59508a No.14169
Chinese History - 秦漢三國 Edition
With ~3000 years of recorded history (the grander-sounding ~5000 years in colloquial Chinese discussion includes the traditional pre-history and creation myths), Chinese history is just too large to seriously discuss as a whole, so let's talk about a particular portion of it: the fascinating time of the Qin-Han-Sanguo that marked the first Imperial age.
After centuries of warring states, Qin 秦 conquered the known civilized world, inaugurating the Imperial Era, only to collapse in its second generation. From its ashes Han 漢 built a 400 year Empire that taught the civilized world it belonged together as one, leading to a disastrous shock when the known world was divided into Three Empires 三國 for nearly 100 years. A remarkable era that would set the standard for traditional historic thought in China for the next 1700 years.
59508a No.14170
dee13b No.14195
>>14169Why would I care about a place that still uses hieroglyphics after 3000 years?
They are absolutely irrelevant except as a place to import tea from
08f61d No.14227
>>14195>漢字>hieroglyphicsHow ignorant can you be?
972d59 No.14271
So I've read that Han only needed a standing army of about 5,000, comparable to a single Roman legion, even though Han and Rome both boasted a population of about 60 million. What's that say about those two Empires?
5d309d No.14277
>>14227They might as well be hieroglyphic sandscript, looks like a bunch of opium addict tard scribbles to me
3f7a58 No.14279
>>14277汉字 has greater symbol-to-sound fidelity than written English.
32a365 No.14284
>>14271the empire was more stable and not expanding? also AFAIK the han empire practiced levee en masse (qin dynasty for example was proto-authoritarian)
162676 No.14285
>>14284I might be misremembering this but didn't China typically frown on soldiers? like it was one of the lowest jobs you could get.
ae1ede No.14286
>>14285Bureaucrats and scholars and such were high class and valued, if I recall, so I imagine warriors were relatively undervalued at the same time
fd14b1 No.14322
>>14285You're thinking merchants. In traditional Confucian perspective merchants contributed little to society.
11a1b9 No.14323
>>14322I'm mildly inspired to write a little comparative study on the attitude of society towards merchants. Seems like they get a bad rep throughout many cultures and many centuries.
972d59 No.14400
File: 1422754780482.jpg (33.97 KB, 650x366, 325:183, chinese_crossbow_recreatio….jpg)
Some information on Han/Sanguo era military:
>The basic weapons were much the same as those carried four centuries earlier by the tomb figures of the First Emperor: spears, halberds and swords, with smaller versions for close-quarter fighting and personal defence. Wooden and bamboo bows were used on occasion, but the most effective was the composite bow, made from horn, bone, sinews and wood glued together, with a killing range of 150 metres. Its use, however, required training and skill; the celebrated feat of archery by which Lü Bu saved Liu Bei in 196 was surely achieved with a composite bow. In addition, since at least the fourth century BC the Chinese had mastered the mechanism of the crossbow, and with a range up to 200 metres that provided good defence for infantry in the field, even against horsemen armed with the compound bow.
>Here is further contrast to Rome: some legionary troops were trained with simple bows and sling-shots and used those weapons when appropriate, notably in sieges and naval fighting. In pitched battle, however, the first attack was the javelin throw, followed by a charge with sword and shield; longer-range weapons were left to light-armed auxiliary troops and skirmishers. In China, on the other hand, one of the five regiments of the professional Northern Army was composed of archers - probably crossbowmen - while it is very possible that the Chang River regiment, which comprised Wuhuan auxiliaries, carried compounds bows.
59508a No.14617
>>14400This is probably going to piss off all the Rome-obsessives, but I think the Han army could easily take the Romans with their ranged weaponry.
5d309d No.14630
>>14617I feel like the Roman shields and formations are adequate protection against arrows. Sure a few guys would get rekt but nothing major. You'd need to have them change formation or something by engaging with infantry, but by doing so you'd be making your own troops vulnerable to the arrows.
Not a romeaboo, or at least not to the extent that some of the people on this board are. It's just from my reading the Romans seemed to handle arrows pretty well.
56e8a9 No.14633
>>14630>>14617This has been debated for decades but the basic conclusion is that both armies were rather equal and whatever army was fighting on its home turf would win barely due to supply problems the other side would face
d2e552 No.14718
Grorious three kingdoms warfare!
I'm writing an essay on Cao Cao as my A2 coursework, but I don't have access to anything interesting or specific (like Crespigny's "Imperial Warlord"). If anyone has info on the dude himself, I'd appreciate it; I've had to rely on shitty Wikipedia aggregates D:
The most interesting things I've been able to write about have been the Empty Fort Strategy and Mao Zedong D:
59508a No.14722
>>14718I have a personal copy of "Imperial Warlord" and can help you out.
I do hope you know about though Empty Fort became famous because of the fiction of Zhuge Liang using it,the basic idea of Empty Fort was a real thing that was actually used by several commanders (though not Zhuge Liang).
972d59 No.14786
>>14718三國志 Sanguozhi is public domain and easy to find. The only issue is that it's Classical Chinese, but there are a few translations of excerpts floating around.
武帝紀 "Annals of Emperor Wu [aka Cao Cao]" is the first chapter of SGZ and covers most of the basics about his life and career. I know of at least two public domain translations floating around the web.
I can go over some of it with you in a series of posts, if you'd like.
11bba8 No.14800
The patterns of Chinese history completely and utterly fascinates me to my core. It is so different from anything we know of in the rest of the world. God I love it.
f3e2bd No.14801
>>14630
>It's just from my reading the Romans seemed to handle arrows pretty well.Unless they were fired by Persians.
24b0b5 No.14811
Who was the faggotiest emperor and why is it huizong?
seriously, look at this dirty fucking fudge fairy's fag face.
I bet you he dressed up as a courtesan and had his eunuchs rub his little faggot-boy face with their dickstubs.
ps qianlong a best, song-fags can get fucked
9497fa No.14812
>>14811What did he do? Is it just because you don't like his weird ugly face?
972d59 No.14814
>>14812He was an Emperor of Song 宋 reputed to have focused on luxuries and pleasures at the expense of the state and the army, leading to weakness that the Jurchens to the north exploited to conquer the northern half of China and found the Jin 金 Dynasty. Huizong himself was captured and became a prisoner for the rest of his life, though Song survived and made peace with Jin at the cost of all territory north of the Huai.
But he's far outside the Qin-Han-Wei era we were talking about.
acc093 No.14815
>>14722I'm using the Empty Fort Strategy as an example of historical debate surrounding Cao Cao; some professors and a dude on the internet discussed whether or not he was the original user IIRC. More info is always good, and very much appreciated!
>>14786As in legible, clean translations? Will search ASAP, sounds very useful.
If you want to share info It'd be interesting :D.
My due date is the end of this month, so at this point I'm just tweaking the paragraphs and writing a conclusion. Extra juicy facts to insert are a bonus.
Ta muchly, semianons.
9497fa No.14816
972d59 No.14824
>>14815Some general stuff you might want to point out is how hard to be able to attribute anecdotes and stuff. Loads of stuff ends up getting attributed to famous people who had nothing to do with it because attributing something to a famous name is a cheap and easy way to make that thing famous too.
"Emtpy City" 空城 as a generic strategy of purposefully appearing weak wasn't exactly novel even in the 200s, considering that it's such a natural conclusion of basic principles outlined in Master Sun's Art of War 孙子兵法. There's no reason to believe that was Empty City was "invented" any time near the Three Kingdoms. For added perspective, the semi-automatic repeating crossbow is often called colloquially "Zhuge's Crossbow" 诸葛弩 after credited inventor Zhuge Liang, but archaeological evidence have found such repeating crossbows already in tombs hundreds of years before Zhuge Liang's time. Hell, archaeologists have found ancient Zhou 周 cities with ceramic pipes for running water and plumbing.
For Cao Cao in particular, numerous anecdotes have naturally become associated with him because of his fame, and it can be hard to tell which, if any, are true.
You might also want to mention or briefly discuss the "spectrum" of Chinese historiography. At the top you have the so-called "Standard Histories" 正史, which were the official records and histories maintained by the patronage of the Imperial Court itself. These naturally tried to be as official and accurate as possible, but obviously there are lapses (every now and then you have historians who believe in the supernatural) and proximity to the Court naturally biased accounts; you're learn more about Court politics than how commoners lived, for example. From then on you have less official histories and various collections of anecdotes, some of which might be true and some which are demonstratively false, all the way down until you reach the level of outright fiction and legend, like the novel 三国演义.
You probably should briefly address the novel, namely how its popularity has irrevocably colored popular conception of the actual history. The oft-quoted "Seven Parts History Three Parts Fantasy" is frequently taken out of context; that quote was actually part of a condemnation of the novel's effects on popular conception, not a praise for historical accuracy. Despite claims of "historical accuracy," the novel is not above including outright invented battles or changing the outcomes of historical battles. For example, no historical records, not even those of Shu-Han, makes the claim that Zhuge Liang ever used anything like Empty City against Sima Yi. (The record Weilue 魏略 claims a certain Wen Ping used it against Sun Quan in 226; this is probably the "historical origin" of the anecdote, though there are other earlier battles that could be said to have used the same basic idea of "Empty City" too and we have no reason to believe Wen Ping was completely original in the idea.)
Don't get the wrong idea though. There's certainly a lot of stuff we "know" and a lot of stuff we can "trust." But it can be hard to sift through all the stuff that was "possible," "impossible," and "known to be fiction" to get there if you're not careful.
da551b No.14889
>>14630In terms of ranged weaponry and artillery, china takes the lead by a VAST margin. There's a big difference between the bare bones archery of the Mediterranean and packing a squad of dudes with semi-automatic firing weapons. Especially when you consider Han era soldiers had a greater variety of more effective melee weapons to compliment that.
Rome had numbers but numbers aren't everything.
1ccf0e No.14891
>>14801Pretty pleb comment actually despite the keks, since Roman military record against Persians before the late Dominate was rather good: they routinely defeated them in pitched battles (if the Parthians or Persians dared to risk them, usually they didn't) and sacked Ctesiphon multiple times.
I think the myth about Persian military performance comes from some plebeian anglo historians.
As for the Chinese history, it's interesting to think how different a culture they'd been if Qin had prevailed. Han threw their lot with the Confucian doctrine and consciously elevated the scholar-class above the military, and while this focus provided some desperately needed bureaucrats for the permanently understaffed Empire, it also made them more vulnerable to military disasters due to talented men going to civilian service, and army depending on either levies or auxiliary mercenaries while being led by civilians who distrusted the officers. Qin on the other hand was a Prussia of its time, thoroughly militarised and holding military service as their highest merit. Legalism always had influence but it'd be an entirely different world if Qin had not suffered the misfortune of having weak leaders right after the consolidation.
972d59 No.14896
>>14891Personally I'd say that the heavy warfare focus of the Three States and the great expansion of the Tang is evidence that China can effectively militarize if the need arises. Wei's had its agricultural garrisons, and Wu had its aggressive conquest of the south to get resources to fend off Wei, while all three states saw the rise of "military families" where soldiering became a family tradition for some.
