ARE ancient battles of China REALLY realistic??????

Question

many battles during the ancient times e.g. warring states peroid had involved massive army numbers...e.g. 240 B.C. state of Zhao itself sent 450,000 troops against Qin and State of Zhao is relatively a tiny area compared with the PERSIAN empire but even with the size of the Persian empire, it sent only 300,000 troops against Alexander at battle of Guagamela

We all know China has always been a heavily populated country but is it unrealistic for Ancient chinese battle to have such huge numbers of troops relative to its territorial size??

Answer 1

whats so unrealistic about it?

Answer 2

No evidence does exist that the Chinese have always had large populations and being in continues turmoil and have maintained large private armies for protection.
Archaeological sites have uncovered very large mass graves as well near old battle sites.

Answer 3

Being Chinese. These scales are true. Although many of them were drafted or veterans. The chinese army during that time was made of veteren soldiers and conscripts.

Answer 4

I do imagine that generals bragged they had larger armies than they actually had. Just look what it took to maintain the U.S. armies in the civil war and they weren't much more technologically advanced than those armies hundreds of years ago.

I also wouldn't call those armies soldiers either. They were generally farmers with hoes and forks. They also brough theri families and lovers with them too.