China and the development of firearms

JsCh said:

I am curious, do you consider Japan homogeneous?

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Is this a trick question?

I say no. Japan is not; mainly because of Okinawa and Hokkaido - even after the Japanese policies to suppress the indigenous Okinawan and Ainu cultures

Malta, North Korea; maybe.

Lezt said:

Is this a trick question?

I say no. Japan is not; mainly because of Okinawa and Hokkaido - even after the Japanese policies to suppress the indigenous Okinawan and Ainu cultures

Malta, North Korea; maybe.

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Yes, it is a trick question.
Because by your definition of homogeneity, there would not be any on this planet beside special case of very small and isolated country.

Japanese and Korean might dream of carrying the banner of the mandate of heaven but they have never considered to be successful by history like the Mongolian and Manchurian.

Hong Kong people answer by stating their political allegiance. They would still consider their race to be Han Chinese.

Tibetan and Mongolian and some other minority for example Chinese Russian/Korean do not consider themselves as belong to the Chinese race because they have their own race. But majority of them considered themselves belong to the Chinese nationality. Moreover, they are minority even if you add them all up together.

China has an overwhelmingly large (over 90%) single ethnic group that has assume the same identity for an extended period of time (millennium). The diversity within that group do not hinder their identity at all. Outside of that group is too small to matter.

Milestone! Warm congratulations to the Chinese first AMF fighter planes （J-31）fly

success!

This morning when 10：32 points, China's second kind of stealth fighter, five generation fighter AMF, J - 31, has formally test flight from the ground.

China become the world's second, at the same time test two five dynasties prototype country.

Previously only the United States at the same time developed F - 22 and F - 35 two five generation machine

We wandered far from the development of fire arms in China!
The American historian William H. O'Neill ( ? I can't find him or the book. I read it some thirty years ago ) considered in a book about Power and History that the indented nature of the Asian peninsula that is called Europe enabled small polities to maintain themselves against neighbors. Over time the number of polities was reduced but the amount of warfare needed let to a faster development of fire arms, as well as more weatherly ships, than happened in Asia.

The notion that European culture is derived from the Greeks and Roman is an invention of the 18th and 19th century. In fact European civilization is largely derived from the Muslims, who indeed transmitted Greek and Roman culture, but also culture from India ( think of our numerals ) and China, but also contributed a huge amount themselves.
The Jews were driven out of Palestine not by the Romans ( they were not allowed to live in Jerusalem because of the three insurrections against Roman rule: 66-70, 115-118 and 132-135, and later, when the Roman Empire had become Christian, because they had murdered god ), and not by the Muslims, but by the Crusaders who murdered about ten thousand when they took Jerusalem in 1098. The Palestinians are the decendents of Jews who converted to Christianity ( about a sixth of the Palestinians are Christian ) or Islam.

jackliu said:

Well I disagree with you, it seems you want to argue that the only type of nationalism is the definition of modern nationalism, and if this were true, it would only apply to nations from 19th century and onward. Even after the found of America, people identity themselves as part of the State they belong much more than the nation. It was not until after the civil war, the attitude starting to change dramatically.

What I am talking about is a shared identity of a single civilization and an single people, which is something China have and no other Empire had, and especially the empires he mentioned in the beginning of Rome, Persian and the Arabs.

And you can't attribute this all to geography, I don't think Western Europe or Middle East had any easier geographic than Northern and Southern China, in fact I would say China's geography are quite harsh then compare to Roman empire and Person empires, and I would totally see that it is very possible that today's China would be like Europe today, split into many nations, each speak their own language and customs, but the fact is, it is not, and have not been for the majority of their history,

And if you want that if it was solely due to the pure willpower of the single warlords who with their willpower and determination is able to united all of China, then why haven't we see them in Europe or Middle East? because by this standards, there has been over a dozen strong will Chinese rulers able to do this over and over again in the time of chaos and break up, but not even a single such person from other civilizations all over earth? Because statistically speaking, this is almost impossible.

And I have said it before, there has been many times when China was fragmented in the past, and under those circumstances for any other people, it would have stayed fragment forever and it did, but not China, they always come together. You can't say this is all because of the will of a single warlord of geography.

Sun Zhongshan, Japanese, Mao Zedong certainly helped them to put a definition of what nationalism is, but way before them, the identity of a single people/civilization have long been deeply ingrained into the people's mind, consciously or unconsciously.

And I agree with your example of post Han and pre-Tang history, it was indeed chaos, but why don't you ask yourself, if it was pure chaos, what make them to unite together to became Tang after that? Why would it have not became like Europe? Where after the fall of Rome, the barbarians took over and the empire was forever lost? Under the circumstances for China, it would be entirely possible for the same outcome to occur, but why it didn't?

