Capto Iugulum Background Thread

[ChiefDesigner]

by your standard here no power would be legitimate in China.

He's finally starting to get it!

Furthermore its a false equivalence since the US has only ever had the one capital whereas in China the capital has moved multiple times, indeed an equivalent situation to the Guangxi one is the Southern Songs relocation to Hangzhou.

New York and Philadelphia would beg to differ...

Spoiler :

Oh look! A map that doesn't indicate population densities of ethnic minorities!

PROTIP: China is 92% Han

 

[Jehoshua]

He's finally starting to get it!

Including the Red Army. I have been stating this for a while now.

New York and Philadelphia would beg to differ...

Temporary administrative capitals while the new city was being constructed do not particularly count. It would be like saying Melbourne has the aura of a capital since it was the seat of the Australian government while it was building Canberra.

Oh look! A map that doesn't indicate population densities of ethnic minorities!

PROTIP: China is 92% Han

You clearly aren't aware of the Chinese self-perception of the North South divide, where (乡土, xiangtu, 'localism') and a strong regional identity is the view of the people in the south. You also ignore that the Han ethnicity is not monotonous. Many Chinese call themselves Han despite not speaking mandarin (up to a third of han in the late imperial period [early 20th century] primarily spoke regional languages like Shanghainese), and despite the regional cultural cultural differences within this catchall grouping. The map I put up was a linguistic map showing where any one language (or group of languages) is dominant in China. Considering also that we are in Capto Iugulum, and not in modern China with its strong emphasis on the official mandarin language, its only reasonable to assume regional identities and local languages are stronger than they are in the OTL 21st century, and that bilingualism where the local language and mandarin is spoken is less common.

 

[Ophorian]

Not sure if it'll add anything to the discussion, but I was born in Hong Kong, and my family does consider themselves Han Chinese, though we're Cantonese speakers.

I think that's kind of an example of what Jehoshua mentioned in his last point.

 

[Nuka-sama]

I'm pretty sure this doesn't add anything to the conversation but I was born in California but I consider myself American. I'd be ok if the capital was like, Bakersfield or w/e doesn't matter to me

In fact, I feel disenfranchised with the American capital being so far East :/

 

[ChiefDesigner]

Including the Red Army. I have been stating this for a while now.

Go read up on the dynastic cycle. Try to figure out what point in the cycle we're at. Let me know if you need help with any of the more complex words.

Temporary administrative capitals while the new city was being constructed do not particularly count. It would be like saying Melbourne has the aura of a capital since it was the seat of the Australian government while it was building Canberra.

You clearly aren't aware of the Chinese self-perception of the North South divide, where (乡土, xiangtu, 'localism') and a strong regional identity is the view of the people in the south. You also ignore that the Han ethnicity is not monotonous. Many Chinese call themselves Han despite not speaking mandarin (up to a third of han in the late imperial period [early 20th century] primarily spoke regional languages like Shanghainese), and despite the regional cultural cultural differences within this catchall grouping. The map I put up was a linguistic map showing where any one language (or group of languages) is dominant in China. Considering also that we are in Capto Iugulum, and not in modern China with its strong emphasis on the official mandarin language, its only reasonable to assume regional identities and local languages are stronger than they are in the OTL 21st century, and that bilingualism where the local language and mandarin is spoken is less common.

Jesus Christ, are we *actually* going through this?

There's this guy named Qin Shi Huang. You might have heard of him. He spent his reign destroying regional identities in what we today call China. As per Ophorian below, regional identities in China describe place; it is not a ethnic identity, and hasn't been since 221 BC.

Second, Chinese is the written form of the language, not the spoken form. The reason China has such political unity is that the written form of the language is canonical, and thus there cannot arise an independent Cantonese literature, not without introducing an alphabetic script.

Third, that is not at all a reasonable assumption; the Beijing dialect has been promoted as the prestige dialect since pre-POD times, as the dialect of administration during the Ming and Qing.

Fourth, read the protip: China is 92% Han. A map of language distribution is immaterial to the beliefs of the 85% or so of the population that holds to a traditional Chinese world view.

Fifth, 你真的想我不是华人啊？
我护照也有，身分證也有, b-tch.

You know what? Post whatever you want, Jehoshua. Keep spouting off as much ignorance as you like. I have wasted too much time today engaging with the most Eurocentric argument since Gutenberg invented movable type.

 

[Grandkhan]

I'm pretty sure this doesn't add anything to the conversation but I was born in California but I consider myself American. I'd be ok if the capital was like, Bakersfield or w/e doesn't matter to me

In fact, I feel disenfranchised with the American capital being so far East :/

Doesn't that make you want the return of Santa Anna's regime like the above models suggest?

 

[christos200]

Those Chinese are crazy.

