Martial Artists v. Soldiers/Armies: An Analysis

[Ren Ying Ying]

回思与杨过数日的邂逅，亦已足慰平生。她这时身处至险，心中却异常安静，
对高台下的两军剧战竟尔不再关心。正当如此神驰深谷、追忆往日之际，忽听得远
处一声清嘶鼓风而至，霎时间似乎将那千军万马的厮杀一齐淹没。

郭襄心头一凛，这啸声动人心魄，正与杨过那日震倒群兽的啸声一般无异，当
即转头往啸声处望去，只见西北方的蒙古兵翻翻滚滚，不住向两旁散开，两个人在
刀山枪林中急驱而前，犹如大船破浪冲波而行。在那两人之前却是一头大鸟，双翅
展开，激起一阵狂风，将射来的弩箭纷纷拨落。这头大鸟猛鸷悍恶，凌厉无伦，正
是杨过的神雕。

I've posted the English translation in a previous post. YG was using his roar and it was "thousands" of soldiers, "10,000" horses.

It is only said that YG's roar covered up the sounds of the battle crys of the soldiers. When you say "blasted away", I was thinking more of a bazooka blasting away at the soldiers. I suppose that was just a misunderstanding of communication .

I think you severely underestimate the big dipper formation, especially the 98 person one. In LOCH, 7 Chuan Zhen disciples using the formation could hold off HYS. If they 7 disciples didn't have this formation, they would've all died very quick deaths even if they attacked together.

As for the merging of strengths etc... Read my earlier examples of how GJ used one stance and jabbed 14 taoists in the wrists with the sword tip. That has nothing to do with GJ beating 14 taoists because they were collectively merged as ONE unit, so beating ONE is NOT equal to 14. Also note my examples when GJ swung a spear in one stroke and killed 10 soldiers. There are also examples of the Greats using palm winds and shattering many spears (numbering approx around 10-20).

And you are comparing a 98 taoists formation to a 10,000 soldiers formation-- of course it may appear that the big dipper isn't as "effective" as an army. But, let's change the perspective. You think a Great would have an easier time fighting 98 taoists as opposed to 98 "trained" soldiers who can "fill in the gaps" that the 98 taoists can't?!? Even if an army sent 10,000 soldiers, they can't all engage a Great at once. I doubt that the first 98 soldiers (out of the 10,000) wouldn't even be worth the Great's time.

Sorry, I use an online text source, which may be outdated and error prone. I cannot find any instance where GJ jabbed 14 taoist's wrists with ONE stance. I am much too lazy to dig back on every single post on this thread. Would you mind pointing the source our for me? Thanks.

Though, to add on, I would like to point out that GJ did not defeat ALL 98 taoists. After wrecking the formation, he ran away.

This has nothing to do with whether the Great would have an easier time fighting 98 taoists or 98 soldiers, but rather comparing a Great performance against 98 taoists makes no defining implications upon how Great-leveled fighters will fare against an army because of the various differences I have listed in my previous posts (mainly difference in numbers, attitude, and purpose). For example, GJ can use one palm to defend against 49 taoists because they linked into ONE person, but there is not way GJ can use ONE palm to defend against 49 soldiers. I cannot prove whether it was easier to use one palm to defend against 49 taoists or whether it will be easier to seperately defend against 49 soldiers. However, I CAN say that the two processes will be inherently different. One is dependent upon power/strength while the other is dependent upon speed. Likewise, fighting against 100 taoists will be inherently differently from fighting an army. Thus, the two cannot be compared equally and one case cannot be a useful predicament of the other.

I imagine that 1000 arrows fired at GJ is the same as the 1000 arrows fired at Jet Li in Hero. If GJ can block that with a twiddle of his hand with some cloth... I imagine he can block arrows even if he's surrounded.

If we also include people like XF, DY, XZ... their LDA's and palm winds should suffice at keeping a barrier around them that no arrows can penetrate-- especially DY's 6MSJ

I don't remember how the movie Hero went. also, I'm not quite sure you can equate the novel GJ to a movie Jet Li...
Though based on pure geometry, a person roughly 6 surface plane: Top, bottom, right, left, front, back. Usually only the bottom is protected by the ground. If GJ is suspended in the air next to the wall, I imagine very few arrows will be comming from the top side and none will be comming from the side behind (the wall). Also, i doubt there will be much arrows comming from the left & right side because the soldiers are still charging towards the wall. In order to hit the sides, the archers will have to be aiming from the left or right side. Since they are still charging and archers are not usually at the forefront, I doubt there would be many archers on the left & right side. This also means there would be less arrows comming from teh bottom side since that would require archers to be almost directly beneath him. Thus, the only side that GJ really needed to defend against is the front. Therefore, it is possible that the giant cloth/sheild method can only work in one direction. Now, if we had GJ on the surrounded on the ground, he would now be open on 4 sides: Front, back, left, & right. With two shields/cloths, he can only securely defend against 2 sides, leaving two sides open--thus vulnerable.

