Who Wins: Ancient China Vs. Ancient Rome

I think the ancient Sardinian's could best them both, at once!

I voted for China, as they've many more peasants to bring to the fore.

I vote Rome. The battle training these guys went through would give them to much of an advantage over the Chinese. That, and a water route back and forth from your supposed battlefield would create a quicker route back and forth to Rome.

Sorry, but I'm betting on Rome.

Rome lost some battles when it was a numbers game in Britannia...Plus the Chinese had certain tactical weapons, as you say, such as cavalry, archers, missiles, and don't forget gunpowder. China was the most technologically advanced civilization of its time, and had most or all of the key resources internally.
I think their strategizing was at least equal to Rome's, plus they were willing to be patient and wait for a favorable opportunity.

At what point in Roman History are the Romans fighting? Is it when they pretty much dominated the entire Mediterranean? I feel the extensive road system they built would give them an edge on supply and resupply, and they seemed to enlist conscripts from just about everywhere they conquered. So Yea legionaries would be the shizz but they'd have a hell of a lot of mercenaries.

Before the Romans could set foot in Han empire, the Romans would be completely annihilated by Chinese long range missiles and who bloody thinks the ancient Chinese army didn't have professional training, you bloody Euro-misogynist?

Plus there is this Sun Tzu's Art of War, much cherished by modern military establishments around the world today. Romans were just lucky that countries around them were technologically inferior and philosophically WEAK.

plus china had crossbows and steel. they also had gunpowder, thought they didnt realise its potential in war till the middle ages. believe it or not, they also were industrialised. bessemer process,etc. they just didnt use steam. also as alan said, chinese armies werent comprised of peasants alone. the main force is a huge army of trained and disiplined men.

i know this aint relavent to the topic, but just a few videos to educate u guys about china:

plus china had crossbows and steel. they also had gunpowder, thought they didnt realise its potential in war till the middle ages. believe it or not, they also were industrialised. bessemer process,etc. they just didnt use steam. also as alan said, chinese armies werent comprised of peasants alone. the main force is a huge army of trained and disiplined men.

i know this aint relavent to the topic, but just a few videos to educate u guys about china:

What we know about Han China suggests that it did most emphatically not consist of soldiers with anywhere near the level of professionalism as the Romans. It was based around a core of professional soldiers, supported by a far larger contingent of conscripts who, whilst training regularly, were not volounteers, and thus not professionals. We also know from the records at the time that the supremely powerful crossbows used by the Chinese were not standard issue. Far from it, they were very difficult to make, and very expensive. They were used by small units of elite soldiers (though "small" here can mean 2-3 thousand men). The Roman Armor, the Lorica Segmentata, has a long history of being superior to everything around it. Many believe today that no armor was ever made to match it, anywhere, until the reneissance. This was standard issue to all of those soldiers, except for auxilliaries, who wore the Lorica Hamatata, which was more akin to chainmail. Now, it cannot be denied that at close range, a Chinese Crossbow could pierce the Roman armor. However, unless those crossbowmen can kill all of the Romans by themselves, with their extremely long reload time, at close (under 50 meters) range, they're not going to win the battle. Cavalry could be a deciding factor, except that heavy cavalry was utterly unheard of in the east, due to lack of heavy armor. Charges against light infantry flanks, and horse archer barrages were effective against the enemies the Chinese faced, but in engagements with heavily armored enemies, the obvious problem arises that a man on a horse is not going to be firing a 200 pound crossbow. They would likely be using the weaker (though still very advanced) recurve bows, likely of the steppe design. This would lack the strength to reliably kill Roman soldiers. Further, the Romans weren't stupid. They were terrible horsemen, and they knew it. They used the people they conquered to fill cultural military roles that they lacked, such as Archers or Horsemen. Or light infantry. Further, in addition to lacking heavy cavalry, the Han had zero experience with heavy infantry. Not only had they never seen anything that even resembled a fully armored Roman legion, they had likely never seen armor as effective as a single suit of Lorica Segmentata. There is also the matter of deployability. The Romans won their wars through logistics, not military strength. They could (and regularly did) build highways from whever they went, back to Rome. This ensured swift transport of materials and troops. The Chinese military was enourmous and powerful, but also very, very difficult to coordinate and supply once it was out of China, and this conflict is assumed to occur in a neutral area. Rome made a business of bringing huge armies out of Rome, and keeping them well supplied. In summation, it is a matter of experience, and Romans have far more experience fighting light infantry (their entire military history is spent fighting infantry lighter than them, and with superior cavalry and missiles.) than the Han have with fighting heavy infantry (None. Ever. Even the heaviest Chinese infantry wore laquered Scale armor that a Roman auxilliary would have balked at.) If the Romans lose, it will be after inflicting huge casualties due to their obviously superior infantry. Further, a loss for the Romans would only be a temporary measure. The Romans were excellent at adapting, and regularly stole technologies from their enemies. The Han could not steal anything from the Romans, simply because it would not do them any good. What good would knowledge of the Lorica do them? They could not even outfit their entire army with scale, and a small unit of truly heavy infantry would require an entirely new training program, completely unfamilier to them. Crossbow technology, however, could be easily replicated by the Romans (they figured out the Qingqirem warship, this should be easy by comparison) and could then be used to excellent effect. It's really just a matter of focus. The Ancient Chinese have never been a warlike people, it is not the focus of their culture. They brought the world many inventions, and many military innovations. The Romans were the living cultural embodiment of pragmatic military expansionism, and ultimately, the most powerful military entity (relative to its opponents at the time) that has ever existed.

