Butterfly away the Song Dynasty

@darthfanta I agree actually. Good point. But I've got a different view of what China's problem was. Where they may have gone wrong wasn't the Jiedushi but letting Non Han Chinese be Jiedushi. When everything goes off the rails, and in that era it always does eventually, you end up with foreigners in charge of vital points in China who you can't get rid of.

If you made the army more organised and disciplined then that would make the problem post collapse worse. Now those foreigners are in charge of even more effective armies.
 
The problem with the Song Dynasty comes in many folds.The more I read about it the less I am impressed.It’s government revenue may look impressive,but truth was that the government was taxing the people much harder than most other dynasties.


It's hard for me to believe the Song were overtaxing the population, given the economic boom that took place during the dynasty.
 
What I'm going for in this timeline in this timeline is a less crazy world. Although there's still considerable invasions and displacement, a lot more people still retain their land. North and South America stay mostly native American, there minimal settlement of Australia and the extent of exploitation of Africa is severely reduced.

For this purpose I'm having China branch out early making contact with the world. Due to trade and accelerated technological growth from trade evening out tech development (the entire world gets boosted by Chinese knowledge from the trade network), the less advanced civilizations are better developed (harder to exploit long term) and there's no continent wide genocides we saw OTL. Most of Europe's expansion is butterflied away. Although China trades worldwide, there's no overseas colonization and instead of having some all powerful Superpowers, power is more evenly distributed worldwide. China has less ability to coerce nations an ocean away and the Rurikir (reunified Kievan Rus') can't bully anyone either.

I'm looking for a POD of something highly unlikely that happened OTL or an atypical betrayal with the POD being that event proceeding through a more likely outcome. I thought it would be an interesting twist in-story to portray our more chaotic and violent world as the divergent timeline, reliant on unusual events. The still imperfect but markedly better world of the Alternate Timeline is portrayed as the true "Prime" universe with the many "timeline branches" in that era preferentially resembling the Prime timeline. To put it in Star Trek terms, they're living in the Prime Universe, we're living in the Mirror Universe (except less campy). This is why I'm collecting more than one POD.

There's a few stories but in the (very) distant epilogue the characters can see the other possible universes and they can clearly see them clustered (i.e quite similar) around their own universe with a few weirder universes further out. One such universe is ours and another such universe is the one I discussed in the DWBI Continued Terran Empire forum. That one is also a Mirror style universe and since it's premise is "really unlikely stuff ruins life for Humanity" it's quite a lot easier to write. I mixed in a hefty dash of humor.

Currently I'm going for an early Industrializing China pulling the entire world forwards with it, long before Europe can start their expansion. Factors such as China needing friendly nations for horses and generally not being interested in colonizing nations an ocean away prevents China from pulling a mass conquest or mass divide and conquer scenario. What do you think of this idea and are there any other suggestions for PODs that can keep China from being conquered by others? Help for the main POD is appreciated too.
 
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It's hard for me to believe the Song were overtaxing the population, given the economic boom that took place during the dynasty.
Economic booms does not necessarily benefit lower classes. Infanticide was widespread because parents did not want to pay poll taxes for their children.The economic boom also affects certain places only.The entire empire was undeveloped due to the official policy of weakening the provinces to enrich the center.There was also a lot of consumption taxes and government monopoly on vital goods such as salt.For example, the Song government buys one jin(around 604 grams) of salt for seven coins,but sells it to the people for thirty to sixty coins.
 
The Shatuo Turks got power by being Jiedushi so they actually were used to having a few Han Chinese in their ranks (although they favored those from their own tribe). The first and second emperor of Later Zhou were both employed in multiple Shatuo Turk administrations and a Han Chinese gave Shi the absolutely terrible idea to let the Liao in. In those situations I think that you're likely to get the Han eventually taking over since they do make up the majority of the population. Yuan lasted only about 80 years before the Han took over and that administration explicitly relegated Han to the lowest rank of society.

