some people may disagree with nowadays China with "this land is historically Chinese that sea is historically Chinese". note that nowadays “Nation-state” is a European and modern international law concept. in ancient times, in this part of the world, east Asia continent, China is the "world", except for Japan, Korea, and some other areas or countries, most surrounding land are cultural/civilization "China". its very similar to nowadays USA, the USA itself is sometimes "global society", NBA champion is "World Champion", even knowing there are other countries on planet earth. and "China" has always been a multi race "nation". when the united "China" break to many "states", they may call themselves different names, they all consider themselves "China" and want to conquer the whole area to be the "world leader" - "China". even Mongol Yuan empire and later Manchurian Qing consider themselves legitimacy “China" with mandate of heaven. and even Han ethnic then was a culture concept rather than a bloodline concept.
15:14 In addition, China has never attempted to colonize Africa and India, and Zheng He's voyages to the West were to "demonstrate China's strength and establish friendly relations with other countries.". At this time, China was a civilized country's visit, while medieval Western navigators were spontaneous merchants and robbers. This is the difference between Chinese and Western cultures. Don't judge China based on colonialism, this is a cultural difference. It's like when Americans see cotton farms in Xinjiang, they think/recognize/advertise it as forced labor, but in reality, only Americans force black slaves to cultivate cotton. They use their own style to label China as a criminal.
India wants a word whit your claims Vietnam wants a word whit you claims Korea wants a word whit your claims hell the Chinese citizens want words whit your claims they where monsters to their people
No one called “China” criminal. Just as no one calls Russia, or North Korea “criminal”. The leadership is most certainly criminal. The CCP is just as criminal as the west was (and is) at its worst. Stop making excuses for CCP criminality. Instead of being defensive, promote change. Be a force for good.
It is also not mentioned in the video that since the Tang Dynasty, Xizang has considered itself a subsidiary of China and offered sacrifices. China will also marry the royal family of Xizang and teach advanced agricultural and industrial technologies to Tibetans. Over the next 1000 years, sometimes Xizang attacked the suzerain state to occupy more territory, but by the Ming and Qing dynasties, two successive dynasties believed that they were subsidiaries of the central government, and the Dalai Lama also claimed allegiance to the central government. It is interesting that Xizang was not mentioned in the video.
Five thousand years ago, the Chinese faced the flood like the Egyptians. Four thousand years ago, the Chinese played with bronzes like the Babylonians. Three thousand years ago, the Chinese thought about philosophy like the Greeks; Two thousand years ago, the Chinese fought everywhere like the Romans; A thousand years ago, the Chinese were as rich as the Arabs; Now, the Chinese are as good at science as the Anglo Saxons The race between civilizations is usually measured in millennia
@@Clause-lf6suChinese successfully survived in that extreme Global climate，which indicate that Chinese was great at some point，better than egyptian at least
It was the culture really holds the nation together. Mongos didn't adapted to Chinese culture so lasted only 100 years, while Qing dynasty lasted 300 hundred years because they adapted completed and blended in Chinese culture. Out of the current 56 ethic groups in China, the Man (the rulers of Qing dynasty) is the most similar one to Han, in tradition and life style. There is almost no difference.
For all those “China is whole again and it broke again” jokes, just remember that every time a dynasty failed the reason was different. Tang failed because by the end the army was controlled not by the central government but the generals of armies stationed off the capital. Song’s first emperor was (kinda) one of those generals and seeing how Tang failed (and because his brother did some William II/Henry I stuff and assumed power-hush hush), ordered his successors to be on strict lookout for the generals. So towards the end of Song, when Jin and the Mongols came calling none of the generals were trusted to fight in those wars. Thing is, we’ve learned throughout our history about all the ways a state can fail, and we’re trying to avoid them.
A country, an Empire would fall mainly because of its own corruptions lead to weakening the country and then peoples stand up for revolution，this happened to many countries Empires Dynasty throughout human history, we have been fighting our humanity for thousands of years with very little improvement despite huge improvement in technology 😂，you see we human being are not that much difference we shared the same ugly weakness and strengths: our humanity
For those wondering why people thought mercury would extend life - they both did and didn't. It was known to be lethal on its own already, but it also is a neurotoxin, so some who took these potions felt better at first because the nerves that told them how their body really was doing were dying out. Mercury was the only solvent that could dissolve heavier substances like metals and minerals, and the mysticism around certain materials made it an almost unavoidable ingredient when they started trying to include things like powdered jade (the mineral) or gold.
13:48 The Ming Dynasty didn't abolished the navy for no reason. At that time, due to the decline of the dynasty, they were unable to support the navy, and fishermen could still go to sea, as well as merchants. But Japanese pirates constantly harassed coastal areas, burned, killed, and looted. In order to protect the country and prevent bad farmers and merchants from colluding with the Japanese to rob merchant ships, the Ming and Qing dynasties began to ban the sea.
Financial problems restricted large fleet. Moreover a large fleet couldn't stop pirates. The Japanese Pirates were composed of 1/3 Japanese and 2/3 Chinese combining.
In addition, the tanks were leaving the Tian'anmen Square, the man stood in front of the tank practically tried to stop the tanks from leaving The Square. At the end of the footage, he was pushed to the side of the road by some mates in civilian clothes, which allowed the tanks to proceed. The complete footage is around here somewhere on RUclips. Good material to see real history and break away from made-up history.
There are several mistakes in the video, Terry corrected some of them not not all. Like, Buddhism comes from Nepal, not India. The war between the Han Dynasty and the Barbarian was not because the Han people wanted better war horses. The Barbarian were nomadic people. They graze but did not farm, and their food production was not as stable as farming civilization. So they regularly robed and killed people in the north of the Han people. They don't like to settle down and are not good at management. so they killed, robbed and left. China began building the Great Wall before unification during the Warring States Period to prevent the Huns from invading. After Qin Shi Huang unified China, he connected the Great Wall built by these kingdoms. Contrary to what the blogger said, China's evaluation of Qin Shi Huang is that the merits outweigh the faults. The recognition of his achievements can be seen from the fact that all subsequent dynasties recognized him as China's first actual emperor. China's dynasty system began with him and continued until the last dynasty, the Qing Dynasty. Both Han and ethnic minority emperors claim to be the successors who were mandated from heaven of Chinese civilization.
A famous Western university professor once pointed out: China is a civilization disguised as a country. It is not determined by race and bloodline, but by cultural identity. In history, ethnic minorities in the border areas have repeatedly occupied mainland China and established dynasties, but they believe that they have occupied China and are called rulers of China, rather than changing the country. This is the foundation for China to form a peaceful coexistence of 56 ethnic groups. 西方一位有名的大学教授曾点出： 中国是一个伪装成国家的文明。不是由种族和血统决定，而是由文化认同决定。历史上边疆的少数民族多次攻占大陆地区并建立王朝，但他们认为自己占据了中国，称为中国的统治者，而不是更换了国家。这就是中国能形成56个民族共同和平存在的基础
Something to note as i have family both in the city and in the countryside. It is a misconception that the free market reforms were entirely responsible for chinas condition today. Though huge mistakes were made during the great leap forward and cultural revolution, communist programs were generally successful. China changed from a underdeveloped country to a industrialized one. China changed from a low literacy rate country to a high literacy rate country. China changed from a food insecure country to a food secure country. And most of these changes happened before the market reforms. Though market reforms did also improve peoples economic conditions, the market reforms themselves owe their success to the decades of large, grand public works programs. Its not just that chinese labor was cheap, what made chinese labor attractive was that they were cheap and literate. The chinese market also isnt efficient without the infrastructure improvements. China has a complex history!
Yeah but Deng's opening up china for international investment, specifically from the west, is what made China what it is today. We know this because Deng got the idea from Lee kuan yew
Deng's opening up china for international investment was part of the market reform that I already mentioned. My point is that grand public infrastructure investment, literacy campaigns, and development of domestic industry were all presequisites for Deng's plans to work.
@@DmoneyS44 sure but I think those would of came naturally or eventually. Not because of communism. The great leap forward and the cultural revolution after it were pretty good examples of the failings of communism. If Deng wanted to open up the economy, he would eventually need to do the same thing. Look at lee kuan yew and what happened in Singapore. They didn't have communism to guide them yet they were reaped the rewards before China ever did
@@bompingdatwomper Singapore may not be communist, but it is collectivist and authoritarian. Singapore had land reform, public infrastructure projects, and education campaigns. On top of that reforming a city of less than 300 sq miles is more simple than reforming a whole country of 3.7 million square miles. The great leap forward and cultural revolution were huge setbacks yet chinas material condition, industry, literacy etc all still improved drastically after the foundation of the PRC and even before the market reforms. That is because critics of China focus on the failures but not the other successful 5 year plans, modernizations, and campaigns. To be clear, I am not saying that communism is "necessary" for progress, but I am saying that communism was responsible for a lot of progress. My rural family in China was illiterate and landless until the communist instituted education and land reforms. My city family was ignorant and engaged in barbaric practices such as binding the feet of their women. The communists abolished such savage traditions. I am not saying that communism was necessary for these things. I am simply saying that it was communists that did these things in those particular places and times.
Actually China's history is not only five thousand years old, there is still a lot of underground work waiting to be excavated, and a lot of archaeological study is still going on. It probably has lasted for at least three thousand years before the Xia Dynasty, many archaeological discoveries are slowly being showed. Chinese people don't rush to dig before the technology improve enough to protect those cultural relics. If you have been to history museums in Xi'an and Luoyang, you will find that modern people are actually no more advanced than the ancients. And Sanxingdui Museum in Sichuan which will totally blow your mind. Very shocking to know that the things used and build during the Han Dynasty are not much different from modern people.