1stly, if you think that the crossbows were very difficult to make and they were only used by elite, that means you have no knoledge of eastern history. yes, the crossbow might have been difficult to produce, but that is only to EUROPEAN STANDARDS with their inferior technology. the chinese by the han dynasty as i said earlier, were industrialised, only not with steam power. just look at the terracota army for example. thousands of these crossbows and crosbow triggers(something so advanced europe had no way pf producing them at the period) has been found there. they were found to be the STANDARD ISSUE for ranged units. these crossbows were MASS PRODUCED. then there was also the chu ko nu, or the repeating corssbow, which can fire 11 bolts in just 15 seconds. imagine these in their thousands or possibly tens of thousands. even with the roman testudo, with such a number of bolts jurtling towards them, iot is inevitable that many will still pass through the gaps of their shields.

but the main advantage of the crossbow is that it was easy to operate and required little if no training. this way, even peasants can be turned into lethal ranged units. yes, greece had a crossbow at that time called the gastraphetes, but it was weak and didnt have the power to penetrate sheilds and armour. it had only a little more power than a normall greek bow, which was weak compared to eastern recurve and composite bows. thats why the gastraphetes were used rarely.

ahh now the armour. roman armour was heavy. it was tough. but china did have heavy armour. they had steel armour of lamellar style. this offered the great protection of steel with the flexibility of the lamellar cuirass armour. however, i accept that not all infantry worn heavy armour and that a lot of them only had light armour. but lets not forget the pros and cons of armour itself. yes armour protected the person. yes armour did make that wearer take more damage. but armour, especially heavy armour, was inflexible, made men tire quickly, overheat quickly and the most important of all, it made the wearer slow and reduced his agility dramatically. so there you have it, armour isnt always better.

furthermore, if you look back a few hundred years, to the warring states period, all soldiers had armour and sheilds, just like the romans. so why did they come out of fashion a few hundred years later. simple. the introduction of lethal ranged units and crossbows. if only, the europeans had ranged units just as good as the chinese, you would see armour come out of fashion just like in china. also, if chinese crossbows can peirce roman armour, then why did parthian composite bows(which was strong but still much weaker than a crossbow) kill so many romans? battle of carrhae, remember, where mobile parthian troops defeated the slow lumbering legions who had no choice but to group behind their protective little shells and hope the barrage is over.

then the cavalry. yes they may not have heavy cavalry but by the late han dynasty, they would have had something that made even light cavalry have greater shock power than even cataphracts. the stirrup. also, many cavalry in han china were cavalry archers who were equipped with crossbows and recurve bows, so dont forget carrhae.

also, the han had zero experience with heavy infantry? i urge you to go take eastern history lessons. their crossbows just made short work out of them. they would have easily outmaneuvred havy infantry as well.

and keep in mind the chinese outnumbered the romans on a massive scale. they managed to maintain it through simple technologies such as the iron plow or the wheelbarrow for farming. these would have led to the european agricultural revolution.

also, large armies were difficult to coordinate? yes they were, at least thats what the europeans think. all they have for communication were trumpets and they loud, commanding voiceboxes. on the other hand the chinses had signal flares in different colours(fireworks, yes they already had gunpowder by then but they didnt realise its full military potential till much later), a clever communicatioin system using fire, perfect for long distance message sending, kites, etc etc.

about adaptation? if china had nothing to adapt from rome, which is probably true, it is because china doesnt need to copy rome. their technology is lagging. on the other hand, it would have been almost impossible for the romans to copy the chinese, the crossbow in particular, since the europeans werent industrialised and they just didnt have the technology to replicate something like the crossbow trigger.

