明朝中国和同期欧洲国家哪个军力更强？

明朝中国和同期欧洲国家哪个军力更强？

Carl Hamilton
卡尔・汉密尔顿

Ming was at all points easily much stronger than any individual European country. They were also open to innovation and not as isolationist as often imagined. Early Ming was an undisputed superpower, able to field over a million soldiers in their standing army, and of good quality. This makes sense, as the Ming had just fought the Yuan and a very militarized nation under Mongol rule. Mongolia was still seen as a major threat and was campaigned against. Additionally Ming consolidated it’s tributaries and made additional conquests in Vietnam. Around 1400, no European nation was comparable, and likely even Europe combined was not.

明朝在各方面的实力，都轻松远超任何一个欧洲国家。同时明朝乐于接受创新，并不像人们通常认为的那样奉行孤立主义。明初是毋庸置疑的超级大国，其常备军的规模可达百万以上，且兵员素质优良。这是合乎情理的，因为明朝刚结束与元朝的战争，而元朝是一个在蒙古统治下的高度军事化国家。蒙古仍被视为重大威胁，明朝也对其发动过征讨。此外，明朝巩固了自己的朝贡体系，还在越南进行了额外的征服活动。1400年左右，没有任何一个欧洲国家能与之匹敌，甚至整个欧洲加起来或许都无法与之抗衡。

This changed towards the beginning of large scale organized European warfare. The Habsburg Spanish Empire at it’s height against the Ming in a conflict would very likely have cleaned the Ming military’s clocks quite significantly.

这种情况在欧洲开始出现大规模有组织的战争后发生了改变。处于鼎盛时期的哈布斯堡西班牙帝国，如果与明朝发生冲突，大概率会将明朝的军队打得溃不成军。

This is quite a fascinating setup because we know quite a bit about how both nations fought. The Spanish empire fielded mostly standardized formations of Tercios, which were combined arms formations consisting of musketeers and pikemen. By 1600, the make up of a Tercio was typically 1,200 pikemen, now also armed with swords and replacing the earlier dedicated sword fighters, 800 musketeers and 400 skirmishing muskeeters (carabiners, arqeubusiers, what ever you wanna call them). In a single battle the Spanish would easily field 16,000 professional musketeers supported with 50 cannons or so. The tercio was famously effective, even against people who knew how it operated.

这个设定相当有意思，因为我们对这两个国家的作战方式都有不少了解。西班牙帝国的作战部队大多是标准化的西班牙大方阵（Tercios），这是一种由火绳枪兵和长矛兵组成的多兵种联合作战编队。到1600年，一个西班牙大方阵的人员构成通常为1200名长矛兵——这些长矛兵同时也配备了刀剑，取代了早期专门的剑士，800名火绳枪兵，以及400名散兵火绳枪兵（你可以称之为卡宾枪兵、火绳枪兵，或是其他称呼）。在一场单独的战役中，西班牙可以轻松集结16000名职业火绳枪兵，同时还有大约50门大炮提供支援。西班牙大方阵的作战效能是出了名的强悍，即便是面对熟悉其作战模式的对手，也依然效果显著。

The Ming military suffered from lack of focus, gimmicks and esoteric and unserious and detached thought experiments being implemented. The best source for the Ming military is probably the *Jixiao xinshu*, a treatise by Ming general Qi Jiguang, during the 1580s, also *Wubei Zhi* from 1623 by Mao Yuanyi.
While the Ming could field armies over hundreds of thousands, they were generally speaking not very effective. The treatises in my opinion says quite a lot about why. *Wubei Zhi*, shows 40 different kinds of melee weapons, 10 kinds of bows and crossbows, 8 kinds of rocket arrows, 16 kinds of primitive hand cannons, but just 2 kinds of muskets, the bad kind the Chinese made and the good kind they imported from Europe. The infantry of the Ming had over 60 kinds of weapons in service at the same time. The tercio had pikes, swords and guns.

