Why is Mongolia in and not Korea

[Knight-Dragon]

Interesting, I'd never known such Chinese maritime achievements.
Do you have any articles to read about that period of time?

Nah, it was many years ago and I read it somewhere...

During the Tang and probably the earlier Song, international sea trade in China was dominated and mostly carried out by foreigners. In particular there was a large Arab settlement at Guangzhou due to this (it got burned down during the xenophobia accompanying the An Lushan rebellion; not sure if it was ever rebuilt).

After the court got pushed to Hangzhou and had to develop other means to raise revenue (due to the loss of its iron and salt monopolies in the north I think), they began to look at overseas trade coming from the sea-routes. I am not sure on the details but from this time on, Chinese merchant vessels probably began to expand their operations and eventually were the ones carrying most of the trade southwards.

 

[Thormodr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Song_Dynasty

A decent summation here I think with some links.

 

[superisis]

I don't know, Victoria held sway over a huge swathe of the globe, I suppose Germany conquered India? There was no one "Mongol conquest" of any "China" back then, China was split into Dali, Xixia, Jin and Nansong. Jin was attacked simultaneously by the Mongols and the Song, and the Mongols used Western Xia to launch their invasions into North China. Credit should be given where credit is due: the Song and Mongols toppled Jin. To say otherwise would be like saying "America won World War 2" or something equally asinine.

OK what I don't get is, I show you some maps that claim to show the empire of the Mongols. And these maps clearly indicate that the area of present day China was under Mongol command/influence/rule.

So either you:

A. Say that they weren't Mongols (but then what were they, what are mongols, and isn't the most common definition of Mongols the followers of Genghis Khan from his area)

B. Say that that wasn't China. Sure perhaps it wasn't, perhaps there were several smaller kingdoms where none of which can be described as China or Chinese (or solely representative of China/Chinese, thus leaving an unconquered area/kingdom that was also Chinese). But then we can just rephrase and say that the Mongols conquered what is modern day China and you'll agree with the statement, yes?

C. The word conquered is wrong. This is up to interpretation but here, if we are lenient, it should mean the same as acquired. Perhaps some cities surrendered. Perhaps others wanted to be part of the Empire. But the word conquered still fits IMO. To say that they used help from others still doesn't take away from the fact that they still conquered (acquired) the area. That's like saying Julius Caesar didn't conquer Gallia, his armies did.

D. The maps are wrong. In that case id be interested if you could point me to a correct map of the Mongol Empire.

So which one (or several) of those reasons fit? Or is there another one? Since I still don't see how you can show a map of Mongol territories in the year 1000 and another in the year 1227 and say that the Mongols didn't conquer China.

 

[Blitz47]

I was wondering where this thread went.

I guess I have a lot to catch up and I only have so much time to read this forum. To lolno, there are a lot I want to respond to but just don't have time. However, your response in might be a bit problematic. Unfortunately, good response requires too much time for me right now, so my apologies ahead of time.

They still tied down their military resources and both wore each other out over the time period coinciding with the Mongol unification and Temujin's ascent to power

The point still stands however that Xiangyang stood for 6 years, while the whole of the Middle East and Eastern Europe fell in less than two. If the Song was weak militarily it'd probably be only compared to the Mongols and possibly Jin.

I don't think they truly got outplayed so much that they failed in not resorting to genocide and expansionism to pacify their borders when they were strong, and simply allowed nomadic peoples to become too powerful.

Killing em all on turn 100 would have avoided the whole mess

China has consistently played one "barbarian" against another. A few times in Chinese history, China just went on a military rampage and drove the hsinnu away (I'm excluding Yuan and Manchu on purpose). Tang managed to prevail against the Turks until Tang's decline because Tang took advantage of the split within the Turkish empire into west and east turks.

Song allied up with Nuzhen to deal with khitan (Liao). Well, the old overlord Khitan was replaced by Nuzhen. So Song did the same thing, allied up with the Mongols to get rid of Nuzhen just to watch Mongol eventually conquered Song.