@@amei..2261 Seems to apply to most civilizations in the last few centuries. Each cycle lasted from a few years to a few hundred years. China is about 75 years into this cycle, while the US is approaching 250 years since 1776. We'll have to see whether they can adapt and evolve to outlast the others.
In unified China, during each dynasty, the cycle lasted around 200 years, while the federal system of the United States resembles that of the Zhou Dynasty, which lasted for 791 years.@@hyeung1
Been a long time since i revisit Chinese history. i have a degree in Asian History and Chinese history was part of my studies. Its a very fascinating civilization.
What Mao did is for the independence (if a country not independent, which means being controlled by Western countries at that time, it won’t get strong anymore, just look at India, Argentina, and Korea nowadays) instead of “not communism enough”. The wise of Mao is his support of Deng, the greatness of Deng is that he proves Mao is right. This isn’t just about history, but more geopolitics, which is also why Qin dynasty can build empire of China, and that’s why a weak Qing dynasty can stop quick Western takeover of China’s area. Don’t look down on China. This is what I learned from Yale U.
Its really cool that you're kinda all over the place (like me!) I am studying Middle Eastern studies but currently taking chinese and japanese history as elective courses - because why not, as im at the end of my degree and simultaneously preparing/writing my bachelor thesis. I watched the original video prior to this too, but its cool to get it served like this along with my actual university lectures on chinese history and culture.
Confucius developed his philosophy during the Spring & Autumn period rather than the Warring States period. Both were technically part of the Zhou Dynasty.
Because Confucius himself defined the Spring Autumn period by writing a brief history of the recent centuries and naming it with Spring Autumn after he returned home in his old age.
The thing I've noticed about Chinese history is that they went from the stone age standard hunter gatherers to... China. And they've just kept it going and going
That's exactly right. China is the only one among the four ancient civilizations that has maintained an unbroken history since the Stone Age. This continuity is also attributed to the invention of writing system, which enabled the complete documentation of Chinese history. Moreover, with training and study, modern people can read about events, philosophies, and everything that happened thousands of years ago. Isn't it fascinating
I recommend checking out Overly Sarcastic. Red does Mythology, Legends, Cryptids, Classic Literature and Tropes while Blue keeps it history. Though, he does have a bit of an obsession with Venice..... and domes....
Regarding the “ideas “ you mentioned, there are 4 actually, leading schools of knowledge and wisdom, out of hundreds. The missing one is the school of Mohism. These 4 schools are always being researched together as Ru(confucius), Dao(Taoism), Mo(Mohism) then Fa(Legalism)…
As a Chinese I noticed an interesting difference between China and Western culture. In English we can see terms like "mother earth" or "mother nature". But in China we only call our rivers "mother". Because rivers are source of irrigation, which is the most important thing in an agricultrual civilization. I live in the southern part of China. Yangtze River is our matriarch.
In fact, this is just the narrative logic of ancient Chinese central dynasties, not the complete history of China... Because the central dynasty had many local dynasties at the same time, especially China, which was in a stage of division, when reunification was formed again, it was not an invasion of Korea or Vietnam, but rather the completion of national reunification.. And the Tang Dynasty has never invaded South Korea.. The Central Dynasty only eliminated the local dynasty (gao gou li) in Northeast China, which is not Korea at all. Korea is still with Korea, and the Tang Dynasty did not go at all.
Its refreshing to see this type of stuff about china again. I havent revisited the history in a while but i do remember doing a fun read about the political/geopolitical perspective of history. Example: The dismantling of their ships was not because it was a militaristic navy but because it was part of the mercantile class which accumulated too much capital influence over the dynastic rulers. The ships were large and structured mainly for the purpose of trade.
Pretty sure the traditional writing system is mostly Han-era as well. The characters japan took from china are called "漢字”, which can be read as "Han characters."
The Han characters is so powerfully that it’s what really makes China unite all the time. Even after 5000 years, unite is still the number one priority.
@@AveryMendoza324 Technically it should be 秦字 since Chinese characters were standardized in Qin dynasty. I guess people back then hated the Qin emperor so much that they refused to acknowledge anything that he did.
@@hyeung1 While Warring States/Qin era developed Clerical script (Dishu), it didn't start morphing into Kaishu until Eastern Han and eventual breakup into the Three Kingdoms era. That was what was brought over to the Korean peninsula and to Japan. calling it Hanja/Kanji is very apt. Qin himself created Small Seal script(Xiaozhuan) out of the already pre-established Dazhuan. It's like saying Mao created Simplified Chinese, which is actually not true, he standardized it.
I’m currently in AP world history and learning about China, it’s so hard to remember everything so I’m very grateful that this video exists. I’ll be watching this many times in the future.
I got to see the terracotta warriors, it’s so cool. Palace dramas have been soft-banned recently in China because of “encouraging capitalism” (paraphrasing). Like destroying the artifacts it’s very sad considering all the art and effort that goes into recreating these costumes and jewels.
If you want a channel that does excellent work and focuses mostly on China but also other places like Korea and Japan then I recommend the channel Cool History Bros. Great channel.
I'll have to check Gilgamesh out. Just like what Mr. Terry said about the other channel (don't remember the name or the style it was in), which was that they start out in a style SIMILAR to someone more famous and then as they find their way they morph into something unique.
4:55 Confucius ( c. 551 - c. 479 BCE) lived during the Spring and Autumn Period 春秋 (770 to 481), which preceded the Warring states period. Both happened during the "Eastern Zhou's" of the Zhou dynasty (1046 BC - 256 BC)
To be fair, from my understanding: The Eastern Zhou was when the Zhou rulers were losing steam, so even though the states weren't "warring" too much yet in Spring and Autumn (although smaller states were getting gobbled up by larger states), the main states that would eventually be the main actors of the warring states period weren't fighting each other that frequently.
3:15 Judging whether a king is good or not is very simple. Observing the lives of most people, if they become good, it is a good king. Life has become worse, labor has increased, food is scarce, and people have to exchange children for food. If farmers do not overthrow the dynasty, they cannot survive, and the king is clearly derelict and incompetent. Chinese people are the most skilled in uprisings and revolutions, and they have been doing so for 5000 years. So if CCP was not good, Chinese people would not support their government like they do now, but would have already overthrown CCP like the Republic of China that overthrew Chiang Kai shek.
Although the map contains numerous errors, it still provides a partial summary. The Tang Dynasty began to be referred to as the Heavenly Kingdom by neighboring countries and Central Asia, and frequently came to China to offer sacrifices. Kings from Japan, Korea, and other places needed to be conferred titles by the Chinese emperor. The Han people defeated all northern ethnic groups in history, forcing the enemy to migrate to distant Europe
Jesus and Confucius share several similarities:He emphasized the harmonious relationships between people and the importance of moral behavior and personal virtue. He was a great educator and guide, and his words and deeds were recorded by disciples or followers, having a profound impact. In the West, he became a religion, but in the East, another he became a teacher.
Debate around Xia is whether it’s called Xia or not, highly mature civilizations around that period have already been excavated, just no language to prove it’s Xia yet.
This When someone mentions "the great lep forward", you know what their line of thinking is about China plans its economy using 5 year economic plans The second 5 year economic plan didn't work so well, and for some reason people in the west loves refering to it as the great leap forward, even though official (and therefore correct) name is the second five year plan
21:33 The Nanjing Massacre (Combining that with Unit 731 - Which was essentially the Much More Messed-Up and Brutal Version of Both the Soviet Gulag and the Auschwitz Combined, along with the umm.. “Kidnapping a Bunch of Women (Regardless of Age) and Making them S3x Slaves”) is exactly why I say this whenever it comes to what the [Imperial] Japanese did in WW2: “When people say that the Germans Were Bad in WW2 (Which is true by the way), Remember that the Japanese were Much Worse.”
It was two opium war. The British force Britain and France launched the Second Opium War in 1856. In 1860, Britain forced the Qing government to sign the Convention of Peking, permanently ceding to it the southern tip of the Kowloon Island.
China did get divided several times, but got united under various dynasties- they are among the nations that went with dynastic rule- meaning a generation of powerful families ruling a kingdom or an empire, for instance Shang, Zhou, Han Dynasties
China is a person who will never age. He is not the earliest person born in this world, but he will always be young. He sent away one neighbor after another, Canrong, Dawan, Xiongnu, Xianbei, Goguryeo, Rouran, Turkic, Tatar... he couldn't count them all. Using a sword, or age. But he is lonely. When he had just grown up,with endless power and dynamism, he met another immortal species. Young people don't know the truth of this world，like to communicate with others with their fists. He beat his neighbors all over and mocked their weakness, but in front of this person, he was astonishingly curious and said a sentence. Oh,this handsome guy looks just like me. In fact, they rarely meet, but they have all heard of each other's feats. They look down on all their neighbors around them, but they appreciate each other very much. He often wants to visit in person, but has never had the opportunity. His body will always be young, but his heart will grow old. The neighbors couldn't beat him, but years of fighting accumulated a lot of old injuries on him, and then he fell ill. In a few hundred years, he recovered his health. For others, this is the length of a lifetime; for him, it is the time to brew a pot of wine. After drinking, he fell silent. He used to mock those he defeated, but now looking at those who provoked him with bows and knives is like looking at mischievous children. The mischievous child becomes honest after being beaten up, but he doesn't have a common language with them. He is still strong, but he is no longer enthusiastic about fighting. He is not an eternal winner. There are too many young people, there are always a few who can defeat him. Then they will find that they cannot kill him, he has amazing vitality. After defeating him, they would involuntarily sit down and drink with him, chat, and dream of becoming him after getting drunk. He didn't expect that the person would also grow old and be killed by new young people. Afterwards, he became even more silent. Day after day, life seems endless until that day. Some are that person's children, while others claim to be that person's children. They came to challenge him. He was still waving his sword, and they pulled out their guns. He was knocked down to the ground, but he didn't panic. He's not old, he just needs some time. He can also learn the skills of young people. They also realized it. They initially thought he was a powerful old man, but after meeting him, they felt that he had only a skin and his internal organs had decayed. And now, they realize that this person will never drift away with the wind. Soon, he will once again bring some small shocks from the East to this world.
