Geographer
Junior Member
This is an awesome discussion, it makes me want to learn more about Chinese history.
The greatest military strategist in Chinese history?
- Thread starter solarz
- Start date
Which was the other two emperors that you are thinking about? Actually in China we are always thinking of the three august ones and five kings (三皇五帝） and Li Shimin is not one of them.
The abovementioned rulers did actually do something that reckon people from writting it down in history, I tend to believe what they say holds true to a certain degree. And to think that at that time, it is basically not as advance as even the Tang dynasty, it is quite some feat to accomplish what they have done.
vesicles
Colonel
Hmmm... the three august ones and five kings (三皇五帝). I am always confused about who these people actually are. If you are talking about Yao, Shun, and Yu, I would have to say that most of the stuff about them is legend/myth than facts. In fact, the hard-core archeology can only date the Chinese history to Shang dynasty, meaning that no artifact of any sort before Shang has been found . And these leaders would be before Shang. Of course, the absence of evidence is NOT the evidence of absence. We can't say they don't exist, but many believe that Yao, Shun and Yu were more like tribal leaders. How big were those tribes? That would be anyone's guess. true, Tang dynasty was much more advanced than pre-historic time of Yao, Shun and Yu. But Tang's enemies were not cavemen either. These enemies were also much more advanced than those of Yao, Shun and Yu.
Some top emperors in China, IMHO, would include Martial emperor of Han, Li Shimin of Tang, Zhu Di of Ming.
Many might say that the Martial emperor of Han focused on military conquests too much. Well, I would say that he was the first emperor who actually beat the Huns. Before him, many leaders dedicated so much effort to defend China against Huns, that these efforts negatively impacted the development of China since it diverted so much resources away from economy. One good example is Shi Huang Di who built the great walls to keep the Huns out. The effort sucked the nation dry and in the end Qin lasted less than 100 years. The martial emperor solved the Hun problem once and for all (well, sort of. china had more problems than only the Huns on its Northern border), and gave China a breather and a chance to develop the economy.
Many would list Kangxi among the greatest. I would have to say that the Qing dynasty looked as good as it was mainly because of Yongzheng, between Kangxi and Qianlong. Kangxi's policies were very wasteful, kind of like the big government thing we talk about now. And he allowed so much corruption to keep going since many of those officials were his loyal followers. I think by the time Yongzheng took place, Qing was pretty much in bankruptcy. Yongzheng was the one who corrected all the mistakes that Kangxi had and cleaned up the govn't. In 13 years that Yongzheng was in the throne, he managed to save huge amount of surplus and sort of pull Qing dynasty back. Then Qianlong took over and managed to spend all that money that his dad managed to save away in about 60 years. People call the period as Kang-Qian greatness. In fact, it was Yongzheng in the middle who did all the work. He's had a bad name mainly because he was too ruthless in his effort to clean the govn't. He killed a lot of people, many of them corrupted officials that his dad, Kangxi, would not touch.
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I agree with u. However I did believe of the existence of these people. Although they are now mainly legend, but legend must be basing on something real. And yes, the enemies of the the three august ones and five kings are actually cavemen and not as advance, but we have to remember that it is the prehistoric time and there simply is no forebear for these people to follow on, so the tactics and strategy that they actually created are basing entirely on their own wisdom. Also many of the feats done by these primal kings are something that we will sings in praise, like the Shennong, who actually teach the public of agriculture and that is a big developement and have a better food stock. One of the kings, I couldn't remember which one, actually teach the ancient chinese to cook their food, so they do not eat the meat raw (which according to chinese medical teaching is bad for the gastric). Also without any references to anyone previous to them, Yao or Shun actually manage to drain the water and prevent flooding which at that time would most definitely destroy the entire country.
Actually I would say that Qin Shi Huang should be ranked in the top emperors of china too. Although he is a tyrant and people or historians do not like him, but if we actually looked into his management of the country, we might get some view of something extremely advance and was even being practiced in today's world - Standardization. Standardization is something that is always being overlook but was something that is extremely important, in a sense that it would actually reduce logistical problem, supply chain problem and made the entire country easier to manage. This was more pronouce in the standardisation of the language system in which there is only one language left throughout the country and so people actually understand each other across China. Lastly he and his ancestor before him actually came up with a tracing system that was the ancestor to Quality Control System that was even used till this day.
What u say is so true, and I agreed with u. However we must admit that at Kangxi time, he really have no choice but to implement what he have done because during his time, Qing had just been form and there was a lot of resistances both internally and externally (Mongol, Russia, the three kings, Taiwan, Tibet) If he didn't use hard handed method to push down the resistance, Qing would have been destroyed long ago.
However I 100% agree with u on Yongzhen's administration that actually accumulate the wealth of Qing Dynasty. Too bad his position on the throne is so short. As for Qianglong, I personally believe that he is just a passenger riding on the success of the two emperors before him (three emperors to be exact, but Kangxi's dad didn't really do that much except to accept Han Chinese into the court).
So in conclusion to the Qing Dynasty, I think I can summarise the following,
1) Kangxi - accummulate and consoliate the power of Qing and to stablize the country from any military and political threat - however in the process, allow for the corruption to grow almost uncheck or without any time to check.
2) Yongzhen - to accummulate and build up the economy of Qing Dynasty making her a economical power as well as a military power (left down by Kangxi's legacy)
3) Qian Long - marking of the decay and slow downfall of the Qing Dynasty and seriously I couldn't see anything good about that emperor especially one who used He Shen as his minister (the most corrupted man in Qing, and when he was finally killed by Qianlong's son, the wealth found in the household of He Shen is able to account for 3 years of tax of the entire country).