AHC: Make the Chinese languages and culture extinct

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There could be a way for the Indians to make a larger impact on China to the point where instead of characters Chinese could be written using a derivative of Brahmi, that family of scripts that gave us Devanagari. An example of that is Burmese, a language which is amongst Chinese's closest relatives but is written using a Brahmic script that originally was adapted for writing on palm leaves. Hence the distinct shame of the Burmese script, which is very circular.
 
Legend says Genghis was tempted to thoroughly cleanse the entire North China Plain to make pastures for his horses, and was only stopped by an adviser who pointed out it's more productive to simply tax the Chinese people. :eek:
 
Legend says Genghis was tempted to thoroughly cleanse the entire North China Plain to make pastures for his horses, and was only stopped by an adviser who pointed out it's more productive to simply tax the Chinese people. :eek:
I've heard that story, too. It's certainly a scary thought.
I agree with you, though, that the story is almost certainly apocryphal.

Edit: Although it is interesting that the Mongol Empire never did really "tax" the Chinese, in a Chinese sense. (The Yuan Dynasty did, but that was done through Chinese officials.) Instead, they did the traditional Xiongnu thing, and accepted money/gifts/tribute in lieu of raiding. It was closer to the "Danegeld" than a proper tax.

Edit2: As my Mongolian History professor once put it, Ögedei's storage areas (where he put his tribute/gold/etc) in Karakorum "probably looked like something out of an episode of Hoarders".:)
 
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There could be a way for the Indians to make a larger impact on China to the point where instead of characters Chinese could be written using a derivative of Brahmi, that family of scripts that gave us Devanagari. An example of that is Burmese, a language which is amongst Chinese's closest relatives but is written using a Brahmic script that originally was adapted for writing on palm leaves. Hence the distinct shame of the Burmese script, which is very circular.

On a lightly related note, maybe in the south, where there was colonisation by Han in old days like Szechuan, there was many peoples... the ancestors of Viets and Thais peoples, by example, who fled south.

Change things around in history, maybe it's the Han who may get assimilated in the long run, if one strong culture in the south of modern PRC remains.

Not quite all he asked, but less chinese.
Maybe a new minority at least, like the Hui (chinese muslims) but Theravadan buddhists or Hinduists...
 

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A POD around 263 or 310 would be when Chinese civilization was at its absolute weakest and most vulnerable, but by then most of the neighboring tribes had started to assimilate into Chinese culture and even with most of the population dead (that was one of the bloodiest periods in history seeing 60-80 million people get reduced to less than 15 million and the decline further with genocides that make the Mongols seem pleasant) (regular sacking of cities, mass imprisonment, regular death, sweeping famines, that kind of thing) the invading groups adopted Chinese language, mannerisms of state, and simply were absorbed into it.

Western Rome, or Roman in general, never went extinct. Its culture shattered and diverged, its language shattered and declined in some areas while rising in others, and the idea of rome is still very much alive in Italy, Greece, and Romania. Yes. Romania. The name itself is Rome. Even when the last bit of it was defeated by the Turks we had the Holy Romans, Russians, and Ottomans claiming political and cultural continuation of the damn thing. Hell, the Vatican is Rome in some regards. It didn't die.
 
Well aside from nomadic invaders slaughtering people in the period I suggested, I don't feasibly see how you could make "Chinese" culture extinct. At the most you could have hybrid cultures in the north and with a potential fragmentation of the south into various language groups but wouldn't the cultural influence still exist.

Again, it all depends on how you define a "culture". Lingering cultural influences don't translate to fully-fledged cultural continuity. The Taino left cultural influences in the Greater Antilles but modern Puerto Rican culture is not recognized as being the same as Taino culture. The Hittites left cultural influences in Turkey but modern Turkey is not Hittite. The Gauls in France, the Scythians in Ukraine, the Harappan civilization in northern India, the Olmecs in Mexico, etc.
 
Forgive my ignorance but was the Sima Jin dynasty that bad? That even with the stability of the states of the 3 kingdoms save Sun Wu under Sun Hao. It managed to get worse than the immediate period of warfare and struggles after Emperor Ling died.
 
