AHC: A conquest dynasty... from the south

China has had several 'conquest' dynasties, whose origins were foreign invasion. There were the Liao, the Jin, the Yuan and the Qing. All of these dynasties attacked and conquered China (or part of China) from the north. The challenge here is to have a scenario where a non-Han dynasties is built from a conquest coming from the south. A Tibetan dynasty getting established during the height of the Tibetan empire is probably the only one I can think of, but are there any other possibilities? Could one of the indigenous ethnic groups in southern China claim the Mandate of Heaven? Could a Thai or Vietnamese based dynasty work? The later the PoD is the better, and bonus points for lasting over a century.
 
weren't the successful northern barbarians were pastoral? so they had lots of cavalry. AND they struck at the right time.

maybe give your southeastern army a lot of Elephants. not sure how many they can accumulate/support for a long campaign. maybe they establish control over all of SE Asia first, and then attack when emperor weakened. i suspect striking along coast better, so vietnam better candidate

and non Han conquering dynasties generally lasted a two or three hundred years - they kept most of existing civil service and re-established order
 

Kaze

Banned
Would wank the Chu work? The Chu was a southern based kingdom. In terms of landmass and military - it was larger than the Qin state, and it was the last one on their hit-list of conquered nations.

By extension the Han-Chu Contention could in theory was a re-establishment of the Chu State, but in the end the Han was successful.

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Or Nanzhao. Nanzhao made raids as far into Chengdu during the Tang Dynasty - then withdrew. There was a succession crisis and mismanagement by the kings of Nanzhao which lead to the fall of the Nazhao and the creation of Dali State.
It would be easy to wank the Nanzho to have the succession crisis
 
I think it's pretty unlikely. China north of the Yangtze/Changjiang is flat plain, where as south it's interspersed with hilly terrain and forests. The former is much more conductive to establishment of a state than the latter, especially for a conquering army.
 
I think it's pretty unlikely. China north of the Yangtze/Changjiang is flat plain, where as south it's interspersed with hilly terrain and forests. The former is much more conductive to establishment of a state than the latter, especially for a conquering army.

Yup, it's all a matter of geography. It's much easier to invade from the relatively flat plains of the north than go through the mountainous south. That's why the Chinese built the wall in the north, since there's already a natural one in the south.

To put this in context, just imagine Hannibal and his elephants invading Prague or Budapest from Barcelona through the entirety of the Alps in Switzerland and Austria, instead of around it.
 
Would wank the Chu work? The Chu was a southern based kingdom. In terms of landmass and military - it was larger than the Qin state, and it was the last one on their hit-list of conquered nations.

By extension the Han-Chu Contention could in theory was a re-establishment of the Chu State, but in the end the Han was successful.

=======
Or Nanzhao. Nanzhao made raids as far into Chengdu during the Tang Dynasty - then withdrew. There was a succession crisis and mismanagement by the kings of Nanzhao which lead to the fall of the Nazhao and the creation of Dali State.
It would be easy to wank the Nanzho to have the succession crisis
Chu would do,and in the minds of a lot of Chinese at the time,they were definitely barbarians,no matter how well they dressed(even the Chu ruler acknowledged himself as a barbarian when trying to find an excuse to shrug off Zhou suzerainty).At the same time however,Chu was basically far too feudal.
 
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