Maximum number of soldiers that a great martial artist can handle

It's a generally agreed concept that no matter how powerful a martial artist is, he ultimately cannot hope to singlehandedly win against an army of soldiers (even though individually, soldiers are regarded the weakest of combatants in wuxia fiction). This is why Gwok Jing, despite arguably being the best fighter in the CONDOR HEROES TRILOGY, could not defend Seung Yeung Fortress by himself. That being said, just how many soldiers *could* a top-level fighter take on before finally succumbing to the inevitable? If we take the all-powerful Janitor Monk and set him against an army of soldiers (for the sake of argument, all infantrymen armed with spears, swords, sabres, and maybe archery sets), how many can the Janitor Monk take down before the numbers become too overwhelming even for him?

depends, if they start by just shooting arrows at him for half a day and then have groups of forty to fifty charge him at a time, I think 1-2000 men could take the sweeper, he is just human (a super human) but human, he will get tired and hungry. Or just have a thousand men bum rush him at the same time.

Who knows?

He'd prolly die from exhaustion first, though; it gets tiring to kill thousands and thousands of people who're trying to kill you. :p

Really, though, it doesn't matter much.

Couple realistic routes the wuxia guys don't go often seems be guerrilla warfare and the jugular approach. Probably because it'd change the history and the unwritten law of wuxia fiction is the immutability of history, so you can't have the Song kicking the Mongol butt or the Ming trashing the Manchus. So the heroes gotta be stupid. :D

Soldiers don't fight to the death and they quite often break in face of strong resistance. There doesn't seem to be any effort to exploit this fact in wuxia, however. The Romans and Greeks frequently fought armies much larger than themselves and won because of superior power. The Greeks were outnumbered 10000 to 60000 Gauls one time and they won the battle when an elite group of men only 500 strong attacked head-on and split the enemy line in half, creating panic and allowing the others to break the front everywhere.

Now imagine what 1000 troops led by the Sweeper Monk and couple Greats can do. I can easily imagine an elite division led by top fighters whose goal is smash into the line to create panic and divide the battlefield. You won't need too many guys to do it either.

Guo Jing beat 98 Taoists by himself with ease, even though they were in 2 huge Big Dipper formations. And these 98 Taoists were probably equal to 1000+ soldiers by themselves. So a Great should be able to handle thousands of ordinary soldiers by himself.

Just imagine dynasty warriors.

The jugular approach was used twice with great effect in DGSD.

Maybe Jin soldiers were much weaker then Mongol braves but AFAIK none of the Greats in LOCH/ROCH could pull that stunt off with the Mongolian horde. Besides, the Mongolians had Golden Wheelie. The Jins had squat for martial artists in DGSD.

The Jin Emperor having witnessed Xiao Feng single handedly stopping his army once was 100% prepared the second time. He had his most elite and battle-hardened archers and spearman and heavy armoured and shield troops arrayed in maximum defensive formation but Xu Zhu flung them all out of his way (the way it was described sounded just like Obelix vs the Romans) while DY zipped in between the small gaps.

A highly skilled martial artist should also be able to run for it if the opposing troops are suicidal and brave enough to keep formation and try to bury him with packed numbers.

Those 3 brothers were probably the only ones strong enough to have single handedly changed history but they weren't interested in being King.

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Originally posted by SkineePanda
Just imagine dynasty warriors.

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But in JY world they don't have meat buns lying on the battlefield!

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Originally posted by -NSX-
Sweeper at best can kill 1 million soldiers.

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I think you need to get a million of something, take a good long look at what a million looks like, imagine them to be big, strong men armed with weapons, and do a reality check. :)

Arnold Schwarzeneggar couldn't fight a million ants with his bare hands. The Janitor Monk isn't going to take down a million soldiers.

True, I think a million is much exaggereated.:)

Lol good analogy KC

But how does one become so powerful? Is it because they train hard? they have talent? they learn superior martial arts? or a combination?

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Originally posted by kamii
But how does one become so powerful? Is it because they train hard? they have talent? they learn superior martial arts? or a combination?

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In the case of Kiu Fung, it was because he had hella talent for martial arts. In the case of Hui Juk and Deun Yu, it was because they were hella lucky. In the case of the Janitor Monk, who the hella knows? :)

Golden Lion King could kill hundreds of soldiers, perhaps thousands, at a time with his Chi shout which will kill everyone within hearing range. And if he ever got tired, he could easily run away from the army by leaping on top of a cliff or tunnelling underground where the army can't reach. Or build an instant Earth barrier to keep the common soldiers away from him. Wash, rinse, and repeat until the army is destroyed.

Sweeper Monk is many times more powerful than Golden Lion King. It's not out of the question that he can kill 1 million soldiers.

I would say one of the ROCH Greats could maybe kill 1,000 before he would be overwhelmed perhaps more if he kills their commander and the whole force then falls apart. I think it would be in the mid thousands at most and even Sweeper Monk could not kill 1,000,000 at once. Maybe he could kill that many over the course of his lifetime (eg. killing in packs of 5,000 and repeating 200 times) but not simultaneously.

