Why Didn't the Imjin War Kickstart East Asian Modernization?

[dandan_noodles]

Asian military technology was not a simple progression curve where possessing firearms = instant win. Armies based on infantry and gunpowder in the 16th/17th Century were still pretty weak in the face of the mass-cavalry formations that the nomads of Central Asia/Mongolia used (a point brought up by Mughal commanders looking at European pike-and-shot formations).

A swarm of horse archers during this period still had greater range and versatility than any infantry formation of the time, no matter how well-drilled - and this was shown quite clearly in the repeated Manchu victories over the largest gunpowder army in the world, the Ming army. Sure, the pre-Conquest Manchus also adopted cannon but that was more for attacking fortified cities rather than for field use. In any case, the Chinese tradition of appointing bureaucrats into military posts could hardly have helped their military efficiency, no matter how advanced their armies were.

Lots wrong here. For one, there's a reason we see the emergence of gunpowder empires among formerly nomadic peoples dominating Eurasia; the Safavid Persians were utterly thrashed by the Ottomans before they built up their corps of musketeers, and matchlocks and artillery were the backbone of Mughal power in Hindustan.
During the Qing conquest, the vast majority of troops fielded by the dynasty against the rebels and the Ming were themselves Chinese; 75% of the Eight Banners were Han, mostly from Liaoning, and they were the Qing's heavy troops, operating muskets at cannon. Once you add in the Green Standard, it's pretty clear that conquering the Chinese required that you fight like the Chinese. You see this explicitly in the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, where the Manchu Eight Banners struggle when fighting outside the steppe in the southern hills; after the Green Standard won several victories over Han rebels, the dynasty settled on a policy of using Han to fight Han, and using the re-Manchu-fied Eight Banners to fight their Eurasian rivals.

 

[Dragos Cel Mare]

Lots wrong here. For one, there's a reason we see the emergence of gunpowder empires among formerly nomadic peoples dominating Eurasia; the Safavid Persians were utterly thrashed by the Ottomans before they built up their corps of musketeers, and matchlocks and artillery were the backbone of Mughal power in Hindustan.
During the Qing conquest, the vast majority of troops fielded by the dynasty against the rebels and the Ming were themselves Chinese; 75% of the Eight Banners were Han, mostly from Liaoning, and they were the Qing's heavy troops, operating muskets at cannon. Once you add in the Green Standard, it's pretty clear that conquering the Chinese required that you fight like the Chinese. You see this explicitly in the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, where the Manchu Eight Banners struggle when fighting outside the steppe in the southern hills; after the Green Standard won several victories over Han rebels, the dynasty settled on a policy of using Han to fight Han, and using the re-Manchu-fied Eight Banners to fight their Eurasian rivals.

Agreed; not merely that, but Horse Archers also present a larger profile than Musketeers against Ranged Fire.

 

[Maponus]

Because, surprisingly, War ≠ technological advancement in and of itself.

 

[dandan_noodles]

Because, surprisingly, War ≠ technological advancement in and of itself.

Right. For one, it has to be relatively equal state on state warfare; wars against rebels or nomads tend not to drive the war machine the same way, especially since rebellion can directly damage the economic infrastructure of the state, curbing technological growth. Additionally, China was vastly more powerful than most neighboring states, and after the Qing conquest, didn't face a serious threat to the Han heartland until the Opium Wars.

 

[Tripledot]

Because, surprisingly, War ≠ technological advancement in and of itself.

True, but isolationism isn't exactly great for technological advancement either.

 

[profxyz]

I do have a question.Shouldn't a highly factionalised courts be a good thing for the emperor since he can play one side against another?

A highly factionalized court was bad for the Ming, because the Ming decision-making process (like the Song before it) required consensus.

Ming decision making went like this:

1) A problem is put before the Emperor and his officials.
2) Solicitation of local bureaucrats' input.
3) Solicitation of every bureaucrat's input, if he so desired.
4) A court conference between the Emperor and his highest officials.
5) A decision is made, usually through consensus within the conference.

3) especially is where the trouble comes in, since a well-organized faction could simply wear down any Emperor's resolve through mass-submission of memorials. There was also a practice in the Confucian court for officials to recognize 'shame' and step down when too many bureaucrats opposed him. So unsurprisingly this led to frequent changes of personnel, which did not help in creating of strategy. This can be seen in the constant change of chief commander (jinglue) of Liaodong during the early phase of the Ming-Manchu wars:

1618: Yang Hao
1619: Xiong Tingbi
1620: Yuan Yingtai (KIA)
1621: Xiong Tingbi/Wang Huazhen
1623: Sun Chengzong
1625: Gao Di
1626: Wang Zicheng/Yuan Chonghuan
1627: Yuan Chonghuan
1630: Position abolished

During this time, Ming strategy in Liaodong switched from defensive to offensive, from promoting Western weapons to disdaining them, from negotiation to confrontation, and so on, with every piece of news from the front leading to some personnel change: a similar pattern emerges in the Ming strategy against Li Zicheng. And if the Ming court couldn't even get its act together in matters of war, there was very little chance it could put out a long-term development plan. (BTW this phenomenon is not restricted to the Ming - the Song was similarly fractious).

the Safavid Persians were utterly thrashed by the Ottomans before they built up their corps of musketeers, and matchlocks and artillery were the backbone of Mughal power in Hindustan.

The point I'm making is that gunpowder was not the sole (or maybe not even the critical) ingredient that made these so-called 'gunpowder empires'. Mughal dominance in particular came through their cavalry (which is why they put such a heavy emphasis on recruiting Central Asian warriors through the mansabdar system), and the taulqama tactic involving flanking horse archers and heavy cavalry was the decisive moment in foundational battles like Panipat and against Gujarat (which had better, Ottoman-made cannon during the time of Akbar and Humayun). Not saying the Mughals didn't use artillery, but it was not the main thing that allowed for their dominance... and whenever the Mughals couldn't use cavalry (like in jungles or hill forts), their success rate rapidly diminished.