Unless the Chinese emperor is willing and capable of stations tons and I mean tons of troops all around the Eurasia steppe, the primarily an pretty much close to 100% of the argriculture Chinese will not be a match for the pastoralist steppe nomads on a 1:1 fight. Luckily, China's population is huge, and I mean huge since ancient times. I remember Rome was still fairly small when the capital of Chin already hit estimated 1,000,000 population mark. If it's so easy to genocide the steppe nomads, it probably would've been done long time ago. Supplies and unfamiliar terrain all give countless Chinese emperor and generals tremendous amount of headache when they tried to deal with the steppe nomads. There is no shame in admitting defeat really, honestly, steppe nomads simply destroyed and annihilated everyone around them. I can dig into European history to show you how many "Europeans" perished at the hands of various barbarian waves. The middle east was sacked and conquered many times as well. Let's not forget Egypt was conquered too. Of all the ancient civilization, China's dealing with barbarian is unique. India might be the only one who didn't really prevailed against the barbarian invaders by military force. Even Egypt managed to overthrow its barbarian master in its history... India...err, not so sure. China is the only one that really employed a good deal of diplomacy + military and prevailed so to speak. Iranian/middle east, Egypt, etc. didn't really prevailed and pushed the barbarians back as much as the Chinese did. It's not until the modern era that the Russians first with cossacks then with tanks pacified the vast Eurasia steppe area

Well put. Chinese people have a lot to be proud of with their long and storied history. The debt the world owes China for its myriad of inventions is enormous. Like you said however, this was not one of their better eras. Giving credit to the Mongols in no way diminishes anything the Chinese as a people did.

I think that is one problem a lot of Chinese I've met have trouble with. I mentioned the interesting dichotomy I encountered when I speak to Chinese about the Mongols, then Yuan dynasty. Sometimes Mongols are Chinese, sometimes Mongols are barbarian. Are Yuan Chinese? It's pretty much yes, it's Chinese according to all the Chinese I met but are Mongols Chinese, don't Mongols established Yuan and wasn't Ming dynasty proud to be the one to overthrow and drive out Mongolians, etc.? Now that's the interesting part start. Although I believe I found an answer, I don't have time right now to dive deep into it and had to be brief in my other posts before. China's biggest power is not military, but the power of assimilation, absorption. That is truly a fairly unique and powerful weapon all on its own.

No, I only said this was not one of our better eras, politically and militarily.

However the Southern Song was probably our greatest era, in terms of social mobility, general economic prosperity, education, 'industrial' output, inventiness, international trade and especially cultural prowess.

The loss of the north made the Southern Song a somewhat atypical Chinese dynasty. This is 'blue' maritime China at its best. Displaced to the Hangzhou area (to get out of the reach of marauding Jurchen forces), the Southern Song court turned its energies to the sea, and developed a vast marine fleet, to carry out international trade. So much so that the Chinese pushed the Arab and Indian merchants out of the international sea-trade in East and SE Asia. Remember that this was the China that developed paper money.

The educational level of the general populace also reached a new high, which was probably never exceeded until way into the PRC era. It was said that every village in the Hangzhou region had a school. There were chief ministers who came from the poorest backgrounds, due to the wide availability of literal education.

And food production was greatly boosted by the importation of some rice species fr SE Asia, that enabled double or even triple plantings in a year...

No, Chinese history also had other dynasty where the north is not controlled by "han Chinese". Besides north and south song dynasty, also Jin dynasty.
map of west Jin
and see the difference with map of east Jin

Even Qin Shi Huang's ancestors were "Barbarian". The Zhou dynasty "hired" Chin's tribe to help Zhou guard its NW frontier against barbarians. Eventually Chin was "sinicized" and unified China. Countless Chinese can probably trace their ancestry to various steppe nomads if we can figure out the pertinent genetic traits of various steppe barbarian (alas, it might be impossible unless we can invent time machine. Steppe pastoralist live a harsh life. If you lose a fight and cede your pasture to a neighbor tribe, you either find replace pasture to displace someone else or you perish When China displaced one barbarian on the east the pressure can often be felt in Europe a few generations or within a decade or 2 as neighbors nudged neighbor, either win or perish and the nudging just keeps on going westward and also south.

