Talk:Battle of Lake Poyang

difficult to believe

I have a tough time believing this article. How did they build the fleet necessary to move over three quarters of a million men? Nations didn't and don't maintain navies, merchant or otherwise, of that size on lakes. How did they manuever? It's a long, thin, narrow lake. How did all those folks get there? This represents almost 10% of all men of military age at the time according to ming dynasty. I know there is no original research, but this article needs an answer to these basic questions. It really seems like bunk. Stargoat 02:54, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Shadowcry1000 (talk) 02:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC) I agree this article has practically no citations someone should really clean this up.

Actually I believe that Poyang is the second largest lake in the country, not the largest one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.24.137.242 (talk) 14:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The numbers seem to be more on a mythic scale rather than a factual one. If the large amounts of men that the article claims took part in the battle, it had to either be both on the shore and on the lake simultaneously over an extended amount of time; Allowing for frequent rotations in and out of the battlefield. I think the writer is getting his ideas from a video game or other form of popular entertainment —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.134.128.203 (talk) 16:44, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

A few sources found with a quick Google search, [1], [2], [3], and this book appears to cover it, but the text isn't online: [4] Kmusser (talk) 21:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The source below says "a fleet of over 100 vessels".

The story of the other extraordinary Taoist, the Iron-cap Master Chang Chung who, like Crazy Chou, reportedly accompanied Chu Yüan-chang in the battle of the Poyang Lake, presents another example of the manipulation of fictional anecdotes in early Ming historiography. The story is given in two parts in the TTSL under the jen-hsü date of the eighth month (October 3) of 1363. The first part features Chang Chung's prediction of Ch'en Yu-liang's death:

'Exhausted and desperate, Ch'en Yu-liang lost his calm and decided to return to Wu-ch'ang. Commanding a fleet of over a hundred vessels he hurried toward the Nan-hu Cape; thwarted by our forces deployed there he tried to make a break-through at Hu-k'ou [into the Yangtze]. Here His Majesty directed his lieutenants to launch an offensive. Our fleet followed the enemy downstream with the current and fought a fierce battle continuously from the ch'en to the yu hour [7. a.m.-5 p.m.]. [When the enemy] fled to the mouth of the Ching river, our forces assembled there again struck them. [Suddenly] Chang the Iron-cap laughed loudly, congratulating His Majesty: "Yu-liang is dead!" With a smile His Majesty warned him not to make jokes. He then teased Chang: "I shall tie you on the river bank to wait [for the confirmation of the accuracy of your prediction]." [His Majesty] then sent a party of musicians carrying meat and wine [to the enemy camps under the pretense of] offering sacrifice to Yu-liang to verify his death. He said: "If [Ch'en] is alive the messengers will return; if they do not, he is surely dead!"'

SOURCE: TTSL, 13/165.

Hok-lam Chan, 'The Rise of Ming T'ai-tsu (1368-98): Facts and Fictions in Early Ming Official Historiography', Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 95, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1975), p. 703, quoting TTSL, 13/165, abbreviation for (Ming) T'ai-tsu shih-lu (1418), ed. Yao Kuang-hsiao (1335-1418) et al., 257 chüan. Academia Sinica, Taipei 1962. (1.1.1.).

One source [5] quoted above says: "The Han ruler, Ch'en-liang, built a fleet of large, three-decked warships, armoured with iron plates, armed with heavy cannon and manned by crews as large as 2,000 to 3,000 men." If the "over hundred vessels" mentioned in TTSL, 13/165 really were all capital ships of that type, the crews required might have totalled 200,000 to 300,000 men. Presumably the capital ships would have been serviced and supplied by a similarly vast fleet of boats and other light vessels. River transport was much more efficient than land transport, so medieval rice-barge logistics may not have precluded such a vast concentration of manpower. On the face of it, it may seem unlikely, but it's not impossible. Lachrie (talk) 18:25, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The article is not clear - the numbers are for both naval and land forces of Chen. There is no account of the landward side of the seige. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.78.12.21 (talk) 11:47, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Real numbers needed

Realistic estimates of numbers are needed. Clearly there wasn't nearly a million men involved. The population and resources of China at the time could not support such a large force. Hasn't there been some modern research into the numbers - these ridiculous estimates should not be reported at face value.203.80.61.102 (talk) 05:31, 1 May 2016 (UTC)