AH Challenge: Swap Europe and China

A bad title, I know, but I digress.

Partially inspired by the Songs of Roland TL, under which circumstances would the political development of Europe and China switch.

By this I mean Europe develops into largely a single, unified Empire. This one empire dominates the continent with a huge population and is considered the centre of the civilised world.

China, on the other hand, develops into a large collection of small states vying for control. Warfare and death are commonplace, but from this vast amount of competition significant strides are taken by the local states.

No PoD is allowed before the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. The rest is up to you.

Is this possible? What can you come up with?
 
A bad title, I know, but I digress.

Partially inspired by the Songs of Roland TL, under which circumstances would the political development of Europe and China switch.

By this I mean Europe develops into largely a single, unified Empire. This one empire dominates the continent with a huge population and is considered the centre of the civilised world.

China, on the other hand, develops into a large collection of small states vying for control. Warfare and death are commonplace, but from this vast amount of competition significant strides are taken by the local states.

No PoD is allowed before the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. The rest is up to you.

Is this possible? What can you come up with?

There is no Justinanic Plague in 542, some Western Europe, and more importantly, the ERE, remains undevastated. The Romans are slightly luckier in the Italian wars, and the Peninsula is subdued by 545. Visigothic Spain is subdued by Belisarius in the 550s, and the Romans sieze Provence, re-establishing direct rule from Constantinople all around the Mediterranean.
The Lombard invasions of Italy are repulsed, and Francia is increasingly drawn into the Roman sphere of influence-- it is relatively peacefully re-absorbed into the Roman Empire around 600. Islam, assuming it is not butterflied, is unable to make significant headway in what is pretty much a full sized and booming Roman Empire, and instead concentrates its energy on a series of grinding guerilla wars against Persia. Taking advantage of this, the Romans gradually extend their sphere of influence north into central Europe, reconquering Britannia as they go. There is no formal conquest until approximately the year 1000, but by this time, pretty much all of Europe is somehow subject to Constantinople, and devotedly Christian, together with large parts of Africa and the Near East.
Romano-wank, quite possibly. Throw in a couple of violent civil wars and invasions to even things up a bit. :D
(Basically a lot of this happens in my TL, "The Empire Strikes Back", link is on my sig)
 
Well, the reason why this didn't happen in OTL is discussed in Guns, Germs and Steel. Simply put, China (due to it's geography) is inclined to unification, and Europe is prone to dis-unification. So, I think the PoD is going to have to be a geographical one, in which Europe has one or two main languages, and/or cultures, with a few regional differences, whereas China has a couple dozen cultures, and languages.
 

Baskilisk

Banned
There is no Justinanic Plague in 542, some Western Europe, and more importantly, the ERE, remains undevastated. The Romans are slightly luckier in the Italian wars, and the Peninsula is subdued by 545. Visigothic Spain is subdued by Belisarius in the 550s, and the Romans sieze Provence, re-establishing direct rule from Constantinople all around the Mediterranean.
The Lombard invasions of Italy are repulsed, and Francia is increasingly drawn into the Roman sphere of influence-- it is relatively peacefully re-absorbed into the Roman Empire around 600. Islam, assuming it is not butterflied, is unable to make significant headway in what is pretty much a full sized and booming Roman Empire, and instead concentrates its energy on a series of grinding guerilla wars against Persia. Taking advantage of this, the Romans gradually extend their sphere of influence north into central Europe, reconquering Britannia as they go. There is no formal conquest until approximately the year 1000, but by this time, pretty much all of Europe is somehow subject to Constantinople, and devotedly Christian, together with large parts of Africa and the Near East.
Romano-wank, quite possibly. Throw in a couple of violent civil wars and invasions to even things up a bit. :D
(Basically a lot of this happens in my TL, "The Empire Strikes Back", link is on my sig)
Ha, it would interesting if you had Britain turn into a European Japan.
 
Easy! Mongols take over Europe in 1278. (Assuming Batu Khan was allowed to stay alive for about another five years) ;)
 
Well, the reason why this didn't happen in OTL is discussed in Guns, Germs and Steel. Simply put, China (due to it's geography) is inclined to unification, and Europe is prone to dis-unification. So, I think the PoD is going to have to be a geographical one, in which Europe has one or two main languages, and/or cultures, with a few regional differences, whereas China has a couple dozen cultures, and languages.

Could be a little less vague with this?
China has all the geographical features of Europe, often in bigger version, Rivers, Mountains etc.
And most of Europes divisions are ethnic.
Ethnic migration may be fulled by geopgrahy, but it has opposed it in some cases.
 
Could be a little less vague with this?
China has all the geographical features of Europe, often in bigger version, Rivers, Mountains etc.
And most of Europes divisions are ethnic.
Ethnic migration may be fulled by geopgrahy, but it has opposed it in some cases.