So dealing well with natural disasters is a very important factor of government's legitimacy. It is a huge difference when comparing how China deals with natural disasters to US
The Kingdom manga is actual quite a good way to get into the histories of the era of spring and fall wars. Its obviously not historia correct. But its close enough and tells the story in a entertaining way.
Feeling like I should join RUclips before others soak up all my interests. LMAO. I've already done China for years. Self-studied some of the history out of curiosity and personal interest. Majored in International Studies with a focus on East Asia (specifically Japan and China). Lived and worked in China for over 7 years. I've done the big attractions (Forbidden City and Qin Terracotta tomb) twice. I've done other sites around China as well. I wanted to film with my GoPro Hero 4, but the damn GoPro needs to connect to the cellphone GoPro app to work, and the GoPro app is blocked in China so you need a vpn. Sounds easy just fire up a vpn, but if you understand anything technology you know a vpn uses part of the internet bandwidth to work, which means stuff sometimes moves slow or struggles to open. I had issues trying to watch RUclips channels when I was in China. Either the video never opens or it takes 30 minutes to load and usually 80% of the time it has an error during loading and has to restart back at square 1. It's too bad since my hometown has a lot of fame for connection with Xi here in Iowa.
Of all the things skipped for this fun Cliff Notes romp through China's history, missing out Sui dynasty's Grand Canal project is a travesty IMHO. It's like making a video about Rome without even mentioning the aqueducts.
He missed out on Mohism which are taught to us as the 4 major Chinese philosophies during the Warring States period, but I don't blame him because it's the least interesting one and we are barely taught anything about it at school here. Based on my crude oversimplification, Mohism basically tells you to love everyone. Yay. Also regarding the idea of legalism thinking people are inherently evil, just wanted to note that the idea actually came out of a branch of Confucianism led by Xunzi, who was the teacher of Han Feizi, one of the major influential philosophers for legalism, and Li Si, the Chancellor of the Qin Dynasty. Xunzi disagreed with Mengzi within the Confucius school of thought. Mengzi thought people were born good, and education should be about awakening their conscience. Xunzi thought people were born evil, and virtue has to be instilled through education (I personally quite like to compare him with Saint Augustine). His students took it a step further and asserted that the law was necessary to compel virtue rather than just education. A lot of people even here confuse that, thinking that Xunzi's ideas are inherently legalist and Mengzi's ideas are inherently Confucian, but Xunzi clearly identified as a Confucian through and through. Also, Qin Shi Huang was not the last emperor, he did had a son who was the one that got overthrown. He basically had all his father's worst attributes but none of his political competence. An interesting thing is that that was actually his second son who wasn't supposed to inherit the throne. He colluded with Qin Shi Huang's closest men to fake his will and order the death of his brother who was supposed to be the Emperor. His brother did it based on Chinese notions of honour being that you unconditionally obey your kings and parents. Perhaps the Qin Dynasty could have lived longer if his brother was made the Emperor as supposed.
At 10:56 People invented new technology, like paper money, gunpowder, ……………………… Gunpowder was NOT invented in Song Dynasty. Gunpowder was invented in Sui Dynasty or early Tang Dynasty (late 6th century or 7th century)
The expanding history of China is our neighbor Nomad rulers love and want to become apart of China. So they dominated the core land and adopt, merge theirs homeland into the core land. It's always they didn't have a writing system and started to learning language, writing and culture, then decided to abanded theirs old way of life, and adopting & merging progress. It's not the expandation or domination, it's the gifts from the lovers.
I would love to address one thing. during the World War Two, KMT’s top leader didn’t want to cooperate with communists at the first place. Two of his generals launched a coup against him for the cooperation with communists party. Despite the top leader was hooded as hostages, one of them also lead one of biggest military fiction in KMT’s army, which is originated from Japan occupied northeast China. Even the KMT looked unified the China in 1928, the government and military still filled with factions from warlords era. One last funny thing to mention, I believe in our constitution still states NanJing as our capital city. Even everyone knows we only hold Taiwan and couple of islands.😂
After World War Two, the reason for KMT lost the civil war is not only communist party growth during the cooperation against the Japanese invasion since 1937 but also they pushed bunch of policies fucked economic and inefficient government for distributing resources to both regular Chinese civilian and military. When Taiwan returned to republic of China(KMT lead), their government made Taiwanese feel worse than Japanese occupation period, specifically the US was bombing and people need to restricted for daily supply. That’s when you now government is fucked up their job.
Emperor Qin Shi Huang unified language, currency, culture, and identity, so when a lord occupies a large area of land, it is very easy for everyone to identify themselves as fellow countrymen, the territory will be stable. Since Europe has never had a unified culture and identity, if France occupies Germany and Britain, or vice versa, almost no German would consider themselves French, so Europe can never be unified. This has the advantage of different cultures competing and colliding with each other, giving birth to science and industry, just like the emergence of schools of thought such as Taoism, Legalism, and Confucianism during the Warring States period in China. When China was unified, there was a lack of cultural competition and very few progressive ideas emerged.
This was too simplistic, even for a Bill Wurtz style video. Literally not a word about the Three Kingdoms era, even though it lasted much longer than the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Even though it was not a yellow turban, but a prominent leader in the Three Kingdoms that founds the next empire. This is just bad. The yellow turbans did not lead to the Jin dynasty, the Three Kingdoms did. The sixty (or so) years between the two are considered to be the most important years in ancient Chinese history. Those are the years that they write books and make TV shows and movies about. No one cares about the yellow turban rebellion outside of "now we set the scene for the Three Kingdoms."
I'm really not sure why western history books focus so much on this thing called the "Mandate of Heaven". I've never heard any Chinese person ever mention it.
The power of emperors or kings are endorsed by god or some form of heavenly supreme power. No matter east or west. Otherwise how would millions of people follow the command of one average guy?😂
Do we know if there is any content about the Jews that escaped to Shanghai during WWII? I just did the US premiere of an oratorio in NYC that talks about this, but it didn’t get too deeply into the story
Go find a book by the title, "(The) Chinese Jews," (I forgot the author, but am sure the book was published about half a century ago. I purchased it on a campus library sale at 1 USD back then, where the university authority would put out books for sale in order to get rid of the books that have NOT been popularly circulated in their curation. I still have that book, but it is possibly buried somewhere in my storage room where thousands of books are stored in boxes.) Therein some chapters or sections of a chapter were devoted to the Jews who fled the NATSIs and landed in China around WWII.
I generally love history, Chinese history being part of the Japanese history fascinates me because even though I don't know much of the language(Chinese) I appreciate what the country has given the world!! Written language for the Koreans and Japanese, gun powder for guns and fireworks(even TNT/Dynamite), the Abacus and other things that are advancement in technology!!
@@yanx4797 I could and can, but what I typed is how I thought it, some times I forget what I'm typing when it gets really long and hard to see what I typed… especially when I'm making it on my phone… and at least you got the gist of what I meant… after all typing something and saying something IRL is different and the first one is harder a lot of times!! I also failed 9th and 10th grade English when I went to High School in the 90's!! And my skills in my own language isn't as good as it should be because of it!! That includes English punctuations 😁😁 Thank you for the advice
@@jescis0In the past, South Korea was a vassal state of China, but now South Korea's flag still comes from China's Zhouyi. Japanese culture is deeply influenced by traditional Chinese culture. Today's Japanese language also contains many Chinese characters, and many of Japan's food practices, medicine and tea culture come from China.
@@greenjobs2153 I know about it, mostly I know Japanese because I import the retro games(Famicom Disk System versions of certain games are better than the US cartridge counterpart) I buy CIB and I am still learning, but what I said before is partly what I observed between the languages… verbally they're all different languages, but written language in those countries are derived from the characters(in Japanese called Kanji) from china was used to make their own written language off of those(for Japanese it's Hiragana and Katakana)… as far as the South Korean flag… that's something that I didn't know and I find interesting 🤔🤔
The word for river, "He", is pronounced "Huh". It's definitely not pronounced like the "He" in He-man". Also not sure where the name "Yangtze River" came from. In China everyone just calls it the "Long River".
What do you mean you don't know where the name "Yangtze River" came from? If you're a Chinese, you should know unless you didn't pay attention in school...
@@onlywei Well I grew up outside of China too. But anyways, Yangtze is basically the last section of the river near Shanghai. Foreigners at that time just generalized it as the whole river since that's the name that they knew.
