Chinese and Indian Warfare - From the Classical Age to 1870

Kaushik Roy is Guru Nanak Professor in the Department of History at Jadavpur University, India and Global Fellow at PRIO, Norway

This book examines the differences and similarities between warfare in China and India before 1870, both conceptually and on the battlefield. By focusing on Chinese and Indian warfare, the book breaks the intellectual paradigm requiring non-Western histories and cultures to be compared to the West, and allows scholarship on two of the oldest civilizations to be brought together. An international group of scholars compare and contrast the modes and conceptions of warfare in China and India, providing important original contributions to the growing study of Asian military history.

Introduction Part 1: Military Theory/Theories of Warfare in China and India 1. Opportune Moments in Early Chinese Military Thought: The Concept of Ji in the Warring States Period Manuscript Cao Mie's Battle Array 2. Yuddha and Vijaya: Concepts of War and Conquest in Ancient and Early Medieval India (1500 BCE-1300 CE) Part 2: Technology, Geography and Warfare 3. Chinese Border Garrisons in an International Context: Liaodong under the Early Ming Dynasty 4. Elephants in Pre-Modern India 5. British-India and Afghanistan: 1707-1842 6. Technological Advance in the War against the Mongols 7. Bringing in the Big Guns: On the Use of Artillery in the Ming-Manchu War 8. Battles, Boats and Bridges: Mughal Amphibious Warfare, 1571-1612 9. Indo-Portuguese Naval Battles in the Indian Ocean during the Early Sixteenth Century 10. The Politics of Military Control in the West Coast: Marathas, Mughals and the Europeans, 1650-1730 Part 3: Military Culture, State and Society 11. Command, Control, and Castration: Eunuch Supervisors in the Armies of the Tang Dynasty 12. The Cultural Construction of War in Tang Frontier Poetry 13. Martial Values in Painting: Chinese Bannerman Painters at the Qing Court 14. Disorder in the General Staff: A Corruption Case during the First Jinchuan War (1747-1749) 15. Fortified Walls and Social Ordering in China's Late Eighteenth-Century Revolts 16. Total War: Military Supply and Civilian Resources during China's Era of Rebellions 17. European Military Experience in South Asia: The Dutch and British armies in Sri Lanka in the Eighteenth Century 18. Military Revolution and State Formation Reconsidered: Mir Qasim, Haider Ali and Transition to Colonial Rule in the 1760s 19. Contrasting Indian and British Concepts of Race and Authority in the East India Company Armies 20. The East India Company, the Indian Army and the China Wars, 1839-1860