The problem for China has probably always been finding the proper balance between military and civil affairs. The Sima family's usurpation of Wei had its origins in Sima Yi's and Sima Shi's military power, but then Sima's Jin dynasty abolished the agricultural garrisons which caused problems when the Xiongnu and Xianbei got uppity. Tang conquered expanded greatly with distant territories commanded by Governor-Generals, only for ambitious Governor-Generals to rebel and try to carve out their own states. After Tang's collapse the "Five Dynasties" era was full of short-lived states where usurpation by powerful Generals were a constant problem and Dynasties rarely lasted more than one or two generations. When Song took power, it put a stop to this by removing the authority of Generals and placing a notoriously low emphasis on military matters, but that left the Empire vulnerable when the Jurchens came and ended up founding a rival claimant Dynasty of Jin.
2ab650 No.14897
>I will never be Cao Cao
>I will never have ladies and consorts to my heart's content
The fact that modern China is cracking down on unofficial concubinage even more pains me.
da07cc No.14898
>>14897It's all fun and games until you realize that he ended up outliving like almost half of his consorts and his sons, including his firstborn Ang and his favorite Chong.
5d309d No.14901
>>14889>numbers aren't everythingTell that to Russia and the Ottomans
the rest of your comment was quality. I forgot about the whole Han ranged weaponry fetish 08f61d No.14913
>>14815http://kongming.net/novel/sgz/caocao.phphttp://kongming.net/novel/sgz/caocao-2.phpThese are two translations of the Wudi Ji 武帝紀 "Annals of Emperor Wu," the first by Jack Yuan and second by Adrian Loder. The second is the better translation by far, especially because it also includes Pei Songzhi's annotations.
A word of warning: it can be a dry read. Remember, these are Annals, not a novel.
Also something to be aware of from the start: in the traditional histories, you'll generally come across what can be understood to be posthumous names/titles. When you see stuff like "Emperor Huan this" or "Emperor Ling that," remember that they were never actually called Huan or Ling etc. until after they died.
In traditional Chinese culture the personal name is just that: personal. Typically only your elders or superiors can call you by that without it being offensive. The histories therefore will typically use posthumous names, which are titles of respect granted to great people, usually Emperors. Cao Cao's posthumous titles are Taizu 太祖 "Grand Ancestor" and Wu 武 "Martial." and you'll often see him referred to as such through various historical documents.
Pei Songzhi's annotations are generally excerpts from other works to expand the original or provide alternative accounts. He freely includes differing accounts on the same topic that outright contradict each other, generally leaving the reader to interpret it, though he does occasionally make comment on his own beliefs of accuracy on some anecdotes.
Do keep in mind that these accounts aren't necessarily reliable. For example, the first annotation cites Cao Man Zhaun 曹瞞傳 "Biography of Cao Man" or "Biography of Cao the Deceiver," which was written by an anonymous author in the rival state of Wu 吴, as the source of the claim that Cao Cao was also named Jili 吉利 and had a childhood name A'man 阿瞞 "Little Trickster." These claims are quite suspect, for Jili "Fortunate and prosperous" is an offensive name in Confucian perspective, and Cao Man Zhuan loves to emphasize Cao Cao's reputation as treacherous. History is always caveat lector.
fd14b1 No.15096
>>14889>>14901I find it somewhat ironic that it's Rome that is assumed to have numbers. Sure, Han's standing army was small but they loved to raise ridiculously large "armies" of conscripts for intimidation/shielding purposes to supplement the actual professionals.
f2e9aa No.15139
>>15096Peasants that would run at the first clash with the enemy, on the other hand Rome had a big, prepared, professional and quite veteran army.
I have no doubt that the romans would win such an engagement if it came only to the armies on the field.
1ccf0e No.15184
>>14896Quality post. It could be said that Roman militarism was its eventual undoing, since even the imperial army remained difficult to control, and after the legions became truly provincial (in the sense that the senatorial class no longer supplied most of the highest officers and the men and especially the officers came from local military families who had extensive ties to the region and each other) they cast the empire to a century of civil war and finally ruin.
China avoided that fate but at the cost of occasional military underperformance. Since they also lacked a lasting feudal aristocracy with established fortresses of their own, they were vulnerable when chaos or poor leaders arose.
fd14b1 No.15474
Happy New Year fellow students of Chinese history.
>Say what you say about Christianity, but counting the years after his birth make an awesome Schelling point which facilitates tracking events in time. When were you born? 1980? So that’s 34 years ago. Well the ancients didn’t believe that some guy in Judaea was the son of the only one God. So how did they count their years? Well in the absence of Jesus Christ, you have to use the next awesome guy. In China, the Kings. So it was “in the 5th year of King something of Zhou…”, which isn’t as easy but it’s still manageable.
>Then came the unified Empire, and the martial emperor of the Han Dynasty [漢武帝] had this great idea of naming the years himself. So every 5 years or so he would decree that from day on we are in the era of Great Start [太初], or Awesome Light [元光], or whatever cheesy title worthy of a teenage diary he could come up with. And all official documents were to be dated using the regnal era. It’s hard enough to remember all the rulers in the thousands of years of Chinese history. Imagine every ruler changing the era name every time he had a mood change. It’s hard to be a Chinese historian. No wonder their histories are so good.
4eed68 No.15693
>>14617well with what>>14630 said, the Roman Shields were not only hard as fuck but round so that projectiles and even a half assed spear thrust would bounce off, and if you remember the Punic wars, it is said that those wars had the most projectiles used in a war in the Ancient world. Then there is Artillery, which Romans had Mastered to an Art. Formations of Legions were better and more flexible than most Chinese Formations, and could be easily split up and group back together again, then once the Roman troops get close to the Chinese troops, Bolts may penetrate the Scutum, but once the Romans throw the Pilums its all fucking over. Because of the Pilums shape it will bust around 2 square inch hole in a shield while the shaft is only 1 square inch, and so it don't lose much momentum and either hits you or leaves you without a shield. Then you have to take into account the Roman Troops were a professional Army and not a citizen Army.
>Be Han Army Fighting Roman Legions>Fucking Fireballs are raining down >be a citizen army so everyone is losing their shit>Battle hardened veterans are the only ones really staying in formation>get to their Shield wall>they throw a huge fucking volley of throwing spears>they trained for years in throwing them>hit pretty hard>they charge forcing the battle into a close quarters fight>large swords are hard to use>they are stabbing alot>Their Armour is hard to Pierce, Arrows/slings hardly do anything >they put effort into keeping their Helmets to the point where Hearing and sight isn't obstructed>form a tightly knit sheild wall with their swords through the Gaps>they are stampeding what little remains of the Army>whoa to Romans war lasts more than one yeartl;dr a Professional army will always wreck a citizen one, though I may have cherry picked at some points and if anyone has any points that can challenge or disprove what I said I would be Glad to hear it.
59508a No.15811
YouTube embed. Click thumbnail to play.
This might fall outside the specified Qin-Han-Sanguo period, but thought this survey of language evolution quite interesting.
d2e552 No.15893
>>14913>>14824Thanks guys, your info has been rather useful and I'll make sure to read those annals whenever I get a bit of downtime.
Currently I'm in the final stage, got my due date tomorrow morning. Gonna have to wing the "research diary"… I'll make sure to mention the help from historianons.
>>15811On the topic of language how hard would you say Mandarin/Standard Chinese is to learn, from a European perspective? Is it so tonal that someone who's partially deaf (:C) would have excessive difficulty in determining the minutiae?
>I don't just ask out of interest in Chinese cartoons I swear eb3bbd No.15913
OP do you have an information about the use of musketeers by the Chinese? Especially battles with musket-armed horse nomads would be useful. Information on pre-modern Asian battles in English is very hard to find.
972d59 No.16199
>>15893Tones carry a functional load comparable to vowels, so yeah, tones are important.
However, Chinese is a very analytic language, as in you'll depend heavily on context to figure out what something means. This actually allows you to "get by" easily enough the more you know.
If you're really interested in Chinese history though, you'll be learning the old literary "Classical Chinese" rather than the modern language. It's very different, though perhaps not as extreme as Latin vs English for a western counterpart to the situation.
29f066 No.18710
Can anyone recommend me some materials on both the Three Kingdoms period and the Boxer Rebellion? Specifically the Rebellion, I can't really find too much source material on it. I read Jung Chang's biography on Cixi, and whilst it did give some background on the war, it focused a lot on her abdication of the palace. So, any material anyone can recommend?
16a7b4 No.18725
>>18710
Thanks for reminding me that the 清史 will never be finished.
Damn Civil War, Japanese Invasion, and Cultural Revolution…
Sorry, can't help you.
29e2f3 No.21961
>>18710
Jane E. Elliott (2002). "Some did it for civilisation, some did it for their country: a revised view of the boxer war." Chinese University Press. p. 143. ISBN 962-996-066-4.
http://books.google.com/books?id=wWvl9O4Gn1UC&q=chinese+fire+power+pinned+down+enemy#v=snippet&q=defeat%20peasants%20not%20humiliated%20at%20all&f=false
3b5935 No.21962
Are Manchu Chinamen? Like Macedonians to the Greeks. Or more like Mongols?
000000 No.21963
087360 No.21965
My favourite thing about Chinese history is they had a chance to have a global spanning empire with colonisation of the Americas and Australia but they decided isolation was cooler.
c7fd3f No.21966
>>21962
They're Chinese but not Han.
7ad330 No.21969
>>21962
The Manchu willingly commited ethnic suicide, they don't really exist anymore as a separate group. If they still lived however, they would probably be comparable to Mongols, who they were closer to both linguistically and geographically than the Han.
3e072c No.21971
>>21969
how did they commit ethnic suicide, in reality they just got out populated by Han
4ee9a9 No.21995
>>15811
What the fug, those rolled r's early on are very weird to hear in Chinese.
3b5935 No.22003
>>21965
Well, no, not really. They were colonizing constantly. Chinese moved out to the peripheries of the country and enlarged it, and all the countries surrounding China have Chinese minorities made up of colonists.
000000 No.22011
>>21971
they were culturally assimilated, nowadays hardly anyone speaks Manchu
6e10f4 No.22012
>>15693
Not to mention Scorpio's and if auxiliries were involved then mountains/forests wouldn't matter much.
>>21962
A combined bunch of Mongols, Chinese, and coastal siberian villagers mingiling together over the centuries.
36b635 No.22020
>>15811
My god. Even Ænglisc have more similarity with English.
81ef47 No.22037
>>22003
>and all the countries surrounding China have Chinese minorities made up of colonists.
But how old are some of these "colonies"? I thought most were just immigrant Chinese communities.
I know that there are plenty of Chinese in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia; but I don't know of any significant Chinese communities in Burma, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Kazakhstan, Russia (outside the Far East), South Korea, or Japan.
7ad330 No.22138
>>22011
Manchu as a language is extinct, unfortunately.
6e10f4 No.22188
>Tfw no total war china spaning from the end of the shang dynasty to the conquests of ghengis khan.
879219 No.22198
>>22188
I'd settle for an ROTK edition, but that sounds fucking grand.
