Chinas best dynastic military?

I bet to differ your explanation on why Chinese call themselves Han. It was not because Han dynasty brought glory to them. It is because they are a race call the Han race. In the past, there are different races in China, the Qin, the Zhou, etc. Han at that time is also consider as a small country. Qin conquered all the states at that time, and Han and Zhou rebel later.

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This is completely wrong, and I've never heard this before either.

Before Qin unification, there were actual major differences between regions of what is now China. Starting from the Qin dynasty onwards, all the groups eventually melted into one. The most significant melting took place during the Han Dynasty (right after Qin). From our perspective today, ancient differences were wiped out thousands of years ago.

The latest members into the melting pot are from the Manchuria and Fujian. Both groups were "on and off" borderline Chinese for thousands of years before finally being totally absorbed -- Fujian during the Tang and Manchuria during the Qing. Total absorption means the original culture is totally displaced by the uniform Chinese culture.

(Note: maybe Taiwanese aborigines are the latest now. Their absorption took place in the 20th Century.)

"Han Chinese" nowadays just refers to people in "China proper" who traditionally practiced Confucianism as a social system and have a common writing system. This is distinguished from Buddhist Tibetans and Muslims in Xinjiang.

The concept of Han Chinese probably didn't really exist until the Republican era, when the KMT wanted to distinguish the ruling dynasty -- originally from Manchuria -- from other Chinese. So the other Chinese were called "Han" as opposed to "Man" (Manchurian). This distinction has largely been abandoned since the Republican era.

PRC further institutionalized this with its idea that China is composed of the "Han Chinese" (the big yellow star) together with various non-Han Chinese (the other yellow stars). Han Chinese is 95% of the population.

Even using Confucianism as a defining characteristic is unwieldy because you have all these linguistic and subtle ethnic differences across regions. The northern half of China is Mandarin speaking. The southern half speaks a whole bunch of dialects. But nobody doubts that all are equally Chinese.

If there is any dispute over "Chinese-ness", the north would point out that Mandarin is the common dialect. But the south would say that northerners are a mix of Mongolian, Manchurian and "Han Chinese", while the south are pure "Han Chinese."

What about indigenous people in Yunnan province? I thought they still spoke their own languages and had their own customs, albeit in small numbers.

Finn McCool said:

What about indigenous people in Yunnan province? I thought they still spoke their own languages and had their own customs, albeit in small numbers.

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Like the Miao and such? Some of these groups are probably related to the Burmese.

A lot of people don't realize this, but right up to the 9th Century AD, an Indo-European race (Caucasian and all) and speaking a distinct Indo European language (related to English and the languages in Europe) lived in Xinjiang, Taklamakan basin, the Gansu and Shaaxi provinces. The Greeks call them Tocharians, and most scholars believe these are what the Chinese call the Yuezhi or "Moon People". Recovered manuscripts of Buddhist sutras are often revealed written in this language and these peoples were likely to have played a vital part of the transmission of Buddhism to China. This is especially in the way some Buddhist monks are depicted in the Tang period to have blue eyes and such. These people may have been absorbed into the Uighyurs and into the main Han body.

I think Chinese Han identify originated in Han dynasty, but it was due to the war with Huns. Han fought with Huns for 200 years, Hun was half conquered half driven out toward the west.

If a nation fights with a single enemy for 200 years(think about you fight with someone since 1800), definitely it will creates something like that, just like Roman and German case. When Han collapsed, it was the Jin dynasty(the same name for the Chinese SSBN) that succeeded it. But Jin was a very corrupted court, 8 princesses fought with each other and that led to the conquered Huns rebelled, even those Huns were sinolized already.

It was exactly like German rebellion within Roman Empire that finished Rome, and created the huge chaoes. All babarians invaded China from all the sides(Huns quickly went irrelevent), fought each others and tried to establish their footprint. To distinguish from them, Han identity became stronger even. The chaoes lasted about 300 years, and magically, all "barbarians" were sinolized and China was reborn at last, that's quite different from Rome.