Remember ~300 years cycle up and down. It’s more like a United Europe with Han Chinese (a dozen states of them eventually United by kingdom of Qin) like Romans created the Middle Kingdom while Northern Norman “barbarians” Xiongnu/Huns, Mongols, Liao., Jin and Manchu. But now they are a big happy family.😅
Someone inform me because i thought we didn't know if the three kingdoms period even happened or not. Because of that, i havent studied it but i know several people who nerd out over it
The three kingdoms happen in the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and there was a great division for hundreds of years, in which the north China and the south China constantly went to war, and China finally reunited in Sui Dynasty, a short period before the Great Tang Dynasty
China is an awesome nation tho. There happened unbelievable much literally. Im traveling over from time to time, well when i have time and the money for it ofc. I still will go alot of times due to the huge scale of this country and different things i want to see
There is a Chinese proverb: "You cannot become fat by eating one bite." So China's success cannot all be attributed to allowing capital and privatization. Everything Mao Zedong did has its value. I think Mao started the Cultural Revolution only partly for individual rights. He is already the supreme ruler of the country then. How many rights can he still pursue? His greater concern was that China could no longer become a colony of the West and the Chinese could no longer be slaves. Colonization here does not refer to direct rule by the United States and the West, but to supporting many agents within China and thereby selling out national interests to them. At that time, many high-level officials within the Chinese Communist Party had already shown this tendency to be bribed. This is why Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, so that China could become a truly independent country.
Great knowledge in Chinese history sir, but I just want to correct one pronunciation which is actually quite funny in English. "HE" in Chinese for river is actually pronounced as "HER?"(the question mark is how the second tone sort of sounds like a question). I always found this very ironic.
can kind of see how the mandate of heaven just came to be in this video. imagine your farm keep constantly getting ruined by what look like wrath gods, then some guy just come by and help hold it back. that guy would look like a messiah comparable to Moses.
@@NoohCee im Vietnamese actually. and my comment was nothing more than a fun little conjecture i made from the video. which is basically a guy appearing out of nowhere to stop massive flooding and ended up being worshipped as a representative of god. im not saying its the true nor saying it how Chinese see it. just making a light joke.
7:06 | Funny you should mention, but, do you know that some sections of the wall actually face China, meaning that someone else built a wall to protect themselves FROM China? You should really do a video about this part of the region before the Mongols and Turks.
Actually the most militarize dynasty is Ming dynasty if you take a closer look at their history you will see Ming is very often engaging military conflict with other from early day fighting mongol to wanli period fighting jurchen and Japan and Burma and their own iinternal rebellion Ming military also is more advanced than you think almost half their army use firearm and field artillery
Sure, but in terms of overall performance and quality though, Ming army generally sucks, due to poor tax structure, that barely fund them. Tech might be advanced, but morale were usually quite low, as many troops were owed pay for up to a year.
@@LibeliumDragonfly Ming army overall performance in late period still better than Song and Qing in their late period Ming beat japan in Imjin War and crush Miao uprising and Pubei rebellion while winning most of the battle against Burma, Ming only gave up on holding the autonomous region to Burma because it's too costly to fight It also take 3 generation of Jurchen to finally conquered all of ming china
fighting mongol is to finish Yuan dynasty, mongol=Yuan. in late Ming dynasty figting japan, burma, qin,......is defend the Harass from them. and which bring the Ming dynasty to extinction
China is whole again.
Then it broke again
CHINESE HISTORY SUMMARIZED IN 2 SENTENCES!!!
@@mcmahon31619 Not really + the cccp is trying to unify the ethnic differences into mandarin
Funny how the us and japan are the main cause for why china is a communist country
"But for how long?"
some people may disagree with nowadays China with "this land is historically Chinese that sea is historically Chinese".
note that nowadays “Nation-state” is a European and modern international law concept.
in ancient times, in this part of the world, east Asia continent, China is the "world", except for Japan, Korea, and some other areas or countries, most surrounding land are cultural/civilization "China". its very similar to nowadays USA, the USA itself is sometimes "global society", NBA champion is "World Champion", even knowing there are other countries on planet earth.
and "China" has always been a multi race "nation".
when the united "China" break to many "states", they may call themselves different names, they all consider themselves "China" and want to conquer the whole area to be the "world leader" - "China". even Mongol Yuan empire and later Manchurian Qing consider themselves legitimacy “China" with mandate of heaven.
and even Han ethnic then was a culture concept rather than a bloodline concept.
溥天之下，莫非王土；率土之滨，莫非王臣。😅
你也太专业了吧，你是中国人吧？
Very professional and in depth introduction of "What is China" 👍
@@peaceloverespect 看这个视频之前正好在看中印边境冲突和南海问题的内容，有感而发。
普天之下@@thechosenkxxoling
15:14 In addition, China has never attempted to colonize Africa and India, and Zheng He's voyages to the West were to "demonstrate China's strength and establish friendly relations with other countries.". At this time, China was a civilized country's visit, while medieval Western navigators were spontaneous merchants and robbers. This is the difference between Chinese and Western cultures. Don't judge China based on colonialism, this is a cultural difference.
It's like when Americans see cotton farms in Xinjiang, they think/recognize/advertise it as forced labor, but in reality, only Americans force black slaves to cultivate cotton. They use their own style to label China as a criminal.
Taiwanese Gaoshan tribe made into human broth ：am I a joke to you?😅
@@lmao-chuan-852sun4
Head hunting tribes ...?
India wants a word whit your claims Vietnam wants a word whit you claims Korea wants a word whit your claims hell the Chinese citizens want words whit your claims they where monsters to their people
Genocided Tibetans?
No one called “China” criminal. Just as no one calls Russia, or North Korea “criminal”. The leadership is most certainly criminal. The CCP is just as criminal as the west was (and is) at its worst. Stop making excuses for CCP criminality. Instead of being defensive, promote change. Be a force for good.
“The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.“ - Romance of Three Kingdom.
天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分。
這是中國歷史最迷人的地方
"Must" doesn't sound appropriate, "would certainly" is more accurate.
天下大事，分久必合，合久必分。 宋金辽都认为自己是华夏正统，宋是汉人主导，没拿下燕云十六州，被正史说俩字：弱宋。。。
@@laowanBecause in the original text, the word “必”，That's often means English word "must”
A little clarification, 天（Sky）in China doesn’t exactly mean heaven or god, it’s more like the power of the universe.
这是中文英文文化不一样造成的，没有一致性的字来对等翻译，天就是天堂，
@@李山风-y5q 天不是天堂，中国文化里面根本就不信天堂，天是指上天，实际是就是宇宙。
@@李山风-y5q 简单例子，我们说航天，不是指航行天堂，而是航行宇宙。
@@ricotheman8139 说了，这是中国与西方文字文化，不可能百分百翻译的，中国可以无限接近英文的翻译含义，英文翻译中文，只能达到50%以下的含义。天是天堂？我们说的是天庭。天堂是翻译英文的词，引入的文化。天堂是什么？，你按中国传统你能说个什么来？？凡人怎么能去天庭呢？？凡人只能走黄泉路去阎王府再投胎，天堂是引入的文化。
不同语言之间的翻译，本来就不能准确，你只有学习对方语言在对方环境生活才能理解其真正含义。
It is also not mentioned in the video that since the Tang Dynasty, Xizang has considered itself a subsidiary of China and offered sacrifices. China will also marry the royal family of Xizang and teach advanced agricultural and industrial technologies to Tibetans. Over the next 1000 years, sometimes Xizang attacked the suzerain state to occupy more territory, but by the Ming and Qing dynasties, two successive dynasties believed that they were subsidiaries of the central government, and the Dalai Lama also claimed allegiance to the central government. It is interesting that Xizang was not mentioned in the video.
otherwise, His video will be off shelf. because this is correct history.
there was war between Tibet and PRC army after civil war, they lost then Tibet claim to be a province of cn and has its own autonomous region right
Five thousand years ago, the Chinese faced the flood like the Egyptians.
Four thousand years ago, the Chinese played with bronzes like the Babylonians.
Three thousand years ago, the Chinese thought about philosophy like the Greeks;
Two thousand years ago, the Chinese fought everywhere like the Romans;
A thousand years ago, the Chinese were as rich as the Arabs;
Now, the Chinese are as good at science as the Anglo Saxons
The race between civilizations is usually measured in millennia
Chinese fought everywhere like Roman? Never happen. China itself was a victim.
We did not , do not, and will not seem like any other foreigners.
There was a particular group that grew by suppressing and destroying other groups... I'll let you guess which one.
How is facing flood supposed to be a competition?
@@Clause-lf6suChinese successfully survived in that extreme Global climate，which indicate that Chinese was great at some point，better than egyptian at least
There have been many nations that have broken, China has done it many times and it still stands. Fascinating
It was the culture really holds the nation together. Mongos didn't adapted to Chinese culture so lasted only 100 years, while Qing dynasty lasted 300 hundred years because they adapted completed and blended in Chinese culture. Out of the current 56 ethic groups in China, the Man (the rulers of Qing dynasty) is the most similar one to Han, in tradition and life style. There is almost no difference.
@@Wing-ix6wjbro, 300 hundreds= 300000😂
@@Wing-ix6wjnot gonna lie, Qing dynasty hairstyle for men was ugly as f**k
That is the difference between a ordinary nation and a Civilizational nation . As long as there is Chinese ppl there will be a China !
