Why are soldiers such worthless fighters?

[Yeung Gor]

In wuxia, any wuxia fighters can defeat practically dozens of soldiers, even the lowest class fighters of the clan can beat up at least a few soldiers by themselves. So why are the soldiers such worthless fighters? If I am a king and I want to build a great army and a powerful empire, I would have every soldier train in the highest martial arts, even though most would never reach great levels but still they would be more effective. I would think every King would love to conquer more land or even have the assurance that no other Kingdom can challenge their power and the best way to achieve this goal would to have all the soldiers train better martial arts. So again, why isn't this the case?

[Suet Seung]

Could it be that most soldiers are just regular citizens/men whose main goal in life was to be merchants, vendors, farmers, failed scholars, and etc, basically their life goal wasn't to fight in a war but because they needed money to support their families or maybe they were drafted into the war? The time the government takes to train the soldiers can also be taken into consideration too. How many months or weeks did they took to train them before the war started?

And its also just to show how powerful wuxia fighters are.

[Yeung Gor]

Could it be that most soldiers are just regular citizens/men whose main goal in life was to be merchants, vendors, farmers, failed scholars, and etc, basically their life goal wasn't to fight in a war but because they needed money to support their families or maybe they were drafted into the war? The time the government takes to train the soldiers can also be taken into consideration too. How many months or weeks did they took to train them before the war started?

And its also just to show how powerful wuxia fighters are.

I am not refering to a time of war, it isn't really relevant. It's true that some soldiers dont hold the desire to be great fighters just a way for living for them. But like any military, these people have no choice but to learn and train. If the King desires his soldiers to be well-skilled, he can place huge focus on training martial arts and implement a system to test their soldiers skills and if they dont pass the tests, they get no pay and any who excel will be rewarded or even promoted. I would imagine most of them would be training hard and improve significantly. Soldiers are usually in there for years or life so they will be enough time to be sufficient in fighting and those who are naturally talented will gain higher ranks. As of right now, the armies are pretty useless and can only win because of their number, but imagine the power the King would hold if he possess an army that rival the wuxia fighters on a one on one basis.

Why hasn't this idea cross any Kings mind?

[kyss of the sword]

firstly, wuxia dueling and soldiers fighting in the battle field are different from each other. wuxia martial arts take a long time to be proficent in ,in wuxia the focus is on one on one mainly, in battle, it's more a case of soldiers attacking together against another mass of soldiers.

From then on, the Six Freaks of the South were living permanently in the desert, teaching Guo Jing and Tolui Kung Fu. Temujin knows that these kungfu are needed close contact with the other side, and are only important for protecting oneself. Thus he only wanted Tolui and Guo Jing to learn fists briefly, and to spend most of their time learning riding, shooting with their bows and arrows, and learning to handle other important tasks on the battle field. As the Six Freaks of the South are not familiar with these, Guo Jing and Tolui learnt these under Jebeh and Boroqul.

it's not easy to reach experts level in a short time, it takes yrs and decades while most armies must be trained within two or three yrs. it's too costly to wait for so long for your soldier to be ready before using them. battle fighting is said to be fighting not to die, while dueling is fighting to win. in battle, you don't have the space to jump around and compete inner power. quick kill methods are more suitable, while mutually defending your troop. the soldiers generally are thaught some martial arts, in fact in real history, martial arts orignated in the battle field and moved to martial schools. so did formation fighting.

[Ken Tran]

And its also just to show how powerful wuxia fighters are.

Exactly. Many a wuxia fighter can tear up an ordinary soldier in a heartbeat as if to show how strong a fighter they are.

[Ken Cheng]

The average wulin fighter...even on the Yeung Teet Sum level...is an extraordinary individual with extraordinary talent (maybe not by wulin standards, but by the standards of ordinary people). The amount of time and resources that needs to be invested to train a high level fighter is extremely cost-prohibitive. It's not something you can mass produce. Look how much time and effort the elite fighters' teachers had to invest into training them (and that's just as individuals). There's no way to replicate that for thousands of men.

[The Khan]

Well, elite soldiers of certain great generals and emperors would be a different proposition to the average rank and file conscripted peasant soldier.

Li Shi Min had a special unit of black armored cavalry which was small in number but extremely elite. Nuerhaci's yellow banner were also fearsome fighters historically. These elite soldiers would definitely give low level martial arts pugilists a run for their money.