And the longer you go back in history, of course, the more fragmented the Chinese identity is, and the closer you go in history, the stronger the identity, so you can't just one instance in Chinese history and call it "Chinese" as the pure definitions of "Chinese", the Chinese identity have always been evolving, and the trend is the identity has becoming stronger and stronger as time passes.

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You forget, Europe did experience a period of unification. It was under the Roman Empire.

The biggest obstacle that geography presents is always logistics. Under the Roman Empire, Europe had the technological and economical power to mount logistical operations that can overcome the European geography and conquer the majority of the European continent.

Once the Roman Empire fell, however, Europe went on a path of feudal-theocracy. Kings were not the highest rulers of the land, they paid obeisance to the Pope. Warfare took on a highly ritualistic form where the nobility had a code of being ransomed back if they were captured in battle. Europeans perfected the technology of armor and castles, but had poor offensive counters to these such as crossbows and siege engines. In short, the military technology of medieval Europe was geared toward turtling. Castle sieges were enormously expensive, and no single King could gain the economic strength to conquer his neighbor, nevermind the entire continent. Remember the the Hundred Year War between the French and the English? Those guys went at it for a hundred fricking years over an area of land the size of a Chinese province, and still couldn't conquer each other!

So you can't just consider geography alone. You have to consider it along with the technological and logistic capabilities of the civilization.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, much knowledge was lost to the Europeans, including things like sanitation and road construction. On the other hand, despite the centuries of warfare after the fall of the Han Dynasty, the Chinese civilization still kept the knowledge of their forefathers. During the 400 years of fragmentation, any one faction had the *potential* to unify the land, it's just that none of them had any lasting success until Tang.

Lezt said:

The question then becomes where do you draw the fine line?

Practically, entire western culture is a decedent of greeko-roman culture. To the point where the Holy Roman Empire (Germany) thought that it was the 2nd rome, that the Russian Empire considered itself the third Rome. alternatively, Asian culture (I am using it in the classical term), middle eastern culture is a direct decedent of the Persian and Babylonian cultures, yet no one after claimed to be the recarnation of the prior although they share the same culture, language and heritage.

Japan is an interesting question, genetically Chinese and Japanese are more or less identical; but I doubt that you will find people form either nation who willingly believe they are the same as the other. But Why I bring up Japan, and likewise Korea and Vietnam is that; during the fall of China, they thought themselves as the continuation of the "chinese essence" just as HRE and Russia had after the fall of rome. What more is, Japan also took the idea of mandate of heaven for their emperor; and like China, had used that mandate to shift power many times.

I am from HK, you can ask a person on the street who they feel they are and 50% of the time, you will get an answer that they are HongKongness while the other half will reply that they are chinese. As I am currently in Mongolia, infact I will be beaten up by neo-nazi skin heads if I suggest that they are Chinese - but you get Chinese styled temples and paintings etc. When I was in Tibet, Tibetans didn't really consider themselves Chinese either

So it is a much more muddled question; China is like Russia. It is much more like a country born out of the carcass of an empire and within it's borders are a diverse people who may not consider themselves as a part of the host country even thou they reside in it and share the same cultural heritage.

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I hope you are NOT serious about comparing western culture to Chinese culture my friend.

Entire western culture is a decedent of greeko-roman culture, but it is only a descendant from learning from the books and conquest, there is no direct linage between Western culture at all, the closest connection is between Roman and Greeks, mostly because Rome learn from the Greeks mostly because they defeated the Greeks and colonize them and learn a lot from Greek slaves they employed.

And please tell me you are joking about the Holy Roman Empire, they were NOT Rome in any way possible, culturally or generically, I think the catholic church itself actually have more tradition from Rome than the Holy Roman Empire itself, they were nothing more than just a bunch of a loose feudal kingdoms that have this fantasy they were the 2nd Rome, but no they were NOT in anyway ship resemble Rome.

Voltaire sum it up nicely about them. "This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."

There is no way in hell you can compare them to Chinese dynasty, if you do, you are either extremely delusional, or you really REALLY need to back to the history books.

Same thing goes for Russia, heck or even the Turks, everyone wants to be Rome after the fall of Rome, but it does not make it so, just because I think Jack Liu is the descendants of Liu Bang does not make it true. Because if there is no physical, no archaeological, no historical evidence there is NO connection. However all Chinese dynasty are connected from each other physically, there maybe much chaos in between but the time of unification is way longer.