6e10f4 No.22285
>>22188
>>22198
>tfw you will never be Qin
>tfw you will never stop the smelly han from rising
6606f8 No.22293
>>22285
you could play Rise of the Phoenix (SNES) although you can only play Chu instead of Qin since Qin is assassinated at the beginning
5a487d No.22302
>>22188
>>22198
A warring states period one would be pretty neato
e6fba4 No.22321
>>22188
There was a mod in development for Medieval II
6606f8 No.22360
You guys might want to try reading Kingdom (Manga). It has the setting of the warring states. It could be historical but I don't have any knowledge of the time period because I don't want to spoil myself. You might cringe how unrealistic it is due to people slicing up each other like paper, but that's fiction for you.
>>22198
Civilization IV has a mod that retains the heroes. It's called three kingdoms. There's another mod for Civilization V but it's more stale as compared to Civilization IV. Civilization IV is still the best. Civ V is just garbage
>>22302
>warring states
There's a mod for Civilization IV or probably CIvilization IV warlords. I forgot if it's a mod or a scenario of Civ IV.
d2e552 No.22533
>>22321
Rise Of Three Kingdoms, yes.
It's released and it's pretty good.
29e2f3 No.22546
>>21965
>>22003
>>22037
The Chinese Empire has traditionally spread more often by colonization of Chinese attempting to escape Imperial authority rather than by the efforts of the Imperial authority itself. We can actually keep this quite relevant to the thread's Qin-Han-Sanguo window, because the early Imperial period is actually a great case study of this.
During Qin and Han, the land south of the Yangzi was sparsely populated and still mostly wilderness. Therefore criminals, bandits, poor, and anyone trying to escape Imperial rule fled south, where they established emigrant communities and conquered and assimilated native tribes. Han of course made efforts into bringing these wayward southern communities back under control, but with limited success; it's attention was stretched thin by the need to defend the northern frontier.
During the collapse of Han, even more refugees fled the war in the heartlands to find refuge in the south. And it was upon this network of powerful local families that Sun Quan and his followers built the Empire of Wu in defiance of Wei. Sun Quan pushed an aggressive campaign of colonization and expansion into the south in order to have the resources to fight off Cao Cao and his successors in the north.
In traditional Chinese perspective, territory is not very valuable without manpower to use it, and so manpower can often be held in higher regard. In fact, in the early days of Sun Ce and Sun Quan, some campaigns were launched with the aim of capturing peasants to settle their territory rather than conquer more territory. Sima Yi's campaign into Liaodong spread Chinese power further northeast than ever before, but due to concerns about maintaining control of the people over such distances, Sima Yi withdrew instead of establishing garrisons, bringing the captured local population with him.
With this sort of policy, it is understandable that the Chinese Empire grew more slowly than the European Colonial Empires of the 1900s. But on the other hand, the Chinese Empire is in a sense still here, the only major territorial loss being Mongolia, while Europe has lost Africa and the Americas. So can one really say that there is a "better" policy?
6e10f4 No.22602
I just finished warching the 2010 war of the three kingdoms ( show based on romance of the three kingdoms), never thought a historical could make me feel so bad.
fb945e No.22962
>>22546
It depends on the era. During the Tang dynasty, there was an invasion of Gogoryu Kingdom and the attempted conquest of the Kingdom of Silla in the modern day Korea peninsula, which were done militarily. While the Tang expansion and settlement to the west was driven by a desire to stop the invading nomadic barbarians permanently.
While the later Song Dynasty seemed to be dealing with fragmented states comprised of the former Tang Dynasty and tried to reunify them in what amounted to a 'civil war,' so they didn't really have the priority to expand.
The Ming Dynasty did expand into Yunnan, primarily because there were Yuan Dynasty (Mongol) troops there, and decided to colonize it after the Yuan soldiers were defeated. Also, they used a combination of military and political control over Tibet.
Finally, there were periods of Chinese dynastic control over Vietnam, through different time periods, essentially making the Vietnamese Kingdom under Chinese rule.
I would argue that for most of the time, China had to contend with internal power struggles to keep their territories together far more than external, and there could have been a fear of the Emperor that any grand military conquests would ultimately give prestige to the general, and the soldiers might actually follow the general into a coup against the Emperor that would result in the succession of portions of the China or the complete usurpation of the ruling dynasty.
6e10f4 No.23938
>mfw watching /his/ movie night and all these Romeaboos don't know anything about three kingdom era
Please get on Chinkfags and educate these gaijins.
bb4295 No.23948
>>14170
Sauce?
And why would the Japs inflate China like that? I thought the Japs looked down on other east Asians
2afd14 No.23951
>>23938
You weren't exactly a font of knowledge yourself, Captain Wikipedia.
6e10f4 No.23956
>>23951
this is true,
But every time I mentioned something fags got mad because of "spoilers".
b05c8a No.24027
>>23956
>"spoilers"
>for a tale nearly a couple of millennia old
6e10f4 No.24034
>>24027
Well Romance of the Three Kingdoms war written during the Qing dynasty so more like 400 years old.
313022 No.24043
>>21962
they're related to the mongolians, last chinese emperor Pu-yi was manchu.
Note that they ruled before north china many years.
2bdeed No.24385
>>23948
Because Japs don't know history.
f56b01 No.25560
>>24034
Sanguo Yanyi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) was written during the end of Yuan/beginning of Ming.
19ecd0 No.26044
>>24385
can someone translate or find a translated version?
19ecd0 No.26046
>>24385
wait, after googling I find that map there is one of the Tang dynasty not the Han dynasty in the map you replied to,
please get things right next time.
29e2f3 No.26055
>>26044
>>26046
Yeah, it's a Chinese-made Tang Dynasty map, and an accurate one at that.
The Japanese-made map of Han is totally off-kilter though, seeing as it puts the Xiongnu all the way in Russia.
90c353 No.26327
>>26304
>mfw come up with badass strategy that uses fire
>it fucking starts to rain
>Sima Yi is fucking bawling
>mfw Sima Yi will probably kill me and sacrifice my hat to fucking Ahman
5b137a No.26357
>>22602
Tangential trivia:
Chen Jianbin, who starred as the Emperor Wu Cao Cao, also starred as the Yongzheng Emperor in the 2011 series "Empresses in the Palace" (Chinese title "Rear Palace: the Legend of Zhen Huan"), which depicts the brutal harem politics in the Qing Court.
This little pop history lecture by Yuan Tengfei was probably referencing the series:
>Yongzheng was the most hard working emperor in the history of China. The craziest emperor of them all. How crazy? Every year, he would only rest the day of his birthday. In 13 years of rule, he left 18,000,000 characters [divide per 3 and you get a rough equivalent in english words] of handwritten records. Do the math, more than a million characters per year. More than me and I write best-selling books. And I’m a speaker, I speak and other write down and edit what I spoke. But the Yongzheng emperor was writing. 3-4k characters every day. A normal guy typing 4k characters on a PC gets tired. The Emperor wrote 3-4k with a brush!
>You think the Emperor had time every day to think about this or that concubine? He didn’t have time for that. So when you look at the Qing palace and look at all those Travel Records of the Yongzheng emperor, pictures of him fishing, hunting, travelling, why did he had all those pictures made? He really envied that sort of life. He couldn’t do all that. So he got tired, got himself some Daoist potion of eternal life, and died of mercury oxide poisoning.
000000 No.26358
>>26304
>tfw I have yet to download Three Kingdoms
2bdeed No.26470
>>21969
Snagged a copy of "China's Last Empire: The Great Qing" by William T. Rowe from Harvard's History of Imperial China series. In it is a brief discussion on the question as to whether Manchu really was an ethnic group by the modern definition.
Also included is this interesting story: A local scholar published a scathing essay denouncing Qing rule on the grounds of Han ethnic superiority to the Manchu and calling for rebellion. The reigning Yongzheng Emperor published a counter essay stating that "Manchu" was a regional term, not an ethnic term, coming very close to denying the existence of ethnicity at all. When his son and successor the Qianlong Emperor ascended however, he declared great pride in his Manchu ethnicity, insisted on preserving a separate Manchu identity from the Han, ordered the scholar's execution, and banned his father's essay as heretical.
90c353 No.26502
What were the relations between the Indians and the Chinese? I mean they are very close to each other so I'm surprised they didn't influence each other more.
dc4d00 No.26505
>>14400
Now, you also need to point out that repeating crossbows such as the one on your pic were no the same as the 200m range ones (which seems quite a lot tbh).
The Chu Ko Nu was a peasant weapon, and it's "effective" range was about 10m. More powerful models have been seen attached to boats, but need two people to operate them.
14ec13 No.26547
>>26502
Buddhism comes to mind.
3ed096 No.26593
>>26505
Calling it a Chu Ko Nu (Zhuge Nu) triggers my autism, seeing as Zhuge Liang is not actually the inventor of the weapon as is commonly believed.
Saying Kuan Dao (Guan Dao) bothers me too.
d3d47e No.26596
>>26593
So should it be called lian nu?
90c353 No.26599
>>26593
>guan dao
mah nigga
f56b01 No.26632
It's a shame but not surprising that the Sanguozhi has not been translated to English; all the professional English-speaking historians need to be able to read Classical Chinese anyways, so they have no reason to actually translate it. They just read it and write their papers.
Luckily Chinese-speaking historians often do translate the classics into modern Chinese. So, going off of one such translations, here's Chen Shou's appraisals of one of the major historical figures of the time in the Sanguozhi (with original text):
>評曰：漢末，天下大亂，雄豪並起，而袁紹虎視四州，彊盛莫敵。太祖運籌演謀，鞭撻宇內，攬申、商之法術，該韓、白之奇策，官方授材，各因其器，矯情任算，不念舊惡，終能總御皇機，克成洪業者，惟其明略最優也。抑可謂非常之人，超世之傑矣。
>At the end of Hàn the world was in chaos; heroes vying for supremacy appeared all around; Yuán Shào like a tiger eyed four provinces, his power flourished and none could match him. Tàizǔ devised far-sighted strategies, fought and struggled across the realm, using the governing methods of Shēn [Bùhài] and Shāng [Yāng], and replicating the strategic genius of Hán [Xìn] and Bái [Qǐ]. He dispensed awards to officials carefully, to each according to his ability, and made appointments by proper standards, disregarding personal grievances. In the end he was able to dominate and control the Imperial government, accomplishing his great enterprise, because his intelligence and planning were of the highest excellence. At the least it may be said that he was not an ordinary man, that he was the most outstanding hero of his time.
913c1b No.26643
>>26632
It never ceases to baffle me how much information the Chinese writing system can convey in such few characters.
It's a shame that you have to learn several hundreds of them.
Also,
>He dispensed awards to officials carefully, to each according to his ability, and made appointments by proper standards, disregarding personal grievances.
True meritocracy? In my <literally everything> ?
d3d47e No.26646
>>26643
>several hundreds of them.
I thought they were in the thousands. Chinkese is autismal.
2bdeed No.26650
>>26643
>>26646
Yeah, there are several thousand characters, but there are only about 200 or so "radicals." The complexity of Chinese characters comes from the fact that these radicals can interact in two-dimensions instead of one (i.e. 心+亡 = 忙 or 心+亡 = 忘?), that these radicals can function either as semantic or as phonetic (i.e. 心 = "heart" or "mind" meaning, 亡 = "wang" sound, 忘 read as "wang" means "to forget"), and characters can have long "spelling" by stacking a large number of radicals and smaller characters together.
