Xi Gua Pao (西瓜砲, lit. 'Watermelon bomb')
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| Drawing of a Xi Gua Pao and its contains, from 'Wu Bei Zhi (《武備志》)'. |
15 March 2017
14 March 2017
Special Unit of the Ming Dynasty — Jian Ye (尖夜)
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| Stone inscription detailing a sortie of Ye Bu Shou on Qinhuangdao Great Wall. |
8 March 2017
Ming Chinese infantry tactics — Part 2
In my previous blog post, I briefly discussed about large formation battle in the context of Chinese warfare. However, it only gives a very rough and incomplete idea on how a large scale battle was fought. In this blog post, I will delve deeper into the subject, using actual figures, pictures, as well as comparison with Western formation to give a clearer picture on Chinese battle formation.
Typical Chinese formation was actually incredibly spacious by European standard, as European pikemen of the sixteenth and seventeenth century fought in very dense formation, with space between two soldiers as little as 18 inches.
Individual spacing and formation frontage
Generally speaking, four typical Chinese soldier would occupy a five chi (approx. 5.35 feet or 1.63 metre) by five chi square. In other word, space between two soldiers, measured from shoulder to shoulder, is roughly 2.1 feet. For example, an early Mandarin Duck squad employed by Qi Ji Guang (戚繼光) would occupy a rectangular space of five chi wide and one zhang five chi long (5.35 feet × 16.05 feet).
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