Oh and yes, seriously dude Middle East empires??? Connections??? do you even know any history at all??? The earilist empire in middle east the Babylonian, the Assyrian Empires have NOTHING to do with the descendant empires, totally different culture, different people, different custom, different religion, different view of the world. Let's just take a look at religion, Babylonian practice Chaldeans, the Achaemenid Persian Empire practiced the famous Zoroastrianism, after their conquest by the Greeks, they introduced Western pagan religions, and well as Buddhism from India. After their conquest by Rome, a little was changed because region was similar, but then the native Parthian/Sassanid Empire broke away and took charge, they then have their own new religion again... Then comes the Islam invasion from East and introduced Islam and washed away everything else. I hope you can see the pattern here, there is THERE IS NO PATTERN, the only pattern is that they live on the same land, and occasionally one empire claim they are the descent from the other empire, but everyone else include they themselves knows they were not, they only claim so because it make them feel good, give them legit rule and strengthen their political power. And don't even let me trace their spoken/written language through out the time, you will not like what you see.

Can you say the same about the Chinese empires? They have surprisingly homogeneous culture all the way back from 2000 years ago, If I have a time machine and went back to the Han dynasty, I would not feel like I am visit an alien culture, however the same cannot be said for a modern Egyptian to go back to the Pharaohs days.

Show me another culture who have something remotely similar to this.

I'm sorry for the long response, but when you know nothing about what you talking about and randomly throw out terms like "Holy Roman Empire, Babylonian, Persian etc..." and try to make it stick, you just open up a whole can of worms, next time please go into deeper and explain your example rather before throw out names which DOES NOT support what you trying to say.

sigh...

Ok, lets move to Japan. Japan's so call "mandate of Heavy" is NOTHING like China's mandate of Heaven, in fact I don't even think they have one, the emperor itself rare have any power, it think itself too good to involve itself in politics, it was nothing more than a figure head while the real power is in the hand of various warlord and shogun. And the example of Vietnam and Korea that they so uphold Chinese culture is not because they want to be Chinese, because they have been so influence by Chinese culture that they want to hold on to their own culture, which at the same time is the Chinese culture.

And NO the China did not fall, it never fall, it is always there it just got weakened, and no, Vietnam and Korea never once said "We are the new China now" I have no idea where you are getting this from. It seems you just want to support your thesis that China is same as Rome, so whoever happen to Rome, happen to China. Which again.. totally bull.

So you are HKer huh? Good for you, please educated me what is HK culture base on? How long does this HK culture date back? What language does HKer speak? Where is HK language come from? What holiday does HK people celebrate? What food does HK people eat?

HK identity is not a culture identity, it is a regional identical, must like Shanghainess identity or any other dozens of China's regional identical, you guys are as Chinese as your bothers and sisters across the river, only differences is you feel you are rich and successful that you snub everyone, that you feel you are superior solely due to your wealth, but hate to break it to you brother, you are the same as the rest of 1.3 billion people no matter how superior you are or how different you feel. Answer me honest, in 1000 years, how strong do you think the HK identity will be? In fact I won't be surprised if people are studying HK history from the history archives.

I already said in my earlier post that Tibet and Uygur and Mongolians don't consider themselves to be Chinese, because they are relatively new conquest by the Chinese civilization, thus they feel the need to rebel, but you, yourself have listed dozens of other races in the past being conquered by Chinese civilization, and look what happen to them? They were all integrated into the Chinese civilization didn't they? I'm sure at the time of conquest, they felt as strongly as Tibetan/Uygur /Mongolians feel today. But record speak for itself of what happened to them.

And NO China is not like Russia, and the example you give was the USSR, who's half of their populations consider themselves none Russians, and the break of of USSR solve the problem, nowadays majority of people in Russia consider themselves to be Russian, and yes the majority of people in China consider themselves to be Chinese as well. Notice I said "Chinese" not "Han"

Please in your next reply, go deep into your each example and expand upon it, you can't just throw out stuff like firing a shotgun and hope something will hit.

Chill Jack.

I will find you the sources once I have time.

And reread my post, I never said HRE was ever like a dynasty; I said that HRE thought themselves as Romans and an embodiment of Rome even thou they are not; just like many people nowadays think themselves as Han, and they are not.

And I know my history well, religion is not a good indicator of cultural inheritance. If you have been to Egypt, you would know, people are more prideful of being Egyptians, the decedents of the Pharaohs instead of being the decedents of Islam.

You also do know that the Russian Empire is larger than the Soviet Union; the laregest extent of the russian empire is 23.7 million square km, while the USSR was 22.4 million square km. Hence, your statement is wrong

Lezt said:

Chill Jack.

I will find you the sources once I have time.

