Who would win in a Fight a Chinese Swordsman or a Samuari

[Thomas Chen]

To The Top...

[MA fanatic]

I read once that a Samurai would get his sword on the 5th day of the 5th month of his 5th year. Since that day, he never parted with his sword. He slept with it, he bathed with it, and he traveled with it. Finally, the samurai sword was like a part of his body. I doubt someone like that would be easy to kill. In a fight between two swordsmen, the better one would win like SifuAbel said.
MA fanatic

[Nichiren]

What about the clashes between the mongols and the samurai. This is fairly well documented and if you make an assumption that the mongol sword and swordsmen where equal to the chinese(they actually whacked the chinese), than it is possible to do a comparison.

In documentation(e.g. google search) it is stated that one of the problems the mongols faced was the quality of their swords versus the samurai.

But the mongols would probably have won due to superior tactics but the wheater saved the japanes twice.

/Cheers

[Nichiren]

Read Tomas Cheng's excellent post (the new thread!!)...

/Cheers

[Crimson Phoenix]

Greendragon, indeed springs from truck suspensions are very used because it's a very affordable source of rather good steel.
For example, the Achang of south China, an ethny very famous for their knives and smiths, use these springs as a base steel for most of their work. When they need to do exceptional pieces though, they use very fine materials from the mountains.

Nichiren, if you read T. Chen's work, it doesn't seem that obvious that Mongols had bad quality blade...for example, Thomas (can I call you Thomas?? heheheeh) cites Nagayama who, in the japanese blade connoisseur's book (page 21 I believe), says in substance that the japanese were confronted to blades superior to their own in the hands of the mongols (admittedly, Nagayama doesn't cite sources, so it makes it hard to verify).
Thomas also cites that poem from a Japanese princess (during the Sui dynasty I believe) who mentions the quality if Chinese blades...
I'm quoting it all from memory, so go check the site for a blast of a read and precise references...
Anyway it seems acquired that chinese smithing methods were incredibly well developped very early, and the poor quality of chinese blades seems a myth, like the saying that japanese blades are the best in the world (it is not that simple).

Also, many people seem to ignore that the chinese army, after the unification of China by the Han, became very poor...they were once an incredible army, for example, they knew the crossbow 400 years BC, if they wanted to, Alexander's empire would have looked like a midget. In the warring states period, or spring and autumn, they were real killers. BUT, and many people seem to purposely ignore it, after that (mainly at the turn of the first millenium) their armies just became wimps, because 1) it became very very dishonoring to be a soldier, 2) peasants were the major part of the soldiers and only had to assist to training sessions twice a year (that's why Ego Extra's theories about styles being taught in the military make me laugh real hard), 3) they were paid like **** and the list goes on. So eventually, nothing, really nothing, gave courage and fighting spirit to the soldiers, and that's why they consistently got whacked by different determined invaders: Mongols, Qing, the rampages of japanese Wokou etc...
It has less to do with the quality of their weapons per se than with the fact that the Chinese army, once great and without match in the world (crossbow, for example, came more than 1000 years after in the western world), became just a paper tiger.
It's quite well documented, I wonder why people still overlook that...

[Thomas Chen]

Hi Crimson and the rest of the gang

This is just my humble opinion in reply to Crimson Phoenix's comments below, I would like to highlight that the Chinese civilisation's attributes of power and weakness, was a cyclical trend that ascended and descended through time. At times when the Chinese were militarily weak, they were defeated and invaded by their enemies. At times when they were strong, they routed their enemies and penetrated into their lands...

In the Han, Tang and Qing Dynasties, during their peak, the Chinese had defeated and conquered the Turkic-Mongol peoples of the Northwest and controlled Central Asia.

In the early Ming, under the leadership of the early Ming generals such as Hsu Ta, and the 3rd Ming Emperor Zhu De, they had repeatedly defeated the Mongols and repelled them from China; they also went on to launch numerous successful campaigns to attack the Mongols in their motherland Mongolia.

In the middle period of the Ming Dynasty, General Qi Jiguang had successfully trained and drilled his peasant soldiers into a disciplined and effective army; he went on to defeat the Japanese pirates (known as wokou) raiding the south-eastern coast. These pirates consisted of Japanese and Chinese, and I would believe that many of these Japanese were combat-experienced samurai ronin. One notable event was the invasion of 20,000 pirates during the last part of General Qi's campaign against them. They were defeated, killed or captured by the armies led by General Qi and General Yu Dayou, working hand in hand...

The Ming Army, together with the Korean Army, had also successfully fought the Japanese Army to a stalemate in the 1590s in the Korean Peninsula. The Korean navy had also defeated the Japanese navy and forced the Japanese Army to withdraw due to logistical supply problems.


