The Evolution of Chinese Armor 3: Tang Dynasty

[hoilam258]

i am a HongKonger (Chinese),i really enjoy our old Chinese culture but not now... old Chinese is a strong and proud country,since Ching Dynasty,we 漢人(Han people) are invaded by the Ching people(look like Han people but not the true Chinese)......the Chinese culture died that time...(i mean Han the real Chinese people)

[StarSpawn06]

I love the funky poses and get-ups that Tang warriors seemed to enjoy striking :D

[JudgeDee7]

song dynasty was china's true golden age

[firearthwater]

@JudgeDee7 economically, yes; militarily and politically, no.

[JudgeDee7]

@firearthwater militarily, the song were actually quite powerful, they held off the mongols longer than anyone else in the world; the mongols took Budapest before they took Lin'an. Politically, they were becoming an advanced, almost modern society, while the Tang were still medieval. They did control less territory than the Tang or Han, yes, but it dosent mean the Tang or han were better, or the Song worse.

[firearthwater]

@JudgeDee7 yes song's military were still one of the most advanced at the time, but song has a purely defensive military, thats why mongols conquered them in the end. if it were han or tang dynasty, they would have taken the fight to mongolia, fight in their backyard, instead of just waiting behind its own city walls and pray they dont attack.

theres a reason people say han militaristic culture died with the founding of song dynasty...a military needs to be aggressive

[JudgeDee7]

@firearthwater I never heard people say that. And if the Song had just "stayed behind tehir city walls and prayed for the mongols not to attack" then the Mongols would have overrun Song China in the very beginning. But they didn't; the Song held out a LONG time, longer than anyone else the Mongols conquered, including nations thousands and thousands of miles away. The only difference between the Song and Tang/Han is that the Song had much more powerful, organized enemies

[firearthwater]

@JudgeDee7 Genghis Khan united mongolia because the song didnt take the initiative, and he conquered Jin with the help of Song, so no, they have equally powerful enemies.

but i see you like song dynasty more, so ill back down, im just writing these in defense of tang, thats all lol

[JudgeDee7]

@firearthwater Nah just friendly debate i always learn something. i have no problem with the Tang, I just think the destruction of the Song was one of the world's bib tragedies, who knoes what China could have accomplished if the Mongols hand't snuffed them out

[StarSpawn06]

@JudgeDee7

There's a lesson to be learned.

The Song had the resources to kick everyone else's ass, but chose to limit their own military for fear of their own generals becoming too powerful.

And China paid dearly for this internal mistrust.

Similar tragedies also ended Buddhist India, the Roman Empire, and the Islamic Golden Age.

Who knows what human civilisation as a whole could have accomplished by now if it was not set back in that manner. :/

[JudgeDee7]

@StarSpawn06 yeah i think they lacked the idea of an army for the people, to serve the people. And they had a lot of bad experiences with over-powerful generals during the Tang Dynasty. A balance needs to be kept

[tdzheng]

@firearthwater reson why song cant push back the mongols is; the lack of good horses. most northern horses are strong due to the steppes that song never take hold of, xi xia dynasty had it. southern horses is far too weak.

by the time jin took over xi-xia, the fall of song was almost imminent but it didn't.

and genghis khan didn't conquer jin, his son did, genghis died somewhere before battle of kaifeng had taken place, the battle of kaifeng was a joint song-mongol seige.

[tdzheng]

@firearthwater song dynasty's foreign relations was just too abysmal lol.

btw without good horses you cant chase away the mongols, even if you defeat them in a battle, they'll just outrun you haha!

that's why song dynasty had one of the most heavily armored infantry in the world at that time.

horses were just too few =p

[JudgeDee7]

@firearthwater If the Song had just stayed behind their city walls and prayed for the Mongols to leave, then the Mongols would have overrun South China long before they did. The Song held out a long time, longer than nations that supposedly had strong militaries, such as the Hungarians or Seljuks. The Song had to fight strong, organized states, like the Jin, while the Han and Tang basically fought unsettled barbarians and hill tribes

[Aaronthegreatest]

but WOW, I just saw that map and the Tang Dynasty didn't cover anywhere near that amount of land, tributary states included XD I know this is about armor and not maps, but it was just funny seeing that lol

[firearthwater]

@Aaronthegreatest but it did, tibet, silla, and most of the south east asian countries were all tributaries in early tang period...i dont include tributaries in my maps, if i did, all the chinese maps would've been way bigger.

i gotten my chinese maps from chinese history websites, not wikipedia :)

[Aaronthegreatest]

@firearthwater Oh really? Good to know. I've seen a lot of academic maps of Tang China, but I don't recall seeing one that had it's territory extending so far from the Tarim Basin as it does here. Maybe the ones I've seen were all post-Talas or something. Anyways, if that map is factual then Tang was easily bigger than even Qing Chinese territory o.o; weird.

[firearthwater]

@Aaronthegreatest you can read about him if you want: Emperor Taizong, he and his son expanded those territories. Talas was 4 years before An Shi Rebellion, so it's near the late tang period

Qing is still bigger, Tang only looks big on the Eurasian map, if i used a world map, then you'll see.

[kaindrg]

@Aaronthegreatest tarim basin was contested several times against the muslim arabs after they conqured persia have remaining sassanian kings flee as refugees to china

[Aaronthegreatest]

very interesting stuff Thx

[malevolenceXXXensues]

tang dynasty in my opinion had the most beautiful armor

[jiminez]

name of the music ?

[Legomakerx]

2ND GOLDEN AGE FOR TANG?? I thought Tang's the 1st Golden Age, and the best one, or if im wrong, what's the 1st golden age then?

[firearthwater]

@Legomakerx Tang was the best, but Han was the first.

[hsuboi]

@firearthwater You can argue that the Song was a "civil" and "economic" golden age. Also the Ming can be labelled as a seafaring golden age as well.

[CuriosityRoads]

Mountain pattern is incomparably beautiful and awesome looking, as body armour goes.

[CuriosityRoads]

Awesome videos dude.

[Teaohdede]

Fantastic video!

[Yvesyew]

Hananim is a korean, of course he wouldn't know about it. He only believes that Korean occupied the entire CHINA mainland, lol

[Hananim91]

LOL Tang invaded Korea????

[firearthwater]

@Hananim91 yep but only the northern part, Tang together with the help of Silla, conquered Goguryeo...the southern part they only stayed between 660-665, very short though

[MAHANTING]

@Hananim91 yes ，absolutely，tang invaded a lot of countries

[hsuboi]

@Hananim91 Yes sir! Even the Japanese Yamato Court had to intervene on imperial kinship grounds. Though the Tang aggression was evident, lets not overlook the fact that a three way separated state will eventually reunify, sometimes with outside help.