DBWI: wank han china

As I'm reading more into early to middle antiquity, I find myself intrigued by the han dynasty in china. it declined as rome entered the second republican age, but it managed to produce some interesting trinkets along the way and was quite the regional power until collapsing and fracturing. how could this little-known empire in the outskirts of the world preform better?
 
I don't know... It was pretty peripheral on the whole of things. Besides, even if it did manage to become greater than the regional power it was IOTL, wouldn't the other kingdoms simply align with Chu or make their own coalition against Han? Even the mighty Qin failed to unite the Sinitic world for more than a short time, and all subsequent attempts proved that, without an outside force to threaten vassals into subservience, any dynasty that managed to unite a significant amount of "China" would fall apart almost immediately. Then again, the Qin came from the periphery themselves, so maybe the Han, with a little more luck...
 
Sorry for double posting, but I just find this period really interesting.

Actually, the more I read about Han, the closer I think the the contest was. IOTL, Liu Bang managed to capture Chu’s capital temporarily until Xiang Yu, with surprise and superior generalship, thrashed Liu Bang at the battle of Pengcheng. Liu Bang was surrounded and killed, the anti Chu coalition fell apart, and Han was reduced, once and for all, to an isolated, truncated state in the periphery. A dust storm that gathered around the place where Liu Bang’s body was found seemed only to signify divine displeasure...

Maybe if Liu Bang could have been better prepared at Pengcheng, or even remained alive after the battle, things could have been different. After all, he was a pretty sneaky guy...

Edit: then again, Xiang Yu was known as one of the greatest generals of East Asian history, perhaps in world history, by all accounts, so taking him down would have been no easy task.
 
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