The Roman Empire vs Han Dynasty China

[Carpathian Wolf]

War between Rome and Sassanids was more like a stalemate with numerous incursions by Rome. (So Rome has the slight edge sometimes and Sassanids get the edge sometimes too) By the time the Arabs rose both sides were heavily exhausted from wars.

Sassanids are more culturally similar and mostly closer by land (Not including Syria) So of course Sassanids get eliminated first, Byzantium was near the verge of collapse but survived.

Of course Han is one type of people (Which is split into many other groups too), there are other minority groups too. (Those minorities are actually different types of people) The term Han is nothing like saying "I'm European" Have you ever went to China at all? I have and it's not like what you say. There are still native people who are physically different and culturally. Nomads aren't the only type of people that are non Han in China... In China the gov't does not lump you into one group, different ethnic groups actually get bonuses on gov't tests! i.e All the Han groups are neutral but some groups get a few extra points in the gov't test which is quite significant to whether you're allowed to enter a type of university or not.

No, the Romans kicked the crap out of the Sassanids so much so that they went through almost half a dozen different rulers within a few years and descended into civil war. The Romans were not "on the verge of collapse." They had been exhausted due to a war with a matching enemy for so many years and although they lost Egypt and most of their Middle Eastern holdings, they still maintained a strong presence and even bounced back.


Han didn't split into many groups. Han was a specific ethnicity relevant to the Han Dynasty. But afterward, everyone was lumped into that group through the last 2,000 years. I don't need to go to China today to discern what the meaning of Han was historically. It's pointless to look today.

[Col. Tartleton]

The point is, that there aren't a billion "Han" there are a billion "Mainstream Chinese" which are called Han and there are tens of millions of other people with Chinese citizenship who do not fall into the "Chinese Culture" as neatly, such as Mongol, Korean, Tibetan, Burmese, Vietnamese, Manchurian, Uighur people etc. Each province may as well be a country. China is more like Continental Europe than France. The "Han" speak different languages (although they're prone to calling them dialects), eat different regional (national) cuisines, have their own provincial or regional way of life, etc. There's an emphasis on union in China from the historic autocrats in Nanjing and Beijing, Xi'an and Luoyang. It's like calling a Belgian walking around in Brussels Spanish because in times long since past Belgium was under Spanish rule and now they're both part of the EU, so therefore it's all one country again.

Not quite.

[BroskiDerpman]

Exactly, this guy above gets it more. Nobody was lumped in one group, don't know what you're talking about...

3rd Century Crisis anybody, sure not Sassanids but Rome was in big trouble.

Rome's Danube borders were quite empty (Mid to late 5th century I believe) and if the Huns wanted to during the 5th century they could overrun the whole place. Rome's resources were mostly put into fighting the Sassanids at that time. (Kicking their butts of course)


Also during the time of Justinian, conquest in Italy, North Africa, and Spain left other places underfunded, undefended or abandoned. (At his death the ERE essentially has no more money) Danube limes get overrun by the tribes located there. All those conquests were futile when they're left pretty weak: Hence Spain got overrun, North Africa, Italy eventually, and the Danube was overrun. (As said above) Rome was in quite a bad situation around that time after screwing up quite a few times. Hence the way armies are raised was changed later on with Themes and such allowing for better defense against all sorts of threats.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

In the Han dynasty no one was lumped into a big group, from the time of Qin Shi Huang Di China was organized into a system of prefectures, counties and ethnic governments. These ethnic governments were provinces which had a Sinicized population but were not technically Han Chinese, the amount of Chinese influence on these people varied greatly from place to place and their rulers varied from Chinese officials chosen by the Emperor to their own ethnic rulers which had already been ruling them or chosen by the Emperor. The Han Dynasty was very much like the Roman Empire in that sense but with the difference being that the Romans would just organize that conquered people's territory into a province rather than a differently governed region.

[Lord Baal]

No ones wins. I just got back from killing all of them using my time machine. And it worked.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

How do I speak Spanish then, or maybe it is Carthaginian. Wait I just saw the news and apparently Mongolia and Ameristan are the world powers.

