Challenge: Make the Chinese Empire last!

Challenge is simple, make the Chinese Empire last well into the 21st century with a POD no earlier than the Qin Dynasty and no later than the Ming Dynasty. This should be relatively easy considering you have a window that ranges from 220 BC to 1644 BC.

Caveats:
  • An Emperor must be in charge (even if it's just a figurehead)
  • Imperial Chinese culture must remain intact! If this is deviated, you FAIL!
That is all. May the butterflies soar...
 

wormyguy

Banned
You can do anything with that early of a POD.

You could have the entire world united under the Great Zorlacc Empire, speaking Zorlacc. But all is not well, for the evil Uicalit Federation controls the terraformed moon.
 
Portugese expeditions to India fail? Without the rise of Western culture, there is no threat to the Chinese Empire lasting indefinetly.
 

Hendryk

Banned
I agree, not much of a challenge. With a POD in the second century BCE you can change the world beyond recognition. By preempting or even just delaying the rise of Europe one way or the other, you can easily, all other things being equal, enable the Chinese Empire to make it to the present day.

Basically, the very latest POD for a surviving Qing dynasty would be 1898 and a successful reform movement (though the odds were against its survival by then); and the very latest POD for a surviving Imperial regime in general would be 1912, before there was enough of a vested interest among China's various political factions to retain the Republic.

This being said, I certainly would like to read a TL with a POD before the modern era in which China doesn't for whatever reason get encroached on by foreign powers in the 19th century, and surmounts its internal challenges with the Imperial regime intact. It could be because An Lushan never rebelled and the Tang dynasty lasted longer; or because the Southern Song turned their proto-industrial revolution into a full-fledged one; or because the early Ming secured an overseas empire--whatever.
 
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