And reread my post, I never said HRE was ever like a dynasty; I said that HRE thought themselves as Romans and an embodiment of Rome even thou they are not; just like many people nowadays think themselves as Han, and they are not.

And I know my history well, religion is not a good indicator of cultural inheritance. If you have been to Egypt, you would know, people are more prideful of being Egyptians, the decedents of the Pharaohs instead of being the decedents of Islam.

You also do know that the Russian Empire is larger than the Soviet Union; the laregest extent of the russian empire is 23.7 million square km, while the USSR was 22.4 million square km. Hence, your statement is wrong

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So what is your point of the last reply huh? My thesis is Chinese civilization is much more unified as a political and cultural identity than any other human civilization on earth, maybe you can argue that Jews share some of this aspect as well, but what they have experience in the past is not even close when compare to Chinese civilization. And my thesis is that China though out history was much more homogeneous than any other people on earth as well. And your original reply was trying to dispute that I assume by bring up Rome and others, and this reply, it seems you never challenge my main thesis. So I assume you agree with it?

And no, just because you THOUGH you are someone does not MAKE you it, heck, HRE, Tsarist Russia, Ottoman Turks and even the Arabs at sometime entertain the notion that they are the 2nd coming of Rome, but does it make them the direct descent of Rome? HELL NO.

Same cannot be said for the Chinese civilization, their linage is very much continuous.

Religion was just an example, so what else do you want to measure it on? You want to measure it on Language? Trust me, you don't, it will support my point even more than yours. And again... modern Egyptian are prideful of their history as they should, because it was a glorious history indeed, but so what? The ancient Egyptian to them is nothing more than a distant memory than anything else, did you even know that until they Napoleon's team discovered the Rosetta Stone, the old Egyptian language was lost for almost 2000 years, that means for 2000 years the Egyptian people have no freaking idea what is all the grand monument around them was saying, how is that for culture connectivity? And look a the Chinese history, their language Notice how the words today are direct evolution from the 1400 BC, please, please show me ONE civilization among the history of human have something similar? Go ahead, take your time.

As for the Russia, I am referring to Russia to TODAY, not the Russian empire before 1917, that was indeed very similar to what USSR is, but today's Russia is not the same as USSR or Tsarist Russia. Today's Russia is much more homogeneous in term of it is population.

Again, before you post anything to dispute what I wrote, I just want to get one thing straight, my whole point is Chinese civilization is very different from all over civilization and culture on earth, it has a unbroken record, one generation have direct descendant from the next generation, there is no invasion, no plague, no outside intervention, no internal down fall that broke their linage all the way form beginning to today. And most Chinese have this identity of being Chinese for a lot longer than other civilization on earth. If you disagree about this, go ahead and say it.

jackliu said:

So what is your point of the last reply huh? My thesis is Chinese civilization is much more unified as a political and cultural identity than any other human civilization on earth, maybe you can argue that Jews share some of this aspect as well, but what they have experience in the past is not even close when compare to Chinese civilization. And my thesis is that China though out history was much more homogeneous than any other people on earth as well.

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When you phrase it that way, both your theses are provably false. Korea is a far more homogeneous people than China, and the Jewish cultural identity is much more unified due to their sharing of a single religion.

The view that China is a homogeneous culture is a myth. The Han ethnicity is a social construct. Northern Han is more genetically similar to northern minorities than to southern Han.

You only think China is homogeneous because it presents a single version of history for you to consume. This is the result of millenia of central authority, both political and social (in the form of Confucianism).

What is probably more accurate is to think of the Chinese cultural identity as a web spanning all kinds of people and cultures.

Modern nationalism has obviously cemented this identity, but if we go back 200 years, when this Nationalism did not yet exist, we can see where your "homogeneous" argument breaks down.

Let's imagine it's 1812, less than 3 decades before the Opium War. The Emperor is Jiaqing, son of the great Emperor Qianlong. Jiaqing is well meaning, but know he has no chance of matching the fame of his father. Even though he executed He Sheng, the roots of corruption have taken deep hold among the imperial functionaries. Strange foreign devils are asking to trade with the Celestial Court, but they have been confined to a single port in Guangdong.

Let's take a rice farmer from Suzhou, a peddler from Beijing, and a weaver from Yunnan. The farmer and the peddler both identify themselves as of the Han race, and the weaver is of the Miao race.

Of those 3, only the peddler is literate. None of them even speak the same language. Yet they would all be considered Chinese. So apart from all being subjects of the Qing Empire, what traits can you identify that all 3 would share, but which a "non-Chinese" would not normally have?

solarz said:

When you phrase it that way, both your theses are provably false. Korea is a far more homogeneous people than China, and the Jewish cultural identity is much more unified due to their sharing of a single religion.