The number of Chinese characters is also theoretically infinite, because with long spelling and 2D interaction you can create a whole lot of new combinations of radicals to form new characters. It's as easy as taking an existing character and slapping on a new radical to the side or bottom. This potentially big problem has been somewhat cut off by electronic computers, which has put something of a lid on people's ability to make up new characters.
Also, Classical Chinese is a lot more compact than modern Chinese. Most "words" (in the western sense) in modern Chinese are two or three characters long, whereas in the language of the ancient Chinese each character tended to be their own word. The grammar is also very different, and largely relies on context to figure out meaning. Modern Chinese is more explicit.
漢末 = "Han end," or "at the end of Han"
In modern Chinese, it'd probably written as 在东汉末年 “At Eastern Han's final years"
Chinese is hard, but it gets slightly easier as you go, because you start getting an innate sense in how the characters are "spelled." The one day you catch yourself inventing new characters that you think should be added to the Chinese language, and realize how they ended up with tens of thousands characters over three thousand years.
d0df68 No.26662
>>26660
Prosciutto pls They are based on Images, like stick figures that's how people learn them, and through the complex script they are able to express poetic meaning that can't be said through the Latin alphabet.
d0df68 No.26663
>>26660
Also Nice going on Deleting your post
d0df68 No.26664
d3d47e No.26665
>>26662
I forgot the flag on but now you've betrayed me fgt.
>through the complex script they are able to express poetic meaning that can't be said through the Latin alphabet
I heartily laugh at you, barbarian.
d0df68 No.26667
>>26665
>Implying it isn't Western Scum that are the Barbarians
What was that about Rome having a hundred Mile long Canal? Oh wait that was China.
Seriously China is pretty much the Epitome of civilization, the only reason Europe progressed ahead is because of all the conflict in Europe at the time led to advancement of technology.. of which China wasn't far behind
d3d47e No.26675
>>26667
>steam engine
>automata
>computers
>advanced law
>advanced philosophy
Roman Empire a best, go flood your rice fields.
>China is the best buuuuut…
Ha. Barbarian.
d0df68 No.26681
>>26675
Whats that about cast iron, or Gunpowder, or paper.
>Roman Empire a best
The Roman Empire died after a few hundred years the Chinese culture kept on living to this day with the same culture only being slightly different from the Original Zhou Dynasty that started 3200 years agoalbeit sometimes civil warring and being ruled by Barbarians but Romans had much more of that :^)
d3d47e No.26683
>>26681
>The Roman Empire died after a few hundred years the Chinese culture
>Empire
>culture
Nice flawed comparison there, but no cheating please. Roman culture, as law, literature, philosophy and religion, is all around the world. But it evolved, and last time I checked stagnation isn't a virtue. Check and mate Cao Cao.
1361b7 No.26684
>>26681
Tbh yeah, even mao zedong couldn't wiped out chinese culture. People cheering for rome, becuase without them europeans wouldn't civilized.
By culture chinese are way ahead
d0df68 No.26692
>>26683
>roman culture andlaw and Philosophy is al around the world
When was the last time you wore Roman robes to a festival?
What I was saying is that the Chinese culture wasn't limited to just one Nation and that it was pretty much impossible to wipe out due to the sheer advances of it all, the closest was everything went as Normal except Mongols are in charge, people were still Chinese and there was never anything close to a "Dark Age" other than the warring states Period which was a time of warfare and many advanced in scientific knowledge.
check mate
73536a No.26693
Here's some wisdom from /int/
d0df68 No.26697
>>26693
>/int/
Opinion discarded
9e34a6 No.26699
>>26697
You gotta admit, at least halfchan /int/ was funny. It was like dogfighting, except with autistic shitposters instead of dogs and misplaced, fanatic nationalism instead of savage instinct.
70c5fa No.26701
Well we seem to have been derailed a bit, but while we're on the topic of foreign relations, here are a few excerpts from Volume I of the Cambridge History of China, about foreign relations in the time of the Han Dynasty
Being an older book, it uses Wade-Giles instead of pinyin
>According to Tsou Yen's theory, there are nine large continents (ta chiuchou) in the world, and each is further divided into nine regions. The nine continents are separated from one another by vast oceans, and the nine regions of each continent are also separated from one another by a circling sea. China, known as the Spiritual Continent of the Red Region (ch'ih-hsien shen-chou), constitutes but one of the nine regions of a large continent. In other words, China occupies only one of the eighty-one divisions of the entire world. Moreover, in Tsou Yen's system, it is not even clear whether China is located in the central regions of its own continent
So while modern translations of 中國 use "middle kingdom" and certain commentators often use this reading to emphasize the "yellow peril" of a chauvinistic China that views itself as the center of the world, such a view is not really accurate. A better view is probably the 中-外 "internal-external" definition rather than the 上-中-下 "up-middle-down" definition, in which case 中國 is "our country" contrasted with 外國 "foreign countries."
>Moreover, as their geographical knowledge of the world grew with time,
the Han Chinese even came to the realization that China was not necessarily the only civilized country in the world. This is clearly shown in the fact that the Later Han Chinese gave the Roman Empire (or, rather, the Roman Orient) the name of Great Ch'in (Ta Ch'in). According to the Hou-Han shu, the Roman Empire was so named precisely because its people and civilization were comparable to those of Chin
But on the other hand it does not appear that China had much interest in the outside world; managing its own affairs was always a higher priority.
>But if the Han Chinese were not sinocentric in the geographical sense,
they were indeed sinocentric in the politico-cultural sense. For the order of
the world as a whole was never their concern; rather, they were concerned
with the establishment and maintenance of the Chinese world order, which
was by definition sinocentric.
d0df68 No.26709
>>26701
>ch'in
Thats how it's pronounced but it's spelled for some fucking reason by everyone as Qin
5b137a No.26719
>>26709
Qin is the pinyin transcription, Ch'in is the Wade-Giles transcription. Pinyin is the accepted international system for transcribing Chinese characters with Latin letters.
And though they may sound similar to your ear, Wade-Giles Ch' is not the same as English Ch.
Pinyin (and Wade-Giles) do not use letters exactly the same way as English does. But this is to be expected, because the languages use different sounds. You don't complain that the Spanish pronounce or spell "Los Angeles" incorrectly, do you?
f56b01 No.27193
>>26684
>even mao zedong couldn't wiped out chinese culture
While mainstream history in China is still dominated by official party rhetoric and using Marxist terms, more private historians are tending towards more traditional Chinese views on history and evaluating Mao as if he were just another Qin Shihuang or Ming Taizu.
e815e1 No.27238
so, Why didn't China conquer Korea Earlier on, there was infrastructure they could have built upon and they were very close to Major Military centers so I just don't get why they were only able to have it for a short period before losing it
733206 No.27248
>>27238
I think there just wasn't much reason too.
probably more expensive to administrate it than revenue through taxes and resources
dc811a No.27296
>>27238
A lot of factors, obviously, but one of the big ones is the distances involved.
Sure, you look at a map of modern China and they're right next to each other, but you have to remember ancient China was smaller and grew into those borders. There are mountain ranges and rivers in the way to make troop transport difficult, and even if you do field a large army and conquer the region, what's stopping the general or local administration you leave behind from just declaring independence when you go back to China? Heck, that basically happened a few times; a good number of Korean and Vietnamese "dynasties" were founded by Chinese exiles and rebels.
5b137a No.27635
Some gems on early Han history:
http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-edward-luttwak-doesnt-know-about.html
http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-edward-luttwak-doesnt-know-about_6.html
>How did the Chinese transform an enemy whose realm stretched thousands of miles across Inner Asia into a mere tributary vassal? They did it through flame and blood and terror. Any narrative of Han-Xiongnu relations that passes over these eighty years of grueling warfare is a distorted depiction of the times.
2bb20f No.28636
>>27635
Noice, I remember hearing about one Chinese General who was said conquered Xiongnu land up to the Aral sea.
eb7843 No.28644
>>26693
I really miss old /int/.
000000 No.28647
>>26719
>not using IPA
[kəmmoːn san]
a32ba0 No.28654
>>28647
>not using slavicist romanisation with čšz ćśź
>>26709
>>26719
it's Ćin.
7f29f8 No.28656
>>28647
>IPA for Chinese
Have fun.
c3480c No.28703
000000 No.28705
>>28654
кек
also [tɕʰin]
>>28656
easier than pinyin imo (even though I've never studied Mandarin)
000000 No.28708
>>28705
fuggen hell, can't post IPA tones or voiceless consonants on this shit
a32ba0 No.28711
>>28705
>IPA for Chinese
>easier than pinyin
nah m8 the vowels are a complete mess
especially when you get to the fricative vowels
unless you break down the rime into glide, vowel and coda, and use the two-vowel analysis (with /a/ and /ə/) plus vowelless, and ignore all the rules of allophony, shit gets really convoulted
36d7e9 No.28715
>>21962
>all these silly answers
Oh for fuck's sake.
They're Jurjen in origin.
000000 No.28722
>>28711
Sheeit, I didn't know that. Is it the same with other tonal languages?
2660e8 No.29426
On this day…
September 27:
>八月己亥，趙高欲為亂，恐群臣不聽，乃先設驗，持鹿獻於二世，曰：「馬也。」二世笑曰：「丞相誤邪？謂鹿為馬。」問左右，左右或默，或言馬以阿順趙高。或言鹿（者），高因陰中諸言鹿者以法。後群臣皆畏高。
In the eight moon, day Jihai [27 September 207BC], Zhao Gao was considering treason, but afraid the various officials would not obey him, so he first prepared a test. He brought a deer and presented it to the Second Emperor, saying: "This is a horse." The Second Emperor laughed and said: "Certainly the Chancellor is mistaken? Calling a deer a horse." They asked the officials around them. Some were silent, some said it was a horse to please Zhao Gao. Some said it was a deer. [Zhao] Gao discreetly arranged for all those who said it was a deer to be brought before the law [and executed]. Afterward the officials were all afraid of Gao.
Source:
《史記 - 秦始皇本紀》
4ae043 No.29429
>>23938
>gaijin
That's Japanese you fucking retard. For someone complains about the Rome shills you're failing at even basic chink distinction.
055e4b No.29476
>>29426
Back in 207BC, ambitious hotpocketeers got shit done.