One more thing. you said that they could not outfit their entire army whith armour. again, take chinese history lessons. as i said, every soldier was equipped with armour in the warring states period. if han wanted to fit the entire army with heavy armour, they could have done so easily using their industrialised technology for mass production. the reason that han didnt have armour on all their soldiers was due to the crossbow and superior missile technology, but only partially. the main reason was that armour made the soldiers inflexible and slow. they preferred light armour because they preferred agility. they used tactics strikingly similar to Germany's blitzkreig tactics, which gave them so much success. again, carrhae shows you how useless heavy infantry are against mobile forces and ranged units. the huns were also another example, who were driven out of the east by the chinese.

also, if you think that their army had only a few proffesional divisions, think again. their army was in fact comprised mostly of professionals, with militia supporting them where they didnt, similar to the legions and auxillaries. take the northern army for example:

The Northern Army (bei jun), based at the capital, Luoyang, was the central strategic reserve of the empire. Under Later Han the Northern Army comprised five regiments (ying): the Archers Who Shoot at a Sound (shesheng), the Footsoldiers (bubing), the Elite Cavalry (yueji), the Garrison Cavalry (tunji) and the Chang River Regiment (Changshui). Each was commanded by a Colonel (xiaowei), whose rank was expressed by nominal salary Equivalent to Two Thousand shi of Grain (bi erqian shi), and the whole force was supervised by a Captain of the Centre of the Northern Army (beijun zhonghou), with rank/salary of Six Hundred shi.
The men of the Northern Army were professional, skilled soldiers, who could be sent to any point of danger or disturbance as stiffening to forces recruited locally. The numbers were not great: each regiment had an official complement of some 700 men with between 60 and 120 junior officers. Below the colonel, the second-in-command was a Major (sima), with rank/salary of One Thousand shi; the Chang River regiment, whose troopers were recruited from Wuhuan and other non-Chinese auxiliaries, had an additional Major of Barbarian Cavalry (huji sima).

orgainsation is strikingly similar to modern armies eh?

one last thing. dont just ancient china by the china today. they fell behind due to one catastrophic mistake that one emperor made in the ming dynasty. in 1421 zheng he travelled across oceans to even africa. he did it 80 years before columbeus discovered america. some even say that the chinese sailed across the pacific to discover america 100 years before columbus, but thats only a hypothesis. the ships that they sailed on, the treasure ships, were bigger than a football field.

also, i am not allowed to post videos here. but for anyone eager to learn about the chinese, an easy source i can think of is go to youtube and type in ancient chinese inventions.

i noticed that quite a lot of people say that rome influences much of the modern world. this is true, however this is due to the fall of the eastern world after the ming dynasty and the west took control of the world. rome influenced much of the western world, but china influenced much of the eastern world including japan and korea. many inventions made by the chinese were also copied by other eastern countries. take the rocket for example, which was copied by the koreans. also, many inventions from the east had been carried to the west via routes such as the silk road.

back to the topic. one thing i forgot to mention. the chinese had a superior industry and metallurgy. it wasnt just steel where china was ahead of the west. they also had the bessemer process. believe it or not, the swords from the terracotta army are still shiny and RAZOR sharp today. this is due to a protective layer called chromium, which the west didnt inherit until the 1930s. They also had a more flexible range of weapons. different swords for different purposes, the halberd, etc. the han dynasty also had advanced seige weaponry such as the counter weight catapult, which basically is the medieval trebuchet. what did rome have? inferior torsion catapults. china also had giant crossbows, a form of field artillery in their perspective, which fired ten large bolts at once.