A society which actually employs Han generals and frequently implodes (giving those Han Generals openings to rise to power) would probably revert to Han rule sooner or later. Probably more than twice as fast as the Yuan.

But this is just a guess. Wondering what the community thinks. @darthfanta?
 
The Shatuo Turks got power by being Jiedushi so they actually were used to having a few Han Chinese in their ranks (although they favored those from their own tribe). The first and second emperor of Later Zhou were both employed in multiple Shatuo Turk administrations and a Han Chinese gave Shi the absolutely terrible idea to let the Liao in. In those situations I think that you're likely to get the Han eventually taking over since they do make up the majority of the population. Yuan lasted only about 80 years before the Han took over and that administration explicitly relegated Han to the lowest rank of society.

A society which actually employs Han generals and frequently implodes (giving those Han Generals openings to rise to power) would probably revert to Han rule sooner or later. Probably more than twice as fast as the Yuan.

But this is just a guess. Wondering what the community thinks. @darthfanta?
Not necessarily.Foreign Jiedushis generally become sinicized.The only exception to this was the Jiedushi of the Dingnan Circuit,whose descendants eventually founded what became known as Western Xia.
 
@darthfanta, I do agree that North China was important but in the era of Song South China was their most productive land. The two examples you gave (Ming and KMT) are both from the Later eras of China, when the South had become better developed. Later Liang seemed to be winning or at least stalemating against early Jin. Things went horribly wrong for Later Liang under Li Cunxu. If a dynasty was able to bring more resources to the battle after unifying/ allying togather most of South China then unification from the south could happen so long as Liao (Khitians) never get past the Great Wall.
 
@darthfanta, I do agree that North China was important but in the era of Song South China was their most productive land. The two examples you gave (Ming and KMT) are both from the Later eras of China, when the South had become better developed. Later Liang seemed to be winning or at least stalemating against early Jin. Things went horribly wrong for Later Liang under Li Cunxu. If a dynasty was able to bring more resources to the battle after unifying/ allying togather most of South China then unification from the south could happen so long as Liao (Khitians) never get past the Great Wall.
Later Liang was actually consistently losing to the Jin/Later Tang despite superior resources.For example, they lost the entirety of their territory north of the Yellow River to the Jin/Later Tang just years before their final collapse.

As for South China,that is the point.It was extremely difficult to beat the north because the martial tradition of the north was much superior than that of the south and that the south didn’t really eclipsed the north in terms of the economy until well into the Song Dynasty.

EDIT:I can actually think of an opportunity for the Later Liang to win.It’s before Zhu Wen usurped the throne.Back when Zhu Wen was just a warlord in Henan,he had an opportunity to vanquish what later became Jin/Later Tang twice.The first was one he ambushed Li Keyong in a feast through treachery,but Li Keyong managed to fight his way out,the second was when his army besieged Taiyuan(Li Keyong’s capital) and lost only due to natural disaster which caused disease and supply issues in his army.
 
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Kaze

Banned
The easiest butterfly is that some other kingdom won the wars that unified the nation - then history would record the records of some other dynasty.

As for the later period - the Jin did butterfly at least the Northern Song.

The Emperor Gaozong of Song was the ninth son of the Emperor Hizong and younger brother of Emperor Qinzong - he was not even in line at the time of Jingkang. After the humiliation of Jingkang, Huizong and Qinzong became prisoner of the Jurchens - technically, the power now resided with the Jurchens, but Zhao Gou took some loyal followers south and proclaimed himself emperor while his brother was still alive. Technically according to Chinese law, Zhao Gou the now Emperor Gaozong was a usurper whose descendants spent the next few decades fighting a losing war to recapture the north. Kublai Khan and the Mongols were just the final nail in the coffin.
 
The easiest butterfly is that some other kingdom won the wars that unified the nation - then history would record the records of some other dynasty.

As for the later period - the Jin did butterfly at least the Northern Song.

