I would like to learn more about Chinese history. Big history though. I know these 3 dynasties are pretty significant. I would like to know differences between life under Ming, Tang, and Song rule. Where did they originate and what was their peak? Which dynasty is your favorite to read about?
>>15628187yuan ming and qing were the dark ages of chinese civilization
>>15628187Qing is my favorite because I like their outfits. And how they fell - they conquered Tibet and Dzungaria, and then in one emperor's reign started becoming too corrupt to actually do anything (like have modern weapons)So when the EIC wanted to sell them opium they couldn't stop it and they got addicted. Then as if that wasn't enough foreigners started buying spheres of influence, areas they had exclusive economic rights for their countries, even entire cities.Basically because they couldn't stop this and they were dependent on foreigners to even fund their military they were overthrown by said military.
>>15628187Han, Song, and Ming were China's peakSpring and Autumn and Warring states are interesting as wellQin and Sui also make for good readsSame with the period between the Han and Sui dynasties
>>15628213They really did peak with the Ming, they almost discovered the Cape of Good Hope and could have discovered America if they didn't cut the exploration funding.Apparently the Mongols were a bigger concern
>>15628207One of the most interesting "what if" scenarios to me is this -if WWI had held off for a little longer, colonial powers likely would have carved up China the way they did Africa, which would have such dramatic effects on our world today.But nobody ever seems to be interested in speculating about this for some reason
>>15628187>Tang - Culmination of Sui dynasty's work. The Second Imperial Age in China after the Han dynasty. Sui/Tang was not a given as for four centuries china was divided. >SongAfter the fall of Tang there was a 60 year period of disunion. Although short it had massive implications. 'Fear of military strongmen who destroyed the Tang and caused the circus of shortlived dynasties caused the Song to be distrustful of the military and placed it under the watchful eye of civilian bureaucrats.Northern China and Southern China swap places as the South undergoes incredible economic advancement while the North declines. Before this the North was China. After this point the South became China. China on the backfoot against barbarians. First the Liao, then the tanguts, then the Jurchens, and finally the Mongols>MingHad to deliberately larp at the start as the Mongols were that big of a break even though they only ruled for a centuryThe Ming dynasty is what people think of when they think of China.All in all it flourished for centuries but eventually the bureaucracy ate itself alive and it became extremely corrupt and inactive leading to discontent from both within and without. Massive rebellions and rival dynasties emerged while the Manchus invaded as well. It took decades for the Manchus to stamp out the Ming because even at it's greatest point of failure people were surprisingly loyal. Those who did submit to the Qing in order for stability would soon regret it as their conquered demanded them to get the humiliating haircut under the threat of execution
>>15628228lol no ming was part of the dark ages of china. it was a brief renaissance period but that's about as meaningful as the justinian era in the decline and fall of the roman empire.the song invented arquebuses artillery grenades landmines paddle-wheel ships with rudders pound lock canals mechanical clocks solar calendars solutions to polynomial equations. they burned coal instead of wood to generate heat and petroleum instead of pine to create ink, already trying to halt deforestation in a proto-industrialization period.the ming had no such inventions and were probably more backwards. whereas ming china was still the most technogically advanced place in the world in maybe 1400, entirely due to carry-over from the song, by 1600 the europeans were ruling the seas even in asia. europe surpassed china during the ming and there was very little notice.what's interesting is some ming officials realized the new western barbarians were getting very technologically advanced. but by the time the manchus took over of course there was no one smart enough left in the country.
>>15628236Like Franz Ferdinand missing, in which case the colonial powers then start picking warlords once Yuan Shikai dies.Or someone decides to make his son puppet emperor...
>>15628236Probably because it wouldn't have happened. Other powers lacked the logistical means to exert influence over China and the ones that did (Britain, US, France) merely wanted access to China's lucrative trade.It was only large militarist regimes who wanted to conquer them wholesale, Germany of course couldn't (their navy wasn't able to adequately support troops there) and Japan wasn't (yet) militant enough.
>>15628236probably because britain colonized all of india but were forced out anyway and left behind a state substantially more developed than post-ww2 china. it was left to the indians to blow that head start.
