Imperial Chinese Armies (2): 590-1260 (Osprey 295)

Reviewed by Paul Rice

Imperial Chinese Armies (2): 590-1260 AD, by Chris Peers (Color Plates by Michael Perry) (Osprey Men-at-Arms Series 295, July 1996). Softcover, 45 pages.

It's difficult to summarize a book that is itself a mass consolidation: 670 years of Chinese military and political history in 45 pages. This book is crammed with names and one sentence summaries. Little sunk in.

Here are the sections:

Introduction
Chronology (from 589-1260)
The Sui Dynasty, AD 589-618
The T'ang, 618-907
Sui and T'ang Armies
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, 907-959
The Sung Dynasty, 960-1279
Sung Armies
The Liao, 907-1125
The Hsi Hsia, 1038-1227
The Kin Dynasty, 1125-1235
Military Science and Technology
Nine Important Battles
The Plates
Further Reading

It's obvious this title was used as a reference for DBA 2.0. Here are some of the armies/ peoples/ empires/ nations/ dynasties covered (not including locations or people), many as enemies: Arabs, Chou, Han (Northern, Southern, and Later), Hsi Hsia, Western Hsia, Jurchen, Khitans, Kin, Koguryo, Liao, Mo-ho, Mongols, Nan-chao, P'o-hai, Sui, Sung, T'ang, Tanguts, Tatars, Tibet, Turks, Sha-t'o Turks, Vietnam, and (Mongol) Yuan.

The geographic locations read like a map of History of the World.

In these 670 years, China went through periods of emphasis on particular weapons, the crossbow having a long popularity. Only at the beginning of this time period did they not have a perpetual shortage of horses.

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