The Emperor Gaozong of Song was the ninth son of the Emperor Hizong and younger brother of Emperor Qinzong - he was not even in line at the time of Jingkang. After the humiliation of Jingkang, Huizong and Qinzong became prisoner of the Jurchens - technically, the power now resided with the Jurchens, but Zhao Gou took some loyal followers south and proclaimed himself emperor while his brother was still alive. Technically according to Chinese law, Zhao Gou the now Emperor Gaozong was a usurper whose descendants spent the next few decades fighting a losing war to recapture the north. Kublai Khan and the Mongols were just the final nail in the coffin.

That’s not a butterfly,and according to Chinese rules,Zhao Gou’s rule was not an usurpation(although it was dubious at best) because there was a long standing tradition of proclaiming a new emperor once it became evident that the old one won’t be in any position to rule anytime soon.He also didn’t use military force to rmove the old emperor from power and was endorsed by remaining government officials in dongso. Ironic enough,Zhao Gou’s ‘descendants’ actually had more legitimacy than both Huizong and Qinzong because they were biologically the descendants of the first emperor of the Song Dynasty who were adopted as children of Gaozong whereas Huizong,Qinzong and Gaozong all descended from the first Song Emperor’s younger brother(who was in fact widely suspected of having usurped the throne from his nephews).
 
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@darthfanta, that's very true but all those victories were under Li Cunxu who needed a few years of build up first before launching his assault against the Later Liang. Following his murder by mutineers the Jin successor states weren't able to take the next largest Han state, Southern Tang until the Later Zhou. Prior to Later Liang's fall Li Cunxu was being drained by Liao attacks (Lulong is really close to their capital Beijing and was described as "laid bare") to the North and there was unrest within the nation with him being killed by a mutiny just 3 years after the fall of Later Liang and defections to Later Liang continuing up until An Shunmi's defection.

Powerful? Absolutely but just like Later Liang they're trapped in an awkward situation with internal divisions that make it hard to capitalize on their strength. Southern Tang on the other hand was growing up until Later Zhou started inflicting defeats on them. If Jin/ Later Tang is still in the process of prying off bits of Later Liang just 30 years later (provided that internal divisions haven't made them stalemate again at new borders) they'll find themselves dealing with this version of Southern Tang. The Jin successor states were able to save significant amounts of military strength and money by not fighting the Liao and being able to take Later Liang in one fell swoop. If they have to constantly push against Later Liang and Liao the whole time they'll be much weaker.

Just a theory though. Thoughts? Do you think the regular Khitian incursions in the North would not affect things much?
 
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@darthfanta about the Han taking over a foreign occupied nation. There's a precedent in the Northern and Southern Dynasties period. The Northern Zhou was established by the Han Chinese who took control of their nation. Although it took 200 years for the Chinese to take control only roughly 50 years of that was a dynasty in an unstable state. This was similar to the upheavals of Jin and its successors, in which the Chinese took roughly 50 years post Tang collapse to size power. Coincidence or a pattern?

I believe when unifying China the west can be helpful as in the case of the Qin Dynasty. Perhaps we could see Shu as a contender for helping out against Jin/Tang (if not by direct conquest then by providing horses to help balance out the deficit of other nations)? Although they were sinicized culturally, was there any residual amount of lingering bad blood or "otherness" between the Shatuo Turks and Han during that period? Enough to strongly bias Shu or the other states towards allying with other Han Chinese states?

The Shatuo Turks seemed to recruit from within their own tribe often so although they have some cultural traits of the Chinese they seem to have a sense of "otherness" regardless. Wondering if the Chinese reciprocate those feelings and how strongly they might apply to Jin/Tang?

I believe the situation in Later Liang was described by wikipedia as "not a positive one". They had conquered territory but Liao was pressing the attack and revolts were causing problems. Wondering what would thought of this? What does the community think?
 
