And Mr. Paciano, since you are interested in wars and conquests and lives lost, here's a quick history of China. A long history of bloody wars and conquests that resulted in big additions by bloody force to their territory. Not a case of people volunteering to become part of a nation but people and regions annexed by bloody force, including Tibet and Xinjiang. I guess the Western World, including America, learned from the much older China with a long history of acquiring territory by force and blood. SO WHY DON’T YOU ASK CHINA HOW TO ADD TERRITORY BY FORCE AND BLOOD?:
CHINA. A LONG HISTORY OF BLOODY WARS AND CONQUESTS KILLING MILLIONS ON THE WAY TO BECOMING THE BIG COUNTRY IT IS NOW.
The Shang dynasty is the earliest to be confirmed by contemporary records.[63] The Shang ruled the plain of the Yellow River in eastern China from the 17th to the 11th century bce.[64] Their oracle bone script (from c. 1500 bce)[65][66] represents the oldest form of Chinese writing yet found,[67] and is a direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters.[68]
ZHOU CONQUEST:
The Shang were conquered by the Zhou, who ruled between the 11th and 5th centuries bce, though centralized authority was slowly eroded by feudal warlords.
WAR AMONG STATES, 5TH-3RD CENTURIES BCE: Many independent states eventually emerged from the weakened Zhou state and continually waged war with each other in the 300-year Spring and Autumn period, only occasionally deferring to the Zhou king.
SEVEN POWERFUL SOVEREIGN STATES: By the time of the Warring States period of the 5th–3rd centuries bce, there were seven powerful sovereign states in what is now China, each with its own king, ministry and army.
Imperial China
CONQUEST BY THE STATE OF QIN: The Warring States period ended in 221 bce after the state of Qin conquered the other six kingdoms and established the first unified Chinese state. King Zheng of Qin proclaimed himself the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty. He enacted Qin's legalist reforms throughout China, notably the forced standardization of Chinese characters, measurements, road widths (i.e., cart axles' length), and currency.
CONQUEST OF THE YUE TRIBES IN GUANGXI, GUANGDONG AND VIETNAM: His dynasty also conquered the Yue tribes in Guangxi, Guangdong, and Vietnam.[69] The Qin dynasty lasted only fifteen years, falling soon after the First Emperor's death, as his harsh authoritarian policies led to widespread rebellion.[70][71]
MORE WARS, CIVIL WAR THEN RISE OF HAN DYNASTY: Following a widespread civil war during which the imperial library at Xianyang was burned,[p] the Han dynasty emerged to rule China between 206 bce and ce 220, creating a cultural identity among its populace still remembered in the ethnonym of the Han Chinese.[70][71]
HAN DYNASTY’S MILITARY CAMPAIGNS REACHING CENTRAL ASIA, MONGOLIA, SOUTH KOREA AND YUNNAN AND RECOVERY BY FORCE OF GUANGDONG: The Han expanded the empire's territory considerably, with military campaigns reaching Central Asia, Mongolia, South Korea, and Yunnan, and the recovery of Guangdong and northern Vietnam from Nanyue. Han involvement in Central Asia and Sogdia helped establish the land route of the Silk Road, replacing the earlier path over the Himalayas to India. Han China gradually became the largest economy of the ancient world.[73] Despite the Han's initial decentralization and the official abandonment of the Qin philosophy of Legalism in favor of Confucianism, Qin's legalist institutions and policies continued to be employed by the Han government and its successors.[74]
THREE KINGDOMS AND MORE BLOODY WARS: After the end of the Han dynasty, a period of strife known as Three Kingdoms followed,[75] whose central figures were later immortalized in one of the Four Classics of Chinese literature. At its end, Wei was swiftly overthrown by the Jin dynasty.
