What about Chinese!?

[daagon]

Don't get me wrong cos I love Japanese history and all about samurais and all that...    but what about chinese weaponry? I understand that a Japan sourcebook will be coming out in the future, but will there be any mention of Chinese stuff?

Just wondered... :)

[kenjib]

I think they should be in the TROS Japan book.  How else would you carefully equip the massive invading force that gets utterly destroyed at sea by the forces of nature?

[Malechi]

What, like the Mongols? ;)

[kenjib]

What, like the Mongols? ;)

Oh yeah.  Oops!  hehe.

[kenjib]

Okay - sorry for the hijack, but weren't the 140,000 troops of the second mongol invasion in 1281 all chinese with chinese gear?

[Jake Norwood]

Add China to my list of Mini-Supplement requests.  Short of Hong Kong action movies and The Art of War I know zilch about China, and I'm not enough of an enthusiast to learn more. Consider that an open invitation.

I'm a Tokugawa Japan addict, though, hence the Japan book.

Jake

[Edge]

I'd live to write a china supp but i doubt anyone would want to read it as it would be a cross between monkey magic and jackie chan movies as this is where i have gained all my extensive knowledge of china from.  :)

I'm more of a japan person as well Jake

[Bankuei]

Hi folks,

To be honest, a chinese sourcebook would either be insanely massive, or very focused.  

Let's not forget that these were folks who were pulling up the largest land armies in the world, had armor, written communications, large scale tactics and strategies, understood logistics for long term warfare, siege engines, and espionage, for a few thousand years.

Yeesh.

An interesting focus that no one to date has taken with dealing with ancient chinese warfare is the chinese focus on leadership and understanding character.  If you read the Romance of Three Kingdoms, Heroes of the Water Margin, and other classics, the focus isn't on the armies fighting, but rather the politics and people leading the armies.  

A lot of the stories revolve around being able to understand a person's character, choosing loyal and capable underlings, and knowing the morale of your troops and those of your foes.

Chris

[Brian Leybourne]

Okay - sorry for the hijack, but weren't the 140,000 troops of the second mongol invasion in 1281 all chinese with chinese gear?

That depends how loosely you use the term "Chinese" really. The Mongols were just more Barbarians who had bordered the ever-changing boundary of what was "China" and what wasn't (even the Ch'in for whom the country is named, didn't last that long). A favorite tactic of Chinese emperors when being harrassed by the barbarians was to let a tribe across the wall, and then charge them with guarding it to keep other tribes out.

And Chris, don't harp on too much about early Chinese inventions. Their problem was that technical people weren't allowed to talk to the people in charge and visa versa. Thus the Chinese invented gunpowder before anyone else, but never worked out how to use it properly (the guns they made were far inferior to European ones), they invented mechanical clocks six hundred years before the rest of Europe, but were quickly outstripped when Europeans did invent them, and they invented the sea compass and cartography eight hundred years or so before anyone else, but did they do anything with it? Nope, they just used it to sail around the coast and didn't even map very much - other people were the ones who mapped the seas and moved across the pacific etc, nearly a millennium after China could have. The list goes on.

Brian.

[Bankuei]

Hi Brian,

I didn't say they used everything all the time, or very well ;)  The Chinese have always suffered from the bueacracy issues, and throughout history have had the same issues that the modern Russian military has had:  A some really elite units, and a bunch of mediocre to crap ones mixed throughout, and bad management over the whole.  Typically throughout their warfare it was a matter of good management at the moment, major overthrow, quick decline to poor management, repeat.  

What was interesting, is that when the Mongols got ahold of Chinese siege engineers, they really became a threat to walled cities.

The highlights of Chinese military were in specific places and times, and not overall, which is why I mention that a sourcebook would either have to be massiver, or else focus on one or a few key periods.

Chris

[Ben Lehman]

I, in no way, have the knowledge or wherewithal to write this right now.  Perhaps in a few years, once I'm in Grad School in EAS, and can sneak it in with my research.

However, if someone else is doing it, please let me know and I will be glad to pro-bono consult on early Han history, Chinese Mystical thought, and some other miscellany.

yrs--
--Ben

[daagon]

Jake Wrote:
"Short of Hong Kong action movies and The Art of War I know zilch about China, and I'm not enough of an enthusiast to learn more."


Ah...    bugger. :/

I just love all their weird and wonderful weapons. I don't know enough about their capabilities, uses and damage capacities to write anything even approaching accurate.

Ah, well...  ne'er mind, eh? :)

[Jonathan Walton]

And Chris, don't harp on too much about early Chinese inventions. Their problem was that technical people weren't allowed to talk to the people in charge and visa versa.

Dude, I thought people had stopped promoting these kinds of generalizations years ago.  The argument that the Chinese somehow botched their technological/cultural "superiority" rose out of the Colonial Era, but it still gets thrown around as fact sometimes.  However, if you read a lot of recent Western scholarship (or Chinese scholarship), you'll find that the situation is much more complex than that.  Otherwise, you end up blaming the Chinese for the success of Colonialism, and that's not really kosher.

I don't actually own a copy of TRoS yet, but it's on my get-list (along with every other Diana Jones nominee).  Give me a few years and I might be ready to write a mini-supplement on China.  The fun part would be picking an era and a genre.  Do you do pure-historical Warring States period?  Do you wait until kung fu is fully developed, which is much later, after Buddhism comes to China? Do you focus on the disciplined warfare of career soldiers or the flashy moves of martial art forms? How fantasical do you let things get? Etc.

Later.
Jonathan Walton, EAS Major

[Bankuei]

Hi Jon,

I'd love to see some Warring States stuff covered.  Every rpg gets focused on the crazy fantastic martial arts aspects when dealing with China, but the Warring States offers a very ROS-ey period, where the focus is on loyalty, brotherhood, sacrifice, politics, betrayal, etc.  

Chris

[Lance D. Allen]

But... but.. what if we want the crazy fantastical martial arts?

::grins:: I suppose you'd have to have an overview of much of the period, so that it can be played out with minimal additional research by those who are interested in different aspects of the setting.

It'd be quite a bit of work, I'll freely admit.. But I also admit a certain amount of apathy toward eastern settings, so...