[BroskiDerpman]

Ahahahaha, Ameristan! XD

Lord Baal wins, close the thread as it (IMO) was a dumb idea. Close it before the butt hurt begins. :O

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

America was colonized by Islamized Carthaginians and China was overrun my Mongols.

[BroskiDerpman]

Mongol horse lord swaggers. blingeeeee

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Like these guys

Also here is some Han cavalry

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Not too sure about the fully armoured horse but that is most likely a nomad or one of Cao Cao's guards, cavalry of this type wasn't used by the Han until Cao Cao and even then it would most likely just be the front armour on the horse rather than the back piece of armour. The heavy cavalry used by the Han would actually look more like the very bottom guy.

This here is a cataphract from the Age of Fragmentation until the Sui and Tang eras.

[Lord Baal]

Well, you don't see any Roman legions or Han's army lying around don't you? I kill them all and you can't prove me wrong
Hehehehe...

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I found them they are in the post above you, they are invading Venezuela.

[Lord Baal]

OH MY! I forgot to turn off the time portal. Well... is not like we can get any worst- he naively said just before the meteor strike.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

But you can change it, for you are a time lord.

[Swerg]

The main problem with any Roman-Chinese war:
http://www.worldofmaps.net/uploads/p...alasien_01.png

First:
You have to go through Persia. Have fun with that. Assuming you make it through the nomad raiders, barren mountains and desert, you now have a choice:

You can go north, in which case:
More nomads! Yay! They have bows and will kill you. Central Asia was a graveyard of armies until the later 19th century. Even if the Pashtuns didn't exist yet, the Turkic people were still plenty mean.

Once you get past the steppes, you go through the Taklamakan desert. Nobody is really certain about the origin of the name, but there are a few possible etymologies:
A Uighur phrased borrowed from Arabic meaning "abandoned place."
A Turkic phrase meaning "place of ruins."
And several folk etymologies which have it coming from "place of no return," or "desert of death."

The Taklamakan ate any number of Chinese armies, both before and after the Han. It is not a nice place.

After that, you would pass through the Gobi desert, unless you wanted to try to climb the mountains. Neither is a particularly fun prospect. And after all that, you've got another thousand miles of marching to get to anywhere that had more than a few people in it.

OK. That was the easy route. Now, the hard route:

You go south. Once you fight your way through India and the Maurya, you go through the jungles of SouthEast Asia. That's a fun trip for any army, huh?

Or, if you're feeling PARTICULARLY suicidal, you can try to go through modern Tibet.

Good times. Naturally, all of this applies to China, just in reverse order.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

^I'm pretty sure only Qing armies under Prince Fukanggan ever marched THROUGH Tibet into the Indian subcontinent, and they only made it to Nepal and it was a bloody nightmare. So I'm inclined to announce to the world that marching through Tibet is extremely suicidal.

The area of Indochina is also an impossible place to traverse. The Eastern Wu armies made it as far as Southern Vietnam along the Champa borders and got tribute from that Kingdom (or chiefs and their High King), the Sui as well made it into Champa itself and had to turn back (but not before they rampaged and sacked the capital). The Qing barely made it to Hanoi and didn't even make it to the Burmese capital. Only the Mongols ever made it through Burma and they couldn't take Vietnam so that is practically impossible for everyone else to try; everyone else struggled in controlling Northern Vietnam.

[hellheaven1987]

That was largely because the southern frontier was underdeveloped (even today); Guangdong and Guangxi did not go through serious development until 19th Century (especially Guangxi), and Yunnan was completely underdeveloped until 20th Century.

But unfortunately Han Dynasty would win the struggle against Rome, largely it had a better mobilization program (and far better) for military.

[Kindjal83]

Rome... No doubts about it...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The "Asians" would be ed!!

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

and if Southern China is underdeveloped then Vietnam, Champa and Burma are extremely underdeveloped.

[Carpathian Wolf]

hellheaven1987, Han's army was composed of a small elite core with the over whelming majority being glorified militia. So why would they win?