文化是一方面，其实还有一个很重要的事----书写史书的史官。处于分裂时期各个政权的领导人都想着如何统一中原即使失败了，史官会写XX励精图治匡扶华夏，奈何，如果你不这么做只是安居一隅，史官会在史书写不思进取、荒淫无度。史书会一直流传到后代
For all those “China is whole again and it broke again” jokes, just remember that every time a dynasty failed the reason was different. Tang failed because by the end the army was controlled not by the central government but the generals of armies stationed off the capital. Song’s first emperor was (kinda) one of those generals and seeing how Tang failed (and because his brother did some William II/Henry I stuff and assumed power-hush hush), ordered his successors to be on strict lookout for the generals. So towards the end of Song, when Jin and the Mongols came calling none of the generals were trusted to fight in those wars. Thing is, we’ve learned throughout our history about all the ways a state can fail, and we’re trying to avoid them.
好。既要读万卷书，也要行万里路。历史就是书，最有用的地方，在于给后人极大的经验与教训。行万里路，经验也不能盲目守旧，实践时要考虑在新时代有差异的人文环境。
说的对
Totalitarian rule like North Korea? No, China doesn't need such a future.
经验是一方面，但是现在巨大的技术是古代所不具备的，古代那些导致王朝灭亡的原因在现代技术面前都根本不是事！
A country, an Empire would fall mainly because of its own corruptions lead to weakening the country and then peoples stand up for revolution，this happened to many countries Empires Dynasty throughout human history, we have been fighting our humanity for thousands of years with very little improvement despite huge improvement in technology 😂，you see we human being are not that much difference we shared the same ugly weakness and strengths: our humanity
For those wondering why people thought mercury would extend life - they both did and didn't. It was known to be lethal on its own already, but it also is a neurotoxin, so some who took these potions felt better at first because the nerves that told them how their body really was doing were dying out. Mercury was the only solvent that could dissolve heavier substances like metals and minerals, and the mysticism around certain materials made it an almost unavoidable ingredient when they started trying to include things like powdered jade (the mineral) or gold.
13:48 The Ming Dynasty didn't abolished the navy for no reason. At that time, due to the decline of the dynasty, they were unable to support the navy, and fishermen could still go to sea, as well as merchants. But Japanese pirates constantly harassed coastal areas, burned, killed, and looted. In order to protect the country and prevent bad farmers and merchants from colluding with the Japanese to rob merchant ships, the Ming and Qing dynasties began to ban the sea.
Financial problems restricted large fleet. Moreover a large fleet couldn't stop pirates. The Japanese Pirates were composed of 1/3 Japanese and 2/3 Chinese combining.
As to Qing, they wanted to cut off Tai Wan's provision and grasped all trades in gov's hand.
actually the tank guy is still alive, the full video shown the tank just detoured
In addition, the tanks were leaving the Tian'anmen Square, the man stood in front of the tank practically tried to stop the tanks from leaving The Square. At the end of the footage, he was pushed to the side of the road by some mates in civilian clothes, which allowed the tanks to proceed. The complete footage is around here somewhere on RUclips. Good material to see real history and break away from made-up history.
@@maxyang7919 thanx for the info.
@@JackyEverlast and your point is?
@@JackyEverlast like you know him personally? he wasnt in USA, people dont vanished or killed because of something he said or did to the government.
@@JackyEverlastno, he's actually working for the Chinese government now
There are several mistakes in the video, Terry corrected some of them not not all. Like, Buddhism comes from Nepal, not India. The war between the Han Dynasty and the Barbarian was not because the Han people wanted better war horses. The Barbarian were nomadic people. They graze but did not farm, and their food production was not as stable as farming civilization. So they regularly robed and killed people in the north of the Han people. They don't like to settle down and are not good at management. so they killed, robbed and left. China began building the Great Wall before unification during the Warring States Period to prevent the Huns from invading. After Qin Shi Huang unified China, he connected the Great Wall built by these kingdoms. Contrary to what the blogger said, China's evaluation of Qin Shi Huang is that the merits outweigh the faults. The recognition of his achievements can be seen from the fact that all subsequent dynasties recognized him as China's first actual emperor. China's dynasty system began with him and continued until the last dynasty, the Qing Dynasty. Both Han and ethnic minority emperors claim to be the successors who were mandated from heaven of Chinese civilization.
Buddhism got developed in India
The War of the Heavenly horses was a real event, look it up, and not to be confused with Huoqubing and his conquest of the Xiongnu
A famous Western university professor once pointed out:
China is a civilization disguised as a country. It is not determined by race and bloodline, but by cultural identity. In history, ethnic minorities in the border areas have repeatedly occupied mainland China and established dynasties, but they believe that they have occupied China and are called rulers of China, rather than changing the country. This is the foundation for China to form a peaceful coexistence of 56 ethnic groups.
西方一位有名的大学教授曾点出：
中国是一个伪装成国家的文明。不是由种族和血统决定，而是由文化认同决定。历史上边疆的少数民族多次攻占大陆地区并建立王朝，但他们认为自己占据了中国，称为中国的统治者，而不是更换了国家。这就是中国能形成56个民族共同和平存在的基础
If that's the case, then the entirety of Europe, North America, including Australia and New Zealand are part of one civilization
Something to note as i have family both in the city and in the countryside. It is a misconception that the free market reforms were entirely responsible for chinas condition today. Though huge mistakes were made during the great leap forward and cultural revolution, communist programs were generally successful. China changed from a underdeveloped country to a industrialized one. China changed from a low literacy rate country to a high literacy rate country. China changed from a food insecure country to a food secure country. And most of these changes happened before the market reforms. Though market reforms did also improve peoples economic conditions, the market reforms themselves owe their success to the decades of large, grand public works programs. Its not just that chinese labor was cheap, what made chinese labor attractive was that they were cheap and literate. The chinese market also isnt efficient without the infrastructure improvements. China has a complex history!
西方要是不抹黑你共产主义了，那就说明它已经是个无害的神像了
Yeah but Deng's opening up china for international investment, specifically from the west, is what made China what it is today. We know this because Deng got the idea from Lee kuan yew
Deng's opening up china for international investment was part of the market reform that I already mentioned. My point is that grand public infrastructure investment, literacy campaigns, and development of domestic industry were all presequisites for Deng's plans to work.
@@DmoneyS44 sure but I think those would of came naturally or eventually. Not because of communism. The great leap forward and the cultural revolution after it were pretty good examples of the failings of communism. If Deng wanted to open up the economy, he would eventually need to do the same thing. Look at lee kuan yew and what happened in Singapore. They didn't have communism to guide them yet they were reaped the rewards before China ever did
@@bompingdatwomper Singapore may not be communist, but it is collectivist and authoritarian. Singapore had land reform, public infrastructure projects, and education campaigns. On top of that reforming a city of less than 300 sq miles is more simple than reforming a whole country of 3.7 million square miles. The great leap forward and cultural revolution were huge setbacks yet chinas material condition, industry, literacy etc all still improved drastically after the foundation of the PRC and even before the market reforms. That is because critics of China focus on the failures but not the other successful 5 year plans, modernizations, and campaigns. To be clear, I am not saying that communism is "necessary" for progress, but I am saying that communism was responsible for a lot of progress. My rural family in China was illiterate and landless until the communist instituted education and land reforms. My city family was ignorant and engaged in barbaric practices such as binding the feet of their women. The communists abolished such savage traditions. I am not saying that communism was necessary for these things. I am simply saying that it was communists that did these things in those particular places and times.
Actually China's history is not only five thousand years old, there is still a lot of underground work waiting to be excavated, and a lot of archaeological study is still going on. It probably has lasted for at least three thousand years before the Xia Dynasty, many archaeological discoveries are slowly being showed. Chinese people don't rush to dig before the technology improve enough to protect those cultural relics. If you have been to history museums in Xi'an and Luoyang, you will find that modern people are actually no more advanced than the ancients. And Sanxingdui Museum in Sichuan which will totally blow your mind. Very shocking to know that the things used and build during the Han Dynasty are not much different from modern people.
Huangdi
ancient china had iPhones confirmed
Don't use your mice mind to think of China, you never been there and understand the culture@@claytoncallaway6412
Don't use your mouse mind to think of China, you never been there and understand their culture.@@claytoncallaway6412
夸大了，科技在进步，汉朝可没有钢筋水泥😂
3 English words to describe our 5000-year history: unite, break, repeat.
Pretty Much.
So if China reunites again, we can expect to break again lol
@@amei..2261 Maybe. After a few centuries.
@@amei..2261 Seems to apply to most civilizations in the last few centuries. Each cycle lasted from a few years to a few hundred years. China is about 75 years into this cycle, while the US is approaching 250 years since 1776. We'll have to see whether they can adapt and evolve to outlast the others.
In unified China, during each dynasty, the cycle lasted around 200 years, while the federal system of the United States resembles that of the Zhou Dynasty, which lasted for 791 years.@@hyeung1
Been a long time since i revisit Chinese history. i have a degree in Asian History and Chinese history was part of my studies. Its a very fascinating civilization.
What Mao did is for the independence (if a country not independent, which means being controlled by Western countries at that time, it won’t get strong anymore, just look at India, Argentina, and Korea nowadays) instead of “not communism enough”. The wise of Mao is his support of Deng, the greatness of Deng is that he proves Mao is right. This isn’t just about history, but more geopolitics, which is also why Qin dynasty can build empire of China, and that’s why a weak Qing dynasty can stop quick Western takeover of China’s area. Don’t look down on China. This is what I learned from Yale U.
Its really cool that you're kinda all over the place (like me!)