I am a westerner and i admit that i did think that the romans were the powerhouse of the whole world. however, ever since i was introduced to eastern history the more i read about them the more i realised their potential. ancient seismographs, the cosmic engine, etc.

hangman, the thing you said about crossbow reload time. yes, crossbows did take a considerable amount of time to reload. but the chinese knew of this weakness. so they trained men to form ranks and the soldiers up the front will fire while the soldeirs up the back that have just fired reload. after the front had fired, the back would have finished reloading and they keep rotating to send bolts away volley after volley. think of it like a 18th century style battery of guns hurtling thousands of projectiles over and over again without stopping and accompanied with the repeating crossbows. the romans wouldnt have liked that. just think of how crossbows changed warfare in medieval europe. they were so powerful the pope had to ban them.

also, how well a misslie pierces shield and armour isnt just the strength of the weapon, its also how the projectile peirces it. in han china all projectiles (bolts, arrows) were equipped with armour peircing points. the english would later re-invent them and call them the bodkin point. They will go through plywood and armor. The Parthian composite bows did.

although china had a proffesional army (including heavy infantry but unlike the romans, at the same time still quite mobile), i agree chinas armies did not consist of proffesionals alone, like the auxilliaries of rome. but their non proffesional soldiers were extensively trained as well, which in a sense compensates. china, like rome, also had a system of roads. the silk road was connected to this system.

Also , if china went to war with rome, my god. what will become of the city of rome? city of the nudes? oh, wheres the clothes? Uh oh. we have no silk!

There seems to be a misunderstanding as to what conscrips are.

There are two types of conscripts:
1.) Emergency concripts - regular folks (peasants) that are inducted into an army without training and proper equipment. These are usually short term conscripts and their main uses is to bolster the numbers of an army of elite professional soldiers. European medieval armies are an example of these.

2.)Formal conscripts - These conscripts are in an organize state. They are drafted, trained for a period of time, and outfitted with weapons. Their service are usually a few years. Examples of this is the US Army Before Vietnam.

The Han conscripts are of the later. These men are drafted for two year periods with one year spent training and another in their units. In a typical clash, the Romans won't be facing untrained and ill equipped peasants but a highly trained and competent fighting force.

In addition, the proliferation of the Crossbow has a "democratising" effect on Chinese warfare, similar to what happend in Europe when the Crossbow was introduced. It takes only a few weeks to drill a peasant on the proper use of such weapons. Therefore the Chinese can recruite an army fairly quickly.

Lastly, European warfare in the late middle ages consists of men weilding halbeards/pike, crossbows or arquebus, and heavy cavalry. Similar weapons and tactics wre used by Han China 1500 years before.

I'm sorry, but the poll and this entire topic is lacking in historical accuracy.

1. Rome actually had a bigger population than China. (Rome had ~10 million more people) and
Roman reserves/potential conscripts means its army was equal in size to the Han Dynasty. Thus, Rome would have the advantage in population & army size.

2. I heard people constantly referring to the lorica segementata. The fact is that the segmentata is vastly overrated. It was first used around 10 BCE, but wasn't common until 2nd-3rd century. Even then, it NEVER replaced the lorica hamata chainmail. The Romans eventually stop producing the segementata because it was more expensive and more difficult to produce and repair (iron plate bands were harder to make and repair than iron rings). The only pictorial evidence of the segmentata comes from Trajan's column, which is regarded as "less than historically accurate." So in reality, the segementata was probably only rarely used, and was an armor to "show off"

3. Han Dynasty soldiers consisted of professionals and conscripts. The conscripts weren't volunteers, but they were far from useless "peasants". They would've been equipped fairly decent arms and armor and would've received a fair amount of training. They would be just as disciplined as pre-Marian hastatis, but less disciplined than standard post-Marian legionaries.

4. In the picture, it says Triari. Triaris are pre-Marian infantry who are the veterans, and made up the last line of the Republican army. The picture shows post Marian, 2nd-3rd century legionaries with pilla.
Those are not the triari.

Im sorry if you get ur facts rights, the QIN (warring states period) send millions of troops to enemies while ROME only gather 20,000 of men agaisnt their enemy the Celt (watch Youtube Secret of China First Emperor)..... and according to History FACTS (search on google) HAN population were over 50 millions at that times (that is why most battles they send 20,000-50,000 at the START initiate battles to see enemnt strength AND that is not their MAJOR battles)

And china AMRY were professional who FIGHTING is HOnor, Retreat is death ....with that in their mind is curcial to a battles plus with their advance weapons Superior to ROME any faces

I'll give to these facts from a commentators
War between ROME and CHINA (ancient)
1. technology
Ancient Chinese already started to use iron/steel weaponry while Romans were still using bronze.
Ancient Chinese had lots of large battle machineries(used to launch projectiles) while Romans did not have them.