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That raises an interesting point. Does China have a strong tendency to have the vast majority of its homeland be conquered in between dynasties or are these anomalies that are unlikely to appear if you were to do everything over again? We see the traditional Chinese heartland overrun in the Northern and Southern dynasties period, during/after the Song and the Qing dynasty. On the other hand the fall of the Song crippled China, led to the maritime bans and in turn weakened China for Qing conquest.

Why weren't the northern tribes able to take over the entirety of the Chinese homeland during the Three Kingdoms period or the fall of Qin? For that matter why didn't they take over during the fall of Xia, Shang, Zhou, Sui and Tang? When China was split after the Yuan fell how come Yuan was able to be pushed off the North when previous dynasties struggled with the task?

By the way, thanks for the help everybody. @darthfanta, you seem to know quite a lot about this period. Help is much appreciated.
 
To be honest considering how insanely dangerous the neighbors of China are its a miracle that a civilization exists there at all. I'm curious how a civilization came to be there at all and how they could survive so long, especially as the original Chinese homeland is open land vulnerable to cavalry attack.

Might have to turn to the community for their opinion though.
 
To be honest considering how insanely dangerous the neighbors of China are its a miracle that a civilization exists there at all. I'm curious how a civilization came to be there at all and how they could survive so long, especially as the original Chinese homeland is open land vulnerable to cavalry attack.

Might have to turn to the community for their opinion though.
I consider the threat of the nomads to be overrated to be honest.The reason why China fell a number of times to the nomads had a lot to do with it's social and political structure,plus a lot of bad decision making and plain bad luck.In particular that I'm interested in is how come there's so many collaborators compared to other countries.Without many of these collaborators,the nomads would not have had the manpower to occupy parts of China.
 
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To be honest considering how insanely dangerous the neighbors of China are its a miracle that a civilization exists there at all. I'm curious how a civilization came to be there at all and how they could survive so long, especially as the original Chinese homeland is open land vulnerable to cavalry attack.

Might have to turn to the community for their opinion though.

Chinese Civilization exists because Yellow River. and they predate nomadic horsemen culture. Civilized Chariot arose before mounted cavalry.

you confuse 'political control' by nomad and threat by nomad to civilizations. nomadic empire is not a threat to civilizations, They exist 'because of' existence of said civilizations.

What nomadic empire wants is distributing luxury of civilizations to allied and vassal tribes, not destroying such civilizations. They prefer Gifts first. If forced to rule at all, they allow native bureaucracy to run governing, only existing as military elite.

and civilizations in Fergana Valley, Uighur oases, Iranian plateau, and other places managed to survive despite greater nomadic military advantage vis settled civilizations.

and its Chinese strength that contribute to nomadic Empire strength, without unified China with its armies and walls nomads would be tribals. Political sophistication of Eastern Steppe nomad is because need to manage larger and larger coalition of nomads to be able to extract luxury from Chinese Empire.
 
I consider the threat of the nomads to be overrated to be honest.The reason why China fell a number of times to the nomads had a lot to do with it's social and political structure,plus a lot of bad decision making and plain bad luck.In particular that I'm interested in is how come there's so many collaborators compared to other countries.Without many of these collaborators,the nomads would not have had the manpower to occupy parts of China.
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Isn't this to 'modern' in thinking ?

Collaborator is not exactly rare in any civilizations or conflict. Cortez got Tlaxcalans, Alexander got loyalty of many Persian nobles, Romans and Persia had many defector to other side, Barbarians got many legionnaires and foederati switch sides, even Muslim-Christian conflict had many renegades.

and for Chinese farmer or soldier or official, one court to another is probably rather minor difference. With several exception (Manchu queue) most regime didn't try to change how people lives. Even soldier and Confucian scholar could serve without hindrances many times. Sure, sometime there favoritism, but even Chinese Empire practice favoritism to certain family.