明朝的军队存在着缺乏重点、华而不实，以及采用一些晦涩、草率且脱离实际的作战构想的问题。了解明朝军事情况的最佳资料，可能是16世纪80年代明朝将领戚继光所著的兵书《纪效新书》，还有茅元仪在1623年所著的《武备志》。
明朝虽然可以集结数十万规模的军队，但总体来说作战效能并不高。在我看来，这些兵书很大程度上解释了其中的原因。《武备志》中记载了40种不同的近战武器、10种弓弩、8种火箭、16种原始手铳，但火绳枪只有两种——一种是质量较差的国产火绳枪，另一种是从欧洲进口的优质火绳枪。明朝步兵同时列装的武器多达60余种，而西班牙大方阵的武器只有长矛、刀剑和火枪。

A Ming Cannon shown in *Wubei Zhi* from around 1600s.
《武备志》中记载的一款约17世纪的明朝火炮

The Ming were fascinated with distribution of different weapons at the squad level. For example the *Jixiao xinshu* talks about various formations, and often focuses on 10 to 12 man squads. Sometimes even 5–6 man squads, where every person has a different weapon. One of the famous formations recommended was the Mandarin Duck Formation, which consists of 4 pikemen, 2 sword and shieldmen, 2 multitip spearmen, 2 tridents or great swords, as well as a corporal with a flag, and a servant. Other configurations are suggested, which inludes 1 archer, or musketeer, handcannoneer etc.

明朝热衷于在小队层面分配不同的武器。例如《纪效新书》中提到了多种编队阵型，而且经常聚焦于10到12人的小队，有时甚至是5到6人的小队，小队中的每个人都使用不同的武器。其中最著名的推荐阵型是鸳鸯阵，这个阵型包含4名长矛兵、2名刀盾兵、2名狼筅兵、2名镋钯兵或大刀兵，另外还有一名持旗的伍长和一名伙夫。书中还提到了其他的配置，其中会包含1名弓箭手，或是火绳枪兵、手铳兵等。

As you can imagine, this is wildly ineffective. Always being pretty poor in most combat situations, 20 of these duck formations would be equivalent to a company in a Tercio. 16.7% of the formation is carrying flags of cooking utensils. If every squad has 1 archer and 1 musketeer, they have 20 ranged soldiers for a 240 soldier front, able to fire 20 muskets and 20 arrows. Compared to a Tercio musketeer company with 100 muskets, 150 pikemen, just 1 flag carrier instead of 20.
Later the Ming, also introduced firearm squads, which ideally had matchlock muskets for half of a 10 man squad, with the other half having swords. These served a wildly different role than in Europe, and was considered assault squads essentially. *Jixiao xinshu* describes the use of Musketeers in Ming.

可想而知，这样的作战方式效率极低，在大多数战斗场景中表现都很差。20个鸳鸯阵的规模，才相当于西班牙大方阵中的一个连。而且这些编队中有16.7%的人员负责持旗或是承担炊事工作。如果每个小队配置1名弓箭手和1名火绳枪兵，那么240人的作战阵线中，只有20名远程士兵，只能发射20发火枪弹和20支箭。而西班牙大方阵中的一个火绳枪连，有100支火枪、150名长矛兵，且只需要1名持旗手，而非20名。
后来明朝也组建了火器小队，理想的配置是10人小队中有一半装备火绳枪，另一半装备刀剑。但这些小队的作用与欧洲的火器部队截然不同，本质上被当作突击小队来使用。《纪效新书》中记载了明朝火绳枪兵的作战方式。

5 ranks of muskeeters are lined up
Each rank fires a shot at 100 paces (Approximately 160m)
The 5 ranks of melee troops behind charge the enemy.
Essentially, their musketeers only fire one shot before they engage the enemy in melee. European musketeers would provide continuous volley fire.

5排火绳枪兵列队排开
每一排在100步（约160米）的距离开火
身后的5排近战部队随即向敌人发起冲锋
本质上来说，他们的火绳枪兵在与敌人展开近战之前，只会射击一轮。而欧洲的火绳枪兵则可以进行持续的齐射。

In terms of equipment additionally the Ming were poorly equipped relative to the Tercio. European pikemen had a sword, dagger, plate armor, steel helmet and a pike. Musketeers had a long or short matchlock musket, some elites maybe wheellocks, as well as a steel helmet and likely a breast plate as side sword. Ming troops were as I said wildly differently equipped, their best troops had European weapons, but the imperial musketeer battalion had a strength of just 3,000 troops, and likely represented Ming’s only standardized musketeers. The non-imperial part of the army consisted of what ever their feudal lords would equip them with, and had inconsistent training.

在装备方面，明朝军队相较于西班牙大方阵的部队，装备水平也较差。欧洲长矛兵配备有刀剑、匕首、板甲、钢制头盔以及长矛；火绳枪兵则配备长管或短管火绳枪，部分精英士兵可能装备转轮火枪，此外还有钢制头盔，大概率还会佩戴胸甲，同时配备一把佩剑。就像我之前所说的，明朝军队的装备情况非常混乱，他们最精锐的部队会配备欧洲武器，但帝国直属的火绳枪营只有3000人的规模，这可能是明朝唯一一支标准化的火绳枪部队。非帝国直属的军队，装备全看他们的封建领主会提供什么，训练水平也参差不齐。

Ming cannons were very primitive and unable to be mobile on the battlefield, Spanish sakers and demi culverins were significantly more advanced, accurate and mobile.