2. strategy
Ancient Chinese had long paying main attention on the strategies rather than head to head fighting. "Art of War" was written over 2000 years ago and it is being studied by western military schools today.

3. Individual skills
Ancient Chinese martial arts are far superior than anything European could ever imagine. It was a common thing for generals(martial arts experts) single handedly take out hundreds enemies. Although common soldiers were not as tough, but I'd bet money on average ancient Chinese soldier can 1 on 3~5 average European soldiers.

4. Numbers....
Western Roman Empire had somewhat 400,000 soldiers in total.

In China, during "Waring States"...total 7 kingdoms fighting each other.
The largest one Chu had over 1 million troops. The smallest(but not the weakest) Zao could still fight after lost 400,000 soldiers to Qin. The weakest, Yan sent over half a million soldiers to backstab Zao after Qin killed 400,000 Zhao soldiers, but they(Yan) were repelled by Zao.

Qin(strongest) sent 200,000 soldiers to attack Zhu. Failed miserably. Second wave attack they sent 600,000 soldiers and successed.

Just give you some ideas how huge the gap of numbers would be between Chinese and Rome at the time. Even though China was in 7 pieces back then, each one of them had more soldiers than Roman Empire.

5. other conditions related to specific battles
Location, location, location....

If the battle is far away from China while close to Rome, Chinese will have little chance to win due to the supply problem...

One example of how Chinese lost wars in central Asia.
During Tang Dynasty(618 – 907 A.D.), Chinese had troops in central Asia to guard Silk Road. Which was thousands miles away from the nearest Chinese town. Arabic Empire who was much closer to central Asia tried to expand their influence. Two empires eventually started fighting.

Because of the distance, Chinese had few army there. (Think about it, back then it took a horse man months just to get back to deliver a message of "We were attacked). Then will take mouths for reinforcement to arrive.

So the local Tang commander who had mere 20,000 soldiers had to hire local mercenaries from varies countries to deal with 400,000 Arabic troops. Finally the key battle took place, where The 20k Tang troops gathered all together along with mercenaries to face 100,000 Arabic soldiers at once. The battle did go for the favor of Tang at first even though their number were few, however during the night the mercenaries suddenly switched the side and forced Tang troops to retreat.

So you see. If either one is too far away from home with no supply no reenforcement would have no chance of winning.

If you put the two into a huge "arena" and fight fairly...then I don't believe Romans stood a chance.

If you put the Romans into a huge arena with any of the enemies they defeated I don't think they would have stood a chance...but they still became the most influencial empire of all time.

Lets look at this from different points.

The Romans would win in the area of tactics. From documentries I've seen, the Chinese simply charge en masse against their opponents and engage them in melee combat whereas the Romans would have approached in a triangular formation and engaged each enemy 7 to 1 when they got trap between a whole lot of troops.

Course though, the chinese would probably win hands down during the Qin dynasty. They had over 2.5 million men!

And I'll have to say that Chinese technology was ahead in the archery range cause they used crossbows. Which were far more accurate, kinda like a rifle :).

And in the production area, the Chinese once again win hands down because they could mass produce a massive variety of weapons in a short period of time, way before the industrial revolution.

In the artillery area, I'll have to say that the Romans win. They had trebuts and balistas. Plus their engineers were incredibly skilled, they would simply create their artillery pieces from the trees surrounding them. So I'll say that the artillery goes to the Romans and the engineering.

So all in all, I'll say that the Romans and the Chinese are more or less evenly matched, they will just fight and fight and in the end, it will just be one massive bloodbath with everyone dying in one giant battle to the death!