As for XF, XZ, DY, I have seen no evidence that they can deflect arrows with a palm wind barrer.

Now, before you fall asleep from reading my tedious and long-winded explainations, let's cut to the REAL point. Am I claiming that the senerio I created must be true and that the Jet Li/Hero senerio must be false? Certainly NOT! But...can you PROVE that the senerio I created is certianly false and that your Jet Li/Hero senerio is true? I highly doubt it, too.

The senerio I proposed is only as likely as the Jet Li/Hero and XF/XZ/DY Palm Wind senerio you proposed. Neither is necessarily true or false. So what is my point? It's not to make you fall asleep and too tired to respond, but rather that there is no sufficient proof that arrows are useless against Greats (or that Greats can defeat armies for that matter). Without such proof, there is no solid contradiction against what Jin Yong wrote about arrows, armies, and Greats, and thus such statements should not be randomly disgarded as Jin Yong is "bullsh*tting".

One is allowed to believe whatevers one likes as most of this is pretty much based on opinions, but I personality believe one shouldn't use such "evidences" as "PROOF" in an argument or simply discard someone else's argument by simply stating "JY is bullsh*tting" as a COUNTER.

[Ren Ying Ying]

I see what you are saying but the thing is that the group did NOT fight. Even if they did, guys like HR will not survive a fight with an army, while Greats would. Thus always presenting some sort of burden to the Greats.

HR would not be able to survive an army alone, but I personally believe she would not burden a Great in a battle against an army based on the idea that HR is likely more powerful than an individual soldier. Afterall, if Guo Fu (who is likely weaker than all the ladies present) has the ability to go into the battlefield against soldiers, I don't see why HR & ladies can't. Of course, Guo Fu cannot face an army alone, but allowing her on the battlefield would mean that she places no burden in actively fighting against soldiers. It is different from the senerio of Great vs. Great because she will be weaker than an individual Great. Thus, I don't believe in "active fighting", she or any other martial artist will be a burden.

It is quite central in fact, as ZBT-being-injured is used as a main argument of Greats being not so successful against an army. If the group left unharmed and cheerful, there will be much less doubt about Greats' ability with soldiers. I'm saying ZBT would not be injured if not for his poor choice of weapons.

To someone's else's argument perhaps, but my argument lies upon the fact that ZBT knew they were in DANGER. While ZBT is playful and likes to joke around, he is never pessimistic or fearful. Huang Rong is also not bad at judging people's words and situtations. Does ZBT believing they are in danger mean that they will die for sure? Certianly not, but the chances of it happening are high. If they have trouble defending against the army, they would most likely have an even harder time trying to actually defeat the army.

You don't know if ZBT was injured before or after he made that statement. Let's assume he was injured after. Sure the situation is pessimistic but thats a main point we are discussing. That they SHOULDN'T be. JY is being inconsistent with Greats' ability.

Why shouldn't they be?

That is following up with your case of soldiers dodging after trying to arrow Greats. I'm showing you that soldiers will not be able to run away from Greats and when Greats get to close quaters with soldiers, arrows are rendered useless. Hence Greats will only cope maybe 3 waves of arrows.

I'm lost. What is your point again?
Let's clarify this, if the Great is actively fighting against an army, can he move faster than a wave of arrows? If he is not actively fighting against an army (running away), why would the army fire?

Secondly, if a Great is surrounded, which direction will he run? There will be arrows comming from ALL sides. Whichever direction he runs, he will be running into arrows. Or can Greats travel faster than arrows?

I also think it is much easier for Greats to REPEL an army but I also think they shouldn't have nearly a difficult time fighting an army as JY portrayed.

That is your opinon and feeling. I have no right to force you to think any other way.
However, I don't see any CLEAR CONTRADICTION of what Jin Yong has stated.

Those still demonstrated REPELING an army and much easier time fighting one than what was shown some other times. And in DY/XZ's case, the army was specifically prepared.

Yes, but this has nothing to do with a Great "actively fighting" an army, which is why I don't consider it as supporting evidence.