Sung also developed a massive iron industry, one that may have rivaled England during England's industrial revolution 700 years before England.

From professor McNeil's book, A world history, on page 253

"Nevertheless, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries somethign approaching the sort of economic development that transformed western Europe after the eighteenth century almost came to pas in China. Thus, for example, the Chinese built up a massive iron industry using coal for fuel some seven hundred years before England did the same. Simultaneously, regional specialization created the basis for an expanding trade within the country; and sea-going ships, sailing for the most part from south China ports, began to develop overseas commerce on a scale never before approached."

page 254

"Thus the iron industry that developed under the Sung seems to have simply ended when government orders for arms ceased."

China has a bad habit of pioneer and discover something new, such as gunpowder and did not fully utilized it. I believe Sung did use crude gunpowder weapon during siege by the Mongolian but it was mostly the Mongolian who took Chinese invention and took it to the next level, including siege warfare.

Mongols also employed non-Mongols. Remember Yelu Chucai? He was the 8th generation grandson of the Khitan king, who was eliminated by the Nuzhen when sung gallied up with Nuzhen to remove Khitan threat.

Alas, I am out of time, there is just too much material, not to mention too many pages for me to catch up now.

I think Chinese are rightfully proud but you should give credit when it's due, that's all.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Yes, I am very well-aware of all that you have posted. I am even posting about the same things.

Why are you arguing against me?

 

[Blitz47]

Sure thing, check it out.
Why am I not surprised to find that it was started by tifa9292 too.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=358330&page=2

I feel dumb now and regret even responding and tried to help some posters here. I especially did not like the voting choices. It's like this

Vote: Was Blitz47 a leader?

1. Yes, Blitz47 is great leader Blitz47
2. Yes, Blitz47 is dear leader Blitz47
3. No, Blitz47 is merely an en lighted ruler, not leader.

Or another joke from one of my Russian professor. Who told me why do Americans complain about communist Soviet Union has no democracy, there is democracy!

Democracy during Soviet Russia

Vote!
On the ballot, 1 candidate you can vote yes or no
vote yes, hurray! long live great leader XXX
vote no, hurray! off to Siberian labor camp I go!

There is voting, there is democracy, and you can certainly choose yes or no!

OP's previous thread with a voting choice such as
View Poll Results: Are you disappointed that korea is not in civ v?
yes, take out one of the europan civilizations 1 1.04%
yes, increase number of civiliztions to 19, 20 or 21 15 15.63%
yes, take out china/japan/siam/aztecs 2 2.08%
no, but definitely include it in an expansion 78 81.25%

Wow, talk about lack of respect or tact...it's amazing and judging by op's posts, something probably did not change much if at all.

Yes, I am very well-aware of all that you have posted. I am even posting about the same things.

Why are you arguing against me?

I'm not argue against you. I guess that initial No became arguing against you. I was adding more to it because I remember Chinese history had a few times where the central government lost a good chunk of its land to barbarians.

I was responding to some other posts too, but did not have time to multiquote everywhere and respond, my bad

 

[Dachs]

The Northern and Southern Dynasties are great fun, not least because of all of the fun parallels to Late Antique Europe. Plus, lolturks.

 

[lolno]

supersis

OK what I don't get is, I show you some maps that claim to show the empire of the Mongols. And these maps clearly indicate that the area of present day China was under Mongol command/influence/rule.

I can show you a map of the British Empire, and can you deny that Victoria was German?

Blitz47

the primarily an pretty much close to 100% of the argriculture Chinese will not be a match for the pastoralist steppe nomads on a 1:1 fight.