2660e8 No.29477
>>29476
Here, have the sequel:
Context: Soon after the "calling a deer a horse" episode, Chancellor Zhao Gao decided it was time to get rid of the Second Emperor, and sent his son-in-law Yan Yue to lead soldiers into the Palace. This is what the Annals report happened:
>樂遂斬衛令，直將吏入，行射，郎宦者大驚，或走或格，格者輒死，死者數十人。郎中令與樂俱入，射上幄坐幃。二世怒，召左右，左右皆惶擾不鬬。旁有宦者一人，侍不敢去。二世入內，謂曰：「公何不蚤告我？乃至於此！」宦者曰：「臣不敢言，故得全。使臣蚤言，皆已誅，安得至今？」閻樂前即二世數曰：「足下驕恣，誅殺無道，天下共畔足下，足下其自為計。」二世曰：「丞相可得見否？」樂曰：「不可。」二世曰：「吾願得一郡為王。」弗許。又曰：「願為萬戶侯。」弗許。曰：「願與妻子為黔首，比諸公子。」閻樂曰：「臣受命於丞相，為天下誅足下，足下雖多言，臣不敢報。」麾其兵進。二世自殺。
[Yan] Yue then beheaded the Commander of the Guard, and led his officers inside, firing arrows, so the attendants and the eunuchs were all alarmed. Some fled and some resisted, and all who resisted quickly died, and the dead amounted to several tens of men. The Director of the Internal Attendants and [Yan] Yue entered together, shooting arrows into the curtains about the Throne. The Second Emperor was furious, and summoned his courtiers, but they were all afraid and did not resist. Only one eunuch remained, and did not dare flee.
The Second Emperor entered the Inner chambers, and asked: "Why did you not warn me earlier? Now it has come to this!"
The eunuch said: "Your servant did not dare speak, and by this managed to survive. Had your servant spoken earlier, when everyone was put to death, would he still be here today?"
Yan Yue came forward and denounced the Second Emperor, saying: "You are arrogant and stubborn, killing without reason, the whole world has united against you, and now you should settle things yourself [commit suicide]."
The Second Generation said: "May I see the Chancellor or not?"
Yue said: "No."
The Second Generation said: "I am willing [to abdicate and become] King of a single province." This was not permitted. He then said: "I am willing to become a Lord of ten thousand households." This was not permitted. He said: "I am willing to take my wife and children and become a black head [commoner], like the other princes."
Yan Yue said: "Your servant received orders from the Chancellor, to punish you for the world's benefit. Though you may speak more, your servant will not reply." He signaled for his soldiers to enter.
The Second Emperor killed himself.
As before, from:
《史記 - 秦始皇本紀》
38b1ff No.29482
>>29477
>Yan Yue came forward and denounced the Second Emperor, saying: "You are arrogant and stubborn, killing without reason, the whole world has united against you, and now you should settle things yourself [commit suicide]."
That's a pretty tough thing to say considering Yan Yue just massacred what appears to be most of the Imperial Court. What exactly did the second Emperor due to receive this treatment?
993788 No.29511
>>29429
I think he was joking/baiting
2660e8 No.29681
>>29482
Well, to start out with, Qin in general is recorded as having been a harsh regime. Qin's success in conquering the other six states and unifying the Empire owed a great deal to its adoption of Legalist principles, which allowed mass mobilization of state resources for total war. While great for the state, it wasn't exactly the best life for the peasants, who were constantly conscripted to serve in the massive Qin army or else constantly producing food to feed the army. Plus there was the harsh penal code based on the idea of collective guilt. One felon can get a whole village executed, and such.
After the conquest, the First Emperor now found himself with a huge mobilized army and workforce but no more states to conquer. Therefore he set the army out conquering even more territory from barbarians and tribal groups, but the problem with that the gains don't really make up for the costs in conquering undeveloped land. So a whole lot of death and labor expenditure, without much to show for it besides bragging rights. The First Emperor also set about ordering mass construction projects, the two most famous examples being the first Great Wall and his own Imperial Tomb. Needless to say, these huge projects put a huge strain on the peasant base, not to mention thousands of deaths of laborers.
When the First Emperor died, his heir-apparent was his eldest son Fusu, but since Zhao Gao wasn't friendly with Fusu, he arranged for a forged edict to condemn Fusu to death and enthrone a younger son Huhai as Second Emperor. Zhao Gao encouraged Huhai to take the First Emperor's policies even further and enact even tougher laws with harsher punishments. It got to the point that people started having nothing to lose, and so there was rebellion across the Empire. The first rebel group is a good example: it was started by a pair of Qin army captains who couldn't show up to their posts on time due to weather delays; they realized they were going to be condemned to death no matter what, so they decided they just might as well rebel.
Zhao Gao tried to downplay the severity of the rebellions, but they kept getting worse and eventually the Second Emperor got a better idea of what the hell was going on. So now Zhao Gao was worried Huhai would blame him for everything, and decided it was time for a different puppet. So he used his Deer test, and once he was confident he had Yan Yue kill the Second Emperor, who pretty much everyone hated by now.
In summary: 1) Qin was an unpopular regime, 2) the Second Emperor was blamed for everything (and not entirely undeserved; even without Zhao Gao, Huhai was just not a good ruler)
b1f142 No.29691
>>29681
I take Zhao Gao was appointed ruler next? He had quite a lot of work to do, considering how the maintenance cost of the army probably still outstripped whatever income he could make from conquest and raids by far.
993788 No.29702
>>29681
[HanPropagandaIntensifies]
2bdeed No.29717
>>29691
Zhao Gao wasn't of the royal family so he had no legitimate claim to the throne; he'd have to outright usurp. The matter was complicated because he might have been a eunuch (it's a controversial matter; popular thought accepts that he was a eunuch, but others argue that a eunuch would never have been made Chancellor). If he was a eunuch, pretty much no one would have accepted an outright usurpation.
After Huhai was killed, Zhao Gao had another member of the royal family, Ziying, installed, but Ziying was a bit more aware of what was really going on and assassinated Zhao Gao pretty much right before the ascension ceremony. (Ziying's relation to the family is also controversial; the Shiji calls him a nephew of Huhai or a younger brother of the First Emperor at different points)
>>29702
Han propaganda certainly unfairly darkens Qin's name, but on the other hand one can't really deny the strain that the first Great Wall and the First Emperor's tomb must have placed on the peasant population.
993788 No.29726
>>29717
Wanna know something that puts even more strain on the peasants?
Mongols coming in and raiding whenever the fuck they please, and hold some more respect for the son of heaven; he deserved a tomb that grand for all the great conquests he sponsored srs Qin shi huang was a breddy cool dude at first but the Mercury made him fucking insane it also killed him
be8b29 No.30038
>>15693
>Implying the Han didn't have a massive arsenal of weapons and siege weapons
>Implying Han didn't have a professional standing army
Hypotheticals aside Roman mercenaries working for the Parthians got their shit pushed in when they went up against an equal sized Han frontier army. Those shields couldn't protect them from the power of the crossbows.
be8b29 No.30039
>>27238
>>27296
As state there are a lot of factor involved and one of them is that the Chinese only love the idea of empire just a little bit. Foreign wars were largely fought to secure the borders or over trade disputes, occasionally you have a warlike emperor in power with expansionist ambitions but for the most part China liked to keep to its own affairs. They didn't even believe in forced assimilation because it was considered demeaning for all parties involved.
1016fa No.30063
>>30038
What, when did this happened?
993788 No.30136
>>30038
thats only a theory and there's little to no proof this ever happened.
At best there might have been some mongoloid motherfuckers who heard of how effective Roman shield formations were and tried to imitate them
effd4f No.30139
>>30038
>Roman Mercenaries
>Working for the Parthians
>Battling Han forces
[Citation fucking needed]
000000 No.30206
>>26681
>muh 5000 years of culture
this is what chinkfags actually believe
993788 No.30242
>>30206
>>muh 5000 years of culture
>this is what chinkfags actually believe
You do realize there is proof that Chinese culture may have started even earlier than that right?
a32ba0 No.30245
>>30242
European culture started pretty early too, pic related.
And let's not pretend Chinese culture has stayed the same all the time.
dc811a No.30252
>>30245
"Chinese culture has stayed the same"
>stagnant culture that needs to be modernized; European invasion was justified
"Chinese culture has changed"
>not really a continuous culture so nothing of value to be lost; European invasion was justified
China just can't win, can it?
d59da7 No.30254
>>30252
>>European invasion was justified
Where did >>30242 say that?
I think you two are associating Chinese culture and Western culture with the Chinese state(s) and the Roman state respectively, which I think is wrong.
3ed096 No.30260
>>30254
It's a tangentially related comment, not a reply. Don't worry about it.
4ee9a9 No.30287
Came across this article today.
http://listverse.com/2015/10/10/10-fateful-events-in-the-fall-of-the-han-dynasty/
A decent read up for some of the events leading up to the three kingdoms for people like me who don't know a whole lot about the early history.
b61aa2 No.30292
>>30287
>[The eunuchs] were also known for pissing themselves, especially the newly cut ones. A common insult was “smelly as a eunuch.”
I hope this insult wasn't lost to time.
d5e825 No.30301
Here, I made this for you guys.
a32ba0 No.30303
Looking into Chinese philosophy during the Warring States period, I stumbled upon ancient gommunism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculturalism
>The ruler of Teng is an upright and worthy ruler. However, he has yet to hear the Way. A wise ruler tills the land together with his people to make his living. He governs while cooking his own meals. Now, that Teng has granaries and treasuries means that [the ruler] inflicts hardship on the people to fatten himself. How can he be a worthy ruler?
>The Agriculturalists supported the fixing of prices, in which all similar goods, regardless of differences in quality and demand, are set at exactly the same, unchanging price. They suggested that people should be paid the same amount for the same services, a policy criticized by the Confucians as encouraging products of low quality, which "destroys the earnest standards of craftmanship."
000000 No.30305
993788 No.30348
14386e No.30360
>>30301
Nice work, lad.
>>30303
>hey guys, I found the tractor manual.png
d5e825 No.31738
The Duke who would be Emperor: Cáo Máo
A Narrative History of 254-260
>寧作高貴鄉公死，不作漢獻帝生。
>Better to be the Duke of Gaogui Village and die, than be an Emperor Xian of Han and live.
-Yuan Ziyou 元子攸
Prologue
After reigning nearly four-hundred years, the Han Empire (206BC-220) collapsed into civil war and anarchy in 189, though the decline had been occurring for more than a century already. The warlord Cao Cao (165-220) emerged as the most successful in rebuilding some measure of order, and gradually re-established a coherent government over about seven-tenths of the population and half the land area of the former Han Empire. Given his success, he was often encouraged to force the abdication of the powerless Han Emperor and ascend as Emperor of a new dynasty. However, Cao Cao refused these petitions. Four hundred years of tradition was not so easily thrown aside, and Cao Cao, as a practical man, probably thought it inappropriate to discuss declaring a new dynasty before the entire former empire was restored.
Cao Cao died, however, with his work incomplete, and his son and heir Cao Pi (187-226) was faced with different challenges: whereas Cao Cao had come to power through thirty years of work as both military commander and statesman, Cao Pi had inherited his power, and could not be entirely sure of his position. Therefore in 220 he decided to force the abdication of the last Han Emperor and found the new dynasty of Wei. Moreover, at the time of the abdication, the two main independent regimes of Shu and Wu were both in relative retreat: Shu had recently suffered a disastrous defeat, and Wu made nominal surrender, perhaps suggesting the possibility of peaceful reconciliation. In this context, Cao Pi had reason to believe the Wei Empire would very soon be victorious.
He was tragically mistaken, however, for Wu quickly resumed its former hostility and successfully repulsed Wei’s punitive campaigns. Cao Pi was of lesser ability than his father, and perhaps the stress of building a new regime while simultaneously leading military campaigns against Wu proved too much for him. He was struck down by a fatal illness in 226, before turning forty, dying after reigning only six years.