明朝的火炮非常原始，无法在战场上移动，而西班牙的萨克炮和半长炮要先进得多，精度更高，也具备机动性。

Likewise, Spanish muskets were fairly accurate despite their reputation, while for some reason Chinese, Korean and Japanese muskets were often made without butt stocks, which does not improve accuracy.

同样的，尽管名声不佳，但西班牙火枪的精度其实尚可，而不知为何，中国、朝鲜和日本的火枪通常都没有枪托，这对提升射击精度毫无帮助。

The Spanish empire could field an army of 250,000 around the same time and did so in the thirty year war. I would say that the Habsburgers were stronger than Ming, who did have massive armies, but of wildly different quality, ineffective tactics, ineffective and illogical equipment. The fact that Ming needed major military reforms to deal with pirates is a pretty good indicator of the state of the military. It is also quite telling that foreign pirates could land at will in Ming and just take cities for looting or making into local bases, which is why I did not even bother comparing the navy aspects.

同一时期，西班牙帝国可以集结25万人的军队，并且在三十年战争中确实这么做了。我认为哈布斯堡王朝的实力要强于明朝，明朝虽然拥有规模庞大的军队，但兵员质量良莠不齐，战术低效，装备也低效且不符合逻辑。明朝需要进行重大军事改革才能应对海盗，这一事实足以说明其军事状况。同样能说明问题的是，外国海盗可以随意在明朝登陆，攻占城市进行劫掠或是将其作为当地据点，这也是我甚至懒得去对比双方海军实力的原因。

In short, in the early Ming period Ming was the undisputed strongest power on earth. In the end their military have become decrepit and ineffective, the Spanish Empire probably was militarily much stronger, and even had the reach to actually seriously harm Ming, if they hadn’t been so busy in Europe. The Ming empire fell shortly after to the Qing, who’s cavalry was unsurprisingly not stopped by the weak volleys and sparse pikes of the mixed Ming formations at the Battle of Sarhū.

简而言之，明初时期的明朝是全球毋庸置疑的最强势力。最终他们的军队变得腐朽低效，西班牙帝国的军事实力或许要强得多，如果当时他们没有在欧洲事务中分身乏术，甚至拥有能切实重创明朝的实力。不久之后明朝就被清朝所灭，毫不意外的是，在萨尔浒之战中，明朝混合编队的微弱齐射和稀疏长矛根本无法阻挡清朝的骑兵。

Michael X
迈克尔・X

Ming dynasty lasted almost 300 years, the performance was drastically different depends on the period. The Ming dynasty replaced the Yuan dynasty in the 14th century, and absorbed most of the nomadic forces under it. During Yongle (era) - Wikipedia , the Ming dynasty had 200k cavalry. The entire Mongol empire at its height only had 250k cavalry. It was a continent sweeping force.

明朝存续了近300年，其军事表现因所处时期的不同而存在巨大差异。明朝于14世纪取代元朝，收编了元朝麾下的大部分游牧势力。在永乐年间，明朝拥有20万骑兵，而鼎盛时期的整个蒙古帝国也仅有25万骑兵，是一支足以横扫大陆的力量。

After the Ming dynasty supressed the Mongols, they had a long period of peace, except some minor harassment. The performance of the Ming dynasty military drastically dropped after the Xuande Emperor - Wikipedia, and hit rock bottom after Tumu Crisis - Wikipedia.

在明朝平定蒙古之后，除了一些小规模的袭扰之外，迎来了一段漫长的和平时期。明朝的军事实力在宣德帝之后大幅下滑，在土木堡之变后跌至谷底。

Towards the end of the Ming dynasty, the Spanish supplied firearms to Japan and encouraged Japan to invade China. The Japanese sent a conquering force of 320k soldiers into the Korean peninsula during Imjin War - Wikipedia, the Ming dynasty still crush it fairy easily, despite the Ming dynasty was already towards the end of its time.
During the end years of the Ming dynasty, its most elite forces were all stationed at the Liaodong peninsula and the Shanhai pass, the Qing dynasty absorbed them after the Ming dynasty fall apart due to peasant revolt.
There was only one European country tried to have a war with Ming dynasty, the country was the Spain. And they crushed their plan after Japan hit a wall in Korea.