Those are different. Greats have specific performed feats. Princess Fragrance is just divine power.

too bad the Songs didn't have Princess Fragrance's help, eh? .

[Snafu3721]

Sorry, I use an online text source, which may be outdated and error prone. I cannot find any instance where GJ jabbed 14 taoist's wrists with ONE stance. I am much too lazy to dig back on every single post on this thread. Would you mind pointing the source our for me? Thanks.

Sure thing, it's post #118 in this thread on pg 6. Also note post #106, it also has some other tidbits of the abilities of a Greats level fighter.

Though, to add on, I would like to point out that GJ did not defeat ALL 98 taoists. After wrecking the formation, he ran away.

This has nothing to do with whether the Great would have an easier time fighting 98 taoists or 98 soldiers, but rather comparing a Great performance against 98 taoists makes no defining implications upon how Great-leveled fighters will fare against an army because of the various differences I have listed in my previous posts (mainly difference in numbers, attitude, and purpose). For example, GJ can use one palm to defend against 49 taoists because they linked into ONE person, but there is not way GJ can use ONE palm to defend against 49 soldiers. I cannot prove whether it was easier to use one palm to defend against 49 taoists or whether it will be easier to seperately defend against 49 soldiers. However, I CAN say that the two processes will be inherently different. One is dependent upon power/strength while the other is dependent upon speed. Likewise, fighting against 100 taoists will be inherently differently from fighting an army. Thus, the two cannot be compared equally and one case cannot be a useful predicament of the other.

I have to say that GJ didn't defeat the 98 taoists because he didn't want to hurt them. If he had chosen to kill, he would've mowed the taoists down with ease. He had many opportunities to take individual or smaller groups of taoists out but decided against it.

In response to the 49 taoists linking into one-- The taoists didn't all merge their chi and have the one taoist in the very front palm clash with GJ. It was more as if a wall of taoists in formation rushed GJ at once. And GJ's palm force was enough to drive back 49 people's momentum.

I completely agree that 98 taoists and 98 soldiers are inherently different, but I personally think that 98 taoists are far superior as a formation than 98 soldiers. GJ and other Greats have demonstrated on many other instances where they can throw one palm and knock 10 soldiers down easily. I highly doubt that 49 taoists with internal energy is easier to push than 49 soldiers.

The best way to think of it is like this. In LOCH, Chiu Chu Ji could hold up an incense urn full of wine with one hand. That urn had to have weighed like at least 1 ton. Now, a ROCH Great is MUCH more powerful than CCJ... imagine what kind of force they can push with.

I don't remember how the movie Hero went. also, I'm not quite sure you can equate the novel GJ to a movie Jet Li...

Well, not to get into the details and specifics. But 1000 soldiers shooting at one person is going to pretty much cover all those planes of exposure you are talking about. I used Jet Li's Hero as an example because Jet Li was against a Wooden Door when 1000 arrows flew at him. I'd say all areas of penetration were pretty much covered.

Now, before you fall asleep from reading my tedious and long-winded explainations, let's cut to the REAL point. Am I claiming that the senerio I created must be true and that the Jet Li/Hero senerio must be false? Certainly NOT! But...can you PROVE that the senerio I created is certianly false and that your Jet Li/Hero senerio is true? I highly doubt it, too.

The senerio I proposed is only as likely as the Jet Li/Hero and XF/XZ/DY Palm Wind senerio you proposed. Neither is necessarily true or false. So what is my point? It's not to make you fall asleep and too tired to respond, but rather that there is no sufficient proof that arrows are useless against Greats (or that Greats can defeat armies for that matter). Without such proof, there is no solid contradiction against what Jin Yong wrote about arrows, armies, and Greats, and thus such statements should not be randomly disgarded as Jin Yong is "bullsh*tting".

One is allowed to believe whatevers one likes as most of this is pretty much based on opinions, but I personality believe one shouldn't use such "evidences" as "PROOF" in an argument or simply discard someone else's argument by simply stating "JY is bullsh*tting" as a COUNTER.

The thing about reading a novel is that every reader interprets or imagines a scene very differently. There is no "proof" per se in the books that can definitively prove that one side of an argument is 100% false. Like others have mentioned in this forum before, if that was the case, then we wouldn't have any discussions at all. I have never stated the whole "JY is bullshiet" as a counter (at least not yet =P).

But the argument that I am presenting is that although JY himself has said that no Great can take out an army, his portrayal of the Greats makes me doubt his ownclaim.

[InsightSoul]

All the soldiers need to do is to bum rush and dog pile their target.

