. In old times, Chinese people use the metaphor of clear transparent water when speaking of good virtue. But things are different in the Christian world, where people believe in monotheism and value purity of divinity more.
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.
Great video! Can someone explain to me: Why did the chinese after initially inventing black powder and firearms, fall behind in the technology, they had years of a start vs Europe and still got surpassed? Is it a lack of financing? Missing metalurgical technology? Missing good material? Any interesting sources to share?
Andrade suggests that one of the reasons why the Chinese didn't focus as much attention on developing cannons until the 16th Century could be due to the thickness of City Walls in China, which lead to a general disinterest in that field. China decided to focus on highly manueverable and lightweight weapons that would be effective against personnel, so they focused on rocketry instead.
… 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?
The styerotypes that early manchus relied heavily on cavalry and archery was ironically, based off propaganda of early Qing dynasty trying to maintain the degree of military discipline and well-prepardness of war along the eight manchu banners. On its early conquests, the Qing already possessed a very good quantity of firearms and artillery, namely from han soldiers who joined them, with the knowledge of operating such weapons. Han soldiers and firearms are much more relied on after the eight banners suffered large casualties in Xinjiang, Myanmar and Nepal, which also badly crippled the economy, but was able to secure most of the borders of modern day China. Even by the second opium war, China is still able to be somewhat on par with the invaders even with poor firearms, but mostly defeated in hand-to-hand combat, as almost no soldiers are willing to fight for a corrupt and inept Qing administration - who saw han as a bigger threat to westerners. This is proven when the British forces attempt to capture dagu, and the first volley of the Qing forces has actually killed the British battalion leader and badly wounding the second-in-command.
The war is greatly simplified, u can’t explain it properly without introducing the financial issue Ming court have to face and the peasant rebellion within China due to server lack of rain and food
@samsonsoturian6013 but without explain this the conquest of qing sounds like conquest of Mongol, but as matter of fact for most of time they only care about raiding the population and wealth, their success is more like build up of series of accident with the help of peasent rebellion
So China benefited from gunpowder technology which came from the West but which was originally Chinese technology but which originally came from ancient India.... Interesting cycle of technology
In some cases, claims about India as an origin of gunpowder are part of nationalistic narratives that seek to highlight ancient technological achievements in Indian history. Similar to other countries with rich historical traditions, India is often suggested as a possible origin point for many early technologies. However, the consensus among historians and archaeologists remains that gunpowder, as we know it, was first developed in China around the 9th century. i.e India as origin is BS - lol
@@me67galaxylife also i find it hard to believe that a giant wall of stone would take much damage from the recoil of a 17th century ming dynasty cannon ive read stories of chinese city walls being like 20 feet thick
@@Gravitatis Warfare in China in that time war more conservative, rare and consequently differently context, besides they don't have the same fortification and metallurgy technology and techniques compared to europe.
By that time things like matchlocks and culverins had to be transmitted from the west to china. The chinese, having been pioneers in gunpowder centuries before, have fallen behind most of the eurasian powers by 1500.
@@tdoran616 Hand cannons already existed in China in early 12/13th century. The biggest difference though was in metallurgy. That's where European version was more superior because of the constant arms race between European factions fighting each other every year. In Asia, there were wars, but not constantly and frequently like that in Europe.
Would have been hell of a lot more appropriate to make a video about how China transformed Western warfare. Black powder is their invention and they were using it centuries before westerners. How about stirrups? That's another Chinese invention that dramatically changed western warfare when this technology reached them. It allowed for shock cavalry like knights to exist in the form they did with destructive charges. By any and all standards, the influence of Chinese on Western society in history eclipses by far the influence of Westerners on China. The latter become significant starting almost only in the XIX century, and in a very negative way. Westerners caused the Opium Wars which changed China forever.
I'd say this topic is kinda less discussed than yours, although I find all of them very interesting. Anyway, out of curiosity, no judgement whatsoever, where are you from?
