AHC: A culturally different North China

What PODs would make northern China culturally different than southern China to the point that they won't see themselves as the same as the people from southern China?
 
What PODs would make northern China culturally different than southern China to the point that they won't see themselves as the same as the people from southern China?

Sustained division during the Late Imperial Era which breaks social and economic links. A Jin/Southern Song split would be a good PoD for that, or a Qing/Southern Ming split.

In a sense, a cultural division did occur during the c.300-year long Northern and Southern Dynasties, but that was eventually subsumed by renewed waves of Northern migration during the Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
the problem is 'elite culture' of China is preventing further cultural difference. landowner gentry study same book, go to same exam, and enjoying same entertainment. I think culturally different China would need politically divided China, to break national exam and elite culture.
 
What PODs would make northern China culturally different than southern China to the point that they won't see themselves as the same as the people from southern China?

Weren't the Manchus and Mongols culturally different from Han china. They do populate majority of northern china until Han Chinese were migrated to those areas.

I think the issue is the revisionist Chinese history thinking that every part of otl present day china has always been Han Chinese which was never the case historically, like xinjian, qinghai, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Taiwan and Manchuria.
 
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