[tape]

It could be a rock paper scissors thing where the Great can easily defeat 98 taoists, the 98 taoists can defeat 98 soldiers, but 98 soldiers will do better against a Great than 98 taoists.

The formation after all is based on martial art principles and 98 lower level taoists likely lack the ability to change the formation and adapt to the situation, in effect giving a Great that understands it very easy access to destroy it and attack the weak points. 98 soldiers lack such sophistication and are trained to die on the battlefield; they might just bumrush the Great and ironically it might be much better to do that than to try to win through some martial art formation.

[Ken Cheng]

It could be a rock paper scissors thing where the Great can easily defeat 98 taoists, the 98 taoists can defeat 98 soldiers, but 98 soldiers will do better against a Great than 98 taoists.

The formation after all is based on martial art principles and 98 lower level taoists likely lack the ability to change the formation and adapt to the situation, in effect giving a Great that understands it very easy access to destroy it and attack the weak points. 98 soldiers lack such sophistication and are trained to die on the battlefield; they might just bumrush the Great and ironically it might be much better to do that than to try to win through some martial art formation.

It's more a matter of sheer numbers. Cheun Jen Sect fielded 98 Taoists to fight Gwok Jing, but the Mongol army can field tens of thousands (or more). With those numbers, even a Great will eventually be overwhelmed. It'll take a long, long time, and the army will suffer heavy casualties, but it *will* win in the end.

[devilz91]

So can we all agree that Ah Qing is the best now?

[PJ]

So can we all agree that Ah Qing is the best now?

Depends on how those soldiers stack up against the 10,000 people Duan Yanqing equaled years before his peak.

[tape]

Out of curiosity, how many archers do you guys think will it take to kill a Great if he were caught in a totally open space with no trees or boulders or nooks and crannies to hide in? Landing one or two arrows should be enough, because the next volley should do the trick. 500? 1000? 2000?

[Ken Cheng]

Out of curiosity, how many archers do you guys think will it take to kill a Great if he were caught in a totally open space with no trees or boulders or nooks and crannies to hide in? Landing one or two arrows should be enough, because the next volley should do the trick. 500? 1000? 2000?

With hing gung and powerful internal energy, a Great could deflect or dodge arrows for a long, long time. Eventually, however, he's going to slip up, and all it takes is *one* arrow, in the right spot, to kill him.

Chow Bak Tung actually got stricken by multiple arrows during that reconnaissance raid that he, 1 Deng, and Wong Yung made on the Mongol camp during their trip back to Seung Yeung after their fruitless search for Yeung Gor and Gwok Seung at Passionless Valley.

[tape]

With hing gung and powerful internal energy, a Great could deflect or dodge arrows for a long, long time. Eventually, however, he's going to slip up, and all it takes is *one* arrow, in the right spot, to kill him.

Chow Bak Tung actually got stricken by multiple arrows during that reconnaissance raid that he, 1 Deng, and Wong Yung made on the Mongol camp during their trip back to Seung Yeung after their fruitless search for Yeung Gor and Gwok Seung at Passionless Valley.

Can they actually deflect arrows once it reaches a critical mass though? 10-25 arrows they can wave off with ease, 50 arrows get's harder, but there is a point where it is impossible to deflect. Even if you can deflect all 50-100 arrows shot at you, can you recover and deflect the next wave shot a millisecond afterwards? Any landed arrow might as well be a mortal blow because the next few waves will probably finish the job.

Keep in mind that in HSDS, the wulin fighters were only outnumbered something like 4:1 (~20000 to ~5000) and they thought they were doomed. It could have been because they realized the first 10 seconds of 100000 arrows would've totally destroyed them.

[Ken Cheng]

Can they actually deflect arrows once it reaches a critical mass though? 10-25 arrows they can wave off with ease, 50 arrows get's harder, but there is a point where it is impossible to deflect. Even if you can deflect all 50-100 arrows shot at you, can you recover and deflect the next wave shot a millisecond afterwards? Any landed arrow might as well be a mortal blow because the next few waves will probably finish the job.

At some point (call it saturation point), the arrows will come in at a greater volume than even a Great can deflect. Where that saturation point is, however, I cannot say.

[jadebunny9]

So can we all agree that Ah Qing is the best now?

Yes, and I think we should make a National Ah Qing Day and only talk about her greatness.

[Swordsman83]

unless there is a martial arts that is godly in AOE.

1 move kill 100 soldiers at a time..

superiority in number will win any skilled martial artist given time.