@@SisyphusOfSodom As this is a historical channel they make videos according to science. There is no knowledge how and by whom and when exactly black powder came to Europe. So how to make a scientifically correct video about this? Also Europeans developed better concepts to use it by themself. The stirrup came to Europe by the Avars, so there was no direct Chinese influence. I don't know if the Avars got them by Chinese influence.
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17c, no "russia" but Muscovy
Very accurate depiction of late Ming cloth face armor, for both parties.
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.
but these cannons werent even that big, surely the chinese cities had massive walls
they couldnt find _anywhere_ to put them?
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.
@@robertkalinic335
well thats a completely different argument than saying that the cannons caused damage to the walls through recoil
in fact you could almost say that your argument is the opposite of the op's
@@robertkalinic335
my guess is that they thought they just had a better shot on flat ground for whatever reason
maybe they wanted to hit the enemy's horse, which would have been easier to hit on flat ground
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.
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
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.
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.
um, the ming dynasty also grew complacent
the ming dynasty fell to the jurchens precisely because it couldnt adapt to the times
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?
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.
Early modern warfare is so fascinating!
Loving these artwork
Never clicked on a notification so fast in my life
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
Fantastic video, never thought about this page of chinise warfare!
Sand and Dan Davis back to back? Thank you very much.
Thanks RhandSoman.
Love this channel
Thank you for making this! Rare to see Ming army content at all
I love your channel!!
My favorite is siege videos
first time watching, LOVE the incorporation of sources and historical depictions aswell as your own art, greets from züri!
@3:00 Chinese river battles never fail to impress
1:57 Having a "wildly pointing at the thing" moment. That's the guy from the Indiana Jones movie!
-China: 7 grievances
-Germany: 95 theses
History repeats itself in different places
kind of a strange comparison but ok
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
Not familiar with Chinese weaponry, I watched this informative and still beautifully illustrated video with great pleasure!👍👍😍😍
Very interesting to leave the usual eurocentric horizon. Thank you very much!
Best early modern warfare channel ever!
Thanks for a fascinating video! ⚔🔥🙌
OH IT'S HERE
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
i wouldnt, the TW games kinda suck
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…
@@thenoblepoptart
i just got all 3 of the warhammer TW games for like 15 dollars, and im not really that impressed
i think the series peaked with shogun like 15 years ago
@ 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
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.
Very informative article.
This channel is great! I loved this video. Thank you!
Very informative ❤
Interesting!
Excellent narrative
Very fascinant 👏 🔥 👏 🔥
Expect to learn about Cannons, learn about Dynasty transitions
Ming the Merciless
great video. keep it coming :)
Kinda ironic because the Qing got defeated by the Konbaung who used better cannons and muskets. The Qings got out Qinged.
Very interesting
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.
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 and also equipped with a lot of cannons must be quite challenging with complete control of the rivers.
this area of china is so far away from the central plains, i imagine that even a large city would have been besieged and eventually captured by the jurchens
they were basically the mongols 2.0, they were very smart guys
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.
I am Brasil ❤ i love you Chanel
really interesting! would be cool to get a video about india / mughal empire as well. maybe also japan.
Commenting for the algorithm
The Manchu's were proof positive that given the chance even barbarians could master advance technology given enough time.
After all, didn’t the people that the Romans considered barbarians later become the European powers we know of in history?
@@general_degenerate5902---yep
EVERY siege is staggering !!!
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.
I would day no It was not enough give how history played out. But I migth be suprised.
Forgotten Weapons has several videos about the guns made in the Qing and Republic periods and yes guns made in China were as cheap and unreliable as you'd think, but many of them were good copies of European guns.
As an Australian, the "7 grievences" hit too close to home lol
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
China was truly the center of human civilization for so long, with the most arable land, best technology, highest population, most centralized government and robust civil service, ETC…
It’s beyond the scope of the video, but the collapse of the Qing dynasty and century of humiliation is, in my opinion, one of the most traumatic events in human history by sheer scale of suffering. Extreme tragedy
china has high highs, but it also has low lows
History, progress, evolution, etc... is not static, the unpredictable happens.
