05-25-2006, 02:14 PM
It isn't very often in history that cultures clash in the manner we are describing. This is a case where there is nothing similar in the needs of the military, nor the motivation to fight. Any speculation on the more refined system can only be of the wildest sort, and probably not very valueable in an education sense.
The Romans and the Han were succesful in their environments. Should some great cataclysm occur to thrust them together suddenly, who survives and who doesn't might very well come down to one bad decision by one commander. Rome and Carthage had some common cultural ancestry and lived in a similar environment being neighbors and all, so I'm not sure if this is the best analogy for what might happen between the Han and Romans. After Cannae, there was nothing to stop Hannibal from capturing Rome, he relented and ultimately his civilaization was destroyed. That's all it takes!
For all those massed crossbows of the Han, the one arrow that hits the right person, or not, could decide everything. That said, if this technology were to cause a massive Roman defeat, it would have to be capitalized on very quickly. I do doubt that the Romans would have long term trouble against a peasant levy of any sort. In the Roman system, men fought either to protect their own property or to aquire new property. This is a powerful motivation. Each individual soldier, not just the emporer, is both hungry for conquest and has much to defend. What are the Han peasants fighting for? Their next ration of rice? What sort of property were they allowed to own? Since I am largely ignorant of the Han system, this would be my main question. Why does the Han soldier fight?
The Romans and the Han were succesful in their environments. Should some great cataclysm occur to thrust them together suddenly, who survives and who doesn't might very well come down to one bad decision by one commander. Rome and Carthage had some common cultural ancestry and lived in a similar environment being neighbors and all, so I'm not sure if this is the best analogy for what might happen between the Han and Romans. After Cannae, there was nothing to stop Hannibal from capturing Rome, he relented and ultimately his civilaization was destroyed. That's all it takes!
For all those massed crossbows of the Han, the one arrow that hits the right person, or not, could decide everything. That said, if this technology were to cause a massive Roman defeat, it would have to be capitalized on very quickly. I do doubt that the Romans would have long term trouble against a peasant levy of any sort. In the Roman system, men fought either to protect their own property or to aquire new property. This is a powerful motivation. Each individual soldier, not just the emporer, is both hungry for conquest and has much to defend. What are the Han peasants fighting for? Their next ration of rice? What sort of property were they allowed to own? Since I am largely ignorant of the Han system, this would be my main question. Why does the Han soldier fight?
Rich Marinaccio