>>15628242I realized I didn't write shit for the Tangokay here we go>Tang - Han to SuiHan dynasty falls and is replaced by the three kingdoms each vying for the empire (around 100 years. Eventually the Jin dynasty comes out on top for a very short while. The barbarians who were under the chinese boot attacked the Jin and drove them south and each barbarian tribe would carve out kingdoms in the north with the new kingdoms being short in duration hence the 16 kingdoms period (135 years). Meanwhile in the South the Jin are plagued with tons of issues ranging from weak military might compared to the north, cancerous court politics leading to the Jin state being inactive, etc. This would plague the successors to the Jin dynasty as well. Very rarely did the Southern dynasties venture north nor did they gain much success when they did.Eventually the Xianbei reunify northern china and so we come to the northern and southern dynasties period where China was divided between two dynasties. The North is ruled the by following dynasties>Northern Wei (juggernaut of the era)>Western and Eastern Wei (dynasty split in two)>both then usurped (northern zhou and northern qi)The South>Jin -> Liu Song -> Southern Qi -> Liang -> Chen and Western LiangNorthern Zhou is the strongest of all these dynasties but is usurped by the Duke of Sui who would proceed to conquer the remaining dynasties under the Sui dynasty.
>>15628228>could have discovered AmericaTrade winds are wrong over the Pacific and it's a huge inhospitable distance to cover. The idea of China sailing to the US is a huge meme, had China kept up it's long voyages it would be heading to East Africa but wouldn't be sticking around because they didn't have that impulse toward colonialism.>Apparently the Mongols were a bigger concernChina shifted focus into settling the South and West while realising that traders literally would sail to them to trade as the biggest market in the world.>>15628236No it's the US and to a lesser extent Japan who kept China open with the Open Door Policy. That and obviously it's a lot harder to carve up China that Africa or even India.
>>15628278Yes, Africa. Go around the Cape of Good Hope and find South America.
>>15628276>Tang - Sui to TangEmperor Wen of Sui although ruled over all of China had to recreate China as a reunified state. He standardized everything once more (language, weights and measures, coinage, etc) and was generally successful. He reintroduced the confucian examination system and other such institutions. He's compared to Qin Shi Huang a lot. In order to achieve this dream he pushed the populace a lot but he produced results. Under the Sui the famous grand canals would be built. He died and was succeeded by his son who would destroy the dynasty. He wanted to be like his father but achieved mixed results while pushing the recently reunified population even more. Eventually military catastrophes would lead to widespread discontent and a short civil war would occur ending with the Duke of Tang usurping the Sui.
>>15628258In general, I think any sort of power struggle or question of legitimacy would have involved the Europeans(+Japan & US, obviously) taking sides, which would probably be the beginning of the end.>>15628260>merely wanted access to China's lucrative tradeThat was always the case in any colonial regionVery few places got conquered outright. It was almost always a gradual expansion of foreign power in the name of protecting trade.>>15628268You're like 40 years laterThis post is nonsensical retardation that only exists for you to randomly shit on Indians without following the conversation at all>>15628278Absolutely, but would the Open Door Policy would have lasted?Would Japan have kept the same policy once they got to a point where they felt they could compete with the European powers and take China for themselves?
>>15628293>tang - beginning to endMassive military conquest done by second emperor Li Shimin. He's considered one of the best or the best emperor in Chinese history. China entered a peak under his era. After that you had a lull with his son and his son's infamous wife Wu Zetian who would control the empire for decades and would usurp the Tang with her own dynasty until she was ousted for a Tang restoration. The military conquests receded but China continued to dominate. A problem emerged that would plague the Tang for the remainder of the dynasty the economy. Tang coinage couldn't keep up with the demand and the Tang was in economic freefall for the remainder of the dynasty. But this was a background problem to everyone everything seemed great. Wu Zetian's grandson would become the Tang emperor to lead the dynasty to it's peak and also it's decline. The first half of his reign was like his ancestor Li Shimin's but then he got arrogant and kinda stupid. To deal with their massive military frontiers the Tang had jiedushi (governor-general) ruling the frontiers but the Tang did not really control these guys. Eventually after a cold war between one of these jiedushi and the Tang court a real war would erupt the most infamous in Chinese history The An Lushan Rebellion the most destructive conflict in human history after WW2 and WW1. The Tang would emerge victorious but very weak as the Jiedushi did whatever they wanted. The eunuchs made a comeback at this point and the Tang eunuchs were very infamous for their deeds. The Tang would plod along for another century and a half, there was no glory in this period, before getting ousted and destroyed by a rogue salt smuggler bandit
But yeah all those wild stories tend to come from the infamous periods like the 16 Kingdoms & N&S Dynasties, An Lushan rebellion (Suiyang), Eunuchs (Eastern Han, Tang, and Ming had the infamous Eunuchs). The 16 Kingdoms period is the most wild shit. The stories
>>15628253>lol no ming was part of the dark ages of chinalmao the Qing Dynasty at its peak was poorer than the Ming at it's worst.
