China threatened by invaders from other directions

[Strategos' Risk]

Traditionally, China has been threatened by steppe nomad peoples from the north. But what about the other directions?

West: Seems difficult for Tibet and the Himalayan kingdoms to get enough of a population base to do so. And Indian kingdoms doing a Hannibal over the roof of the world would be cool but impractical pre-industrial era.

South: I was thinking if Nanyue had developed into a state that ends up unifying Southeast Asia. But could they support enough people with the organization to launch mass raids? And instead of cavalry what would their special ability be?

East: Maybe a civilization that bridges the Japanese isles and the Korean peninsula forms earlier on, and becomes a reoccurring threat from the northeastern border? With the manpower of Manchuria too, though that makes this veer closer to the historical northern threat

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Depending on how broadly you define "threat", you could count OTL's wokou pirates. Granted I don't think they ever threatened the existence of the dynasty like the steppe nomads did, but they caused a lot of devastation in the coastal provinces.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

[ Below: burrowing Kaiju ]
[ Above: Martian tripods ]

 

[Gloss]

Tibetan Empire and Nanzhao. One can cheat and make China smaller and use OTL southern China as another foe as well.

 

[Optical_Illusion]

As I see it I guess, it depends on if the goal here is "China is still a big central empire, but its menaced by multipolar threats".

Because it's easier to have multipolar threats be viable if you have a patchwork of Chinese states - to the point that cultures that are less populous but perhaps have relatively larger military can viably invade and also peel off allies in China - and also when you've got a set of multipolar threats, there's more incentive for local commanders in China to go "Actually, disregard central authority, strengthen local borders and garrisons".

It's feels kind of harder I guess to have a still single China that faces threats on many fronts for a long time in a sustained manner, without it either fracturing that empire or they're just too unchallengeable for there to be multi-polar threats.

(That's the premise of Ko, Koyama and Sng's https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/78735/1/MPRA_paper_78735.pdf - "Unified China; Divided Europe", which is that the presence of a single threat tends to encourage centralization and multi-polar threats encourage multiple local states. Although there are alternative ideas - another geographical idea of Koyama, not original but tested by him through simulations is that states form along the lines caused by geographical barriers - "Fractured Land" -

, although this model has the problem of not accounting for steppe empires (because it is only looking at agricultural productivity and topography) . And some people would suggest a more idea based theory and actually geography doesn't matter as much).

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I was also just wondering if you could buff up potential threats. Why were nomadic horsemen so sweeping and powerful? Could alternate civilizations have developed in other directions that would be as militarily powerful? So far, the wokou idea seems most compelling.

Tibetan Empire and Nanzhao. One can cheat and make China smaller and use OTL southern China as another foe as well.

Were they too low-population to be a threat?

 

[Gloss]

Were they too low-population to be a threat?

But they literally were a threat during the Tang period and low population didn't stop the Steppe empires.

 

[Booster Gold]

The problem with the northeastern border is

1. The nomads between it and China
2. It's super rugged terrain.
3. Korea and Japan are each hard enough to hold on their own in the pre industrial era. To get both and then expand beyond is a tall order

I think the only thing you can do would be to keep north and south China divided permanently

 

[schai]

An unified Tibet could post as a threat to China.

During Tang Dynasty, Tubo had sacked the Tang's capital multiple times.

Manchu didn't possess a huge population base. It was able to conquer China.

If Tibet had maintained its martial tradition while adapting Chinese technologies and governance, an unified Tibet would have a chance to conquer China.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Why were nomadic horsemen so sweeping and powerful?

Mostly a combination of:

(1) Their armies were very mobile, so difficult to force them to fight at a disadvantage.

(2) They didn't have settled towns to attack, so there was no obvious target when fighting wars against them.

(3) The skills needed to make a nomadic horse-archer are basically the skills needed to survive on the steppe, meaning that pretty much every adult male was potentially a warrior, and had effectively been training since he was a child. On the other hand, the skills needed to make a rice farmer don't have nearly so much overlap with the skills needed for fighting, so even though settled states were almost always more populous, they had a harder time converting their populace into effective soldiers.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

What was the Tibetan martial tradition?

Still curious about a Southeast Asian threat, but those were definitely very sedentary agricultural people.