Id say the fall of the american indians or the holocaust are more traumatic, considering that China came back
@@konradvonschnitzeldorf6506 i read one of the few accounts of the precolombian atlantic coast, sailors would describe smelling smoke at ANY point on the coast within 10 miles of land. The ENTIRE frontage was densely settled, and you could see the massive plumes of smoke from their colossal camps rising into the sky, even just observing from a ship at sea. The population difference between that time, and the post-exchange period, is easily -98%. Absolutely unreal devastating loses of native american civilization, who’s size and capability was such that they triggered a miniature ice age with the scale of their forestry industry and agriculture
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
Finally some proper Ming and Qing illustrations after the fiasco last time.
Context, please.
There is an little error. the Chinese character “Qing(清)" should be directly translated into "clear" or "transparent", rather than pure.
In old times, Chinese people use the metaphor of clear transparent water when speaking of good virtue.
But things are different in the Christian world, where people believe in monotheism and value purity of divinity more.
loving the china content
fyi: gun powder and cannons were invented in China, not Europe.
6:05 Swedish King
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.
I never use any kind of wallet
I would not want to die a slow death because of cannonball injuries.
Damn this reminds me of the boshin war but what heppend after was the opposite lol.
Great video! Can someone explain to me: Why did the chinese after initially inventing black powder and firearms, fall behind in the technology, they had years of a start vs Europe and still got surpassed? Is it a lack of financing? Missing metalurgical technology? Missing good material? Any interesting sources to share?
Andrade suggests that one of the reasons why the Chinese didn't focus as much attention on developing cannons until the 16th Century could be due to the thickness of City Walls in China, which lead to a general disinterest in that field. China decided to focus on highly manueverable and lightweight weapons that would be effective against personnel, so they focused on rocketry instead.
why did the thumbnail changed?
Awesome stuff
Great
Thibet was a Khanate O_O
So to summarize, western weapons is the reason China is so large. Yw.
17c, no "russia" but Muscovy
11:23 is that chinese wall ?
Massss
Loco Lococo
👍
8:11 chariots??
Next video : How chinese fireworks transformed western warfare .
5:10 and people called Game of thrones unrealistic for doing that
Still a stupid decision
… 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?
amazing! so, china was quite a bit ahead of Europe. europeans just sold back what they initially brought back from china?
The reason why China isnt called Mina
Imagine being the first lad to lay eyes on the cannons, who are positioned outside the walls...
Like... Wtf?
imagine seeing a man on the moon in 1969
Modernization goes hand in hand with war.
hi
People are always competing to create the weapon that kills the most people.
It's human nature
well i mean it is kinda useful to have sometimes
The styerotypes that early manchus relied heavily on cavalry and archery was ironically, based off propaganda of early Qing dynasty trying to maintain the degree of military discipline and well-prepardness of war along the eight manchu banners. On its early conquests, the Qing already possessed a very good quantity of firearms and artillery, namely from han soldiers who joined them, with the knowledge of operating such weapons. Han soldiers and firearms are much more relied on after the eight banners suffered large casualties in Xinjiang, Myanmar and Nepal, which also badly crippled the economy, but was able to secure most of the borders of modern day China.
Even by the second opium war, China is still able to be somewhat on par with the invaders even with poor firearms, but mostly defeated in hand-to-hand combat, as almost no soldiers are willing to fight for a corrupt and inept Qing administration - who saw han as a bigger threat to westerners. This is proven when the British forces attempt to capture dagu, and the first volley of the Qing forces has actually killed the British battalion leader and badly wounding the second-in-command.
Seems the biggest weakness contributing to Han military defeats is their arrogance and complacency.