I think rather than view nomads as 'alien' to China, we should view them as part of Sinitic civilizations. Xi Xia, Liao, Jin, Yuan and Qing use many similar court practices with 'traditional' Chinese Empire like Song and Ming.
 
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Isn't this to 'modern' in thinking ?

Collaborator is not exactly rare in any civilizations or conflict. Cortez got Tlaxcalans, Alexander got loyalty of many Persian nobles, Romans and Persia had many defector to other side, Barbarians got many legionnaires and foederati switch sides, even Muslim-Christian conflict had many renegades.

and for Chinese farmer or soldier or official, one court to another is probably rather minor difference. With several exception (Manchu queue) most regime didn't try to change how people lives. Even soldier and Confucian scholar could serve without hindrances many times. Sure, sometime there favoritism, but even Chinese Empire practice favoritism to certain family.
Not to the extent of China—when the vast majority of its’ armies just defect and attack their former comrades without breaking a sweat.I’m not aware that ‘many’ legionaries switched sides either.I do know that some legionaries deserted and helped barbarians,but it was always a sporatic thing,and never in large scale.One could always expect that an advanced and proud civilization such as the Chinese would do better than the Romans,but no.

You are right however,that for most Chinese soldiers and commoners,it makes no difference between who they serve.The point is just that there was no ‘nationalism’ to the extent that the Romans had.
I think rather than view nomads as 'alien' to China, we should view them as part of Sinitic civilizations. Xi Xia, Liao, Jin, Yuan and Qing use many similar court practices with 'traditional' Chinese Empire like Song and Ming.
That is objectively false.There is as much difference between these countries as say between France and England.France and England share similar culture,religion and government systems,but at the same time they were vastly different countries. Whenever China’s under Chinese rule,there’s a strong distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’.The Chinese just don’t see the outsiders as equals no matter how much they have succesfully emulated Chinese practices.
 
That is objectively false.There is as much difference between these countries as say between France and England.France and England share similar culture,religion and government systems,but at the same time they were vastly different countries. Whenever China’s under Chinese rule,there’s a strong distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’.The Chinese just don’t see the outsiders as equals no matter how much they have succesfully emulated Chinese practices.

But France and England is part of Christendom, Thats what I mean with Sinitic, There enough similarities that different Court could gain enough legitimacy. That confucian class always see outsiders as unequal didn't mean farmer in Hebei wouldn't think Liao or Jin as more 'foreign' than court in Nanjing. Romans managed to get non-Italian Emperor, so for Northern Chinese 'foreign' court could very well more legitimate than Song court.
 
But France and England is part of Christendom, Thats what I mean with Sinitic, There enough similarities that different Court could gain enough legitimacy. That confucian class always see outsiders as unequal didn't mean farmer in Hebei wouldn't think Liao or Jin as more 'foreign' than court in Nanjing. Romans managed to get non-Italian Emperor, so for Northern Chinese 'foreign' court could very well more legitimate than Song court.
There’s an important distinction.Few of the foreign regimes started ‘Sinitic’.Most of them just conquered a large part of China and then gradually adopted trappings of Chinese culture.Many of them were heavily opposed to the Chinese,and often tried to draw a distinction between themselves and the Chinese.

As for statement that people in Hebei wouldn’t think of foreign regimes being more foreign than the court in Nanjing,that depends on the period.This is most certainly true from the North and Southern Dynasty period to the late Tang Dynasty,but this cannot be said to be true in the Northern Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty given these foreign regimes often raided and pillaged Hebei.

As for the Romans,Italian or not isn’t important.It’s more to do with the fact that all of the non-Italian emperors all came within the system. But even that kind of tolerance has it’s limits. It’s why newcomers like Stilicho and Ricimer can never be emperor,and when someone like them did became emperor(i.e. Zeno),their rule is never stable.

Similarly,if a non-Chinese family that has been in the Chinese government for a few generations and somehow gets propped up as emperor,they will be accepted.It’s about whether they came to power within the system.
 
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