>>15628306>This post is nonsensical retardation that only exists for you to randomly shit on Indians without following the conversation at all
>>15628306>That was always the case in any colonial region>Very few places got conquered outright. It was almost always a gradual expansion of foreign power in the name of protecting trade.The example he gave was "the way they did africa" which other than a few select places very much was militarily conquered practically overnight.
>>15628324did I dispute that? ming and qing were both dark age qing was obviously far worse but both were shit
>>15628332Ming was not a Dark Age. To call it such is retarded
>>15628336at least everything following yongle is a dark age. if we're being generous everything after hongzhi.
>>15628347Sure that was when China started stagnating technologically which ultimately led to the fall of the Qing Dynasty. With modern weapons they could have probably repelled the EIC's presidency armies (and Royal Marines/Navy)
>>15628236China isn't Africa or India, it was too unified. The Mongols and Manchus relied on tens of thousands of Han soldiers to conquer china, I doubt the colonial powers had anything to offer generals, hell they probably didn't mind a weak central government and would not want to replace them with an efficient one, much less a foreign one.
>>15628352>Sure that was when China started stagnating technologicallyyeah that was during the ming dynasty. why do you think that is. it's because china was in a dark age like the late roman empire. skilled tradesmen disappear and there's not only no innovation but existing technologies get forgotten.romans forgot how to make concrete and statuespost-song chinese forgot how to make all sorts of things. no one to this day knows how to make han era swords.
>>15628373I meant the Ming but yeah they never really did recover from the Mongol conquest.
>>15628331That's a bit of an exaggerationIf you walk into a village of mud huts with the only gun in 1,000km and say "I'm in charge now", you've technically militarily conquered, but it wasn't like that was any sort of actual effortAfrican was conquered from the other European powers, not the native Africans. And it was done via treaty
>>15628369That's precisely why I said at the first sign of power struggle or illegitimacyThey would need China to divide on its own, but the Qing were well on their way to that on their own
>>15628414Fair enough but in a lot of cases there were no or extremely few trade benefits to controlling the land, places like the Sahara for example. Obviously they're all rich in diamonds and minerals now but in the 19th century only South Africa, Rhodesia, and a few places on the West Coast had proven and utilizable resources.
>>15628473Oh sure, it was a lot of dick measuring for EuropeansChina couldn't be that obviouslyBut that foreign power would inevitably expand over time as the weak Qing government was unable to exert their own
>>15628187>Nooo you're supposed to name your dynasty after an area associated with it.It didn't work that way. From the Qin to the Song Dynasties (221BC-900s AD), Dynasties were named after the heighest princely title the Dynastic founder had upon founding the Dynasty. In Chinese Nobility, princely titles were taken from the pre-unification (from lowest to highest) baronetcies, marches, counties, duchies, and kingdoms (see picture). If the Emperor somehow ran out of existing titles, they'll make up a new title just for you (considered a great honor), like "Duke of Filial Sagacity" or "King of Extended Might" etc. etc.From Qin to Song Dynasties there was a general tendency for founders to be rebellious nobles in an incumbent dynasty. Like for example.>When the Qin fell, the rebel King Xiang Yu enfeoffed himself Hegemon King of Chu, and his buddy, Liu Bang, as King of Han. Liu won the Post-Qin Civil Wars, so the next Dynasty was the Han>When the Han Dynasty collapsed, the 3 biggest warlords were the Cao Family (enfeoffed as Kings of Wei), Liu Bei (enfeoffed as King of Shu...supposedly) and the Sun Family (enfeoffed as Kings of Wu), hence the 3 Warring Kingdoms.>The Sui Dynasty collapsed due to the Li Family's Rebellion in 600s AD. A few decades ago in friendlier times, the Sui enfeoffed them as Dukes of Tang, hence the Tang Dynasty.This all ended in the 900s AD thanks to Song Dynasty's obsession with centralization. In their rule, the ducal and kingly titles were now all reserved for Imperial Relatives. Henceforth the next Dynasties past Song started naming their dynasties after random bullshit like Chinese philosophical slogans. It didn't help that peasants and barbarians founded the last 3 dynasties.
>>15628352>>15628369>>15628373>blaming Ming for events that occured centuries laterthe absolute stated
>>15628313>Massive military conquest done by second emperor Li Shimin. He's considered one of the best or the best emperor in Chinese history. China entered a peak under his era.Because Gaozu had allowed Christianity to flourish when Alopen appeared at his court. Conversely, the entire region of China and surrounding countries entered terminal decline due to the Huichang persecution.