Today Mongols treat Huns as their ancestor. But according to the old classical Chinese legendary, Han and Huns originated from the same source, they splited later and one part became civilized(adopted farming), the other parts remains "barbarian".

The Hans and the Huns probably came from the same root of humanity that created mongoloids, but I don't think they share a more recent common history. That is probably because of the language. The Hun language is probably something of the Altaic family, which Turkic and Mongolic belongs to, as well Korean and a bit far off, Japanese. Manchurian also falls into this.

Whereas the original Chinese speakers are probably from the same root that created the Tibetan speakers, as well as that of extinct groups like the Tanguts of the Xi-Xia dynasty.

The most interesting aspect is what the Chinese call themselves in the past, since they don't call themselves "Chinese" as that word actually has a more direct Western origin. Nor did they call themselves "Han" until a much later period as well.

But it was the concept of Zhongguo and Zhongguo-ren that started the earliest. During the Chou period, some of the states started calling themselves Zhong Guo or Middle Kingdom. It is originally at first, to claim legitimacy that they are the "central kingdom" and by being so, becomes the center of the world, and the one that is rightfully destined to rule over all. And of course, the people in the Zhongguo becomes Zhongguoren.

But then the other states, even those of barbarian origins, say, "you can't be" and they themselves try to claim legitimacy by announcing themselves that their kingdoms are "Zhongguo", and naturally their people also becomes "Zhongguoren". And then after time, and after time, all these peoples are claiming to be Zhongguo and Zhongguoren, and suddenly an entire national identity slowly but inevitably emerges behind this Zhongguo concept.

I'd like to give my thoughts on the topic. I welcome any comments.

Chinese history is split into three broad eras:

The first era is the ancient era, before there existed a unitary state that occupied all the ideal agricultural lands of East Asia (i.e. "China proper"). During this time, even on the agricultural lands, there were non-agricultural tribal people. Sort of like late neolithic tribes.

This era includes Xia, Zhou, Shang, .... , up to Qin Dynasty


The second era is the China proper era, where the agricultural areas now defined as China proper were largely brought under rule by one state (or rule by multiple kingdoms within the same civilization). The political power tended to be north of the Yantze, but the south had great fertile land, large populations and economic strength.

There was a clean boundary between the civilized Han Chinese and the uncivilized barbarians outside of the Middle Kingdom. The peak of this era is the Tang Dynasty. IMO, the decline of this "China proper era" is due to the dominance of Confucian thinking, which "bred out" natural masculine warrior traits from the Han Chinese.

This era includes Qin Dynasty up to Northern Song


The third era is the rule and assimilation by nomadic barbarians era, where the center of power shifted to the Great Wall region -- sometimes a little further north, sometimes a little further south. In this era, the previous entity -- "China proper" -- could no longer be an effective political unit.

Starting with the Southern Song, nomadic barbarians either ruled all of China, or at least the northern parts. They were simply better warrior in general than the Confucian / agricultural Han Chinese. Eventually, the nomads became semi-nomadic, and finally became feudal and assimilated into the majority (agricultural) population.

The sole exception to this is the Ming Dynasty, but only the first two Emperors of Ming were any good at all. Hongwu and Yongle seemed to have successfully resurrected the old "China proper" political entity, but their successors quickly let corruption get out of hand and adopted very rigid Confucian views. The turning point was when, after the death of Yongle Emperor, the Ming Treasure Fleet was destroyed and China adopted an official policy of slow steady stagnation.

The Yuan and Qing Dynasties were very similar in some ways. The Qing is practically a rebirth of Yuan. In both Yuan and Qing, the beginning of the Dynasty marked great conquests into frontier regions. Of course the height of Yuan was a lot shorter than Qing, since Qing lasted much longer in total. The last great Qing Emperor was Qianlong, but he made the single gravest mistake of all -- abandoning gunpowder weapons. In both Yuan and Qing, the decline came very fast after the last great Emperor and went very low.