[Yeung Gor]

The average wulin fighter...even on the Yeung Teet Sum level...is an extraordinary individual with extraordinary talent (maybe not by wulin standards, but by the standards of ordinary people). The amount of time and resources that needs to be invested to train a high level fighter is extremely cost-prohibitive. It's not something you can mass produce. Look how much time and effort the elite fighters' teachers had to invest into training them (and that's just as individuals). There's no way to replicate that for thousands of men.

If the Beggar sect and Shaolin can train thousands of men like that, I can't see why the King who has abundant wealth can't. In fact, it isn't difficult to develop a new military training system that incorperate what has work for these clans. A number of unit of soldiers will have an instructor to teach them as how the clans or sect has train their students.

And it will surely take time to develop these soldiers to good fighters and well aware many will be only average, but knowing some wuxia is better than knowing none. And those who are gifted will continue to be provided further training to increase their skills. With this enormous amount of men, surely there will be a few prodigies as well as many good fighters that will emerge among them.

And when we observe how our modern day military has evolve, we see the value in developing military strength and the country that has the most powerful military is the strongest empire. The key to having the strongest military in Wuxia universe would be to built an army of great fighters with wuxia abilities. Just imagine the possiblity in strategies if your army has lightness kungfu, inner chi, and superior skills over your enemy's normal soldiers who just stab and poke with spears or swords, they will surely be crushed.

I am just suprise no King has attempted to advance their military toward the wuxia path. And the King has the resource to buy or steal kungfu manuals from sects and provide them to his men as well as the means and funds to built such an army.

And if the King is bright, he can supply schools with knowledge of inner power cultivation and force students to have to practice them along with learning how to read and write, just like how we at modern time have to do physical education. By then these young men as they grow will have the foundation to improve their fighting skills fast when they enter military training.

I just think it is well within the realm of possibility to built such an army. It will take a long time to get great results but it will pay off once a King devote his attention and priority in making this happen.

[Ken Tran]

The average wulin fighter...even on the Yeung Teet Sum level...is an extraordinary individual with extraordinary talent (maybe not by wulin standards, but by the standards of ordinary people). The amount of time and resources that needs to be invested to train a high level fighter is extremely cost-prohibitive. It's not something you can mass produce. Look how much time and effort the elite fighters' teachers had to invest into training them (and that's just as individuals). There's no way to replicate that for thousands of men.

Just mass produce the three moves HYS taught that childish-wildish girl. Those three moves were good enough to withstand Li Mouchou and scared the you know what out of her.

[Phoenix_Aquaris]

Just mass produce the three moves HYS taught that childish-wildish girl. Those three moves were good enough to withstand Li Mouchou and scared the you know what out of her.

Not everybody is that intelligent to think of such weird moves. HYS wouldn't be called East Heretic for nothing. Those three moves shouldn't be that weak you know, plus Sha gu took decades to perfect that skill, people more intelligent than her would still take almost a decade to learn them.

But at least out of thousands of soldiers, hundreds of them should know martial arts(tens should know decent ones) but all they ever know is to charge stupidly with their weapons and the next secong they die.

This just puzzles me why a King wouldn't hire true martial arts talents to teach soldiers some skills. With his abundant wealth, I can't see which greedy martial ars expert can't be tempted.

[Ken Cheng]

If the Beggar sect and Shaolin can train thousands of men like that,.

But they couldn't. The Beggar's Union and Shaolin rank and file weren't all that much better than standard government soldiers.

The Beggar's Union numbered 300,000 members...not a small number, but a pittance compared to the military forces across China during the imperial era. Moreover, of those 300,000, probably only a very small percentage (less than 1%) of elders and the Union Chief could be considered high level martial artists.

With the Shaolin Temple, the numbers are even fewer. We're talking about 10,000 monks at most? Again, most of the hamandeggers were just that...hamandeggers; individually, they weren't much better than Joe Soldierboy.

[AnhHung]

Yes, most of the monks of Shaolin were ordinary monks with ordinary responsibilities, such as cooking, farming, copy scriptures and sweeping (he he). And most of their time were spent studying buddhism, not practising kung fu. Kung fu were introduced to the monks to keep their body and mind healthy so that they could study longer. Only the most talented would have the chance to study kung fu thoroughly and become high level martial artists.