 

[Jehoshua]

Go read up on the dynastic cycle. Try to figure out what point in the cycle we're at. Let me know if you need help with any of the more complex words.

---

Third, that is not at all a reasonable assumption; the Beijing dialect has been promoted as the prestige dialect since pre-POD times, as the dialect of administration during the Ming and Qing.

Fourth, read the protip: China is 92% Han. A map of language distribution is immaterial to the beliefs of the 85% or so of the population that holds to a traditional Chinese world view.

Fifth, 你真的想我不是华人啊？
我护照也有，身分證也有, b-tch.

I am increasingly of the mind of Christos, which is shocking and not a little disturbing considering its Christos.

But lets answer your last point first before going into the rest I have quoted. Firstly, no I don't seriously think your not Chinese, and somehow lacking citizenship with China (indeed your passionate abrasiveness and your fanatical love of the Red Army all point to the conclusion that you are Chinese), what I do think is that you are idiotic and rude (which fits into a stereotype about the chinese people btw, one I fortunately don't uphold thanks to my own IRL associates but nevertheless you aren't making a good account of yourself), and are applying the situation and ideological melange of OTL China into a context where it doesn't belong. Now of course the traditional imperial system sits as a backdrop, I don't deny it exists, but China in Capto Iugulum hasn't been united in a century, and from the beginning it was different from how it was OTL. Capto Iugulum history is not equivalent to OTL history, and thus you can't simply act as if China OTL and China in Capto Iugulum are interchangeable (save for political disunity).

Thus on to your point about patronage of Mandarin, we can safely conclue that the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, for a hundred years or so has not been exalted above all other dialects in Capto Iugulum China. Japan obviously promotes Japanese in its lands, andd Guangxi promoted English (as you so, so, eloquently noted) and even now keeps Cantonese (which can and is written in traditional Chinese characters, your statement that it is impossible for the written Chinese script to be utilised by regional languages is empirically false) on equal status with English and the old imperial language. Nothing much comes from the Ascendants so I can make no claims as to what they do. Likewise when China was even more divided (into European and Japanese spheres of influence) the logical thing to expect was for those colonial powers to utilise the regional vernacular in addition to the colonial European tongue for purposes of administration over the 50-60 or so years they ran the place. Considering this, linguistic divides are likely to be much more prominent in southern china (where linguistic diversity is strongest) which corresponds conveniently enough with Guangxi. Your simply acting upon an assumption of IRL history, that hasn't applied to Capto Iugulum for a hundred years which is just absurd, and making statements that I'm Eurocentric, or a gweilo, or a b*tch or an idiot who doesn't understand the feelings of the Chinese people doesn't change that fact. Just because you say something is so, doesn't make it true, ad hominem attacks on me and appeals to the fact you are Chinese do not magically make you right on all things Chinese in Capto Iugulum. You can utilise your knowledge to interpret Capto Iugulums context, but again, as I said, you cannot simply say that it is equivalent to OTL China because it is obviously not and to say it is would be to say that the Chinese are unlike any other people on Earth in their rigid adherence to ancient ways without possibility for development over all that time since the Empire. (which would be to dehumanise the Chinese btw)

On that point, considering the territorial division of china has lasted over 100 years, and noting the likely fact that regional languages have been advanced at the expense of a common mandarin administrative language (for purely practical reasons) it is entirely reasonable that regional identities which are entrenched by language are more prominent and developed than they are IRL where a unified Chinese state has been a constant fixture. Defend your points with reference to the Capto Iugulum world, if you can't deign to do that than I suggest you restrain yourself to acting in the manner of the Red Army.

 

[Crezth]

Jehoshua, the history of China goes back thousands of years before China's POD. If your argument is that the idea of a united China isn't there because the Chinese have been chafing under foreign rule, I struggle to imagine what you'd make of the people of India, who went into the East India Company piecemeal and came out one single country (not counting Pakistan of course, but those lands were absorbed into Britain under a different pretext anyway); or the dozens of Balkan nationalists who all believe their own country should wield the banner of either the empire of Byzantium or (seriously) Pannonia. The point at hand is memory is long and the Chinese conception of the monolithic "Han Chinese" identity has deep roots. Chinese Pan-nationalism is definitely going to be a thing, and the Red Army are just the first in a long line of nationalists to come.

I seriously doubt the Japanese, for instance, could seriously push an identity change on the Chinese in the scant hundred years they've ruled. The real problem is there are just too many Chinese to convince into believing they're not Chinese.

 

[christos200]

Yes. Jeho, have you not see HK Kung Fu films about Chinese (Ming) patriots trying to overthrow the Qing. For example, see:


Link to video.