So basically, its just one big blood bath. A draw I'll say.

hey yall it don't take no rocket scientist to figure this here out:

them chinese had BOTH a larger PROPORTION of peasants and larger NUMBER of trained professional soldiers than them roman boys because there was simply more of them chinese (examplem gratum 0.1x100 > 0.9x10). their water-bufflao rice farming yielded the highest amount of calories/unit of land possible at that time. them roman boys done wasting their wheat making beer. and remember how slaves counted 2/3 in this here god blessed US of A - well, you shoulda do the same when censusing the population under roman rule (id esta: you can't count no slaves as potential roman soldiers worth his damn in salt).

roman weaponry was mainly based on copper. you city slackers even know how heavy a full armor of copper would've been? standarized armor? heck, if i had me a suit of copper armor back in em roman days i woudda sooner trade it for a 100 acres cum 100 slaves and retire rather than march thousands of miles on that fancy via longesta wearing that 100 lb armor in my not-so-fancy sandles sin cavalary support. Let's remember folks, average roman height in em gud ol' days was only 5'6-7" - average chinese clay soldier was 5'10- 6' minus 1-2' for em chinese nikes. Now that's a huge chink for a tiny mario!

Lastly, roman siege technology was actually based on chinese technology. Now I dun know if them cumbersome & complicated roman siege engines was ever able to outrange and outpower them chink cataputs, but i do know them chink cataputs was extremely versatile and easy to manufacture, assemble & disassemble, et thus ubiqutious. FYI folks, much like today, back then all the saws in the entire world was made in china, them roman carpenters only had unweildly axes - but they could say at least they was made in germania.

Only thing them roman boys had over em chinks was cement, ununited barbarian neighbors, and naked penis and mammary gland sculptures. If rome and china switched places geothermographically, them chinese would still have prospered while we wouldn't never even have heard of no romans.

Although someone here stated that the Romans DID outnumber the Chinese, the Romans were incapable of fielding as many troops as the Chinese. Case in point: The battle of Mayi, where the Chinese had deployed 300,000 troops. In comparison, the Romans rarely deployed troops over the tens of thousands mark.

What does this mean? It means the Chinese topped the Romans in logistic efficiency, and management.

I'd also like to point out to the person who said that Rome at their peak had amazing cavalry -- The Chinese had better. The Chinese had been working on perfecting mounted warfare since their encounters with the Xiongnu. Think of it as the French against the Germans in the Second World War. Sure, the French supposedly fought with elite troops etc. -- But what use was that? The Germans blitzkrieged them, with pure mobility.

Which leads me to another point: Mobility always, always, always defeats slow and heavy fighting. The Mongols defeated the Europeans through mobility, and the Huns did to the Romans. The Romans were simply not accustomed to lightning warfare, but to attrition. The Chinese, having been the origin of modern warfare (Ahem: Art of War), would have obviously not let the Romans do this. As the Art of War stated, one must not fight a war for a prolonged period of time.

Pitting the forces evenly, with infinite supplies, the Chinese would certainly win. The fact that the Chinese focused on ranged warfare, and when it came to melee, focused on mobile, dirty strikes would utterly waste the Roman formations. The tetsudo would've hardly been useful to the barrages of Chinese artillery and crossbows. Basically, Roman forces would be pretty much half-dead by the time they close the gap between them and the Chinese infantry -- Who would most likely retreat, and let the Cavalry do the dirty work.

Don't get me wrong, the Romans were great military powers, but the point is that the Romans possessed no means on engaging the Han army. A war against the Han would be a ranged and cavalry war -- The Romans possessed men encased in heavy armour wielding short swords, marching in blocks. Now imagine lines of Chinese crossbowmen firing at them. Yeah. They'd be dead. Dead like Samurai charging at musketmen.

The han army was more superior to the roman army at tht time. They had good discipline and training.They annihilated the huns(watch mulan..) and when the huns fled to rome,look wht happened there. I bet a average han soldier could have took at least 3 roman soldiers down with his halberd . also i saw on history channel that ancient china had floatin river fortresses.(dont know wht age or dynasty),but hell if u saw one like tht in the euphrates or some river in the battlezone, the soldiers will be peeing in their pants scared to death.Legionarres? some chinese elite with a frightening metal mask could have easily took them out and traumatize the romans mentally like the ming iron troops did to the portugese in formosa during the ming dynasty

Someone mentioned the crude bronze Chinese weapons of the Qin era, versus iron weapons of Rome. But neglect to add that those crude bronze weapons dug up today are as sharp as when they were first forged 2000 years ago buried under the earth. The Iron weapons of the Romans are pitted and rusted relics of their era. Because Chinese bronze utilized laminate technology, had a higher content of tin on its edge than in the center with higher bronze content. This made the sword very sharp and still flexible to absorb shock as it struck other weapons. The Chinese also utilized chromium oxide to coat the weapons which is the reason they survive today 2000 years later.