Northern China is, for the most part, a mildly mountainous plain, and Southern China is the same but far more wet. The major geographic barriers are mostly just the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, as is ably demonstrated in how China continually fragmented into North/South divisions, only to eventually be reunited. Europe, however, has the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Balkan mountains, is full of large peninsulas, etc. The largest continuous area of land in Europe is the North European plain, basically France, non-Alpine Germany, on through Poland. If you look back on the history of this area, it usually HAS been mildly united, at least in comparison to the rest of Europe. The Frankish Empire sprawled across this area, the Holy Roman Empire was continuously expanding out through the flat area of Eastern Europe, etc.
 
Severely unfriendly mountain ranges make supply lines a nightmare and defense very doable.

But you COULD go with a Romanowank, or maybe some of the multiple Steppe Empires finally learns how to unite Europeans. Still, seems unlikely, what with the islands/peninsulas/mountains and such.
 
Rekjavik

If your willing to accept the Med instead of Europe, with the northern part of Europe dominated by this empire it should be possible. As BG said a revived Byzantium or, possibly even more likely a rampant Caliphate that completes the domination of the Med. Either route gives a natural economic sphere with cheap and reliable water-based transportation. For most of history the northern regions of Europe while occasionally producing powerful military elements have been very much a back-water politically and economically. Its only in the last millennium that this has changed.

It would be easier I suspect with an earlier POD that allowed the survival of a pagan Roman empire. Christianity and Islam, due to their nature are far more divisive so much more difficult to hold such a large state together. Far too easy for politics and religion to combine in making sectional differences permanent.

What might be more difficult would be to have China permanently divided. By that date it already has a strong tradition of unity and the civil service to maintain/renew it. Possibly if you could get some equivalent of the highly fissile Abrahamic religion in China or some other situation that generates deep and lasting divisions so that the Chinese no longer think of themselves as one people.

Steve
 

General Zod

Banned
Northern China is, for the most part, a mildly mountainous plain, and Southern China is the same but far more wet. The major geographic barriers are mostly just the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, as is ably demonstrated in how China continually fragmented into North/South divisions, only to eventually be reunited. Europe, however, has the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Balkan mountains, is full of large peninsulas, etc. The largest continuous area of land in Europe is the North European plain, basically France, non-Alpine Germany, on through Poland. If you look back on the history of this area, it usually HAS been mildly united, at least in comparison to the rest of Europe. The Frankish Empire sprawled across this area, the Holy Roman Empire was continuously expanding out through the flat area of Eastern Europe, etc.

Sincerely the very argument you quote (the existence of the North European plain) indicates that at least the vast majority of Europe could be potentially united under a single centralized pre-industrial state before cultural differences are allowed to fully blossom. You either need a dominant mediterranean Empire (say Rome) to seize control of the Hiberian and Italian Peninsula and then seize control of the NE plain before it fully develops, or you need a dominant power to seize control of the NE plain (say the Carolingian empire) after appropriate technological level has allowed its full development. Historical record indicates that a power that fully controls the French-German-Polish-Hungarian area has the resources to seize dominion of the Italian and Hiberian peninsulas as well, the Alps and the Pyrenees are not really a serious barrier to that kind of power concentration. The Power that fully controls continental Western and Central Europe effectively dominates the continent, no other area (Britain, Scandinaiva, the Balkans) can muster the power to oppose that, they are either eventually assimilated or cowed vassal-states deemed too marginal for the effort of annexation, or escape assimilation because the Empire is too absorbed by rivalry with other Empires in the Middle East or Russia. Geographical difficulties are a trivial factor.

As such, a Byzantinewank or a Carolingian/HRE wank would be fitting starting points to execute your European imperial unification. Romewank or a string of talented tribal leaders unifying Iron Age Celts and Teutons would be other ones, but beyond the requirements of the PoD.

Severely unfriendly mountain ranges make supply lines a nightmare and defense very doable. Still, seems unlikely, what with the islands/peninsulas/mountains and such.

No. Give me a strong centralized Empire that encompasses France and Germany, and it will have plenty of resources available to inevitably assimilate Italy, Poland, and Hungary. With that concentration of resources, complete domination of the continent is irresistible. Britain and Hiberia would be just as surely assimilated or kept as cowed vassal-states, at the hegemon's leisure. Geographical obstacles like the Channel or the Pyrenees become trivial at that point, and historical evidence is very clear that the Alps are no real obstacle for North European empires to seize control of Italy, if they don't it's because another NE rival power checks them. If Scandinavia and the Balkans escape assimilation, and they just might, it's because they are deemed too poor and marginal for the effort.
 
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