IMO soldiers shouldnt learn kung fu (other than basics). I know the idea of an army of soldiers performing for example 18 Dragon subdoing palm is awesome. The fact is that the gain doesnt justify the cost. It is much better to drill the soldiers in formation and disiplin. As mentioned in earlier posts, in battle, they do not have the time or space to perform high level kung fu. Basic stabbing techique is good enough. The most important thing is the soldiers disiplin to perform orders. We must remember that a war is not fought solider vs soldiers, but army vs army. And in wars, the ability to move troops are essential.

Kung fu is good for one on one, but useless in battle.

[CC]

The reason it doesnt happen is simply the same reason why GJ/YG didn't stop the Mongol invasion by assasination/guerilla tactics.

It messes up the background and plot!

Its one of those wuxia quirks we have to accept, like secret marital arts on cave walls and abandoned temples with a convenient statue to hide behind on the altar between every village and why XLN kept her dress white after 16 years without changing.

[Ken Cheng]

why XLN kept her dress white after 16 years without changing.

I always thought she had a whole closet full of them myself.

[Ken Cheng]

Another issue to consider in addition to those already outlined above is control. Once you've trained an army of supermen, just how are you going to enforce discipline among them? What's to stop them from overrunning the government and taking over? What's to stop them from leaving the military and becoming freelance mercenaries or worse?

Of course, the government never needed to worry about these troubling questions because it was never even remotely viable to train such an army anyway. But even if the government could, there would be the control issue to consider.

[K2Grey]

I can see some degree of training for soldiers would be viable... for example, it might be useful for them to learn some good wulin sword art. Like the sword art of one of the 5 Mountain Schools or whatever would be good enough. It could probably be adapted fairly well for a warfield situation and even if the soldiers aren't that proficient in it they might still do decent.

Training inner power on the other hand might be too time consuming or tricky. So weapon arts are more desirable.

[CC]

It was raised during one of the JY Q&A sessions. He said its the same dress for the whole 16 years!

[K2Grey]

This must be a rare and powerful skill of the Yu Nu Xin Jing that allows XLN to clean her dress through inner power

[Ken Tran]

This must be a rare and powerful skill of the Yu Nu Xin Jing that allows XLN to clean her dress through inner power

That must be one of the reasons keeping XLN's white dress from tearing.

[Yeung Gor]

Yes, most of the monks of Shaolin were ordinary monks with ordinary responsibilities, such as cooking, farming, copy scriptures and sweeping (he he). And most of their time were spent studying buddhism, not practising kung fu. Kung fu were introduced to the monks to keep their body and mind healthy so that they could study longer. Only the most talented would have the chance to study kung fu thoroughly and become high level martial artists.

IMO soldiers shouldnt learn kung fu (other than basics). I know the idea of an army of soldiers performing for example 18 Dragon subdoing palm is awesome. The fact is that the gain doesnt justify the cost. It is much better to drill the soldiers in formation and disiplin. As mentioned in earlier posts, in battle, they do not have the time or space to perform high level kung fu. Basic stabbing techique is good enough. The most important thing is the soldiers disiplin to perform orders. We must remember that a war is not fought solider vs soldiers, but army vs army. And in wars, the ability to move troops are essential.

Kung fu is good for one on one, but useless in battle.

I have to disagree. I believe an army of wuxia fighters can and would whoop an army of classic soldiers in an army vs army type of fights. With their wuxia skills, the wuxia army can utilize many forms of attacks; They can move in fast with lightness kungfu and attack specific targets and those in the front line can do palm blast that will kill many enemies before they even get close and once they are up close, their superior sword skills will prevail against those basic army type fighting. Not to mention, alot of wuxia fighters can throw needles with pin point accuracy and a hand full of soldiers will die from one attack. We have seen alot of time that a group of wuxia fighters can stop a large scale of soldiers head on. The result would be the same in an army vs army type scale as well. If wuxia fighters need more room to do more damage, they can simply spread out a bit, since they can take on several soldiers by themselves, they dont need to stick so close together but close enough to give each other support. So they will not have to use as many man power to go head to head. And this will allow the wuxia army to rotate their offense or even divide and conquer since they dont need as much men to fight to be effective while the other side will be weaken and be slaughter heavily in due time. I don't think it will be much of a contest if the wuxia fighters use their abilities to the fullest.

Also you have to realize that if a king possess an unit of special forces that have skills equivalent to the Greats in Condor Series. Imagine the covert operation he can have them do, like how Yeung Gor and a group of wuxia experts went into the mongol camp and killed many soldiers and cut off thousands of their ears. Really, a full scale wuxia army will be the most powerful empire that world has seen.