The East Asian history thread!

This may or may not go bust, but here goes nothing.

Here's the thread where we'd discuss anything and everything related to East Asian history in general - so discussion of Chinese, Japanese, Java, Korean, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese history, as well as that of any other OPMs I forgot to mention goes here.

Since this is such a wide topic, I'll pick one specific topic to begin with and see whether anyone buys it: Implications of Qin Shihuang's unification of China in the 3rd century BC. Discuss.

(Let's hope that more people aside from myself and TDM posts here. Otherwise it would become boring fast. )

I always found Chinese history to be confusing. So many cultural clashes with a lot more dynasties taking power and losing in a century.

The only periods that interested me are the Han era, Three Kingdoms Era and Tang era.

Argeus, what's your favorite Chinese Dynasty? I've grappled with this one for a while, and I think I've finally decided on the Song Dynasty. It's just the right mix of technology, population, and arts.

The Song dynasty is actually my least favorite of the bunch. Couldn't fight Liao, couldn't fight Jin, couldn't fight Mongols, and made a habit of executing its best generals every generation. There's such a thing called counterinsurgency taken too far, and they made it.

My favorite is the mainstream dynasty right before that - the Tang, or at least the earlier half. Has my favorite emperor (Tang Taizong - he's inhumanly awesome), not too far off from the Song dynasty in terms of culture, and until the An Shi wars the court managed to keep itself together for the most parts. But after that mark everything fell apart real quick.

Then again, most Chinese dynasties had a nasty habit of falling apart REALLY BADLY after the first four or five saintly rulers.

I just like the Song Dynasty's society and technology. I just like seeing how close China came to modern life in various points in history, it's just fascinating.

An Shi rebellions were kind of dumb to be honest. Which emperor would give nearly half of the domain of the state to his most "trusted" general?

It was much more complex than that.

The key of the An Shi rebellion was the Jiedushi title, which is as close to a semi-independent European fiefdom as China's administrative system in the Tang era could get to. The basic gist of the system was that by that point the Tang empire was controlling a great deal of tribal land that the central administration had great difficulty integrating. The most obvious solution is that the Emperor would grant those regions and the ethnic minorities living in them a certain degree of autonomy, reflected in the nature of this title. The Jiadushi is essentially a subordinate king in all but name, with full rights to raise armies to defend the borders, collect taxes and appoint his own heirs. In most cases, this title was given to wither the Emperor's most trusted courtiers, the most prominent noble of said ethnic minorities, or both at the same time.

What happened in An Lushan's case was that he's won the aging emperor's trust enough to be granted this title in not one but a few of the more prosperous Northern border provinces. Even so, it was nowhere near half of the imperial domain, even less so when you consider the case that the people in mainland China, with their prosperous coastal cities and farming land never actually considered the northern borders anything notable in terms of value. Why it was so devastating was because the emperor and by extension the bulk of the administration with any decision-making power never saw it coming until An Lushan was already coursing around 200000 men down to the capital.

I would chalk that rebellion down to the classical "who would guard the guardian?" dilemma, an old emperor who was at that point more keen on having his last bits of fun than ruling proper, and the fact that his right-hand advisor was a bloody idiot who had an ongoing feud with An Lushan AND underestimated him by a huge margin.

Well, everybody was an idiot then, because the famine and wars cost more than 20 million people as they say. Cannibalism at its best as well.

That's because Chinese magnates tended to be a LOT crazier about becoming emperor than their Western counterparts. Song Taizu summed it best in his speech prior to retiring (not in the euphemistic way, though he had every reason to) his band of brothers who'd fought with him throughout their lives:

"Now you might say you are my brothers and are loyal to me, but what if one day your underlings - opportunistic as they are - would drape a royal cloak around your shoulder? Then you wouldn't be in a position to say no, would you?"

(Prolly not a very good translation though)

That was exactly how he came to the throne - being crowned by his own men while on a campaign - and he really wouldn't like something like that to persist. The Chinese imperial throne has always been nothing short of extremely tempting to anyone with the slightest modicum of power. Those with a position to claim the throne were tempted by the wealth, the power and the pleasures that comes with the package. And those not in that position were tempted by the promise of rich rewards from the former should they support them to gain the throne. Suffice to say, many Chinese emperors were, by modern standards, paranoid as nine hells, and not completely unjustified.

But back on topic - unless you subscribe to the popular theory that An Lushan was in love with Tang Xuanzong's favorite concubine (whom, in turn, he stole from his son) - the fellah had a pretty damn good motivation to do what he did.

Yang Guifei? Well, she was one of the Four Beauties of ancient China, so she must have been a grade A hottie. 

But yeah, I used to consider the Tang my favorite, but the Song fits more into the stereotypical ancient China perception more. :3 Though the Tang dynasty did produce some completely stunning artwork...

Depending on which interpretation you are taking of her, though. She has been explicitly stated in quite a few books I read to be considerably pudgier than the average court lady.

Then again, considering that the ideal vision of a Chinese beauty back at that time (and even now, in the eyes of people like yours truly) is a willow-bodied anorexic figure, we might be getting at something here.

I'd bet she just had 'dem curves.  But anyhow, looking over it again, the Tang dynasty does have some truly wonderful stories. Really the only reason why I like the Song Dynasty so much is because how sophisticated ordinary life became. Anyways, this might sound kind of odd, but... really, one of the reasons why I like China so much is because there is still so much left to learn for me. While I pretty much know European history like the back of my hand, there's so many dynasties and wars and invasions in China that I have yet to learn about. In fact, I like Chinese history so much I'm considering taking a Major in East Asian history in College. 

I really need twin sword in this game.if someone can make it.

There's a several hundred pages long debate on dual wielding, posted in the suggestion forum. The general consensus is that it isn't going to work out on the actual battlefield.

In the history.Siam warriors use it.

Ah? Do you have any sources, out of curiosity?

see

Royal guards? Sure.
Foot soldiers needing practical equipment? Nope.
The point was to not let the enemy get to the king and his fancy guards in the first place.

you should come to see by yourself.in thailand have school teach this martial art.

http://www.sarakadee.com/feature/2003/05/arthamaat_en.htm - Attamat: Ancient Art of Sword Fighting