The view that China is a homogeneous culture is a myth. The Han ethnicity is a social construct. Northern Han is more genetically similar to northern minorities than to southern Han.

You only think China is homogeneous because it presents a single version of history for you to consume. This is the result of millenia of central authority, both political and social (in the form of Confucianism).

What is probably more accurate is to think of the Chinese cultural identity as a web spanning all kinds of people and cultures.

Modern nationalism has obviously cemented this identity, but if we go back 200 years, when this Nationalism did not yet exist, we can see where your "homogeneous" argument breaks down.

Let's imagine it's 1812, less than 3 decades before the Opium War. The Emperor is Jiaqing, son of the great Emperor Qianlong. Jiaqing is well meaning, but know he has no chance of matching the fame of his father. Even though he executed He Sheng, the roots of corruption have taken deep hold among the imperial functionaries. Strange foreign devils are asking to trade with the Celestial Court, but they have been confined to a single port in Guangdong.

Let's take a rice farmer from Suzhou, a peddler from Beijing, and a weaver from Yunnan. The farmer and the peddler both identify themselves as of the Han race, and the weaver is of the Miao race.

Of those 3, only the peddler is literate. None of them even speak the same language. Yet they would all be considered Chinese. So apart from all being subjects of the Qing Empire, what traits can you identify that all 3 would share, but which a "non-Chinese" would not normally have?

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That is my point!!!! I wrote this in the last few post already, that Chinese or Han is not a genetic identity, it is a cultural identity, it encompass many nationality and genetic differences, it is not about what you are, it is about what you THINK you are, that is makes Chinese unique. I already post this response to the other guy in post #66 so I'll copy and paste here again.

I agree with you everything you have said here, it is not physically possible for the original Han race to totally conquer and wipe out the indigenous population and only grow the Han race on their land, in fact, the only time this has been done is the European invasion of the Americas, where smallpox and deliberate policy that wiped out well over 95% of the existing population.

What happened in Asia mainland is indeed the original Chinese took control and expanded over the existing people's land, there is no doubt about that, but what I'm trying to say is, being Chinese is not about being what is your blood, it is about what is your identity, your philosophy, your culture. The original Chinese may have used physical force to conquer their foe, but in the end, they use culture to integrate them into the Chinese culture so that the conquered people themselves sooner or later consider themselves to the Chinese, and given time, most of them even consider themselves to the Han as well.

The biggest different is not the blood, is what you think you are that counts, and this is where the Chinese empires is most different when compare to others.


Also I may add, if you want to measure a people by their genetic similarity, I remember a few years ago there was a test done on the modern Israelis Jews and their much hated enemy the Muslim Palestinians, the result was truly striking, it shows them to have the same ancestor right at the time when the original Jewish people was chased out of their homeland. That means, those who stayed later converted to Islam long time ago, and those who where exiled kept their identity. But still today, those two people that hate teach other so much are closer in blood than in many Han people from Northern and Southern China. However there is no way you can say, the Israelis and Palestinians are the same people and the Chinese are not. It is not the blood, it is the identity that truly matters.

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And those 3 that you speak of, they have very little actual similarity between them (maybe not the Miao, because depends on the Qing period, they might be in rebellion with the government), but they still share one thing, they considers themselves to be part of the Chinese civilization, and to that extend, they do share some common values systems that they hold together, such as Confucianism, Concept of mandate of heaven, what is Chinese and what is not etc... it is very possible they don't see themselves as modern Chinese see themselves as the Chinese identity today, which includes nationalism in the modern sense, but they already do share this a far greater identity already.

What I'm trying to say is, even if you see them the old Chinese system as extremely backward, but to me, they are extremely advanced, even more advanced than today's culture identity. Because in today's self identity, you are still very much divided by language, by race, by birth location etc.. But not the old Chinese identity, because don't you think it is absolutely amazing for people that speaks totally different language, who lives half of world apart still consider themselves to share a common bond? I think in the far future, this is the identity that all human will have someday, that the identity of being human instead of identity of being part of a nation, or part of a city state, or part of a town, or tribe, and we will not be identified/divided by the language or birth location barrier. Sure the regional identity will always exist, but they will exist to the extend that I think I am a Californian, but I hold my identity of being part USA much more important, this will be similar, in the end the most importance emphasis in the future will be placed upon the common bond that we all share as being part of the human race.

To that extend the old Chinese civilization is extremely close to this concept, and this is done with thousands of years of being relatively homogeneous as part of a centralized government throughout history.