There are many examples of strength and weakness, great victories and defeats, the Chinese Imperial Armies had experienced throughout the centuries.


Other examples of cyclical ascent and decline would include the Greek and Roman Empires, the Islamic Arab caliphates, the Turkish Ottoman Empire, and yes, even the high and mighty Mongol Empire...


I would advise interested readers to withhold their judgement of Chinese military history until they have spent enough time studying 2500 years of Chinese military history in an academic manner. Indeed, one must undertake thorough and comprehensive study of such a complex, intricate and exhausting topic to form a balanced perspective. But unfortunately, there are very few authors/academics in the West specializing in this subject.


Quote by Crimson Phoenix...
"Also, many people seem to ignore that the chinese army, after the unification of China by the Han, became very poor...they were once an incredible army, for example, they knew the crossbow 400 years BC, if they wanted to, Alexander's empire would have looked like a midget. In the warring states period, or spring and autumn, they were real killers. BUT, and many people seem to purposely ignore it, after that (mainly at the turn of the first millenium) their armies just became wimps, because 1) it became very very dishonoring to be a soldier, 2) peasants were the major part of the soldiers and only had to assist to training sessions twice a year (that's why Ego Extra's theories about styles being taught in the military make me laugh real hard), 3) they were paid like **** and the list goes on. So eventually, nothing, really nothing, gave courage and fighting spirit to the soldiers, and that's why they consistently got whacked by different determined invaders: Mongols, Qing, the rampages of japanese Wokou etc...
It has less to do with the quality of their weapons per se than with the fact that the Chinese army, once great and without match in the world (crossbow, for example, came more than 1000 years after in the western world), became just a paper tiger.
It's quite well documented, I wonder why people still overlook that..."

[Crimson Phoenix]

Thanks for the clarification, Thomas, indeed I oversimplified it, for the sake of discussion...
It is very striking that when Chinese generals managed to become creative, uphold a strict military training and a certain prestige among their troops, they could work miracles...hence, Yue Fei kicking out the feared Jins at the coming of the first millenium, inflincting a serious defeat to their Tiger general and his grueseom armored chariots, the Guai Zi Ma...
Also, Qi JiGuang who managed to kick out the wokous using exactly the same ****tail of strategic innovations (even designing, or rather as it seems rediscovering abandonned designs of weapons), maintenance of competent troops and high moral/discipline...
The rest of the time, well, we know what happened...
And even with that, the mongols and mandchous ended up adopting chinese names and customs, almost forming chinese dynasties...so it might be a military defeat, but in the end China always managed to digest the invaders and turn them as Chinese as the Hans!!

[Thomas Chen]

Crimson Phoenix

Wow !!! I am really impressed by your understanding of General Yue Fei of the Northern Song Dynasty and General Qi Jiguang of the Ming Dynasty, as I was just doing some research on both of them. I am really glad to have met and found another like-minded fellow.

Here are some other details, which other readers may be interested to know:

According to the "Official Dynastic History of the Song", the proto-Manchu (known as the Jin) armoured cavalry army had prepared to engage the Song Chinese infantry army in one encounter. The Jins had their heavily armoured soldiers mounted on armoured horses, and had iron chains linked between every 3 horses, making every 3 of them as a singular fighting unit.

On the opposing side, General Yue Fei had equipped his infantry forces with the mazha dao ( a long double-handed sword or polearm) which he specifically instructed his frontline troops to cut the enemy's horses' legs...... Once the horse's legs were chopped off or cut, the other 2 horses would also be immobolized due to the first horse's weight....Afterwhich the Chinese soldiers would finish the enemy riders off.

The end result was a complete defeat of the Jins, making the Jin Commander comment that in his personal experience of combat, that was the very first time he had witnessed an infantry force defeating a cavalry force.....

[Jimbo]

It's not the style, it's the man.
Being individuals, I'm sure some Chinese swordsmen could have beaten some samurai, and some Japanese samurai have beaten Chinese swordsmen.

That said, if both are at a high level, it is not a given that the Chinese swordsmen would win. Most people really underestimate the ability of the old-time, genuine Japanese swordsmen. Maybe they see some demo of kenjutsu or bad choreography of "Japanese" swordsmen in Chinese movies, and make up their mind. In actuality, true Japanese swordsmen at the highest levels had not only extremely high-level skills, but more important, trained their mind to not interfere with themselves and to be totally committed when the opportunity presented itself. Although the Chinese swordsmanship IMO has the capability of more versatility, a lot can be said for that samurai mind-set and experience from many matches. (not to say Chinese swordsmen didn't have that as well).

Jim

[grogan]

Originally posted by PHILBERT


I have 2 katanas, more for show than fighting.

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