In a more serious note, the Chinese are too nationalists to forget of a united China. China was divided during the period of the Three Kingdons, and then divided again from the fall of the Jin Dynasty to the rise of the Sui Dynasty, and it was occupied by the Mongols and Manchu, and yet the idea of a Han united China was never forgotten.

Balkan nationalists who all believe their own country should wield the banner of either the empire of Byzantium

Greece is the only true successor to Byzantium! The Byzantines were Greeks!

 

[Lord of Elves]

"China should function like the Austro-Hungarian Empire!" - Jehoshua

 

[m.t.cicero]

I think the main reason China won't be united is that the three biggest powers in the world each have an interest in it remaining divided.

 

[christos200]

Never underestimate the power of nationalism.

 

[Bair_the_Normal]

Pshh. Han Chinese identity is awesome, but we Manchus have been over-sinicized. My family hasn't called Shenyang Simiyan Hoton for about three centuries now. We're Chinese, not Manchu.

 

[Crezth]

Greece is the only true successor to Byzantium! The Byzantines were Greeks!

Yes, thank you for illustrating my point. Nationalism is a powerful and, moreover, persistent force.

I think the main reason China won't be united is that the three biggest powers in the world each have an interest in it remaining divided.

If China remains divided, this would be why. But the current of the Chinese will for a long, long time be twofold: to kick out the foreigners and then to unite. For periods of time, China-based polities may wish to remain divided, but the historical claim to the entirety of China is too tempting for most governments to pass up.

 

[Quisani]

Pshh. Han Chinese identity is awesome, but we Manchus have been over-sinicized. My family hasn't called Shenyang Simiyan Hoton for about three centuries now. We're Chinese, not Manchu.

You would be interested to know that in the CI timeline, the Manchu region was not Sinicized in the same way it was OTL. The period of massive growth in Manchuria (1850-1900) never occurred under Chinese rule, but rather was under Japanese. The Ascendant Kingdom of Holy China brutalized the both Manchu and Han peoples (anywhere from 10%-25%) living in the area while defeating the Qing puppet and fighting against the Seven Nation Coalition, and the resulting Japanese conquest resulted in the expulsion of remaining Han farmers over the next 50 years (~1 million) who had been imported over the years by the Qing dynasty. In the meantime, the region has served as an area of colonization by Japan, and the area is basically Japanese, with a mix of Manchus and Koreans. Though Japan has control of a good chunk of China, there hasn't been much Han diffusion to other regions. I'd hesitate to guess, but I'd like to say the area has a population around 20 or 30 million due to industrialization and Japanese policies.

 

[karikon]

Poor, mistreated, violated and brutalized china, was planing on sending a picture but forgot about how. All in good faith and I do appreciate the detailed game you all play.

 

[Luckymoose]

Greece is the only true successor to Byzantium! The Byzantines were Greeks!

Greeks are Slavs.

 

[Jehoshua]

Jehoshua, the history of China goes back thousands of years before China's POD. If your argument is that the idea of a united China isn't there because the Chinese have been chafing under foreign rule, I struggle to imagine what you'd make of the people of India, who went into the East India Company piecemeal and came out one single country (not counting Pakistan of course, but those lands were absorbed into Britain under a different pretext anyway); or the dozens of Balkan nationalists who all believe their own country should wield the banner of either the empire of Byzantium or (seriously) Pannonia. The point at hand is memory is long and the Chinese conception of the monolithic "Han Chinese" identity has deep roots. Chinese Pan-nationalism is definitely going to be a thing, and the Red Army are just the first in a long line of nationalists to come.

I seriously doubt the Japanese, for instance, could seriously push an identity change on the Chinese in the scant hundred years they've ruled. The real problem is there are just too many Chinese to convince into believing they're not Chinese.

I'm not saying that there isn't the idea of a united China, Im saying that regional identities and languages are likely to be stronger than they are OTL. This isn't an exclusive thing that somehow discounts the idea of a united China or negates sinic nationalism, nor does it make China like Austria Hungary (an absurd notion), I fully agree that nationalism is there in force. What I'm questioning is the assumption that because Guangxi doesn't use Mandarin as much as OTL china, and isn't imperial, that it can somehow never be legitimate and that a push for unity can't come from the regime there in the future. I'm also questioning the assumption that the Chinese people are perpetually in political stasis vis a vis the imperial system. Oh, and obviously I'm questioning any equivalence between OTL China and CI China in matters linguistic (and ethnic, as Quisani illustrates)

 

[Crezth]

Guangxi's evident disgust for Chinese tradition does, however, impair the legitimacy of any claims on the all of China. As does its discarding the mandate of heaven and title of emperor. I know this because when I forged Guangxi I did that on purpose. Guangxi was literally designed to never have a legitimate claim on the whole of China.