I am studying Middle Eastern studies but currently taking chinese and japanese history as elective courses - because why not, as im at the end of my degree and simultaneously preparing/writing my bachelor thesis. I watched the original video prior to this too, but its cool to get it served like this along with my actual university lectures on chinese history and culture.
Confucius developed his philosophy during the Spring & Autumn period rather than the Warring States period. Both were technically part of the Zhou Dynasty.
Because Confucius himself defined the Spring Autumn period by writing a brief history of the recent centuries and naming it with Spring Autumn after he returned home in his old age.
The thing I've noticed about Chinese history is that they went from the stone age standard hunter gatherers to... China. And they've just kept it going and going
That's exactly right. China is the only one among the four ancient civilizations that has maintained an unbroken history since the Stone Age. This continuity is also attributed to the invention of writing system, which enabled the complete documentation of Chinese history. Moreover, with training and study, modern people can read about events, philosophies, and everything that happened thousands of years ago. Isn't it fascinating
I recommend checking out Overly Sarcastic. Red does Mythology, Legends, Cryptids, Classic Literature and Tropes while Blue keeps it history. Though, he does have a bit of an obsession with Venice..... and domes....
They totally got a new sub because of you!
Great original video!
Regarding the “ideas “ you mentioned, there are 4 actually, leading schools of knowledge and wisdom, out of hundreds. The missing one is the school of Mohism. These 4 schools are always being researched together as Ru(confucius), Dao(Taoism), Mo(Mohism) then Fa(Legalism)…
Song wasn't military, bcoZ they emperor were worry about a military rebel, that was how Song was found.
As a Chinese I noticed an interesting difference between China and Western culture. In English we can see terms like "mother earth" or "mother nature". But in China we only call our rivers "mother". Because rivers are source of irrigation, which is the most important thing in an agricultrual civilization.
I live in the southern part of China. Yangtze River is our matriarch.
李白的《把酒问月·故人贾淳令予问之》诗句写道：”今人不见古时月，今月曾经照古人。“今天的人们可以轻描淡写地寥寥数语就回顾几千年的历史波澜，但当时背后的每个个体的悲欢离合，谁能体会。有机会了来中国旅游下，去山西省看看古建筑，很多千年以上的文物。再过几百年，上千年，那时候的人们也会像今日我们看待过去的人们一样。
Amazing video as always Mr Terry!
In fact, this is just the narrative logic of ancient Chinese central dynasties, not the complete history of China... Because the central dynasty had many local dynasties at the same time, especially China, which was in a stage of division, when reunification was formed again, it was not an invasion of Korea or Vietnam, but rather the completion of national reunification.. And the Tang Dynasty has never invaded South Korea.. The Central Dynasty only eliminated the local dynasty (gao gou li) in Northeast China, which is not Korea at all. Korea is still with Korea, and the Tang Dynasty did not go at all.
Its refreshing to see this type of stuff about china again. I havent revisited the history in a while but i do remember doing a fun read about the political/geopolitical perspective of history. Example: The dismantling of their ships was not because it was a militaristic navy but because it was part of the mercantile class which accumulated too much capital influence over the dynastic rulers. The ships were large and structured mainly for the purpose of trade.
Pretty sure the traditional writing system is mostly Han-era as well. The characters japan took from china are called "漢字”, which can be read as "Han characters."
The Han characters is so powerfully that it’s what really makes China unite all the time. Even after 5000 years, unite is still the number one priority.
@@AveryMendoza324Well, the Han era was only about 1800-2200 years ago.
@@AveryMendoza324 Technically it should be 秦字 since Chinese characters were standardized in Qin dynasty. I guess people back then hated the Qin emperor so much that they refused to acknowledge anything that he did.
@@hyeung1 While Warring States/Qin era developed Clerical script (Dishu), it didn't start morphing into Kaishu until Eastern Han and eventual breakup into the Three Kingdoms era. That was what was brought over to the Korean peninsula and to Japan. calling it Hanja/Kanji is very apt.
Qin himself created Small Seal script(Xiaozhuan) out of the already pre-established Dazhuan. It's like saying Mao created Simplified Chinese, which is actually not true, he standardized it.
@@BenjiSun You're mistaking Hanzi with different styles of scripts. Kaishu is just one of the scripts after the characters are standardized.
I wonder if one Marine could take on 300 enemy combatants from the society of the harmonious fists.
I’m currently in AP world history and learning about China, it’s so hard to remember everything so I’m very grateful that this video exists. I’ll be watching this many times in the future.
Well I personally suggest you not to, cuz as you can see from the comment section, the video contain many mistakes and prejudices
@@cyanship I think it's over 90% accurate, enough to get a 5 in AP test for a high school student. 😊
one flaw he skipped how han dynasty was the west han（got overthrown）and east han（the one reestablished soon after then comes the yellow rebellion
I got to see the terracotta warriors, it’s so cool.
Palace dramas have been soft-banned recently in China because of “encouraging capitalism” (paraphrasing). Like destroying the artifacts it’s very sad considering all the art and effort that goes into recreating these costumes and jewels.
If you want a channel that does excellent work and focuses mostly on China but also other places like Korea and Japan then I recommend the channel Cool History Bros. Great channel.
Thanks for tip. Odd Compass is good too
@@LJ-pi6npyeh he make a lot of india history and foreign relationship and cultural impact on them
I'll have to check Gilgamesh out. Just like what Mr. Terry said about the other channel (don't remember the name or the style it was in), which was that they start out in a style SIMILAR to someone more famous and then as they find their way they morph into something unique.
4:55 Confucius ( c. 551 - c. 479 BCE) lived during the Spring and Autumn Period 春秋 (770 to 481), which preceded the Warring states period. Both happened during the "Eastern Zhou's" of the Zhou dynasty (1046 BC - 256 BC)
To be fair, from my understanding: The Eastern Zhou was when the Zhou rulers were losing steam, so even though the states weren't "warring" too much yet in Spring and Autumn (although smaller states were getting gobbled up by larger states), the main states that would eventually be the main actors of the warring states period weren't fighting each other that frequently.
@@claudelorrain-bouchard6941Rubbish.
Actually Confucius lived during the Spring and Autumn period, 3 centuries before Shih Huangdi.
Yes, the same is true of Chinese history.
3:15 Judging whether a king is good or not is very simple. Observing the lives of most people, if they become good, it is a good king. Life has become worse, labor has increased, food is scarce, and people have to exchange children for food. If farmers do not overthrow the dynasty, they cannot survive, and the king is clearly derelict and incompetent. Chinese people are the most skilled in uprisings and revolutions, and they have been doing so for 5000 years. So if CCP was not good, Chinese people would not support their government like they do now, but would have already overthrown CCP like the Republic of China that overthrew Chiang Kai shek.
Fortune tellers bone created writing system and the civilization, that’s an excellent! I’ve never thought about it like this. So creative!
Amazing video again
Although the map contains numerous errors, it still provides a partial summary. The Tang Dynasty began to be referred to as the Heavenly Kingdom by neighboring countries and Central Asia, and frequently came to China to offer sacrifices. Kings from Japan, Korea, and other places needed to be conferred titles by the Chinese emperor. The Han people defeated all northern ethnic groups in history, forcing the enemy to migrate to distant Europe
Confucius actually lived during the Spring and Autumn Period, which was before the Warring States Period.
Jesus and Confucius share several similarities:He emphasized the harmonious relationships between people and the importance of moral behavior and personal virtue. He was a great educator and guide, and his words and deeds were recorded by disciples or followers, having a profound impact. In the West, he became a religion, but in the East, another he became a teacher.
Ironically, the birthplace of Jesus is being bombed by Israel
China explored the coast of East Africa in the past, Zheng He, a Chinese explorer did that, he was from the Ming Dynasty
Debate around Xia is whether it’s called Xia or not, highly mature civilizations around that period have already been excavated, just no language to prove it’s Xia yet.
Interesting presentation on the history of China !
An overly simplified western version of it.
This
When someone mentions "the great lep forward", you know what their line of thinking is about
China plans its economy using 5 year economic plans
The second 5 year economic plan didn't work so well, and for some reason people in the west loves refering to it as the great leap forward, even though official (and therefore correct) name is the second five year plan
21:33 The Nanjing Massacre (Combining that with Unit 731 - Which was essentially the Much More Messed-Up and Brutal Version of Both the Soviet Gulag and the Auschwitz Combined, along with the umm.. “Kidnapping a Bunch of Women (Regardless of Age) and Making them S3x Slaves”) is exactly why I say this whenever it comes to what the [Imperial] Japanese did in WW2: “When people say that the Germans Were Bad in WW2 (Which is true by the way), Remember that the Japanese were Much Worse.”
love your video!
It was two opium war. The British force Britain and France launched the Second Opium War in 1856. In 1860, Britain forced the Qing government to sign the Convention of Peking, permanently ceding to it the southern tip of the Kowloon Island.
The general trend of the world is that if it is divided for a long time, it will merge; if it merges for a long time, it will divide
Chinese have the shadow puppetry- probably during the Song Dynasty
China did get divided several times, but got united under various dynasties- they are among the nations that went with dynastic rule- meaning a generation of powerful families ruling a kingdom or an empire, for instance Shang, Zhou, Han Dynasties
Awesome video for me who love reading history. Definitely will follow 🤩
Great video
China is a person who will never age.
He is not the earliest person born in this world, but he will always be young.
He sent away one neighbor after another, Canrong, Dawan, Xiongnu, Xianbei, Goguryeo, Rouran, Turkic, Tatar... he couldn't count them all. Using a sword, or age.
