The idea of a military revolution was proposed in the mid-1950s by Michael Roberts. The original Roberts thesis made following case:

• Masses of pikemen were replaced by linear formations of firearms equipped troops. Skirmishing cavalry in turn was replaced by horsemen ready to aggressively charge with saber in hand.

• The effectiveness of these linear formations and aggressive cavalry was dependent on extensive drill, discipline and standardization. The time and cost required to train these formations incentivized their permanent retention as a standing army

• These new formations allowed leaders such as Gustavus Adolphus to undertake more ambitious operations thereby increasing the scale and scope of European warfare

• The increased scale and scope of warfare provided greater fiscal and administrative challenges to European states and prompted new innovations to finance and control these larger and deadlier armies

The Roberts thesis was modified and expanded upon by scholars such as Geoffrey Parker who attributed these developments as a factor in the rise of Western Europe to global prominence. Several scholars of East Asian history have pointed out that these developments were not a peculiarly Western European phenomenon and that an almost contemporaneous East Asian military revolution was occurring as well.

For instance, Tonio Andrade, in his book The Gunpowder Age, discusses the long and uninterrupted history of infantry drill in Chinese history. Of particular interest is the activity of the Ming general, Qi Jiguang who raised and drilled armies of disciplined infantry to counter the Wokou pirates plaguing the southern coasts of China in the 16th century. The basis of Qi Jiguang’s infantry formation was a twelve man team, which was subdivided into two squads of five and led by a team leader and supported by a cook. These teams could be composed of well-drilled combinations of swordsmen, shield men, pikemen and gunners as the situation warranted and coordinated by a system of horns, drums and flags. Qi Jiguang wrote several manuals on his techniques such as the “New Book of Effective Techniques” and “The Veritable Record of Troop Drilling” and reading these manuals reveal tactical deployments not too dissimilar to practices employed in Europe. For instance, early firearms required a long time to reload, how could this be addressed? In Europe, Maurice of Nassau and his cousin William Louis conceived the countermarch based on their understanding of the Roman infantry drill. The countermarch involved one line of musketeers firing and withdrawing to the rear to reload while a fresh line would replace them and fire in turn. This process would result in an uninterrupted stream of fire and compensate for the long reloading time of early firearms. Qi Jiguang, writing almost contemporaneously on the other side of the Eurasian continent, advocated a similar method in one of his manuals:

“Those who are empty reload; those who are full fire again. While the ones who have fired are loading, those who are full then fire again. In this way, all day long, the firing of guns will not be lacking…”

The Ming were not the only Asian power to have developed the countermarch – the Japanese seem to have worked out this technique by the end of the 16th century as well as evidenced by the comments of their Chinese and Korean opponents during the Japanese invasion of Korea. One Chinese general, writing in 1593, mentioned that the Japanese would, “break into squads and shoot alternately against us.” The beleaguered Korean King Sǒnjo would ask in 1595, “if the Japanese divide themselves into three groups and shoot alternatively by moving forward and backward, how can we fight back?”

King Sǒnjo attempted to answer his own question in two ways – by closing the technological gap in firearms and reforming the Korean army. The technological gap was closed by inducing Japanese prisoners and deserters to assist with the manufacture of firearms and gunpowder; there were also local attempts at innovation as well such as King Sǒnjo’s effort to design a rapid firing musket. The newly produced firearms were then paired with a new standing army called the Hullyǒndogam (the Military Training Agency) which was staffed by salaried soldiers. This was a drastic improvement over the pre-invasion Korean army where the troops were expected to pay for their own equipment and were only required to discharge their military duties seasonally. The backbone of the Hullyǒndogam were firearm equipped troops organized into ten man squads led by a squad leader; the squad would be subdivided into five pairs and at the direction of the squad leader, each pair would fire their guns and return to their spot to reload. In addition to performing the tactical operations detailed above, the musketeer units were also drilled to operate in conjunction with archers and so-called kill units composed of spearmen and swordsmen. One example of this cooperation involved the musketeers, coordinated by conches and trumpets, firing volleys at a hundred paces. The archers would subsequently step in front of the musketeers and shoot a combination of fire and normal arrows. If this missile attack failed to stop the enemy, the kill units would step forward to cover the musketeers and archers. From this example we can see elements of the military revolution in play – the prominence of well-drilled and coordinated infantry (with a prominent portion bearing firearms) as well as the increased professionalization and standardization of forces.