明朝末年，西班牙向日本供应火器，并且怂恿日本入侵中国。在壬辰倭乱期间，日本派遣了32万人的征服大军进入朝鲜半岛，尽管当时明朝已经走向衰落，但依然轻松地击败了日军。
明朝末年，其最精锐的部队全部驻守在辽东半岛和山海关，在明朝因农民起义分崩离析之后，这些部队被清朝收编。
只有一个欧洲国家曾试图与明朝开战，这个国家就是西班牙。而在日本在朝鲜碰壁之后，西班牙的计划也随之落空。

Man With A plan
有计划的人

Early portion maybe Ming but after that the European navy in particular if combined would be all but invincible. They'd blockade Ming and that would be that.

或许早期是明朝占优，但之后，尤其是欧洲各国的海军联合起来之后，几乎是无敌的。他们可以封锁明朝，事情也就到此为止了。


Alec Blunden
亚历克・布伦登

The Ming dynasty ruled China from 1368 to 1644. It was a period of native Chinese rule sandwiched between Mongol and Manchu dominance. Although the main dynasty ended in 1644, remnants of the imperial family ruled in southern China as the Southern Ming until 1662.

明朝于1368年至1644年间统治中国，这是一段由汉族人统治的时期，处于蒙古和满族的统治时期之间。尽管明朝的主体政权在1644年就灭亡了，但皇室残余势力在南方建立了南明政权，继续统治至1662年。

I suspect the Ming armies were far stonger in numerical size than those of any European power at the time, but the tyranny of distance meant they would never come into contact to test the theory. Also China needed most of its forces to pacify the homeland and defend it from the ever present threat of invasion. Most of the Great Wall was mud brick and poorly defended - not like the touristy section near Beijing most get to see. However, it is arguable that Eurpopean weapons technology - ships and firearms - was superior at the time, but Europe was in a constant state of warfare and its later exploratory/trade excursions to the East were limited in power.

我猜测，明朝军队的规模在数量上远超当时的任何欧洲政权，但距离的阻隔意味着双方永远不会发生接触，来验证这个猜测。此外，中国需要将大部分兵力用于维稳国内，以及抵御始终存在的入侵威胁。长城的大部分路段都是泥砖结构，防御能力薄弱，和人们通常看到的北京附近的旅游路段并不一样。不过，有理由认为当时欧洲的武器技术——舰船和火器——更胜一筹，但当时的欧洲处于持续的战乱之中，而且后来其前往东方的探索或贸易远征的力量也十分有限。

In summary, we will never know for certain because they never came to blows - and it would have been very unlikely that either side wanted that.

总而言之，我们永远无法得到确切的答案，因为双方从未发生过冲突——而且双方也几乎不可能愿意发生冲突。

赵祯

Below, I will mainly discuss the late Ming Dynasty. During this period, the Ming Dynasty faced an increasingly powerful enemy - "Manchuria" (which conquered Mongolian tribes and controlled Korea to plunder food, and was able to mobilize around tens of thousands of mobile archers and cavalry).

下面我将主要讨论晚明时期的情况。这一时期，明朝面临着一个日益强大的敌人——“满洲”，满洲征服了蒙古部落，控制了朝鲜以掠夺粮食，并且能够动员约数万名机动弓箭手与骑兵。

However, the Ming Dynasty itself gradually died in famine and rebellion, especially the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, "Chongzhen", who was too military adventurous and wasted a lot of manpower and material resources in the Far East due to insufficient "military projection" on Manchuria. The Ming army continued to reinforce in batches, but was eliminated by the Manchu cavalry who occupied the main advantage. In the end, the rebellious peasant army broke through the Ming capital, and the Ming generals also became warlords.

然而明朝自身却逐渐在饥荒与起义中走向覆灭，尤其是明朝的最后一位皇帝崇祯，他在军事上过于冒进，由于对满洲的军事投射能力不足，在远东地区浪费了大量的人力物力。明朝军队持续分批增援，但都被占据主导优势的满洲骑兵歼灭。最终，起义的农民军攻破了明朝都城，明朝的将领们也纷纷成为了军阀。

In order to make up for its own lack of mobility and cope with the powerful archery cavalry corps in Manchuria, the Ming army reformed a new military organization - "War wagonCamp", which can be understood as "Hussite War wagon" with 3200 infantry and "Cavalry Regiment" with 2400 cavalry. The unit was equipped with 300 matchlock guns, 1600 "three eyed guns", 30 medium heavy artillery guns, and 250 small artillery guns (powerful firepower output, but this was in the 17th century and cannot be compared to the artillery during the Napoleonic Wars)