If you had to go into combat against a pack of thousands of soldiers, whose martial arts would you take into battle? I'd take WYS since he knows so many techniques and can even use music. I could just casually flick stones from a distance and still kill a bunch of these bottom of the rung soldiers w/o much effort.
By the way, how many guys could GJ take out with one stance from HL18P? Could he send like 50 guys to their death.

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Originally posted by Mojo Jojo
Golden Lion King could kill hundreds of soldiers, perhaps thousands, at a time with his Chi shout which will kill everyone within hearing range. And if he ever got tired, he could easily run away from the army by leaping on top of a cliff or tunnelling underground where the army can't reach. Or build an instant Earth barrier to keep the common soldiers away from him. Wash, rinse, and repeat until the army is destroyed.

Sweeper Monk is many times more powerful than Golden Lion King. It's not out of the question that he can kill 1 million soldiers.

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The Lion's Roar of Tse Tsun was not lethal. The most it did during HSDS was drive a few people insane. Some of the stronger individuals who were there, like Bak Gwai Sau of the Sky Eagle Sect, even recovered fully later on.

The Roar was not that difficult to overcome. Cheung Chui San and Yan So So were able to resist it simply by plugging their ears with wax. Moreover, think about how much space 1,000,000 people would occupy. How many of those 1,000,000 would be within range of the roar at any given time?

Finally, I think that again, a few of you are really underestimating the number one million. One million of *anything* is an incredible number to deal with.

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Originally posted by Ken Cheng
The Lion's Roar of Tse Tsun was not lethal. The most it did during HSDS was drive a few people insane. Some of the stronger individuals who were there, like Bak Gwai Sau of the Sky Eagle Sect, even recovered fully later on.

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He drove dozens of people insane with one shout on Wang Pan Island. And these are skilled fighters with some degree of inner power. Common soldiers with no inner power would have no resistance at all to this attack.

Sure if you had an army of 1 million soldiers with Bak Gwai Sau's inner power, Golden Lion would be screwed, but I assume we're talking about ordinary grunt level soldiers. ;)

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Originally posted by Ken Cheng

The Roar was not that difficult to overcome. Cheung Chui San and Yan So So were able to resist it simply by plugging their ears with wax. Moreover, think about how much space 1,000,000 people would occupy. How many of those 1,000,000 would be within range of the roar at any given time?

Finally, I think that again, a few of you are really underestimating the number one million. One million of *anything* is an incredible number to deal with.

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The two of them had a vast amount of inner power, far more than ordinary soldiers would have. The basic grunt wouldn't stand a chance.

As for 1 million soldiers, the Rose Bowl can hold about 100,000 people. Most professional stadiums can seat 50-100 thousand, with more being able to fit if they squeezed. So 1 million soldiers would be about 10 Rose Bowls. And the Rose Bowl is probably smaller than Wang Pan Island was.

I doubt that Golden Lion could be lucky enough to kill 100,000 with one roar, but there's no doubt that he could easily get thousands in his area effect. He can wipe out so many soldiers that their bodies would delay their comrades from reaching him fast enough before he simply roars again. As often as necessary. :eek:

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Originally posted by Mojo Jojo
I doubt that Golden Lion could be lucky enough to kill 100,000 with one roar, but there's no doubt that he could easily get thousands in his area effect. He can wipe out so many soldiers that their bodies would delay their comrades from reaching him fast enough before he simply roars again. As often as necessary. :eek:

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If there are one million people lined up to kill a person, I doubt that they'll give him any breathing time. When Tse Tsun used his Lion's Roar against the few dozen people he encountered at Wong Poon Island, he seemed quite exhausted by the effort. It's extremely doubtful that he could keep it up continuously to affect one million people (even one thousand is a stretch), and this is even assuming he gets a few minutes of rest between each roar (which he won't).

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Originally posted by Ken Cheng
If there are one million people lined up to kill a person, I doubt that they'll give him any breathing time. When Tse Tsun used his Lion's Roar against the few dozen people he encountered at Wong Poon Island, he seemed quite exhausted by the effort. It's extremely doubtful that he could keep it up continuously to affect one million people (even one thousand is a stretch), and this is even assuming he gets a few minutes of rest between each roar (which he won't).

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He was using the roar against people with quite a bit of inner power. Against ordinary grunts, he would need a lot less energy. Also, if he can take out an area the size of an island at a time, I doubt the soldiers can put enough pressure on him to matter. They simply can't run fast enough, especially through the bodies of their fallen comrades.

Noodle's translation doesn't seem to indicate that the effort exhausted Tse Tsun at all. That's not to say that it didn't, but the translation doesn't say so. Even if it did tire him, we're talking about the Sweeper Monk vs 1,000,000. Tse Tsun is merely a point of reference. The Sweeper Monk has lots more inner power than Golden Lion, and can probably keep it up as long as he needed to.

Even at the Sweeper Monk's level, I doubt he can handle 1 million soldiers in one go. He would be exhausted. Especially if these solders are wearing war uniforms and carrying armors and weapons like spears, swords, bow and arrow, etc.

At best I would say.. 250,000 soldiers before he gets exhausted and catch off guard.

whats the use of gun powder?