By good fortune, Cao Pi’s eldest son Cao Rui (205-239) was already a grown man, but Cao Rui himself was now faced with an even more unstable situation, for Cao Pi had died too soon to establish Wei as a proper Imperial government in its own right. Cao Rui’s attempts to establish his and his government’s legitimacy included ambitious building projects and extensive patronage of scholarship and the arts, both old hallmarks of legitimacy used by Han. Further, such construction of undeniably “Wei” monuments and cultural artifacts would help the new regime escape Han’s shadow and establish its own authority. The stress of building an Empire on unstable foundations, while also having to manage the two-front war against Wu and Shu, probably overcame Cao Rui as it had his father, for he too was struck down by a fatal illness before turning thirty-five, having reigned for only thirteen years.
Cao Rui also suffered the personal tragedy of having all his sons predecease him. His heir was an adopted son Cao Fang, who ascended at age eight. Regency powers were held by Cao Rui’s principal wife the now Empress-Dowager Guo, Cao Rui’s friend and very distant kinsman Cao Shuang (a fifth cousin at the least; Weilue even claims Shuang’s father had originally been surnamed Qin, suggesting a female line relation or adoption), and the long-serving statesman and other personal friend Sima Yi.
d5e825 No.31739
>>31738
In the tradition of the time, the Emperor avoided employing close relations in such politically powerful roles, due to the threat of usurpation by close kin: usurpation by persons outside the Imperial family was considerably more difficult due to the need to change the entire dynasty and therefore considered less of a threat than a closely related cadets of the Imperial family. It is said, however, that Cao Rui had briefly considered breaking tradition and including one of his uncles, Cao Yu, as a regent, but was successfully dissuaded by his advisers.
Though the regents appeared to work harmoniously at first, Cao Shuang and his associates eventually attempted to monopolize power at the expense of the others. Sima Yi appeared to yield, but after Cao Shuang had grown complacent Sima Yi led a surprise coup in 249, killing Shuang and seizing power himself. Sima Yi was already an old man in his seventies by then, and he died in 251. Regency powers, however, were inherited by his son Sima Shi.
Though a controversial claim, it has been suggested that the Sima family’s plans for usurpation had begun already with Sima Shi, and possibly even Sima Yi himself (this latter claim is very doubtful given Sima Yi’s advanced age). Regardless of Sima Shi’s actual intentions, his firm dominance of the government was viewed with suspicion, and several plots were made against him, including a few from Sima Shi’s former friends and allies. All were discovered and crushed. The young Emperor Cao Fang was implicated in one such plot, and Sima Shi responded by pressuring the Empress-Dowager to depose him, exploiting an old precedent set during Han that the Empress-Dowager could use her authority as the Emperor’s (often adopted) mother to depose especially unfit Emperors. In fairness to Sima Shi, though the plot was certainly the most immediate motivation, there was much evidence that Cao Fang was rather lacking in leadership ability, even accounting for the possibility of slander used to justify the removal after the fact.
Sima Shi wished to enthrone one of Cao Cao’s sons, Cao Ju, who by then was an old man. Possibly Ju was already growing senile, or otherwise weakening with age, and thus would not pose as serious a threat to Sima Shi’s and his family’s future as a younger puppet ruler. Perhaps Sima Shi might have also hoped to weaken the position of his potential rival the Empress-Dowager Guo, for she could hardly claim maternal authority over her uncle-in-law. But if Sima Shi had, then he had made a serious tactical error, for as recounted in Weilue:
>太后曰：「彭城王，我之季叔也，今來立，我當何之！且明皇帝當絕嗣乎？吾以為高貴鄉公者，文皇帝之長孫，明皇帝之弟子，於禮，小宗有後大宗之義，其詳議之。」
>The Empress-Dowager said: “The King of Pengcheng [Cao Ju] is my junior uncle. If he is enthroned, what am I to be? Moreover, will the succession line of Emperor Ming [Cao Rui] be cut off? I propose the Duke of Gaogui Village, senior grandson of Emperor Wen [Cao Pi], son of Emperor Ming’s younger brother. By the Rites, a cadet branch’s posterity has responsibility to the main branch. Discuss this thoroughly.”
It may even be that the Empress-Dowager had carefully planned to outmaneuver Sima Shi from the beginning, and was willing to sacrifice her adopted son in favor of adopting a potentially more capable son, for the Weilue continues:
>太后令曰：「我見高貴鄉公，小時識之，明日我自欲以璽綬手授之。」
>The Empress-Dowager’s order said: “I have met the Duke of Gaogui Village, and spoken with him when he was a child. Tomorrow I will go myself and give him the Seal and Ribbons by my own hand.”
And so, as recorded in the Sanguozhi main text Annals:
>丁丑，令曰：「東海王霖，高祖文皇帝之子。霖之諸子，與國至親，高貴鄉公髦有大成之量，其以為明皇帝嗣。」
>[20 October 254], an Order stated: “The King of Donghai [Cao] Lin was the son of Gaozu Emperor Wen [Cao Pi]. Of Lin’s various sons, the state’s close relations, the Duke of Gaogui Village Cao Mao has the capacity for great achievement. He can serve as the Emperor Ming’s heir.”
d5e825 No.31787
>>31739
The Story Told in the Annals
The Duke of Gaogui Village, Cao Mao, appellation Yanshi, was the nephew of Liezu Emperor Ming Cao Rui, grandson of Gaozu Emperor Wen Cao Pi, great-grandson of Taizu Emperor Wu Cao Cao. According to Di Ji, the Duke was born 15 November 241. From a young age he was good at his studies, and early to mature.
The young Duke was thirteen when he was summoned from Ye to replace his cousin Cao Fang. As the Annals recount, the Duke arrived first at Xuanwu “Dark Warrior” palace, to the north of the capital Luoyang, and was instructed to reside in the front hall. The Duke, however, observed that the front hall was the former residence of his uncle the late Emperor Ming Cao Rui, and refused, instead residing in a west wing. When he was asked to ride in the Imperial Chariot the rest of the way, the Duke refused.
When the Duke arrived at the West Gate of the Luoyang Southern Palace, the officials bowed to him, and he made to bow in return. The officials tried to stop him, but he said that he was a subject of the Empire, and bowed. Continuing onward, the Duke reached the gate where chariots are stopped and visitors make their way on foot; only the Emperor can ride his chariot the rest of the way. The Duke dismounted, and when the officials asked him to ride inside, he remarked that he had come as a subject of the Empire at the Empress-Dowager’s request, and could not know what the Empress-Dowager would ultimately decide. Therefore the Duke walked the rest of the way and met with the Empress-Dowager. He was enthroned that day, 2 November 254. The Annals state that everyone at Court was delighted.
The Duke’s first few acts as Emperor included issuing an Imperial Order, written in very humble terms, stating his fear that he will be unable to carry on the great legacy left behind by the Three Founders, Cao Cao, Cao Pi, and Cao Rui. He finishes by criticizing the government as having become corrupt and bloated during the time of his predecessor Cao Fang, and so orders a scaling back, along with a greater emphasis on treating the people with love and respect. Accordingly, the Annals report that the declaration of a Great Amnesty, reduction in the Imperial carriages and wardrobe, reduction of the size and expenses of the Imperial harem, and dismissal of many skilled artisans trained in “creating extravagant and beautiful things of little practical worth.” Further, Palace Attendants were sent out to investigate local customs, listen to petitions and complaints, and investigate and correct and administrative oversights.
Weishi Chunqiu also reports an anecdote that likely occurred around this time:
>罷朝，景王私曰：「上何如主也？」鍾會對曰：「才同陳思，武類太祖。」景王曰：「若如卿言，社稷之福也。」
>After Court, [Sima Shi] privately asked: “What sort of ruler is the Ascended one?”
>Zhong Hui replied: “In genius like [Cao Zhi], in martial ability like [Cao Cao].”
>[Sima Shi] said: “If it is as you say, then it is the state’s good fortune."
One may quibble about the details and claim they are hagiography, but the main emphasis of the account, which is very likely true, is that the young Duke was a talented young man of different nature than the reportedly extravagant Cao Fang, and certainly not another King of Changyi Liu He, who had notoriously rushed to take power when the Throne was offered to him and then devolved into unrestrained hedonism. Indeed, it was Liu He’s humiliating behavior and consequent removal by the powerful statesman Huo Guang and the Empress-Dowager that had established the precedent during Han in 74BC.
The Duke’s ascension also represented in a reversal of policy that had begun under Cao Rui, whose attempt to use grand display to create legitimacy had rather ironically and perhaps tragically backfired. Cao Rui’s ambitious construction projects and generous patronage of the arts were now dismissed as excessive waste, and indeed these charges had been used against Cao Fang, who had largely continued such policy.
d5e825 No.31788
>>31787
Sima Shi meanwhile re-consolidated his power; the removal of Cao Fang had necessarily destabilized his position. He was granted high honors, namely the Yellow Axe that gave authority to order executions, the privilege to enter court without hurrying (usually reserved for old statesmen), the privilege to memorialize without using his personal name, and the privilege to enter the Imperial Hall with his sword and shoes. He also bestowed rewards on all those who had supported him in deposing Cao Fang.
Sima Shi was soon challenged, however, with a serious threat to the southeast. The region of Huainan, "the Huai river’s south,” was critically important strategic territory, lying between the rivers Huai and Yangzi, the main lines of defense for Wei and Wu respectively. The long decades of war had led to a general depopulation of the land, leaving it disputed border territory with the only real human presence being Wei’s outposts on the Huai’s southern bank and Wu’s outposts on the Yangzi’s northern bank.
Shouchun was the headquarters of Wei’s defense in Huainan. Posted there was General Defending the East Guanqiu Jian and Inspector of Yangzhou Wen Qin. Both had possessed former connections with the late Cao Shuang’s faction and with some of those who had plotted against Sima Shi, but thus far they had avoided implication in these intrigues of the capital due to their positions in the provinces. Now however, perhaps inspired by a reportedly favorable sighting of a comet, they claimed to possess an edict from the Empress-Dowager denouncing Sima Shi, declared against him, and negotiated a possible alliance with Wu.
This was a very serious threat, for if Wu could gain the Huainan region the entire strategic picture between the Three States would change. Sima Shi was convinced to command the suppression campaign himself, leaving his younger brother Sima Zhao in Luoyang to keep control over the Court.
There was a further setback when the elderly veteran General Guo Huai died, probably of illness. However, the campaign was successful anyways; Wen Qin fled to Wu while Guanqiu Jian was killed. A general amnesty was declared in the region for the people “deceived by Qin and Jian” to aid in the post-campaign pacification. Sima Shi’s partisan Zhuge Dan replaced Wen Qin and Guanqiu Jian as the commander in the region.