It appears most people only focus on Sun Tzu's book but neglect Tai Kung Liu's "Six Secret Teachings", Ssu-ma Fa, Wei Liao-tzu, Huang Shi-kung's "San-Lueh", Bin Tzu's "Military Methods" are all military texts of ancient china. I think most people don't know how militarized China's history really was. The pacifism of the turn of the century... seems to stick in most peoples minds, just like westerns movies may stick in the minds of people in foreign countries to represent the life style in the United States today.

If you truly are interested in learning a little about China's military past a good start is reading this artical. http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/AD_Issues/amdipl_13/china_sawyer.html , or you can just keep on burying your head in the sand making up fantasies about the great Roman Legions.

Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Persian were all great empires of the past... but so was China and so many are too quick to nay say it without even researching anything before opening their mouth. If each of us would put as much effort in becoming the historian they think they are then a much better understanding of why each of us should have respect and appreciation for each others culture. "This goes to say... for everyone, even myself."

Just one Chinese army during (roughly) 722-207 BC consisted of 12500 men. One Legion in the Roman's consisted of 5120 men which was formed from 9 Standard Cohort and 5 First Cohorts.

In ancient China the basic unit was 5 men called a Wu (伍), equivalent to a squad
five Wu, 25 men, formed a Liang (兩), equivalent to a platoon
four Liang, 100 men, formed a Cu (卒), equivalent to a company
five Cu, 500 men, formed a Lu (旅), equivalent to a battalion
five Lu, 2500 men, formed a Shi (師), equivalent to a regiment
five Shi, 12500 men, formed a Jun (軍) equivalent to a army

3 officers were assigned to each company of men.

Early Zhou Dynasty 1025 BC only the king had the right to maintian 6 armies, while great feudal lords can maintain 3 armies, lesser lords 2 and least of them one.

During the Warring States period the kingdom of Chu had the largest army of the seven major states. They are recorded to have 1 million effective fighting men. Before the battle of Ma Lin, Wei had the second largest troops calculated to be around 700,000 men. Not surprisingly Chu is the largest state with an estimated population of 5 million at this time and Wei the second with 4 million population. Qin is third with nearly 3 million and an army of roughly 600,000 during this time.
By the time the Qin kingdom conquered all the other states The First Emperor's army had grown and expanded and its claimed to have 1 million by the time it conquered all of the other states. According to record, the Qin had over 300,000 troops in the north against the xiongnu. Some 500,000 in the south occupying Bai Ling (territory of Bai Yue including canton, Fu Jian...), 50,000 guarding the capital, and some 150,000 over the other warring states. So all together some 1 million troops.

From the books that I have access to the highest number of Roman Troops is 737,500 men. Western comitatus 111,000, Eastern comitatus 94,000. Western limitanei 200,000, Eastern limitanei 332,000.

All i can say to some of the arguments here is wow... pathetic. Most of the people who have commented have either played far too much Dynasty Warriors or watched far too many Sword and Sandal flicks shame... Anyway I have a major in Ancient Chinese History along with a masters degree in Classical Civilizations (along with a few other merits) so i am pretty sure i know what i am talking about here. To begin with if China really did have everything that ancient scriptures say they did then of course hands down the Han Dynasty would win a war against the Romans. But here in lies the problem, the ancient chinese were quite fond of hyperboles and would say they sent hundreds of thousands of troops (even millions in some cases) to invade regions while in reality they probably sent around 10,000-30,000. To allow many of these ridiculous numbers into the debate would merit allowing Romans to use their mythology to even the odds because many of the chinese sources that cite these numbers are little more then myth themselves.

Moving on. Romans did not equip every soldier with Lorica Segmentata. Most soldiers essentially wore chain mail right through the existence of Romes history.

Now another point that has come up a lot is which empire had a larger population. The answer is this simple... no one knows. The Romans did several census's throughout their existence (and these have been proven to be accurate when compared to other historical accounts) while the Han dynasty did not. The only information we have about the size of the population of China at the time comes from unreliable sources that state the nations population was far higher then the land could possibly yield enough food to feed with the technology they had. Personally i feel Rome probably had a larger population because of the (arguably) longer life expectancy and the massive amounts of agricultural land the empire had at its disposal.