 

[GuildedAgeNostalgia]

What about Burma conquering the Yunnan region of China?

 

[Gloss]

What about Burma conquering the Yunnan region of China?

Nanzhao/Dali exists people...

 

[Avrorrange]

Traditionally, China has been threatened by steppe nomad peoples from the north. But what about the other directions?

West: Seems difficult for Tibet and the Himalayan kingdoms to get enough of a population base to do so. And Indian kingdoms doing a Hannibal over the roof of the world would be cool but impractical pre-industrial era.

South: I was thinking if Nanyue had developed into a state that ends up unifying Southeast Asia. But could they support enough people with the organization to launch mass raids? And instead of cavalry what would their special ability be?

East: Maybe a civilization that bridges the Japanese isles and the Korean peninsula forms earlier on, and becomes a reoccurring threat from the northeastern border? With the manpower of Manchuria too, though that makes this veer closer to the historical northern threat

OTL China was indeed threatened by the south—by Chu.Chu was by all accounts considered a barbarian state.Feudal states,especially Jin and Qi, played up their roles as defenders of the Chinese civilisation by fighting against Chu during times when Chu invaded states to the north.

 

[Sarthak]

West: Seems difficult for Tibet and the Himalayan kingdoms to get enough of a population base to do so. And Indian kingdoms doing a Hannibal over the roof of the world would be cool but impractical pre-industrial era.

Nepal bhutan and Tibet repeatedly invaded each other too many times to count. The Araniko Trail and the Sikkim Passes are wide enough for any pre-modern army to pass through relatively easily. In 1790 nepal sacked tibet, and in 1792 the chinese invaded nepal from tibet and nearly reached the capital too before stopping for a conditional peace.

 

[GameBawesome]

The Japanese from the coast is certainly a possibility. Say, if the Wokou pirates grow too strong due to the lack of a Chinese navy, or another Daimyo Clan took over Japan, and sought to challenge Chinese hegemony and try expanding, it could be a very dangerous threat for China, with an enemy literally so close, yet far apart (Due to the sea)

 

[kholieken]

Korea/Manchuria/Balhae/Goguryeo can be threat from NE. Better winter wheat could mean bigger population and bigger threat.

Tibet and Nanzhao is very serious threat during Tang dynasty. some more effective highland crops could boost their population and make longer threat.

For SouthEast Asia, what about faster breeding, smaller, domesticated elephant ? with elephant army based on rice paddies they can be serious threat south of yangtze.

For eastern direction, what about bigger ryukyu. Big Archipelago spread from Luzon to Taiwan to Kyushu with bigger island could change East China Sea.

For NW direction what about Arab armies that pass through Xinjiang ??? the could be NW threat that different from standard Northern Horse Nomad.

 

[GuildedAgeNostalgia]

Nepal bhutan and Tibet repeatedly invaded each other too many times to count. The Araniko Trail and the Sikkim Passes are wide enough for any pre-modern army to pass through relatively easily. In 1790 nepal sacked tibet, and in 1792 the chinese invaded nepal from tibet and nearly reached the capital too before stopping for a conditional peace.

Yes but the Tibetan Plateau is large. India going through that to conquer parts of China proper is logistically infeasible.

 

[Socrates]

The biggest threats to China did come from East and South: the British, French and Germans.

 

[Byzantion]

Traditionally, China has been threatened by steppe nomad peoples from the north. But what about the other directions?

West: Seems difficult for Tibet and the Himalayan kingdoms to get enough of a population base to do so. And Indian kingdoms doing a Hannibal over the roof of the world would be cool but impractical pre-industrial era.

South: I was thinking if Nanyue had developed into a state that ends up unifying Southeast Asia. But could they support enough people with the organization to launch mass raids? And instead of cavalry what would their special ability be?

East: Maybe a civilization that bridges the Japanese isles and the Korean peninsula forms earlier on, and becomes a reoccurring threat from the northeastern border? With the manpower of Manchuria too, though that makes this veer closer to the historical northern threat

So maybe an early Arab conquest succeeds ? OTL the conquest stopped after the first major battles against Chinese armies. So what if the Islamic armies and their Turkic and Tibetan allies defeated the Chines armies and pushed into China itself ? What if this caused internal struggle and eventually a Islamic rule in China ?