AHC/WI: 16 Kingdoms for much longer

I just read a bit about the time of the sixteen kingdoms in china. How could this period of history have lastet much longer? would north and south china develope apart and become different nations? and what other effects could you think of?
:)
 
The hard part about this is that 16 Kingdoms, well, however many there were at a given time, is too much for just Northern China. I mean, yes, there could have been fragmentation more like Europe, but it was too chaotic for stable states to form, and the fact that so many states were large and powerful and capable of conquering each other meant that they would proceed to do so.
 
I just read a bit about the time of the sixteen kingdoms in china. How could this period of history have lastet much longer? would north and south china develope apart and become different nations? and what other effects could you think of?
:)
The other effects of China disintegration lasting longer:
- more sufferings and devastation of China by the steppe's nomads.

That was the curse of China. Even the centralized Chinese Empire had some troubles sometimes to oppose the nomad aggression. The 'sixteen Chinese kingdoms' did not have a chance in a long run.
 
The other effects of China disintegration lasting longer:
- more sufferings and devastation of China by the steppe's nomads.

That was the curse of China. Even the centralized Chinese Empire had some troubles sometimes to oppose the nomad aggression. The 'sixteen Chinese kingdoms' did not have a chance in a long run.

Actually, if we're talking about the 16 Kingdoms, in Northern China, only, then it probably couldn't get worse because most of the nomads interested in China were already invading it. And the 16 Kingdoms were founded by nomads, so I'm not sure what you're getting at.

We could have more nomadic invasions reaching the south, but that would not be a 16 Kingdoms period.
 
Actually, if we're talking about the 16 Kingdoms, in Northern China, only, then it probably couldn't get worse because most of the nomads interested in China were already invading it. And the 16 Kingdoms were founded by nomads, so I'm not sure what you're getting at.

We could have more nomadic invasions reaching the south, but that would not be a 16 Kingdoms period.
If some 'kingdom' was founded by the nomads it doesn't necessarily make it a pure 'nomadic kingdom'. In some time this kingdom becomes more 'civilised', more Chinese and less nomadic.
And than it starts all over again - stronger and wilder nomads come in and devastates it again and probably found a new Nomadic kingdom on the Chinese soil.
So that's a vicious circle.
 
If some 'kingdom' was founded by the nomads it doesn't necessarily make it a pure 'nomadic kingdom'. In some time this kingdom becomes more 'civilised', more Chinese and less nomadic.
And than it starts all over again - stronger and wilder nomads come in and devastates it again and probably found a new Nomadic kingdom on the Chinese soil.
So that's a vicious circle.

Well, five hundred years earlier things might have been different - the Xiongnu seem to have been mixed between the steppe nomads we know and settled agriculturalists - but by the period in question, yes. The states in China are too artificial and too focused on reunification, those on the peripheries are too pastoral to simply be neighbors to a rich land in turmoil.
 
If some 'kingdom' was founded by the nomads it doesn't necessarily make it a pure 'nomadic kingdom'. In some time this kingdom becomes more 'civilised', more Chinese and less nomadic.
And than it starts all over again - stronger and wilder nomads come in and devastates it again and probably found a new Nomadic kingdom on the Chinese soil.
So that's a vicious circle.

If you're describing what happened historically, you're roughly correct. But unless you start naming exactly which additional groups are invading China ahistorically, you're speaking in cliches. All of the strongest nomadic groups were already invading China: the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, and then the less impressive Di, Qiang, and Jie.

I too generally agree that these nomad-founded states are Chinese, but people on this forum haven't made up their minds about this yet.
 
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