How much of Eurasia can China realistically conquer

Otto Kretschmer

Banned
Two rather broad questions:
1. What would be needed for Chinese attitude to change in relation to the outside world? Was such a change even possible internally? The prevailing attitude for all of Chinese history except modern times was that China is THE world (All Under Heaven) and that the world outside of China is useless. All of this means that China is disinterested in conquering anything outside of China.
2. If this attitude Changes, how much could China conquer? Siberia is out of the question but the route towards Central Asia and from Southeast Asia is open.
 

Analytical Engine

That depends on how much effort China is willing to put into it.

China tried, several times, to conquer Vietnam. They were only able to hold onto the north for a while, before losing it again.
 

Otto Kretschmer

Banned
Couldn't this be changed with a different attitude towards the army?

IOTL the Chinese army had been consistently drained of talents and financial resources because the Confucian elite considered military life to be below a true gentleman.
 

Farvred

I think realistically China could have what we call Russian Siberia, Korea and Northern Vietnam but I cant see them going much further west than they did.
 
anotherlurker

anotherlurker

Analytical Engine said:
That depends on how much effort China is willing to put into it.

China tried, several times, to conquer Vietnam. They were only able to hold onto the north for a while, before losing it again.
Click to expand...
That while was about 1009 years long with 3 interuptions, the first 3 years long, the second 58 years long and the last 468 years long but that time also included the domination by the Mongols. That's quite a while. They really did seem to have wanted to make Vietnam part of China and it was for a very long time but they didn't do much with it, that's enough time to fully replace the population a dozen times over.

Geography is an issue. To the South there's hilly jungles for a thousand kilometers, to the East there's the ocean, to the West there's a desert with just a few city states at oasis locations and to the North there's steppe nomad central. They tried expanding in all of the directions, but what was lacking was focus, most notably during the early Ming years wheren the navy they created out of nothing was dominating the seas from Japan to Eastern Africa, an advantage they let slip from their fingers due to court intrigue.
What stuck most successfully was the conquest of East Turkestan, the aforementioned city states at oasis locations to the West. When the Tang sent an expedition there they didn't simply beat the locals, they also set up colonies and brought in settlers to make it permanent and after every period of Chinese weakness they returned there to retake it.
 

Analytical Engine

anotherlurker said:
That while was about 1009 years long with 3 interuptions, the first 3 years long, the second 58 years long and the last 468 years long but that time also included the domination by the Mongols. That's quite a while. They really did seem to have wanted to make Vietnam part of China and it was for a very long time but they didn't do much with it, that's enough time to fully replace the population a dozen times over.
Click to expand...

Even if you discount the (probably mythical) Xia dynasty, that's still only about 1/3 of the existence of something recognisable as China. (Which is still a long time, granted.)

And, as I said, only covering northern Vietnam. They didn't push further southwards.
 
anotherlurker

anotherlurker

Analytical Engine said:
Even if you discount the (probably mythical) Xia dynasty, that's still only about 1/3 of the existence of something recognisable as China. (Which is still a long time, granted.)

And, as I said, only covering northern Vietnam. They didn't push further southwards.
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Vietnam holding what's today southern Vietnam is only a very recent phenomenon, barely preceding French colonial rule, that was usually independant as the kingdom of Champa or Khmer empire.
 

Analytical Engine

anotherlurker said:
Well, it wasn't "Vietnam" at the time, so... *shrugs*
Click to expand...

At any rate, as you mentioned above, China is a tad hemmed in by geography.

Ultimately, it depends on having a series of emperors that are aggressively expansionist, and are willing to throw any amount of bodies and treasure at it.

Probably, it could expand to cover a large portion of Asia, not unlike the Mongol Empire*. Whether it would do so, is another matter.

IMO, China is more likely to expand its tributary network, rather than go in for all that much territorial annexation.



*which ended up being split into several sub-empires, under the nominal overlordship of the Great Khan
 

kholieken

The idea that China is disinterested in conquering area "outside China" would be surprising to Vietnamese, Yunnanese, Hmong people, Minyue and Nanyue people.

In its entirety of its history China constantly invade South, conquering many lands now in PRC

China is limited by military capability (nomads from Central Asia to Manchuria, Koreans, Vietnamese) and agriculture capability (Rice and Wheat cultivation). Any ideas about non-imperialistic or nonmilitary China is propaganda.
 

Otto Kretschmer

Banned
All of those conquest occured two millenia ago during the time of the Han dynasty.

I would say even a moderately expansionist China should at least permanently conquer Korea and Japan by the Song period at least and settle the Philipines by the Ming period given their wealth and gargantual population base. But they never even bothered to conquer Taiwan until 17th century although they could have done taht a millenium earlier.
 
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Zincvit

Zincvit

anotherlurker said:
Vietnam holding what's today southern Vietnam is only a very recent phenomenon, barely preceding French colonial rule, that was usually independant as the kingdom of Champa or Khmer empire.
Click to expand...
Champa is not a Kingdom in the strictest sense though. It is more or less a confederation of city states (mandalas). Also the reason why they were conquered (their disunity against Dai Viet)
 
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Zincvit

Zincvit

Calling the Southward March a recent phenomenon is also inaccurate, it is a centuries long conquest drive that basically allows the Vietnamese supreme control over all the lowlands (the most economically viable part of the country)
 
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Zincvit

Zincvit

A map for illustration:
220px-Nam_Tien.png

Is this looks like "Barely preceding" french colonization to you?
 
RMcD94

RMcD94

I know it's not Eurasia but if China is expansionist isn't it going to have a strong preference for the Americas? How is anywhere in Eurasia going to compete with that?

All of Siberia seems very realistic to me, barely populated, part of the Mongol Empire. If we're assuming China has industrialized and is functioning as Europe (I'm thinking here the best bet is for it to be something like the HRE, so you have states competing but all under the single Mongol Empire/Mandate of Heaven), with all states sending tribute to wherever the Emperor is sitting.

I suppose the easiest thing to do is keep the Mongols around and have them naturally become Sinized. Embrace Confucian, Buddhism and have Mongol written in Chinese. So Genghis doesn't take the Uyghur language but takes a Chinese one instead
 

kholieken

- Sui and Tang send millions to conquer Korea before repulsed.
- Han conquest of South is mostly superficial. It took centuries to conquer hilly area between river valley.
- Yunnan is only conquered Mongol Yuan, before it serious challenge to China, Nan Zhao and Dali is capable of sending hundreds of thousands soldier to Chinese territory. It only pacified by Muslims Chinese during Ming era.
- Hmong tribes still capable of serious rebellion in Guizhou during Qing era.
- Siberia is so hostile to human life that preindustrial Revolution have population only in hundred thousands.
- And remember that China had to devote majority of military and economic power to deal with horse nomads, which is very serious Rival to Chinese.
Xi Xia, Liao, Jin, Yuan, and Qing all capable of conquering areas populated by Han Chinese.
 
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