What does it take for china to never unite as one country for several centuries until the 20th century?
ATL of china
- Thread starter joeyanonymous
- Start date
Happened a couple of times. Warring Kingdoms, Northern and Southern Dynasties.
Strong, decentralized local elites are key. Aristocratic nobles possessing actual power who are content ruling over their corner of China and don't give a damn to the fate of the larger region - they'll be a very strong check to any unificationist government or emperor.
PhilippeO
Banned
Geographic POD ? North China Plain flatness will pressure any one who control part of it to unify all of it, it not defensible terrain, earlier dynasties based on Wei river, Fen river, or Shandong always attempt to control it.
And once one dynasties unify North China Plain they will have advantage in population to conquer sorrounding area.
And once one dynasties unify North China Plain they will have advantage in population to conquer sorrounding area.
Dragos Cel Mare
Banned
What if the Mongols follow through on their plan to reduce large amounts of North China into pastureland?
As noted above, China needs a very strong tradition of local aristocracy in order to stay fractured.
In OTL that got stomped flat by the propagation of philosophies that emphasized egalitarianism. Maybe if Confucius gets butterflied away?
Also Mongols are too late to stop China's centralization. It'd be better if, say, the Xiongnu successfully destroyed the Han Dynasty and turned northern China into nomad-land.
In OTL that got stomped flat by the propagation of philosophies that emphasized egalitarianism. Maybe if Confucius gets butterflied away?
Also Mongols are too late to stop China's centralization. It'd be better if, say, the Xiongnu successfully destroyed the Han Dynasty and turned northern China into nomad-land.
RousseauX
Donor
You had a decentralized local elite in China and there was always a decentralized local elite in China (even today). The problem is that you had the prestige of a Chinese literati tradition and the exam system drawing on that tradition as a way of including them in the governance structure at the center. So unlike a feudal elite in europe you had way more of an incentive to participate in central government rather than opposing it.
RousseauX
Donor
Even -that- might not stop a reunification because this is a Malthusian society, which means that empty land is a godsend and need to be resettled ASAP.
Mongol steppe is Malthusian as well. I mean the North China would not be empty; it would be populated by the Mongol nomads, lots and lots of warlike mounted archers.
Mongolia of OTL was always a problem for China; this much bigger ATL Mongolia (including North China) would have been a HUGE problem for the Southern China.
RousseauX
Donor
The difference between northern China and Mongolia itself is that northern China actually had productive agricultural land. The steppes in Mongolia don't which means that trying to advance into the steppes is a massive, costly adventure which yields little/no gains.
In most years steppe hordes are not a massive existential threat but nuances raiding your borders. When settled societies have productive land to expand into you begin the process of settlement->fortification->flourishing of economy->more settlements and so on. Eventually the nomads gets pushed out by this process. Alternatively they turn into what the Golden Horde became in Russia.
PhilippeO
Banned
Both of this didn't prevent raise of Han, Jin and Tang dynasty.
China have powerful local elites, after fall of Han until early years of Tang dynasty, local families were very powerful. Four families of Shandong are so respected, when Li Zhimin order registering and ranking of family, one of them outranked Imperial family, angered the Emperor. Read Three Kingdoms or its many adaptation and you see that many local families are very powerful.
compared to Europe or Japan, local elites are weakened because Chinese reliance on mass army (with spear and crossbow) or tribal nomad armies (horse archer). So local elites couldn't rely on loyalty of armed men to strengthen itself, they become bureaucrat and land-manager only.
Exam system also didn't very widespread, Exam system during Tang dynasty is essentially poetry contest that make upper class dominate government official.
Prestige of exam system is because Imperial Government economic dominance, even without exam system prestige, such as when reccomendation system dominate (several dynasties order local official to recommending men), local elites would still attracted to work for Imperial Government.
Actually that's not a rule, that's not a law, that is not inevitability. by no means
I guess, you know, that on the Eastern side of the Great Eurasian Plain there is China, Korea, Mongolia.
On the Western side there is Crimea, Hungary, Russian/Ukrainian steppes. And these Western Steppes were always full of excellent rich lands which were extremely productive agriculturally. But...
... but your process of "pushing out the nomads from productive agricultural lands" started only in the XVIII century A.D. roughly. It somehow coincided with appearance of highly effective firearms which finally gave an edge over the nomads.
Before that during good three thousand years there was usually a stalemate between nomadic and settled civilizations there, when for the most part the nomads enjoyed probably best agricultural lands in Europe for their extensive nomadic animal breeding.
Zhou China is your best bet.
And you also kinda have to strangle the Mandate of Heaven idea before it really gains currency; part of why China unified after nearly every fragmented period is because the strongest faction would often claim the Mandate of Heaven and thus enforce hegemony (though of course what constituted China differed from time to time; it wasn't really until the Ming dynasty that China held most of its OTL territory and the Qing added mostly the northern parts)
And you also kinda have to strangle the Mandate of Heaven idea before it really gains currency; part of why China unified after nearly every fragmented period is because the strongest faction would often claim the Mandate of Heaven and thus enforce hegemony (though of course what constituted China differed from time to time; it wasn't really until the Ming dynasty that China held most of its OTL territory and the Qing added mostly the northern parts)
From the North-South Dynasty period to the end of the Tang Dynasty,there was a strong tradition of local aristocracy.Ironically,this tradition of aristocracy was based on a wealthy land owning class that has the means to sustain their positions as Confucian scholar-bureaucrats.