But he is lonely.
When he had just grown up,with endless power and dynamism, he met another immortal species.
Young people don't know the truth of this world，like to communicate with others with their fists. He beat his neighbors all over and mocked their weakness, but in front of this person, he was astonishingly curious and said a sentence.
Oh,this handsome guy looks just like me.
In fact, they rarely meet, but they have all heard of each other's feats. They look down on all their neighbors around them, but they appreciate each other very much. He often wants to visit in person, but has never had the opportunity.
His body will always be young, but his heart will grow old.
The neighbors couldn't beat him, but years of fighting accumulated a lot of old injuries on him, and then he fell ill.
In a few hundred years, he recovered his health. For others, this is the length of a lifetime; for him, it is the time to brew a pot of wine. After drinking, he fell silent.
He used to mock those he defeated, but now looking at those who provoked him with bows and knives is like looking at mischievous children. The mischievous child becomes honest after being beaten up, but he doesn't have a common language with them. He is still strong, but he is no longer enthusiastic about fighting.
He is not an eternal winner. There are too many young people, there are always a few who can defeat him. Then they will find that they cannot kill him, he has amazing vitality. After defeating him, they would involuntarily sit down and drink with him, chat, and dream of becoming him after getting drunk.
He didn't expect that the person would also grow old and be killed by new young people. Afterwards, he became even more silent.
Day after day, life seems endless until that day. Some are that person's children, while others claim to be that person's children. They came to challenge him.
He was still waving his sword, and they pulled out their guns.
He was knocked down to the ground, but he didn't panic. He's not old, he just needs some time. He can also learn the skills of young people.
They also realized it. They initially thought he was a powerful old man, but after meeting him, they felt that he had only a skin and his internal organs had decayed. And now, they realize that this person will never drift away with the wind. Soon, he will once again bring some small shocks from the East to this world.
So dealing well with natural disasters is a very important factor of government's legitimacy. It is a huge difference when comparing how China deals with natural disasters to US
Now this is the reason why we see how the 2 China happens.
More like 2 parties in China still fighting in a long ass civil war.
The Kingdom manga is actual quite a good way to get into the histories of the era of spring and fall wars. Its obviously not historia correct. But its close enough and tells the story in a entertaining way.
Feeling like I should join RUclips before others soak up all my interests. LMAO. I've already done China for years. Self-studied some of the history out of curiosity and personal interest. Majored in International Studies with a focus on East Asia (specifically Japan and China). Lived and worked in China for over 7 years. I've done the big attractions (Forbidden City and Qin Terracotta tomb) twice. I've done other sites around China as well. I wanted to film with my GoPro Hero 4, but the damn GoPro needs to connect to the cellphone GoPro app to work, and the GoPro app is blocked in China so you need a vpn. Sounds easy just fire up a vpn, but if you understand anything technology you know a vpn uses part of the internet bandwidth to work, which means stuff sometimes moves slow or struggles to open. I had issues trying to watch RUclips channels when I was in China. Either the video never opens or it takes 30 minutes to load and usually 80% of the time it has an error during loading and has to restart back at square 1. It's too bad since my hometown has a lot of fame for connection with Xi here in Iowa.
Try DJI action4, works better than Go Pro. Looking forward to seeing your work! Jiayou
You can find a Chinese person around you to use a VPN, which will be faster and more stable.
买一个DJI的Pocket3，好用多了
i think you better post this on chinese gov website, you may get reply from Xi and get some vip vpn
@@binhu4083 Why don’t you play Genshin Impact?
I like the substance, but I wish the presentation was faster, more mumbly, and with pauses that were more comedic.
The historical trade relationship between China and Somalia involved the exchange of various commodities along the Somali coastline.
Of all the things skipped for this fun Cliff Notes romp through China's history, missing out Sui dynasty's Grand Canal project is a travesty IMHO. It's like making a video about Rome without even mentioning the aqueducts.
the grand canal was mentioned in the video.
It is interesting to see videos in the same way that Bill did
He missed out on Mohism which are taught to us as the 4 major Chinese philosophies during the Warring States period, but I don't blame him because it's the least interesting one and we are barely taught anything about it at school here. Based on my crude oversimplification, Mohism basically tells you to love everyone. Yay.
Also regarding the idea of legalism thinking people are inherently evil, just wanted to note that the idea actually came out of a branch of Confucianism led by Xunzi, who was the teacher of Han Feizi, one of the major influential philosophers for legalism, and Li Si, the Chancellor of the Qin Dynasty. Xunzi disagreed with Mengzi within the Confucius school of thought. Mengzi thought people were born good, and education should be about awakening their conscience. Xunzi thought people were born evil, and virtue has to be instilled through education (I personally quite like to compare him with Saint Augustine). His students took it a step further and asserted that the law was necessary to compel virtue rather than just education. A lot of people even here confuse that, thinking that Xunzi's ideas are inherently legalist and Mengzi's ideas are inherently Confucian, but Xunzi clearly identified as a Confucian through and through.
Also, Qin Shi Huang was not the last emperor, he did had a son who was the one that got overthrown. He basically had all his father's worst attributes but none of his political competence. An interesting thing is that that was actually his second son who wasn't supposed to inherit the throne. He colluded with Qin Shi Huang's closest men to fake his will and order the death of his brother who was supposed to be the Emperor. His brother did it based on Chinese notions of honour being that you unconditionally obey your kings and parents. Perhaps the Qin Dynasty could have lived longer if his brother was made the Emperor as supposed.
Shame that the Chinese didn't adopt Mohism. It's like the earliest form of logical thinking in China that can give rise to a scientific thinking.
@@Ivan-bg1jp 马克思说，生产力决定生产关系
@@Ivan-bg1jp You may be confusing Mohism with the School of Names
At 10:56
People invented new technology, like paper money, gunpowder, ………………………
Gunpowder was NOT invented in Song Dynasty. Gunpowder was invented in Sui Dynasty or early Tang Dynasty (late 6th century or 7th century)
The expanding history of China is our neighbor Nomad rulers love and want to become apart of China. So they dominated the core land and adopt, merge theirs homeland into the core land.
It's always they didn't have a writing system and started to learning language, writing and culture, then decided to abanded theirs old way of life, and adopting & merging progress.
It's not the expandation or domination, it's the gifts from the lovers.
Just FYI, Yongle Emperor is pronounced "yong-luh", the "le" at the end is a separate sound. Otherwise great video!
5:16 not the language but mostly the script of languages
I would love to address one thing. during the World War Two, KMT’s top leader didn’t want to cooperate with communists at the first place. Two of his generals launched a coup against him for the cooperation with communists party. Despite the top leader was hooded as hostages, one of them also lead one of biggest military fiction in KMT’s army, which is originated from Japan occupied northeast China. Even the KMT looked unified the China in 1928, the government and military still filled with factions from warlords era.
One last funny thing to mention, I believe in our constitution still states NanJing as our capital city. Even everyone knows we only hold Taiwan and couple of islands.😂
After World War Two, the reason for KMT lost the civil war is not only communist party growth during the cooperation against the Japanese invasion since 1937 but also they pushed bunch of policies fucked economic and inefficient government for distributing resources to both regular Chinese civilian and military.
When Taiwan returned to republic of China(KMT lead), their government made Taiwanese feel worse than Japanese occupation period, specifically the US was bombing and people need to restricted for daily supply. That’s when you now government is fucked up their job.
It’s an interesting way to present Chinese history.
Emperor Qin Shi Huang unified language, currency, culture, and identity, so when a lord occupies a large area of land, it is very easy for everyone to identify themselves as fellow countrymen, the territory will be stable. Since Europe has never had a unified culture and identity, if France occupies Germany and Britain, or vice versa, almost no German would consider themselves French, so Europe can never be unified. This has the advantage of different cultures competing and colliding with each other, giving birth to science and industry, just like the emergence of schools of thought such as Taoism, Legalism, and Confucianism during the Warring States period in China. When China was unified, there was a lack of cultural competition and very few progressive ideas emerged.
This was too simplistic, even for a Bill Wurtz style video. Literally not a word about the Three Kingdoms era, even though it lasted much longer than the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Even though it was not a yellow turban, but a prominent leader in the Three Kingdoms that founds the next empire. This is just bad. The yellow turbans did not lead to the Jin dynasty, the Three Kingdoms did. The sixty (or so) years between the two are considered to be the most important years in ancient Chinese history. Those are the years that they write books and make TV shows and movies about. No one cares about the yellow turban rebellion outside of "now we set the scene for the Three Kingdoms."
He also didn't mention Sun Yat-sen at all, who is pretty much considered the father of modern China by both the Communists and Kuomintang
You ever play the hidden tank game on NBA Jam?
I'm really not sure why western history books focus so much on this thing called the "Mandate of Heaven". I've never heard any Chinese person ever mention it.