More broadly, the early success of the three empires was not just because of gunpowder but because how they used gunpowder: the so-called 'Rumi' tactic of packing all your cannons into a wagenburg and enticing the enemy to charge blindly towards that. Once enemies wise up to the strategy and get artillery of their own, the superior mobility and flanking potential of massed cavalry comes back into play.

During the Qing conquest, the vast majority of troops fielded by the dynasty against the rebels and the Ming were themselves Chinese; 75% of the Eight Banners were Han, mostly from Liaoning, and they were the Qing's heavy troops, operating muskets at cannon.

The early battles of the Ming-Qing dynasty (Sarhu, Shenyang, Liaoyang) were won by Qing cavalry enticing Ming armies into open ground, surrounding them and then shooting them down with horse archers/charging into them before the Ming musketeers could get out more than a few volleys. I don't deny that cavalry is geographically limited and that the Qing increasingly used Green Standards and artillery as their war with the Ming progressed, but in general Ming armies fared poorly in the field, where Qing cavalry dominated, and made much better accounts of themselves in walled cities that negated cavalry advantages (like Ningyuan).

The point of all this is to say that wholesale adoption of firearms in the 16-17thC did not guarantee success in regions where massed horse archer formations could still be deployed: neither matchlocks firing twice a minute or artillery firing once every 15 minutes can realistically stand up to an adequately-prepared cavalry charge of tens of thousands or a swarm of horse archers shooting from 100-200m away. In the long-run advances in infantry drill and weaponry would render this cavalry tactic obsolete, but that really comes to Asia in the mid-1700s with European imports. The defence of post-Imjin Ming and Korea were/would have been better served concentrating on other military spheres rather than firearms experimentation.

 

[mlp]

The defence of post-Imjin Ming and Korea were/would have been better served concentrating on other military spheres rather than firearms experimentation.

This is an interesting point, but what would be Korea's best military tactics against cavalry and archery(of the Manchus)? Would it be to develop cavalry on their own? Strategically passive defence?

 

[Xnyrax]

There's a great line from the Opium Wars (first, I think), where a mandarin reports to the Emperor that the British pose no threat. "Why, they don't even have any archers!"

And that's in the mid1800s. Shows how useful the Chinese muskets were...

Hate to drag drag away from the point, but this rather seems like one of those Orientalist quotes that reinforces the old "ignorant oriental despotism" adage. It's not your fault, these sorts of things get passed around.

As to the point, it's not that China is unable to use or unaware of gunpowder weaponry, far from it. It's just that using it ala European style is useless to the empire. They face vastly different enemies in general than Europe, and where it would have use, Chinese armies generally prove superior anyway. One must remember that the "modern"-style Russian troops struggled when fighting Central Asian nomads as late as the 19th century.

 

[Tyr]

There's a great line from the Opium Wars (first, I think), where a mandarin reports to the Emperor that the British pose no threat. "Why, they don't even have any archers!"

And that's in the mid1800s. Shows how useful the Chinese muskets were...

I'm not sure how true it is but I have heard that some British commander during the Napoleonic wars once moaned about/absently suggested that long bows would be better equipment for his troops. It wasn't a serious thing if it even ever was said. Though it certainly would have been an improvement had there been significant numbers of people capable of using a long bow...which there weren't.

Of course this is the key advantage of guns over really good archers....a good archer has to spend his life training.
A musketman...just get a few peasants and give them a week of training and they're off.
It wasn't really until we get well into the 19th century that guns undoubtedly become absolutely 'better' than longbows assuming expert users of both.

Japan used to be one of the world's leading firearms manufacturers, but suddenly stopped, for example

They were world leaders in firearms because they were stuck in a century long period of warfare. Guns were a cheap and easy way to quickly boost the power of your forces. And making guns was a good way to earn some money in a unreliable economy.
Once they entered a 250 year period of peace however there just wasn't much demand for guns. It is a myth that they totally stopped making them however, they kept at it in smaller quantities, and did make some technological progress, particularly post-napoleonic wars.

 

[yboxman]

Because once the war ended, there was no more major interstate wars to fight on a regular basis.

The Qing actually did adopt firearms and that was one of the major reasons why they were able to defeat the Dzungar nomads once and for all in the early 18th century. But major wars requiring that every single side constantly update their armies and weaponries simply didn't exist in East Asia. Armies and technology atrophied during the long period of peace post 1740s in China, and post-1600s in Tokugawa Japan.

What is needed for constant advances are a European style system of competing states which eliminates any weak actors. Only then will every single state constantly be developing and equipping their armies with the latest equipment. If instead of the Qing conquering all of China you had a China divided between multiple states that needs to constantly fight each other and contest European commercial interests in East Asia then you would end up with armies and navies which are modern by the 1800s.

Northeast Asia may not have had constant interstate wars- but SOutheast Asia did. And it did result in the wholesale extinction of some states (Mon, Cham, various tnai states) and the near extinction of others (Cambodia). Southeast Asia also had a constant infusion of European adventurers, mercenaries and advisers prior to wholesale Colonialism. And yet, no systemic modernization prior to European colonialism.

 

[Tyr]

Northeast Asia may not have had constant interstate wars- but SOutheast Asia did. And it did result in the wholesale extinction of some states (Mon, Cham, various tnai states) and the near extinction of others (Cambodia). Southeast Asia also had a constant infusion of European adventurers, mercenaries and advisers prior to wholesale Colonialism. And yet, no systemic modernization prior to European colonialism.

Gunpowder and moisture are not a good mix.
SE Asia is famed for its moistness.