Sima Shi, however, had been ill before and during the campaign, possibly suffering from some sort of cancer, for elsewhere it is reported he had just had a tumor removed from his eye shortly before the campaign began. Jinshu includes a rather doubtful story that the stress of the campaign caused his eye to pop out from its socket, and he placed a scarf over his head to hide the wound and bit it to pieces in pain to keep from crying out and alarming his tired soldiers during the journey back. Sima Shi only made it as far as Xuchang, where he summoned his younger brother Sima Zhao, entrusted him with command of the army, and died on 25 March 255, aged forty-eight.
Elsewhere it is stated that the Duke and the Imperial Court briefly attempted to retake control by issuing an order that Sima Zhao remain stationed at Xuchang, but Sima Zhao quickly led all the armies himself to camp outside Luoyang. The Court was all but forced to grant Sima Zhao all of Sima Shi’s former offices as General-in-Chief with authority over the Secretariat. Sima Zhao thus succeeded to his brother’s control over the Wei government.
d5e825 No.31852
>>31788
In more personal affairs, the young Duke wed and appointed his Empress in the third moon of 255. The chosen consort was a Lady Bian, the great-granddaughter of the brother of the Grand Empress-Dowager Bian, wife of the the Emperor Wu Cao Cao, great-grandfather of the young Duke.
The military situation between the Three States remained an overall stalemate. Both Shu and Wu attempted to launch offensives to take advantage of any instability that might follow the transition after Sima Shi’s death, with little success. In the southwest, Shu’s General-in-Chief Jiang Wei was defeated by Wei’s General Calming the West Deng Ai. In the southeast Wu’s regent and General-in-Chief Sun Jun made preparations for his own offensive, but he died of illness in 256, and though his cousin Sun Chen succeeded to the regency already there were signs of Wu’s internal discord and decline.
At Court, Sima Zhao steadily increased his powers, accruing a promotion to Commander-in-Chief and honors such as the Yellow Axe and the privilege of wearing an Imperial cap, gown, and matching red slippers.
Interspersed with the accounts of Sima Zhao’s rise in rank are reports of the young Duke visiting the Imperial University. The Annals include lengthy accounts of the debates and conversations with the Academicians, as well as an anecdote about a poetry composition: several officials had procrastinated and did not submit poems on time, and their superiors asked that the offenders be dismissed; the young Duke instead pardoned them.
Though these accounts make up a significant portion of the Annals, the exact details of such conversations and debates of scholarship are perhaps of little interest to modern readers. The main point to be taken from them is probably that they are examples of the young Duke’s great intelligence and learning, or even more likely they are meant to hint at the Duke’s efforts to build his own reputation and network of support to eventually oppose that of Sima Zhao. It is probably for this latter reason that the accounts of the scholastic conversations are juxtaposed with Sima Zhao’s promotions in the Annals.
If Sima Zhao was aware of the possible threat of the maturing young Duke, he could not do much for the time being, for his attention was soon called elsewhere.
Zhuge Dan had enjoyed Sima Shi’s confidence, and had even helped expose the plot of Guanqiu Jian and Wen Qin when they had invited him to join them. However, he had also been close with some of the plotters against Sima Shi, back from the younger days when they had been one large circle of friends. Now Sima Shi was dead, and he could not be sure that Sima Zhao would show him the same amount of trust, especially with such a critical territory as Huainan. He gradually set about increasing his personal power and connections in the region.
When Zhuge Dan received summons to leave his post and power base in Huainan to take up office in the capital in the summer of 257, he refused, rebelled, and declared allegiance to Wu. The Annals report that the Duke and the Empress-Dowager both personally joined Sima Zhao in the resulting campaign, and the memorials cite the precedent of the campaigns of Han Emperors Gao and Guangwu and of Wei Emperor Ming’s tours of the front. More realistically, Sima Zhao probably wished to keep the Imperial Court close by so that it could not seek to retake control during his absence.
If so, the decision was wise, for the campaign was hard fought, lasting nearly a year. Zhuge Dan was an experienced General, and had built up a sizable army and impressive defenses about Shouchun. Wu by that time was already in decline, the regent Sun Chen beginning to quarrel with the maturing Emperor Sun Liang. The impotent Court could send no real assistance beside a token force that was easily defeated and destroyed. Had Wu been strong and able to send a significant army into Huainan, Zhuge Dan’s rebellion may very well have ended very differently.
d5e825 No.31853
>>31852
Sima Zhao focused on consolidating his power in the aftermath of Zhuge Dan’s rebellion and destruction. The Annals report that in the summer of 258, Sima Zhao was ordered to become State Chancellor, Duke of Jin, and receive the Nine Distinctions, and that he declined these nine successive times. Very likely this offering and refusing was an extended process by which Sima Zhao could evaluate the level of support he enjoyed at Court. Rewards meanwhile were also bestowed on the officials who had aided in the destruction of Zhuge Dan, who were very likely the same officials who supported petitions for Sima Zhao’s advancement.
Throughout the Annals, there are frequent reports of sightings of yellow dragons and blue-green dragons, always inside a well. That the dragon, an Imperial symbol, should be trapped and submerged is obvious symbolism for activities that could probably not recorded in formal Annals. Even the alteration of colors, whether or yellow or blue-green, probably has coded meaning difficult for us modern readers to understand.
Han Jin Chunqiu claims that the young Duke went to personally see one of the reported dragons, and remarked that the trapped dragon was an ominous omen. The account then claims that he composed a poem comparing the submerged dragon to himself, which Sima Zhao saw and hated.
One may doubt such details, but the main point is probably true: the young Duke was growing increasingly independent and discontent with his status as a virtual prisoner, and increasingly seeking to suborn the loyalty of the chief officers of the Empire. Sima Zhao meanwhile was probably growing increasingly aware of the Duke’s maturation and charisma, and consequent threat that the young Duke might successfully attract the support and loyalty of the high officers back to the Imperial Throne.
According to Shiyu, Shi Bao, a senior General and provincial Inspector, once visited the Court and conversed with the young Emperor for a day. When Sima Zhao asked him about the Emperor, Shi Bao supposedly replied:
>非常人也。
>He is certainly not an ordinary man.
Jinshu is even more dramatic:
>武帝更生也。
>He is Emperor Wu [Cao Cao] born again.
Rather than discourage Sima Zhao’s plans, however, the growing influence of the young Duke probably encouraged Sima Zhao to accelerate his preparations to usurp the Throne. After all, if Sima Zhao could successfully establish legitimacy and credibility in his own right fast enough, he could follow the example of his brother and depose the problematic Duke first.
Some time in the May of 260, Sima Zhao was promoted to State Chancellor, titled Duke of Jin, and granted the Nine Distinctions. Jinshu states he once again refused, but the Sanguozhi Annals make no mention of any refusal this time, and given what followed almost immediately after, one should very much doubt the idea that Sima Zhao was not the Duke of Jin.
d8e113 No.31855
d5e825 No.31860
>>31853
After reporting of Sima Zhao’s promotion in May, the Annals state simply:
>五月己丑，高貴鄉公卒，年二十。
>On [2 June 260], the Duke of Gaoguixiang perished, aged twenty.
The Annals do not dare tell the story directly in its own language. Instead, it quotes directly from older archival material, presenting the evidence as is to let the reader reconstruct what happened on their own. Pei Songzhi, hailing from a later time, aids the reader in this by including citations from other sources that do dare tell the story in more direct terms, namely Han Jin Chunqiu, Wei Jin Shiyu, Jin Zhugong Zan, Jin Ji, Weishi Chunqiu, Weimo Zhuan.
Either on the night of 1 June 260 or morning of 2 June 260, the Duke held a private meeting with three attendants, Wang Shen, Wang Jing, and Wang Ye. According to Han Jin Chunqiu, he uttered a few words that would ever after be remembered as a classic warning of usurpation:
>司馬昭之心，路人所知也。
>Sima Zhao’s intentions, everyone on the street already knows.
The Duke declared then that he would not sit by and do nothing as he was deposed, that he would go himself to deal with Sima Zhao. Wang Jing attempted to dissuade him, stating that Sima Zhao already commanded the Court and held all authority, that to act in such a way would only lead to disaster.
The Duke answered that there was nothing to fear: if he died, then that would be the end of it. Then the fact that he might not die was all the more reason to act.
With that he left to report to the Empress-Dowager. Wang Shen and Wang Ye went and warned Sima Zhao, who made preparations. Wang Jing remained behind.
The Duke himself wielded a sword and personally led his bodyguard and menial laborers of the palace. At the eastern gate of the Palace, Sima Zhao’s brother Sima Zhou attempted to stop them, but the Duke’s followers rebuked him and his followers for defying their Emperor. Sima Zhou and his men fled.
Sima Zhao’s trusted retainer Jia Chong led an army and encountered the young Duke’s force outside the Palace at the southern gate-tower. The young Duke himself fought alongside his troops.
Cheng Ji, an officer under Jia Chong, said that the situation was becoming critical, and asked for instructions.
Jia Chong replied that Duke Sima Zhao of Jin had been preparing for this day for a long time; what need was there to ask what to do?
Cheng Ji took up a long spear and struck down the young Duke.
>So perished Elendur, who should afterwards have been King, and as all foretold who knew him, in his strength and wisdom, and his majesty without pride, one of the greatest, the fairest of the seed of Elendil, most like to his grandsire.
-J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Disaster of the Gladden Fields,” Unfinished Tales: The Third Age
d5e825 No.31861
>>31860
Epilogue
The edicts quoted in the Annals begin with one issued by the Empress-Dowager, who states that the young Duke was unfilial and matricidal, attempting to poison her and shoot her with a crossbow. She had sought to depose the Duke, only for Sima Zhao to defend him faithfully. Finally, the Duke had led an armed attack against her, but she had been saved by the timely intervention soldiers of the General-in-Chief Sima Zhao. Therefore, as punishment for his grave crimes, the Duke was posthumously deposed from the Imperial Throne and demoted to commoner, and would be buried as such. Wang Jing and his family were executed as traitors.
Sima Zhao, the young Duke’s ever faithful defender, begged for leniency and petitioned that the Duke at least be buried by the rites of a King. The Empress-Dowager yielded to Sima Zhao’s requests, and the young Duke was buried with the funeral rites of a King on 4 June 220.
On 16 June 220, Sima Zhao submitted his resignation refusal of the promotion to State Chancellor, title as Duke of Jin, and the Nine Distinctions that had been bestowed on offered to him the previous month. Probably this is what Jinshu had meant when it recounted Sima Zhao’s refusal.
On 21 June 220, Sima Zhao explained in Court that he had ordered his soldiers not to harm the young Duke during the defense of the Empress-Dowager. Naturally, the soldier who had defied this order would be punished. Once again an edict was published in the Empress-Dowager’s name insisting that no punishments were necessary due to the young Duke’s criminal behavior, but that the Empress-Dowager would nevertheless defer to the General-in-Chief Sima Zhao’s judgment.
>魏氏春秋曰：成濟兄弟不即伏罪，袒而升屋，醜言悖慢；自下射之，乃殪。
>Weishi Chunqiu states: Cheng Ji and his brothers did not accept the blame, climbed naked onto the roof, and shamefully shouted obscenities in anger; [soldiers] below shot them, and so [Cheng Ji] died.
d5e825 No.31862
>>31861
A last puppet Emperor was selected: Cao Huang, son of Cao Yu and grandson of Cao Cao. Though the boy was thirteen, he was of the same generation as Cao Rui and thus should have been an improper heir to the Emperor Ming, but the lesson of the Duke of Gaogui Village had probably taught Sima Zhao not to indulge the Empress-Dowager any further in the succession question. Cao Huang’s very name was a problem due to the difficulty to enforcing the customary naming prohibitions on “Huang,” but to fix that the boy’s name was quickly changed to Huan.