The ROC tried to return to the "China proper" era by putting the capital at Nanking, and also by their view of Manchuria as "not Chinese". The PRC is consistent with the third era -- mirroring the early Qing Dynasty.

Ancient Era can also be called the Bronze Era since bronzes predominate in warfare. Conveniently at the time of the Qin unification, China has already started moving to the Iron age at the last periods of the Warring States. This era is the most formative for Chinese thought, being the age of Confucius, Lao Tze, and other formative thinkers like Sun Tze.

I think the Qin to Tang represents the next era of China, which be best described as its westernization. The Qin themselves came from west of China, and this is symbolized in the setting up of the capital in the West, now Xian, in Shaanxi province. Xian will be the imperial capital for the Qin, Han and Tang Dynasties. This is also the era of the Silk Road, the era of the Iron Age of China. And also the introduction of Buddism. In warfare, this is marked with warfare being concentrated now against northern barbarians. There are periods of disunity and weakness, like the Three Kingdoms period and the Jin Dynasty.

The Qin and the later Han represent the Western Chinese. The Three Kingdoms period represent the conflict of the three poles of China---the Western, Northern and Southern Chinese, represented by the Three Kingdoms, Shu (West), Wei (North), and Wu (South). Of the three, the Shu considers themselves as the true successors of the Han, being set in the West, which is which it is also called Shu-Han. The West is represented by a Xian-Chengdu axis; the North by the Central Plains all the way to the areas that would be Beijing and so on; the South by south of the Yangtze in the area that would be and border around Shanghai.

In the end, the Wei managed to prevail setting up what will be the Jin Dynasty. That's the aberration of this time period, since the Western Chinese would come back later and set up the Tang.

The Medieval period of China ends with the fall of the Tang and the rise of the Song. The Silk Road is Islamicized, the Mongols has become the predominant threat in the North, and China still goes to achieve the highest heights of technology ever. This brilliant period would last from Song-Yuan-Ming. The Mongols did not distract from the intellectual brilliance of this period, but even have their own contributions. The power center moves from the west, then to the south, and finally with the Yuan, to the north, and all the successors kept it at the north.

The Yuan's greatest contribution was the creation of Beijing, which would simply be China's greatest city. And because of the predominance and architecture of the city, it would remain as the "capital" as long as there is a China in this world. However, an alternative capital is set up as Nanjing, where since the Ming, it has become the capital of retreat if Beijing is fallen to a northern invader.

The Qing is an era of its own. Although it started pretty well, it is marked by decay in the latter half, which China still pays for up to now.

The Republic of China reestablishes again the power of the south, with Chiang Kai Sek and his cadres mainly coming from the Shanghai Ningbo area.

Even though the Communist Party has its seat of power in Beijing, it was started in a restaurant in Shanghai. From a Southern power base, the CCP managed to exploit the grievances from the North and West against the ROC, which remained predominantly Southern.

Post Mao era, despite the capital in Bejing, the Shanghai clique dominates, thus creating an imbalance in the way China is developed, favoring the South and the East, while the North and the West did enjoy booms, it wasn't as fast as the southern coastal cities.

Hu Jin Tao on the other hand, comes from the same area where the Qin, Han and Tang Dynasties used to lie, or actually just west of it. HJT goes on to dismantle the "southern" hold on the CCP, and give all areas a more balanced say.

GO THE MONGOLS!

Here's a nice graphical historical timeline of Chinese dynasties & some of their innovations. Hope others will find this useful for any discussions in this thread.

Some guy watch the Hero and say Qin is the best. After all, could you see they still use bronze and with no gun powder? And though they win the war against Huns. They didn't have strong cavalry. Professor from Xi'an say they find no spears around the clay cavalry. But they find part of crossbow. Also, these cavalry didn't armed with heavy armor and even don't have helmet.
Ming had every thing China should have. Heavy armored cavalry, fast horse archers (they carry bows, swords and spear. they are able to handle every task.) , firegun band, elephant. Thought the goverment is weak, the army strong