>>63948459
>le chinese cope

1) the military did not rule society but the leaders of a society were expected to step up. The is a saying in german that says property/land obligates which was a theme through out european history. The people who were in charge/owned stuff were obligated to defend it while the people who just lived there werent. Only later on did the military life start to become a real profession and only in Prussia was the army in charge of society.

2) Which parts of china and europe? The china we know today isnt even 100 years old while the europe/america we know today can trace its culture/structure of society/political landscape back to the roman/celtic/germanic/"slavic"/greek people which make up most of todays countries in the "west".

If we look at it as a region we have the same bronze castings in both societies and the beginning of standardized equipment with the roman legions 700 BC and the later professional ones at 400 BC and in the region of modern china at about the same time at 300-200 BC.

3)Firearms had next to nothing to do with the development of early plate armour. The first examples of plate were Bronze ones from Greece. China lacked the right technology to make steel plates viable or they would have at least equipped their high nobility with them even just for show. The emperors had the same orworse protection than german/danish mercenaries/foot soldiers during the 14th century