为了弥补自身机动性的不足，应对满洲强大的弓箭骑兵军团，明朝军队改革出了一种新的军事编制——“车营”，可以理解为搭配有3200名步兵的“胡斯战车”，以及搭配有2400名骑兵的“骑兵团”。这一编制配备有300支火绳枪、1600支三眼铳、30门中型重型火炮，以及250门小型火炮，火力输出强劲，但这是17世纪的装备，无法与拿破仑战争时期的火炮相比。

Here is a work document of a Ming Dynasty official, which shows that the army in the "Xuanfu" area (now Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province) of the Ming Dynasty needed one million pounds of gunpowder annually for training.
But the role of artillery in the 17th century was limited to attacking and destroying fortifications, and they could not exert the same level of killing power as during the Napoleonic Wars, especially against the Manchu cavalry corps consisting mainly of tens of thousands of high-speed moving cavalry.
Finally, there is a comparison between the Ming Dynasty and European artillery.

这里有一份明朝官员的工作文档，显示明朝宣府地区（今河北张家口）的军队每年训练需要消耗一百万磅火药。
但17世纪的火炮作用仅限于攻击和摧毁防御工事，无法发挥出拿破仑战争时期火炮的杀伤威力，尤其是针对以数万高速移动骑兵为主的满洲骑兵军团。
最后是明朝与欧洲火炮的对比。

Roy Chambers
罗伊・钱伯斯

Given that the Ming Dynasty existed from the 14th to 17th century, and peaked at 2.8 million troops, and started with much better technology at the start and was surpassed by European military technology by the end, it is hard to measure.
But basically, the sheer size of the Ming Dynasty forces and the superior Chinese logistics would mean Europe wouldn’t even be able to compare and compete, but on the ocean, by the 16th and 17th century, European ships, guns and tactics meant that they could defeat any military on the waves.

明朝存在于14世纪至17世纪，军队规模峰值达到280万，在初期拥有更为先进的技术，而到了末期，欧洲的军事技术实现了反超，所以很难对双方的实力进行衡量。
但基本上来说，明朝军队的庞大规模，加上中国更为出色的后勤保障，意味着欧洲根本无法与之相比和抗衡；不过在海洋上，到了16、17世纪，欧洲的舰船、火炮和战术，让他们可以击败海上的任何一支军队。

Wow Wang
王哇

Personally, I believe that European armies were stronger. By the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, China had begun to gradually adopt Western artillery technology. If China's army were truly superior, they should have utilized their own technology.
When both sides were at similar technological levels, China's military strength was roughly equal to that of the West. However, after entering the Age of Exploration, the West's development, at least in the field of artillery, far surpassed that of other countries. Under these circumstances, China's overall strength naturally lagged behind that of Western nations, which were more advanced in artillery.
Therefore, it must be said that exchange and interaction lead to advancements in military power, and such advancements are far more valuable than stagnation.

我个人认为欧洲的军队更加强大。明朝中后期，中国已经开始逐步采用西方的火炮技术。如果中国的军队真的更具优势，那么他们应该会使用自己的技术。
当双方技术水平相近时，中国的军事实力与西方大致相当。但进入大航海时代之后，西方的发展，至少在火炮领域，远超其他国家。在这种情况下，中国的整体实力自然落后于火炮技术更为先进的西方国家。
因此必须说，交流与互动会推动军事实力的发展，这样的发展远比停滞不前要有价值。

Jeff Rosenbury
杰夫・罗森伯里

This is a 300-year period of history that saw the beginning of the West’s rise to power.
Ming was strongest in its early years and was stronger than any individual European power. Collectively, Europe was stronger, but cooperation wasn’t in its nature.
Toward the end, the Ottoman Empire could have given the Ming Emperor a run for his money. Suleiman the Magnificent would have crushed the Ming (but maybe not the early Ming). Given that the various Holy Leagues fought Suleiman to a standstill, Europe was undoubtedly stronger. (Parts of Christian Europe sided with Suleiman.)

这是一段长达300年的历史，见证了西方崛起的开端。
明朝在其初期实力最为强盛，强于任何一个单独的欧洲政权。欧洲各国联合起来的实力会更强，但合作并非欧洲的本性。
到了明朝末期，奥斯曼帝国或许能与明朝皇帝一较高下。苏莱曼大帝本可以击败明朝（但明初可能除外）。既然各个神圣同盟都能与苏莱曼打成平手，那么欧洲的实力无疑更加强大。（部分基督教欧洲国家是站在苏莱曼一方的）。