>>15628207Opium was already large in China before the British even showed up in India. The opium wars narrative is simply about the Chinese protecting their local opium farming against Raj grown competition which apparently tasted better(perhaps because of climate or something). The Qing were ironically quite free trade oriented on everything else(part of the reason for their stagnation), it's most likely that a bunch of princes made a killing on opium farming which prompted the import ban.
>>15629418>The opium wars narrative is simply about the Chinese protecting their local opium farmingThat's never really brought up in their narrative.It's always about how all foreigners specifically hated the Chinese above everyone else and drug use wasn't a problem anywhere else in the 19th century, so that means it's ok for them (the Chinese Communist Party) to purposely send fentanyl to the US now.
>>15628669in the 1500s jap pirates were able to successfully invade coastal southern china because there was no chinese navy and no one cared enough to stop them. in the early 1600s, the dutch took taiwan, right off the coast of china, without any ming intervention. it took the one chinese pirate who knew how dutch ships worked to evict the dutch from taiwan. not a single person in beijing shuntianfu knew about the modern naval technology and how to deal with the dutch.
>>15629418>Opium was already large in China before the British even showed up in Indiabullshit. under yongzheng there were around maybe 200 chests of opium smuggled into china every year. around 1000 during the 60 years of qianlong. under jiaqing it spiked to 20000 chests per year. daoguang issued an edict banning opium and ordered destruction of it in large quantities. in response the british started a war.now the only question is are you ignorant or dishonest>>15629427>so that means it's ok for them (the Chinese Communist Party) to purposely send fentanyl to the US nowno one argues thatthe fentanyl in america comes from mexico. why don't americans just secure the border? is china stopping america from enforcing its border with mexico? you are just silly and dishonest
>>15629549>the fentanyl in america comes from mexico.The precursors though.>why don't americans just secure the border?I have been voting for that. Biden is a manchurian candidate. They (CCP and others) are funneling money to special interests like Biden. This is a big struggle of good against evil.>is china stopping america from enforcing its border with mexico?It is trying to, yes.
>>15629549>the fentanyl in america comes from mexicoThis is objectively falseFentanyl is a chemical. You can't just smuggle it over the border in your pocket like it's cocaine or somethingThough your original point -that that's a strawman argument no one actually believes -is very much true.I can see a retard on /his/ claiming that just to be a useless contrarian, but that's about it
>>15629796They have a policy of hybrid war, which can be found in their Xi-era policy documents and view everything as zero sum, so if they can harm the United States they view it as good for them. There is an entire smokescreen of false information surrounding this as well which is being promoted by them. There are Chinese party officials who literally compare the ethnic cleansing of Xinjiang with George Floyd, saying that they can't be criticized because of it.
>>15628228>discovered the Cape of Good Hopenever happened, chinkopon, not even in your wildest dream
>>15628201>ming>dark ageIs this bait?
>>15630239 mongolboo trying to falseflag
>>15629819>so if they can harm the United States they view it as good for themIdk if that's true but it's based. Hurt the Americans and make it clear they're vulnerable>There are Chinese party officials who literally compare the ethnic cleansing of Xinjiang with George Floyd, saying that they can't be criticized because of it.I don't see how this is even relevant to anything else you said
>>15629675>Biden is a manchurian candidate. They (CCP and others) are funneling money to special interests like Biden. This is a big struggle of good against evil.I love amerischizosWell, I'll just say, if this is truly a battle of good and evil, you cannot win by voting lol
>>15628187>>15628201It's all the same shit.
>>15628187>Which dynasty is your favorite to read about?Probably Song, because they invented the magnetic compass and gunpowder use as a primitive weapon to defend their northern border from the barbarians. Apparently a lot of Song era artists would draw art with the upper half of the canvas left completely blank, to symbolize the unstated fact that the northern half of China was currently outside of their realm, as it was under control of hostile dynasties. It seems like a pretty interesting time, too bad there hasn't been an immersive open world sandbox game based on the period or something.
>>15629819I guess I should have clarifiedNo one but the absolute biggest CCP koolaid drinker actually believes thatFor the record, don't let identity politics distract you from the need of free peoples to oppose the police state every step of the way, but acting like one dead black dude is in any way comparable to genocide is laughableBut yes, you're right, the CCP does promote a lot of dumb fucking takes
>>15628242>>15628276>>15628293>>15628313I appreciate your effort post anon
Thanks for all the helpful responses on this thread.What Chinese dynasty do you guys recommend I should start with?
>>15629549>smuggledYou've nicely avoided the existence of homegrown poppy in China.