The war is greatly simplified, u can’t explain it properly without introducing the financial issue Ming court have to face and the peasant rebellion within China due to server lack of rain and food
He doesn't even go over the grievances. You'd need a whole series for that much detail
@samsonsoturian6013 but without explain this the conquest of qing sounds like conquest of Mongol, but as matter of fact for most of time they only care about raiding the population and wealth, their success is more like build up of series of accident with the help of peasent rebellion
So China benefited from gunpowder technology which came from the West but which was originally Chinese technology but which originally came from ancient India.... Interesting cycle of technology
China invented it while the western powers improved upon it pretty much
In some cases, claims about India as an origin of gunpowder are part of nationalistic narratives that seek to highlight ancient technological achievements in Indian history. Similar to other countries with rich historical traditions, India is often suggested as a possible origin point for many early technologies. However, the consensus among historians and archaeologists remains that gunpowder, as we know it, was first developed in China around the 9th century. i.e India as origin is BS - lol
Tf gunpowder didn't come from India 😂
There is no evidence gunpowder came from India.
yeah ive never heard of anyone saying that gunpowder is from india my dude
inb4 the social credit seekers wake up and flood the comments with anti-white butthurt again
Europeans are smart
just look at NATO!
@Gravitatis just look at the computer or phone you used to write this comment!
@@raijinenel3116
bro i have an acer PC and an android, neither of which are made in europe
@@Gravitatis invented by Europeans.
@@raijinenel3116
youre a joke
Don't forget, if current CCP asserts their claim on Taiwain, remember that the Dutch claimer is older and stronger lmao
Colonialist you are...😊
@@ShamLie-y5y exactly like the Chinese there.
There were already Chinese settlers in Taiwan before the Dutch came. I don't why you say Dutch claim is older.
Well the Dutch already lost that claim from military conquest and haven't restaked one for 300 years.
And the aboriginal claim is even older than that
so it took the chinese like 20 years to figure out that cannons are more effective while protected by walls?
Because they damaged the wall when they fired
@@me67galaxylife
why not use a smaller cannon, or position the cannon in such a way that it doesnt damage the wall?
@@me67galaxylife
also i find it hard to believe that a giant wall of stone would take much damage from the recoil of a 17th century ming dynasty cannon
ive read stories of chinese city walls being like 20 feet thick
@@Gravitatis Warfare in China in that time war more conservative, rare and consequently differently context, besides they don't have the same fortification and metallurgy technology and techniques compared to europe.
@@Gravitatis Well the problem stems from the walls not the cannons, you need to build them accordingly, supposedly at least maybe it's a myth
Should be how "Chinese invension transformed technology and warfare"
By that time things like matchlocks and culverins had to be transmitted from the west to china. The chinese, having been pioneers in gunpowder centuries before, have fallen behind most of the eurasian powers by 1500.
The European weapons were not Chinese inventions, Europeans innovated and built all the guns and cannons which the Chinese then learned from
That's like saying cause Mesopotamia invented the wheel the car is an Iraq invention.
the chinese were getting clapped by men with bows and arrows while europe was using combined arms theory with pike and shot
@@tdoran616 Hand cannons already existed in China in early 12/13th century. The biggest difference though was in metallurgy. That's where European version was more superior because of the constant arms race between European factions fighting each other every year. In Asia, there were wars, but not constantly and frequently like that in Europe.
Would have been hell of a lot more appropriate to make a video about how China transformed Western warfare. Black powder is their invention and they were using it centuries before westerners. How about stirrups? That's another Chinese invention that dramatically changed western warfare when this technology reached them. It allowed for shock cavalry like knights to exist in the form they did with destructive charges. By any and all standards, the influence of Chinese on Western society in history eclipses by far the influence of Westerners on China. The latter become significant starting almost only in the XIX century, and in a very negative way. Westerners caused the Opium Wars which changed China forever.
Chill bro. Inside voice...
I'd say this topic is kinda less discussed than yours, although I find all of them very interesting. Anyway, out of curiosity, no judgement whatsoever, where are you from?
@@alessandronavone6731 I'm Canadian, descendant from French and British.
I don’t know western tech like planes, armour, metal warships , radar etc I used by China think will be more impactful as time goes on
@@SisyphusOfSodom As this is a historical channel they make videos according to science. There is no knowledge how and by whom and when exactly black powder came to Europe. So how to make a scientifically correct video about this? Also Europeans developed better concepts to use it by themself.
The stirrup came to Europe by the Avars, so there was no direct Chinese influence. I don't know if the Avars got them by Chinese influence.