周朝最高权力者为，天子，虽然大家称他为王，但他是天子，所有的王国都臣服于天子，受天子管理， 秦朝改为皇帝，即人间之皇，皇本是天上的神的最高权力者，中国从秦朝开始到现在，国家管理制度就没有改变，一直用秦朝的制度，也包括日本韩国越南，皇帝宣布命令，第一句话，奉天命！ 北京有祭祀天命的天坛。皇帝等于天子。
皇帝诏令，也就是“圣旨”，开头都是“奉天承运，皇帝诏曰”。传国玉玺上刻的是“受命于天，既寿永昌”。这还需要说吗？
The power of emperors or kings are endorsed by god or some form of heavenly supreme power. No matter east or west. Otherwise how would millions of people follow the command of one average guy?😂
@@bearpolo3618 传国玉玺是指周朝的国玺，于三国时代曹丕手中丢失。
没听过”建极绥猷“四个字吗？
5:16, i have one of those coins. ½ Liang
感觉讲的，挺一般的，你大体讲，但是很多重要的历史时期你连讲都不讲，春秋、西汉末、魏晋南北朝，五代十国等等等等，然后中国每个朝代的特点重要的变革等等都是不提了，然后你讲隋朝灭亡，一直在提打高句丽而不讲大运河，然后北宋你又着重去讲。。。总之偏见拉满，然后补充的也只是一些无关紧要的
兄弟，这算不错的了，在视频网站上，没有人需要对一个自己不会去的国家有过多详细的了解，这是非常乏味的
他不过是个偏见传播者而已，你当他在进行正经知识科普吗
9:05 Grand Canal
讲你上B站看德国历史的视频大多数都是说德国统一啊，一战德国二战德国啊，其实神圣罗马帝国各国邦国的历史也很精彩啊，奥地利的历史也很精彩在，统一的神罗历史也很精彩啊，但B站上有几个那样的视频，那是不是也可以说中国处处充满了对德国的偏见认为德国只会发动世界大战，说到偏见偏见最大的还是中国的户口制度真是对农村人口偏见拉满啊
@@ShannonDrawdy 你连举例都不会举，专题史和通史是一个概念嘛？历史转折性事件不发，放一些有政治隐喻的事件这叫【篇幅所限还是认知作战？b站讲欧洲历史讲丕平献土还是花大篇幅讲应付维京人疲于奔命，王位继承兄友弟恭？更别说版图就更搞笑了，有税收有流官有军队的西域都护和安东都护都能没了，他们介绍神罗怎么不见只放一个卢森堡？被意大利诸侯连调都不听怎么还把版图算上？
*Sounds Like You Lost The Mandate Of Heaven*
Edit: *China Is Whole Again*
Do we know if there is any content about the Jews that escaped to Shanghai during WWII? I just did the US premiere of an oratorio in NYC that talks about this, but it didn’t get too deeply into the story
Go find a book by the title, "(The) Chinese Jews," (I forgot the author, but am sure the book was published about half a century ago. I purchased it on a campus library sale at 1 USD back then, where the university authority would put out books for sale in order to get rid of the books that have NOT been popularly circulated in their curation. I still have that book, but it is possibly buried somewhere in my storage room where thousands of books are stored in boxes.) Therein some chapters or sections of a chapter were devoted to the Jews who fled the NATSIs and landed in China around WWII.
As a Chinese, I love this video.
I generally love history, Chinese history being part of the Japanese history fascinates me because even though I don't know much of the language(Chinese) I appreciate what the country has given the world!! Written language for the Koreans and Japanese, gun powder for guns and fireworks(even TNT/Dynamite), the Abacus and other things that are advancement in technology!!
@@jescis0 maybe you could word it better like "part of Chinese history is part of Japanese history
I get what you are saying.
@@yanx4797 I could and can, but what I typed is how I thought it, some times I forget what I'm typing when it gets really long and hard to see what I typed… especially when I'm making it on my phone… and at least you got the gist of what I meant… after all typing something and saying something IRL is different and the first one is harder a lot of times!! I also failed 9th and 10th grade English when I went to High School in the 90's!! And my skills in my own language isn't as good as it should be because of it!! That includes English punctuations 😁😁 Thank you for the advice
@@jescis0In the past, South Korea was a vassal state of China, but now South Korea's flag still comes from China's Zhouyi. Japanese culture is deeply influenced by traditional Chinese culture. Today's Japanese language also contains many Chinese characters, and many of Japan's food practices, medicine and tea culture come from China.
@@greenjobs2153 I know about it, mostly I know Japanese because I import the retro games(Famicom Disk System versions of certain games are better than the US cartridge counterpart) I buy CIB and I am still learning, but what I said before is partly what I observed between the languages… verbally they're all different languages, but written language in those countries are derived from the characters(in Japanese called Kanji) from china was used to make their own written language off of those(for Japanese it's Hiragana and Katakana)… as far as the South Korean flag… that's something that I didn't know and I find interesting 🤔🤔
Qin Dynasty - we get the name China from the word Qin
The word for river, "He", is pronounced "Huh". It's definitely not pronounced like the "He" in He-man".
Also not sure where the name "Yangtze River" came from. In China everyone just calls it the "Long River".
What do you mean you don't know where the name "Yangtze River" came from? If you're a Chinese, you should know unless you didn't pay attention in school...
I never went to school in China. I just know that everyone calls it the Long River 长江。
@@onlywei Well I grew up outside of China too. But anyways, Yangtze is basically the last section of the river near Shanghai. Foreigners at that time just generalized it as the whole river since that's the name that they knew.
扬子鳄 是不是应该叫 长鳄@@onlywei
“孤帆遠影碧空盡，惟見長江天際流。”
“觀乎巴陵盛狀，在洞庭一湖，銜遠山，吞長江，橫無際涯。”
在華中都稱長江，到華東又稱揚子江。
Remember ~300 years cycle up and down. It’s more like a United Europe with Han Chinese (a dozen states of them eventually United by kingdom of Qin) like Romans created the Middle Kingdom while Northern Norman “barbarians” Xiongnu/Huns, Mongols, Liao., Jin and Manchu. But now they are a big happy family.😅
Then he drinks an Immortality Potion and dies. Sounds like something that could happen on tiktok these days.
The modern day version is made with Tide pods and Buckyballs, wrapped in Kinder Eggs. 🤣
Someone inform me because i thought we didn't know if the three kingdoms period even happened or not. Because of that, i havent studied it but i know several people who nerd out over it
It is a very well documented historical fact.
The three kingdoms happen in the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and there was a great division for hundreds of years, in which the north China and the south China constantly went to war, and China finally reunited in Sui Dynasty, a short period before the Great Tang Dynasty
You can read Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but please note that this is an ancient Chinese novel and there are some differences from the real history
China is an awesome nation tho. There happened unbelievable much literally. Im traveling over from time to time, well when i have time and the money for it ofc. I still will go alot of times due to the huge scale of this country and different things i want to see
There is a Chinese proverb: "You cannot become fat by eating one bite." So China's success cannot all be attributed to allowing capital and privatization. Everything Mao Zedong did has its value. I think Mao started the Cultural Revolution only partly for individual rights. He is already the supreme ruler of the country then. How many rights can he still pursue? His greater concern was that China could no longer become a colony of the West and the Chinese could no longer be slaves. Colonization here does not refer to direct rule by the United States and the West, but to supporting many agents within China and thereby selling out national interests to them. At that time, many high-level officials within the Chinese Communist Party had already shown this tendency to be bribed. This is why Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, so that China could become a truly independent country.
Fantastic truth about China, well done Mr Terrry
LCD-Screens hate your static channel banner.
Great knowledge in Chinese history sir, but I just want to correct one pronunciation which is actually quite funny in English. "HE" in Chinese for river is actually pronounced as "HER?"(the question mark is how the second tone sort of sounds like a question). I always found this very ironic.
Buddhism's "message" and philosophy is different to the "Buddhist religion" that ended up being done with "Chinese characteristics".
can kind of see how the mandate of heaven just came to be in this video.
imagine your farm keep constantly getting ruined by what look like wrath gods, then some guy just come by and help hold it back. that guy would look like a messiah comparable to Moses.
This is western view. Not how Chinese see it.
@@NoohCee im Vietnamese actually.
and my comment was nothing more than a fun little conjecture i made from the video. which is basically a guy appearing out of nowhere to stop massive flooding and ended up being worshipped as a representative of god.
im not saying its the true nor saying it how Chinese see it. just making a light joke.
7:06 | Funny you should mention, but, do you know that some sections of the wall actually face China, meaning that someone else built a wall to protect themselves FROM China? You should really do a video about this part of the region before the Mongols and Turks.
Source
Actually the most militarize dynasty is Ming dynasty if you take a closer look at their history you will see Ming is very often engaging military conflict with other from early day fighting mongol to wanli period fighting jurchen and Japan and Burma and their own iinternal rebellion
Ming military also is more advanced than you think almost half their army use firearm and field artillery
Sure, but in terms of overall performance and quality though, Ming army generally sucks, due to poor tax structure, that barely fund them. Tech might be advanced, but morale were usually quite low, as many troops were owed pay for up to a year.
@@LibeliumDragonfly Ming army overall performance in late period still better than Song and Qing in their late period Ming beat japan in Imjin War and crush Miao uprising and Pubei rebellion while winning most of the battle against Burma, Ming only gave up on holding the autonomous region to Burma because it's too costly to fight
It also take 3 generation of Jurchen to finally conquered all of ming china
fighting mongol is to finish Yuan dynasty, mongol=Yuan. in late Ming dynasty figting japan, burma, qin,......is defend the Harass from them. and which bring the Ming dynasty to extinction
I like how he completely ignores non-unified eras in our history. It's hard for myself to grasp history during 南北朝 (before Sui) or 五代十国 (before Song).
I’m only here cuz I heard mr Terry wears cool hats.
Do you agree they are cool?
@@MrTerryyeah you DO have great hats and helmets!! 😉😉
Han dynasty is where the Chinese called themselves the Han in ethnicity -