It really was the other way around; assuming Chinese troops could ever catch the nomads, they were generally slaughtered. So the nomads resorted to bouncing from one region to the next, mass murdering civilians/allies and burning down farmland, and running away when the army arrived.

Various Chinese dynasties could have simply rolled out the war machine and burned every inch of steppe to the ground, after killing every living creature they found (man, woman, child, baby, goat and horse), and they would have avoided tens of millions of civilian deaths on balance.

If it's so easy to genocide the steppe nomads, it probably would've been done long time ago.

I doubt it, considering China not only tolerated but nurtured extremely militarily weak tribes like the Yuezhi who had fewer fighting age men than 1/20th the Han standing army

China's biggest power is not military, but the power of assimilation, absorption. That is truly a fairly unique and powerful weapon all on its own.

China had a lot of strengths- their weaknesses were poor natural resources, land that was impossible to defend (esp in North China) and being thronged with endless hordes of mass murderers.

Countless Chinese can probably trace their ancestry to various steppe nomads if we can figure out the pertinent genetic traits of various steppe barbarian

From the genetic data I have seen, this appears to be untrue, unless the "barbarians" shared many markers with the "original" Chinese. Northern China remains one of the most genetically homogeneous areas in the world, and without a doubt the most homogeneous of Asia outside of a few pockets of 10-30k people in Northern India.

This is because aside from outnumbering the "barbarians" 50-100 to one, the "barbarians" had a habit of genociding foreign-led dynasties and courts- as well as waging total war against each other. e.g Dzungars vs. the rest of the Mongols, Northern or Eastern Wei vs. Xianbei, etc

 

[Roxlimn]

Various Chinese dynasties could have simply rolled out the war machine and burned every inch of steppe to the ground, after killing every living creature they found (man, woman, child, baby, goat and horse), and they would have avoided tens of millions of civilian deaths on balance.

Is there any evidence that any dynasty was truly capable of doing that? Let's be more specific here. Let's take the Song. Was the Song dynasty capable of projecting military power all the way up to Mongolia, then spend the necessary time and resources to salt every single square inch of land in the country? I mean, could they even kill the steppe nomads? I gather that nomadic communities can be really hard to find if they chose to hide.

 

[lolno]

For example the Han Dynasty was able to project enormous man power over extremely long ranges due to advanced logistics, they could have easily burned and salted a huge swathe of the steppe borders along North China to the point where nothing could live there.

 

[Dachs]

Why would they have wanted to, even if they could have (and I tend to think that it wasn't all that practical, but I only have intimate experience with European and Middle Eastern societies attempting to grapple with this particular problem)? The relationship between the political entities that controlled China Proper and the various steppe powers was never a totally adversarial one; the career of the Yuezhi, for example, makes that crystal clear.

 

[Roxlimn]

For example the Han Dynasty was able to project enormous man power over extremely long ranges due to advanced logistics, they could have easily burned and salted a huge swathe of the steppe borders along North China to the point where nothing could live there.

The Han is a dynasty specific and different from the one I chose as an example. If the Song were incapable of doing so, then clearly, it's not possible for just any dynasty to be able to do what you say is easily done - it must be specific dynasties, and the choice of Han suggests that the dynasty must be a strong one for the question to even be considered.

I'm aware of some specifics that indicate that the Han were capable of projecting man power over long ranges, but for how long? Do you have any data that would indicate that it was practical or easy for the Han to have burned and salted, say, half of the land area of Mongolia while waging a campaign of destruction against the nomads who will surely take offense at such activity?

 

[lolno]

The people there were powerless back then. The problem as another poster mentioned is that many of them were the allies of various Chinese dynasties.

But yes, Song had as far as I know greater logistical and technological capability- and you mustn't underestimate how dry that area gets. A single lightning strike can cause massive miles wide wildfires that burn for days.