INVASION BY THE FIVE BARBARIANS WHICH RULED NORTHERN CHINA: The Jin fell to civil war upon the ascension of a developmentally-disabled emperor; the Five Barbarians then invaded and ruled northern China as the Sixteen States. The Xianbei unified them as the Northern Wei, whose Emperor Xiaowen reversed his predecessors' apartheid policies and enforced a drastic sinification on his subjects, largely integrating them into Chinese culture. In the south, the general Liu Yu secured the abdication of the Jin in favor of the Liu Song. The various successors of these states became known as the Northern and Southern dynasties, with the two areas finally reunited by the Sui in 581. The Sui restored the Han to power through China, reformed its agriculture and economy, constructed the Grand Canal, and patronized Buddhism. However, they fell quickly when their conscription for public works and a failed war with Korea provoked widespread unrest.[76][77]
Under the succeeding Tang and Song dynasties, Chinese economy, technology, and culture entered a golden age.[78] The Tang Empire returned control of the Western Regions and the Silk Road,[79] and made the capital Chang'an a cosmopolitan urban center. However, it was devastated and weakened by the An Shi Rebellion in the 8th century.[80] In 907, the Tang disintegrated completely when the local military governors became ungovernable. The Song dynasty ended the separatist situation in 960, leading to a balance of power between the Song and Khitan Liao. The Song was the first government in world history to issue paper money and the first Chinese polity to establish a permanent standing navy which was supported by the developed shipbuilding industry along with the sea trade.[81] Between the 10th and 11th centuries, the population of China doubled in size to around 100 million people, mostly because of the expansion of rice cultivation in central and southern China, and the production of abundant food surpluses. The Song dynasty also saw a revival of Confucianism, in response to the growth of Buddhism during the Tang,[82] and a flourishing of philosophy and the arts, as landscape art and porcelain were brought to new levels of maturity and complexity.[83][84] However, the military weakness of the Song army was observed by the Jurchen Jin dynasty.
MORE BLOODY WARS, CAPTURE OF THE CAPITAL: In 1127, Emperor Huizong of Song and the capital Bianjing were captured during the Jin–Song Wars. The remnants of the Song retreated to southern China.[85]
MONGOL CONQUEST OF CHINA, ESTABLISHMENT OF YUAN DYNASTY: The 13th century brought the Mongol conquest of China. In 1271, the Mongol leader Kublai Khan established the Yuan dynasty; the Yuan conquered the last remnant of the Song dynasty in 1279. Before the Mongol invasion, the population of Song China was 120 million citizens; this was reduced to 60 million by the time of the census in 1300.[86]
YUAN DYNASTY OVERTHROWN, MING DYNASTY FOUNDED: A peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan in 1368 and founded the Ming dynasty as the Hongwu Emperor. Under the Ming dynasty, China enjoyed another golden age, developing one of the strongest navies in the world and a rich and prosperous economy amid a flourishing of art and culture. It was during this period that Zheng He led treasure voyages throughout the world, reaching as far as Africa.[87]
In the early years of the Ming dynasty, China's capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing. With the budding of capitalism, philosophers such as Wang Yangming further critiqued and expanded Neo-Confucianism with concepts of individualism and equality of four occupations.[88] The scholar-official stratum became a supporting force of industry and commerce in the tax boycott movements, which, together with the famines and defense against Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98) and Manchu invasions led to an exhausted treasury.[89]
CAPTURE OF BEIJING BY REBEL FORCES, ESTABLISHMENT OF SHUN DYNASTY: In 1644, Beijing was captured by a coalition of peasant rebel forces led by Li Zicheng. The Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide when the city fell. The Manchu Qing dynasty, then allied with Ming dynasty general Wu Sangui, overthrew Li's short-lived Shun dynasty and subsequently seized control of Beijing, which became the new capital of the Qing dynasty.
RISE OF QING DYNASTY, WHICH OVERTHREW MING DYNASTY, COST 25 MILLION LIVES! The Qing dynasty, which lasted from 1644 until 1912, was the last imperial dynasty of China. Its conquest of the Ming (1618–1683) cost 25 million lives and the economy of China shrank drastically.[90]
CONQUEST OF DZUNGAR KHANATE ADDED MONGOLIA, TIBET AND XINJIANG: After the Southern Ming ended, the further conquest of the Dzungar Khanate added Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang to the empire.[91] The centralized autocracy was strengthened to crack down on anti-Qing sentiment with the policy of valuing agriculture and restraining commerce, the Haijin ("sea ban"), and ideological control as represented by the literary inquisition, causing social and technological stagnation.[92][93] In the mid-19th century, the dynasty experienced Western imperialism in the Opium Wars with Britain and France.
No comments:
Post a Comment