During the time of the Roman Empire, did they not call themselves Roman?
Not to get off topic, but if the Roman Empire didn't have a lasting influence, then the Byzantines, HRE, Franks, and Ottomans would not have claimed its mantle.

The Roman Empire was extremely good at assimilating people. During the 200's, say, I think the elite of any Roman land would have considered themselves--or aspired to consider themselves--Roman.
 
Have some northern barbarian force conquer northern China and turn the Han culture into something unrecognizable, perhaps they refuse to use the Chinese script. Then southern China collapses and since they all speak their own dialects anyway they become distinct cultures and states.

Agreed with Leo.
Actually after Cao Wei Dynasty fell, a lot of Xianbei tribes conquered land from North China and declared a lot of Dynasties. Maybe they can survive and somehow change Chinese culture. So there could be different cultures that is mix of Chinese and Xianbei.

Or you can make Buddism spread through China and dominate. Then push Toacism and Confucianism. Then steadily Sanskrit will replace Chinese Hieroglyph, and make Tibet conquer all China. Now you can very different Chinese culture than today's.
 
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Legend says Genghis was tempted to thoroughly cleanse the entire North China Plain to make pastures for his horses, and was only stopped by an adviser who pointed out it's more productive to simply tax the Chinese people. :eek:

True. That was really what some of Chingis' Generals and Brothers suggested.
 
Agreed with Leo.
Actually after Cao Wei Dynasty fell, a lot of Xianbei tribes conquered land from North China and declared a lot of Dynasties. Maybe they can survive and somehow change Chinese culture. So there could be different cultures that is mix of Chinese and Xianbei.

Or you can make Buddism spread through China and dominate. Then push Toacism and Confucianism. Then steadily Sanskrit will replace Chinese Hieroglyph, and make Tibet conquer all China. Now you can very different Chinese culture than today's.

Have both happen. What you get is an Xianbei culture in the north that lasts until the Mongols and then the Russians or Swedes come and annex it into their territory, and a Tibetian culture in the south that lasts until Islam comes and converts everybody to it.
 
Have both happen. What you get is an Xianbei culture in the north that lasts until the Mongols and then the Russians or Swedes come and annex it into their territory, and a Tibetian culture in the south that lasts until Islam comes and converts everybody to it.

Alot of that seems unfeasible and assumes that every else that happened in the world happens the way it did. I could see their at least being a Tibetian culture in the west that could thrive, but the whole south of "China" unlikely. Why would Sweden or Russia go east and invade "China"? It would be a nightmare to manage just as it would be a nightmare to invade.

Even if Islam reaches the southern parts it all depends on how it would spread and if the south is heavily divided and willing to crack down on Islam.
 
THere is always the coin flip scenario - all the Steppe tribes, like the Huns, who pressed the European Germanic tribes into the Roman Empire, head east rather than west, and push all the Asiatic tribes into China, when the Chinese state was most vulnerable, resulting in a Fall of China, with Mongol, Korean, Thai and other breakoff states that seek to be hiers to Chinese - maybe even a 'Divine Chinese Empire', niether Divine, nor Chinese, nor an Empire.
 
THere is always the coin flip scenario - all the Steppe tribes, like the Huns, who pressed the European Germanic tribes into the Roman Empire, head east rather than west, and push all the Asiatic tribes into China, when the Chinese state was most vulnerable, resulting in a Fall of China, with Mongol, Korean, Thai and other breakoff states that seek to be hiers to Chinese - maybe even a 'Divine Chinese Empire', niether Divine, nor Chinese, nor an Empire.

I would love to see a TL where the Roman Empire survives (for at least a few more centuries in the West), and China falls and never re-unifies. Sounds very interesting.
 
Alot of that seems unfeasible and assumes that every else that happened in the world happens the way it did. I could see their at least being a Tibetian culture in the west that could thrive, but the whole south of "China" unlikely. Why would Sweden or Russia go east and invade "China"? It would be a nightmare to manage just as it would be a nightmare to invade.

Even if Islam reaches the southern parts it all depends on how it would spread and if the south is heavily divided and willing to crack down on Islam.

You mean in XVIIIth century. it can't be. You need to have POD much early, close to 0AD...
 
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