The long river of history is running endlessly, there are calm waves, there are also waves, let Xiaobian take you into history and understand history.
In 325 BC, this year, King Huiwen of the Qin State was proclaimed king, according to the Zhou Li, the king could only be the title of Zhou Tianzi, and his father Qin Xiaogong, a monarch with great talent and great talent, was only a prince, and he abandoned the system of Eastern Zhou and began his own era of wang tianxia. This is undoubtedly epoch-making. At this time, Shang Martin's reforms had been implemented in the Qin State for a full 30 years, and the Qin State's national strength had grown by leaps and bounds, during which the Qin army had defeated the fierce Wei Wu pawns and defeated the Chu State, which divided the country into two worlds, and the national strength had been distanced from other princely states and turned into a terrifying machine that gave and demanded and was born for war.
In the same year, 3,000 kilometers east of the Indus Valley, 3,000 kilometers from Xianyang, a fierce national war had just come to an end, and Alexander the Great, who had come from Greece, defeated the army of the Indian king Bolas. This was the era of classical civilization, when the Chinese Empire was closest to the Western Empire. At this time, the Macedonian Empire under Alexander was unprecedentedly powerful, in the past ten years, this empire unified Greece, conquered the ancient civilization of Egypt, and then through three major wars, destroyed the Persian Empire on the basis of the Babylonian civilization, and then through the Iranian plateau, expedition to India, defeated The army of Boras in the Indus Valley, so far, the world's oldest four cradles of civilization, he has three, the land area reached 5.5 million square kilometers, larger than the total area of the entire Warring States Seven Heroes, Alexander himself was an outstanding military genius, who often won more with less, and fought countless battles, but he did not taste a single defeat.
Alexander once said that he would fight until the end of the land, and if he could really continue to advance eastward and reach The territory of China, in what direction would history develop? Can he defeat the qin empire that has risen?
This is an exciting contrast, the world at that time, except for the farther east, Macedonia has no opponent, and the rise of the Qin state has been destined to dominate the east, the two powers meet, who is better? It is regrettable that historically they have not had actual contact, and there are no ready-made answers, but we can still draw the advantages and disadvantages between them through detailed comparisons.
There are many factors that determine winning or losing, and in general, there are two, one, military strength, and second, the system of the state. Military power shows book strength, instant power; the state system shows development strength, rapid response, effective integration of resources, and invisible strength of national stability.
First of all, from the perspective of military strength, military strength includes many elements such as army size, individual quality, lineup, weapons and equipment, and generals.
Size of the army:
The size of the army here refers to the number of troops that can be put into the battlefield at a time; the Macedonian army is relatively clear because of its relatively clear organization, so the size of the army is relatively clear, excluding logisticians, the army was initially composed of 30,000 infantry phalanx and 5,000 partner cavalry, and in the later period, due to the continuous addition of conquered regional armies, it grew to 80,000 or 90,000 people.
The size of the Qin Empire's army, according to historical records, "a million tiger soldiers, ten thousand horses" here refers to the total military strength of the country, because there is no detailed army establishment, it is not clear the specific circumstances of a single investment of troops, but from the results of the war at that time, often beheading the enemy Jia Shi 80,000 or 90,000 heads (Jia Shi explained that it does not include logistic personnel), the scale of the battle is still quite large, at least more than 100,000 people. In terms of numbers, the Qin state has an advantage.
Individual Quality:
The army of the Macedonian Empire was already professional at that time, professional and systematic in training, coupled with long and uninterrupted battles, and the quality of individual soldiers was very good.
The Qin Empire also completed the reform of the military system at that time, from the militia system to the conscription system, the people at the appropriate age stage are obliged to participate in military training, the whole country is in the state of the whole people, from the perspective of the terracotta warriors made according to life-size, the average height of the Qin army at that time was about 184, and the physical fitness can be said to be extremely excellent. This one is comparable between the two armies, and perhaps the Macedonian army has a slight advantage.
lineup:
Macedonia consisted mainly of heavy infantry phalanxes and partner heavy cavalry, plus auxiliary light cavalry and light projection infantry.
The Qin army consisted of heavy infantry, chariots, crossbowmen, and mounted crossbowmen. Judging from the lineup, they are all multi-service cooperation operations, the advantages and disadvantages are not obvious, and the win or loss of the war is largely determined by the command of the general.
Armament:
Weapons and equipment include two aspects: offensive and defensive;
The soldiers in the front row of the Macedonian heavy infantry phalanx had metal helmets, linen breastplates, tibia and wooden shields with a diameter of about 60 centimeters, light infantry had a small amount of leather armor, and partner cavalry had metal helmets and chest armor; Qin heavy infantry had a large protective area of leather armor and helmets, materials such as cattle, sheep, deer, etc. according to their advantages and disadvantages, cavalry was crossbow cavalry, with chest and back leather armor and shin armor and helmets, and chariots were a combination of bronze, wood and leather.
