Asian History

I love the history of China in the time of the three kingdoms; Shu, Wu and Wei.



Later they united by the Sima family to the Jin Dynasty...long story



In my childhood i played a lot of Dynasty Warriors, I also got to hear stories about the three kingdoms in my childhood!

Unfortunately Dynasty Warriors is highly inaccurate and most modern reincarnations are somewhat biased. I still love the game though, got DW7 in my PC right now ^_^

I know there we some efforts at reforming the Empire under the Qing, but for every reformist emperor, there was one who undid all the work and returned to absolutism. I'd love to know what would have happened if Empress Cixi had never intervened in Emperor Guangxu's efforts at reforming China...


peugeot407

I'd love to know what would have happened if Empress Cixi had never intervened in Emperor Guangxu's efforts at reforming China...

Well, there will be no two China in the world? China would get its own kind of Meiji restoration? Oh yes, then the thread would went off topic to a "what would happened if..." thread.

Well, it's not a far stretch to imagine... On the other hand, nor are British involvement in the American Civil War or a French victory in the 1940 Battle of France. Yeah, I get your point...


peugeot407

peugeot407 wrote:French victory in the 1940 Battle of France.

I have honestly never thought of this before, and it's fascinating

It's not very difficult to imagine, really. The Saarland offensive had been immensely succesful right up to the moment Command decided to just abandon it, so the French might have just repeated it in 1940...


peugeot407

The French Army is always seen as powerless and inept during the beginning of WWII, but it simply wasn't the case. It was really the leadership that sunk them, regardless of the German's tech advantage.

Welcome to the problem that has faced France for centuries and up to today. There have been a few instances of France actually having a strong leader. Napoleon is probably the best example of what France could do if they were properly led.

Well, there were quite a couple of capable ones... Francis I, Louis XIV (or rather Richelieu) and Louis Napoleon were all very capable military leaders as well. Command during World War I wasn't extremely bad either, but in World War II, they really did make a couple of epic mistakes that completely annihilated France's odds against Germany.


peugeot407

Yeah, there have been a few good leaders, but predominately incapable ones.
I suppose the most devastating mistake made by the French were their reliance on outdated tactics and misplaced faith. They relied on the archaic strategies of WWI, namely, trenches and dug in fortifications which the Germans could literally drive over because of their tanks.
Also, the French believed that their super trench forts would protect them, these were situated at the border and the germans completely avoided them and rendered them useless. Also, the final nail in the coffin (at least for me) was the lack of a flexible command structure, every single decision took a long time to communicate through the military and any changes in the hierarchy were difficult to implement so when the germans were killing them, they couldn't adapt. You'd think they would learn from the mistakes of the past. History is important.

Anyone know any good books, or article on the Taiping Rebellion? I find it pretty interesting, and Wikipedia isn't satisfying my needs. You'd think there would be more info on it given it's significance in Chinese history...

Funny, I did a massive project on the Taiping Rebellion 2 years ago and yet, I can't remember a single thing about it.

http://taipingrebellion.com/ ? That might work, I took a quick gander and it seemed useful

Public domain texts compiled from scholarly works. Might be outdated, considering that they're public domain now, but they're easy to use as a base to check up on if you care about the latest iterations.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.asp

It's pretty awesome, and there should be plenty about the Taiping if you look.

Awesome thanks guys!

I'm quite curious as to why Britain and France intervened...

money money money, is so funny, in the Caucasian's world~

Spangopola basically summed up 1 of 2 reasons for all conflicts in the past 3 decades.

I'm not entirely sure if it was about money, actually. If so, it would have made more sense for them to side with the Taiping rather than the Qing. It seems far more likely that Britain and France attempted to create some sense of friendship between themselves and the Chinese people, a relationship which was predominantly hostile at the time. Not that it worked of course, it would be less than a decade until Chinese provocations caused the outbreak of the Second Opium War, but still...


peugeot407

Qing supplies them with money and rented areas (I dunno how to call them)... if Taiping managed to overthrow Qing, the entire establishment the foreigners made will go to dust. Taiping is also very anti-foreigners.

In fact, the English approached Taiping to seek for benefits, hoping that they can share china after the British defeated the Qing dynasty... Hong refused, so the English went to help Qing government instead.

Plus religion wise, Hong Xiochuan preaches his own version of Bible, changed its structure...etc. Heck, he can says he's the son of God and brother of Jesus =.= would be seen as paganism I guess. lol.

While we are at this, does anyone know where can I find illustration of Taiping or Taiping era Qing chinese infantry? Other than the Osprey books, whose illustrations seem to be kinda racist.
Female taiping soldiers would also be interesting to find...

This all is for WotTA if anyone wants to know why I'm looking for them.

spangopola wrote:Qing supplies them with money and rented areas (I dunno how to call them)... if Taiping managed to overthrow Qing, the entire establishment the foreigners made will go to dust. Taiping is also very anti-foreigners.

In fact, the English approached Taiping to seek for benefits, hoping that they can share china after the British defeated the Qing dynasty... Hong refused, so the English went to help Qing government instead.

Plus religion wise, Hong Xiochuan preaches his own version of Bible, changed its structure...etc. Heck, he can says he's the son of God and brother of Jesus =.= would be seen as paganism I guess. lol.

They were called "spheres of influence", I think. Also, none of the European nations(/America later on) ever really cared what went on in China as long as it benefited them, and their trade rights were still intact. The only reason they intervened later in the Boxer Rebellion was because of its anti-foreigner mentality

The Great Powers didn't intervene in the Boxer Rebellion, the rebellion was aimed at them, so even if they did not want to, they had no choice but to fight back... The only foreign countries with legations in China that didn't fight back directly were Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Korea, but even those countries were involved, as they backed the French, British and Japanese (respectively) relief forces.

It is peculiar how the Chinese opinion of other countries could change though. In 1842, China was at war with Britain, in 1850 it fought alongside Britain, in 1856 it was at war again, and in 1862 it was allied again. Similarly, in 1895 China was at war with Japan, and again in 1900, but in 1904, the Chinese heavily supported the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War...


peugeot407

A decision that they would tragically regret. China has not been a fortunate nation and its people have suffered greatly

@peugeot407,
I agree with the first point, I worded it incorrectly the first time.
To comment on the second, the reason would be the same for all of them: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. In all these cases, the Chinese allied with someone with whom they shared a common foe. This is less peculiar than devilishly intelligent, especially for China, a country that was always getting bossed around by Europeans for most of the 19th century. They had to switch alliances often as their foes changed. For example, Japan is a natural enemy of China, so the two feuded often. However, neither liked the Russians at all, which overrode their longstanding grievances and forced them together. Same with Britain during the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions, the latter more so than the former - China was forced to ally with the very nation they had been fighting to defeat a common foe (I realize that that doesn't really work for the Taiping Rebellion as much, but you get the point.)