Okay next thing on my list here is the fact none of you quite understand the concept of violence. firstly no single Chinese general could possibly hope to be able to bring down hundreds of enemies on his own... it just simply is not possible, in the medieval times small packs of dogs could kill bears for the entertainment of people (similar larger spectacles were also seen in the colosseum) Next the highly advanced eastern martial arts does not give any bonus to the Chinese force for the simple reason that all the troops are heavily armed and armoured and when you have two massive forces fighting it out there just isn't the room!!! The final point (in this paragraph at least) is that the Romans understood very well that you fight better when you are not tired, as a result when stuck in a long brutal melee Roman doctrine dictated that the troops cycle so that the men at the front were constantly fresh, no soldier fighting for more then 90 seconds before getting around a 10 minute break. This was possible due to the formation the romans fought in.

Now i want to make something clear. The chinese did have well trained armies, and they DID WEAR ARMOUR! I have no idea where you Rome lovers got the idea the chinese infantry consisted SOLELY of untrained, unarmoured peasants. But the Chinese army was not, as many here have stated, as highly trained and organized as the Roman Legion during the height of Rome's power. They were brave men but they were not the same caliber as a legionary.

im gunna speed through stuff now!

It was also said that the Chinese did not fight in formations, this is not true they did, however the Formations were generally more offensive then defensive and did not utilize the highly effective shield wall the Romans used and would have had great difficulty in facing it.

it saddens me no one mentioned the Pila. The entire roman army was equipped with 2 of these (they are javelins for those who do not know) and the manner in which they were designed meant that if they hid the body it would puncture most armor due to its top heaviness, and also if blocked with a shield it was next to impossible to remove and would render the shield useless.

Next point! yes crossbows were used by the Han military! they were very effective and very deadly, but not as deadly as you guys have made them sound. They would not bring down the entire Roman army before melee occurred but it would be an effective weapon.

everyone is saying China would have a massive advantage in terms of horsemen over the Romans, however the romans always used conquered peoples as their calvalry men and these people were often skilled.

and also whats with all the barbarian hating here? The Germanic people had a very rich culture and were powerful warriors, imo they were far more dangerous then many of the enemies the ancient chinese faced.

also the Romans did not use mostly copper, they used mostly iron... and its possible they may have even had steel as early as the first century bc but this is unconfirmed.

i am losing steam here so i am gunna stop my ramblings and give you my prediction of what would happen....

They would fight in a neutral location between the 2 nations capitals, this is at like the modern day Iran Afghanistan border. The area would be fairly mountainous this would work in favor of the Romans because their formations could easily fit into the valleys and the like and the Chinese tactic of the shock charge would be broken up and prove largely ineffective.

in terms of numbers the Romans would have more proper soldiers but less conscripts because the roman army was almost entirely professional.

now the actual units them selves

Infanty: we all know who wins here, the Roman legionary was the best foot soldier in the world.

Calvary: Tie, Chinese Calvary are just as effective as the calvary the Romans would have acess to from their conquered peoples, but Calvary would be Null in the mountains of Afghanistan anyway.

Seige: Tie, Chinese had more powerful equipment but the Romans had more of it and were faster at making it.

Range: This goes to the Han Dynasty, but not by THAT much. Crossbows were awesome but not THAT much more superior to the Recurve bows the romans would have had access too.

Tactics: Romans. Sorry but Chinese armies relied mostly on numbers and overall generalship, but the Romans had far better formations and stratagems at their disposal. Also the chinese did not have a rank in their army that was the equivalent of a Centurian or Optio and thus lack leadership on a more local scale in battles.

Discipline: This to goes to the Romans. China had professional armies but they do not compare to the legions. Legionaries spent most of their lives in the army and it was a full career to them, most do not know life out side of the army.

OVERALL: Romans. Now i know this is not the answer many of you wanted to hear but i gotta be blunt... Rome was a nation that was created through war... it lived off war.... it literally thrived off war! Rome was the perfect military machine for its time. But fear not Han supporters, through my studies i found ancient china was far better then rome at certain things! As mentioned earlier they had early production lines! they had MASSIVE trade routes (The silk road started in China and Ended in Rome.... but it was created by China, and China saw the wealth from it)

anyway as you may have seen that the longer my ramblings went on the worse and worse my grammar got and that is because it is 5 o'clock in the morning here and i need sleep... so i am off haha peace!