In 264, Sima Zhao at last advanced to State Chancellor, Duke of Jin, and received the Nine Distinctions in anticipation of Zhong Hui’s and Deng Ai’s final conquest of Shu. Zhong Hui himself rebelled soon after, likely hoping to use Shu as a base to conquer Wei, but the hasty alliance between Zhong Hui’s Wei forces and the recently surrendered Shu officers collapsed, Zhong Hui was killed, and the rebellion ultimately came to nothing. This final success likely provided the necessary justification for Sima Zhao’s advancement to King of Jin.
Sima Zhao spent the last few months of his life hastily organizing the Jin bureaucracy and accruing all the Imperial prerogatives until all he had left to do was the title of Emperor himself. This last final step he did not take, for he was probably thinking of the historical precedents of King Wen of Zhou and of Wei Emperor Wu Cao Cao.
On 6 September 265, Sima Zhao died. His son and heir Sima Yan waited five months to hold formal mourning for his father before making the final step. On 6 February 266, the formal ceremony of Cao Huan’s abdication was held, and Sima Yan ascended as Emperor of Jin. Sima Yi, Shi, and Zhao all received posthumous Imperial title.
In 280, Jin conquered Wu, reuniting the Three States.
Bibliography
Chén Shòu 陳壽, Sānguózhì 三國志 with Annotations 注 by Péi Sōngzhī 裴松之
Fáng Qiáo 房喬 et al. Jìnshū 晉書
d8e113 No.31882
>>26701
>tfw the Emperors of both Rome and China will never intermarry creating a Super Empire that spans from Britain to Spain to Vietnam to Manchuria to Nippon
>tfw Chinese will never try to imitate Roman Architecture
>tfw Chinese will never adopt Roman Alphabet
>tfw joint Chinese and Roman force will never attack Parthania and India together
Also: If a Roman Legion from around the year 200 AD were to be placed in the middle of the warring states period how well do you think they'd do?
2bdeed No.32160
>>31882
The Chinese already have adopted the Roman alphabet in modern times. It just hasn't superseded native characters because, well, there really isn't much need to. Only in Vietnam has the Roman alphabet replaced characters, because only Vietnam was unable to develop their own phonetic system (Korea invented Hangul, Japan kana, and Chinese characters are already a phonetic system in native Chinese).
Also, good luck maintaining that "super" empire for very long. Both Rome and Han China pretty much reached their maximum possible size, due to the physical limitations of travel and communication of the time.
Anyways, looking to do some more research and study. Any topics anyone want explained?
abd18c No.32189
>>32160
Analyse the role of barbarians (or barbarian empires), during or after the Three Kingdoms period. What effect did they have on the legitimate empires of their times?
8a5160 No.32201
>>32189
>legitimate
anon.. i-i…
a32ba0 No.32244
>>32160
>Vietnam was unable to develop their own phonetic system
Vietnamese mostly used borrowed Chinese characters only for Chinese loanwords. Characters for native Vietnamese words were large part composed by the same phonetic principle as Chinese characters (putting semantic component on the left and phonetic component on the right).
Pic related, Vietnamese character 𬖾 phở (that Vietnamese noodle soup). First character (radical) is 米 (rice), the rest is phonetic 頗 phả, a Chinese loanword (Middle Chinese phua, Mandarin pō).
There were thousands of characters like this in use in Vietnam. Korean and Japanese didn't invent so many new characters. The reason is probably that Vietnamese has a similar isolating structure to Chinese, so it seemed natural to expand the character vocabulary by adding Vietnamese words using the same key.
a32ba0 No.32246
>>32244
Oh, the problem with Vietnamese was more that nobody standardised the writing system, as the educated preferred jerking off to each other's knowledge of Chinese and refused to use native words when writing. Plus, adopting Latin (under French influence) was a bit of being a rebel kid to the Vietnamese, a fuck you to China.
47621b No.32345
>>26304
These hats actually look quiete dank and not that far removed from these spacious wooly caps many guys wear today.
I wonder if chinese cloth would have made a cultural impact similar to the american poloshirt and jeans, after industrialisation if it werent for the "great" leap forward.
3ed096 No.32385
>>32345
Traditional Hanfu as seen in old-time dramas like that was already pretty much gone in China itself after the Qing conquest, where social pressure and occasional outright government decrees pushed people to gradually switch from Hanfu's flowing robes to the Manchu close-fitting jackets and gowns.
Hanfu still sort of lives on through its descendants in Korean hanboks and Japanese kimonos.
Chinese analysts in the west like to point out Chinese adoption of western-style clothes as gradual westernization of China, but the fact that most of China already made a big shift in clothing and fashion before probably suggests it isn't actually as big a deal as some of them are trying to make it.
a2ef16 No.32404
>>32244
>Korean didn't invent so many characters
Not really but unlike most other East Asian languages, it has an alphabet, so it lacks the mind-bending insanity of Chinese.
a32ba0 No.32423
>>32404
yeah but 1) that was only invented in 16th century and 2) nobody except for poor people used it until japs forced gooks to use it
d8e113 No.32453
>>32404
>mind bending insanity of Chinese
Western barbarian pls, it would be the same if some African talked shit about english because of the use of commas, periods, exclamation points, colons, semi colons, and parenthesis. The Brain that can handle the chinese Alphabet it more able to memorize and solve things better than someone who's alphabet is only 26 characters long.
>tfw you will never be able to learn chinese
>tfw even if you moved to china the shit Mao did to it took away the awesome parts of it
>tfw chinese anons can't browse 8chan because the chinese blocked it
e69ba0 No.32698
>>32453
>more able to memorize
yes
>and solve things
no, do you even know wtf you are talking about? since the beginning of time rote-learning has been the only way to learn chinese. robotism copy and paste is drilled in EVERY student. we were given sets of annuals to memorise and regurgitate during the imperial exams. there is nothing, nothing at all in traditional chinese education that encourages creativity and problem solving skills.
072702 No.32700
>>32453
"tfw chinese anons can't browse 8chan because the chinese blocked it
>所有的中華民族住在大陸.
>>32698
I don't know. I learn the etymology of the characters. Makes it easier to memorize.
a32ba0 No.32733
>>32700
>I learn the etymology of the characters. Makes it easier to memorize.
Yeah that's how I learned irregular verbs in German and French.
Your average foreign language course doesn't mention that etymology at all though and just expects you to learn it by heart with no real order.
0aeeb7 No.32735
>>32700
Didn't we have a Chinese language board? I saw it every now and then and always was wondering who other than perhaps Taiwanese or Hong Kongers could use it.
a32ba0 No.32743
>>32735
I don't think 8chan is blocked in China.
http://www.blockedinchina.net/?siteurl=8ch.net
And I heard that 4chan isn't blocked either, it's just that Chinese can't post because it requires Google captcha, and Google is blocked in China.
565a31 No.34523
>>14169
>mfw in under a week this thread will be a year old
Also as a related topic did the Chinese have or use wheat because they seem to have an idea of what it is but hardly make mention of it.
bb4295 No.34524
>>14170
>Han Ruling Burma, Okhotsk, and Caspian Coast
>Xiongnu west of Urals
>Romans weaving around the Alps
a32ba0 No.34526
>>34524
>he can't explain huns suddenly appearing in russia
this alone is proof that the map is right
a32ba0 No.34527
>>34523
Yes. From what I can gather, wheat arrived in China around 1500BC, became an important crop in 6th century, and they use it mostly for noodles.
d3a2c4 No.35052
>>15474
Well damn. Here we are at another New Year.
Let's mix things up with a snippet of Japanese history, or more specifically, why Japan doesn't use the Chinese calendar anymore.
>The Calendar was changed in January 1st 1873. But the law was only announced in December 9th 1872. And that’s in a preindustrial society without radio or modern means of communication. The people had less than a month to adapt to a wholly new calendar system. Traditionally the calendar guild used to distribute the calendars for the next year in October 1st, which means that when the new law passed, the old-style calendars for 1873 had already been made and distributed, and their production schedule had no way of producing new-style calendars on time. All their stocks were all of a sudden worth nothing. Bankruptcies and misery ensued.
>OK so a whole guild was destroyed by the government, but it was for good reason, right? For the common good? Not a chance. Thankfully one of the oligarchs of the time, Okuma Shigenobu was kind enough to explain the process in his later memoirs.
>Usually civil servants in Japan had their salary paid annually. But in 1872 the Meiji government changed it to monthly payment. However the Chinese calendar is lunar, with 12 months. So it only has 354 days, less than a full circle around the sun. What they do is add a whole intercalary month so the calendar doesn’t drift too much from the seasons.
>As it happens 1873 in the old calendar had an intercalary month, so 13 months in total. That means 13 salaries for the Japanese civil service. And that’s something that the recently established Meiji government couldn’t afford. By adopting whitey’s calendar, the next year would only have 12 months. And the new calendar was to start in January 1st 1873, which coincided with December 2 of the old calendar. By changing the calendar, the month of December would disappear, so that’s another month worth of salaries they could save! 2 months in one strike, imagine that. The government loved the idea, published the law in a hurry, probably promoted the guy who came up with it. And fucked everyone else.
4c59c5 No.35073
>>35052
It's almost comical how far politics will go to push laws that save money.
Reminds me of the entire Summer Time/ Winter Time drama we have nowadays, and which (to my best knowledge) is generally considered to be completely useless in terms of energy saving.
bd3a69 No.35099
>>35052
I read up about that because I was curious about the implimentation of the anno domini.
As I suspeccted, they did not include christ's birth until they capitulated in ww2, but why did redchina implement it?
They were godless commis after all and the adaption of a western spiritual concept should have been even more alien to them-was it the soviet influence that made them do this?
84ac07 No.35274
>>30303
Gommies have a habit of showing up every once in a while throughout history. They usually die horrible deaths, like the Gracchus brothers or the Anabaptists in the Muenster Rebellion. Especially the last ones. At least the Gracchi were lucky enough to get a swift death.
29b18a No.35286
>>34524
>be Roman Legionary in 406
>messenger arrives, tells us that the Germanics are on the run again
>alright, time to march to the Imperial provinces aga-
>also tells us all roads to external provinces are blocked because of a flood
>shit
>the Roman Empire falls
>if only we could cross the Alps
Hannibal did it though, the absolute madman.
b4f698 No.35302
>>35286
The absolute madman, indeed.
Fucking elephants.
31d32f No.35404
>>22188
if this came true I would Jizz my pants,
I would also Jizz my pants if they made Total war Medieval 3.
Actually, with Rome 2 and then after that Attila I think they're trying to progress it in Chronological order, never mind total war Warhammer though
7ad330 No.35428
>>32700
I don't think 8chan is blocked, there was a Chinese anon on /int/ a while back, had some pretty interesting stuff to say.