The main reason it wouldn't work in Europe is because Europe is too wet, not to mention their agriculture at the time would not have been able to support such manpower.

 

[Dachs]

It doesn't matter whether Europe proper could support that kind of manpower on indig European agriculture. What matters is whether large armies that consume a crapton of food could have been supported from the steppe in such a campaign of destruction as you posit. I lean towards "no", not even - or perhaps, especially - for the various Chinese states.

 

[Roxlimn]

lolno:

So the problem of just rolling out and killing every last nomad alive was that there were other nomads who were allies? I mean, preserve their lands - just kill the nomads who are your enemies. If finding them and killing them to a man wasn't a problem, then having nomads who are allied to you can do nothing but help.

Was this easy for "any Chinese dynasty" to do or wasn't it? I'm getting the impression that it wasn't.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

The Han is a dynasty specific and different from the one I chose as an example. If the Song were incapable of doing so, then clearly, it's not possible for just any dynasty to be able to do what you say is easily done - it must be specific dynasties, and the choice of Han suggests that the dynasty must be a strong one for the question to even be considered.

I'm aware of some specifics that indicate that the Han were capable of projecting man power over long ranges, but for how long? Do you have any data that would indicate that it was practical or easy for the Han to have burned and salted, say, half of the land area of Mongolia while waging a campaign of destruction against the nomads who will surely take offense at such activity?

The Western Han launched five major campaigns into the steppes, to exterminate the Xiong-Nu (those who didn't side with the Han). Full cavalry forces, tens of thousands of soldiers involved and a lot more horses. The campaigns weren't all that successful, and soaked up an incredible amount of expenses, which indirectly led to the fall of the Western Han, as Han Wudi's successors struggled unsuccessfully to recap their losses (they began to allow region-based families to accumulate vast land holdings...).

The Tang were more successful, but they did it in a different way. By various means (marriage alliance, bribes, military expeditions etc), they dominated the steppes and made themselves qaghan.

The Ming were semi-successful. But they were forced to withdraw in the later half, as the Mongols reasserted their dominance, and they retreated and built the Ming Great Wall.

The Qing were the most successful of all. They co-opted some of the Mongols (the Khalka group) into their ranks. 8 of the banners were Mongol banners. Plus the Qing finally had the firearms and cannons, to outmatch the traditional Mongol mounted superiority. Reason why the Qing ruled Mongolia until the demise of their dynasty.

 

[Roxlimn]

Knight-Dragoon:

Thanks. I guess the answer to the assertion is that it's not easy, and not just any Chinese dynasty can do it.

 

[Dachs]

On a similar note, what were the real numbers that were involved in so many of these Chinese military efforts? It seems like a lot of pretty ridiculous numbers get passed on uncritically from the primary sources, unlike in, say, classical Western military history, where nobody really believes that Darayavahush III actually brought a million man army onto the field at the Battle of Gaugamela. Is there no real analysis of this sort of thing along the lines of say Delbrück or have people actually come up with more believable numbers?

 

[Roxlimn]

Dachs:

I don't believe that the numbers were really that ridiculous. I haven't been to the China History Forums in a while, but there are a fair bit of honest-to-goodness published Chinese historians there and they generally only accept numbers from military treatises - better if backed by archeological evidence.

50 000 to 60 000 man armies appears to have been pretty normal for the time. The truly large conflicts involved armies in the hundred thousand man range.

 

[Dachs]

That the historians are published doesn't really mean much of anything; published historians believe all sorts of nonsense all the time. Much of classical Indian history is total crap as far as this goes, for instance, and I have no reason to believe that the Chinese are doing it any better, especially when you bring the ridiculous numbers from, say, the Goguryeo-Sui wars into play. I'm more interested in some kind of Creveldian or Delbrückian analysis of logistics. Archaeology probably won't tell you very much about pure army size, so I'm not really concerned about whether archaeological evidence is considered in the numbers you get in, say, the Hou Han Shu or other texts.