Weapons:
Macedonia used iron weapons, heavy infantry phalanx equipped with 5.5-6.5 meters of long guns, light infantry for javelins and bows and spears, heavy cavalry for about three meters of wooden riding guns and iron swords.
The Qin army basically used bronze weapons, and the types of weapons were mostly ge, spear, halberd, sword, crossbow machine and so on. Cavalry units basically use crossbows. In terms of weapons and equipment, the Macedonian army is better, thanks to the high development of the ancient civilization in mesopotamia, in 3000 BC, bronze ware appeared in the Middle East, with the spread of civilization, in the two thousand years BC, the Hittites in Asia Minor mastered the technology of iron smelting, after 1200 BC immediately spread throughout the Middle East and Eastern Europe, China's metallurgy appeared late, around 1500 BC, China mastered the bronze smelting technology, in the 7th century BC mastered the iron smelting technology, Although China's iron smelting technology started late, it developed rapidly and eventually surpassed the West during the Han Dynasty.
General:
Alexander as the king is even more genius general, his direct leader of the partner cavalry invincible, often give the enemy a fatal blow; the Qin state in this period is not too famous generals, if the time is postponed 30 years, an unborn genius will come to the fore, he is the god of war white, white life size more than 70 battles, no defeat, the best at fighting large-scale position warfare, especially the most tragic annihilation war. If these two geniuses are in place, what kind of immortal war will it be, but unfortunately, the time is slightly misplaced, and there is no comparison here.
Through the overall comparison of military strength, the Macedonian army has a certain advantage, the Macedonian army's advantage is reflected in its unique phalanx and heavy cavalry tactics, this tactic is called "anvil hammer tactics", relying on the superiority of this equipment and lineup, the Macedonian army has defeated the Persian army known as a million troops, but also defeated the nomadic cavalry of the Western Xuya, and has the experience of defeating chariots and war elephants, but this tactic also has its fatal weakness, that is, too much test of cooperation between the services and the trust between friendly forces, if in battle, Friendly forces that did not protect the sides of the phalanx were torn open by the enemy, and melee combat would be a nightmare for the phalanx. Or if the heavy cavalry didn't inflict casualties on the enemy flanks, the whole tactic wouldn't have much effect. So a large part of this advantage actually reflects Alexander's personal advantage.
Although the Qin army's record at this time was not as brilliant as that of the Macedonian army, it also showed an unstoppable trend in the war. The nomadic peoples in the northwest were gradually subdued, and the Iron-Armed Han Wei army was defeated in the east, and in the Battle of Lantian, the Qin army easily defeated the Qin army in the face of the Chu state 's fallen soldiers (at that time the Chu state was known as a million with armor).
If there is not enough gap in the military, then the advantage of the system will be the key to determining the victory or defeat, it is true that the Macedonian Empire at that time was very large, and the logistics were very good, but the bad thing was that the foundation was very unstable, to a large extent, Macedonia inherited the mantle of the Persian Empire.
The Persian Empire was also an empire built on a multi-racial basis, a model of coexistence between the empire and various tribal states, and there was a natural splinter gene, so Alexander was able to maintain the empire on the premise that he could not fail, even if he suffered great losses in the war. The only homologous Greek peninsula, because of the deep roots of the city-state system, is also in danger of capsizing it at any time.
On the other hand, the Qin state had already undergone major institutional reforms at that time, changing the division and feudal system to the county system, and realizing the monarch's complete control over various regions, regardless of the Qin state, in fact, the entire Eastern Warring States countries had the same national identity and world view to distinguish them from Yidi. This made the political system of the Qin state very stable, so that it could effectively and quickly integrate the resources of the whole country. Above, then Alexander's only choice to win this war is to completely defeat the main force of the Qin army without much loss, and in the face of such an efficient war machine, the Qin army that dreams of harvesting the other side's head is obviously unlikely to achieve. As long as Alexander failed to take advantage of the war, or defeated the Qin army in the war but suffered heavy losses and was dragged into a protracted war, then what awaited Alexander in the end would be failure. Not to mention that the Qin army may completely defeat the Macedonian army in the war. So from these two aspects, the probability of the Macedonian army winning this war is very small, and history has proved that when China was in a period of strength, it was invincible, and only in its own serious internal friction and weakness, outsiders may still have some opportunities.
Well, today's sharing ends here, and we'll see you next time