I've been toying around with an idea of mine purely for fun over the weekend. The basic idea was the lay the foundation of a story, a demi-novel, in an eastern setting. When I worked on the background for it, I found that I may have had a decent idea for a proper timeline instead an eastern style medieval fantasy work.
Is it possible to make traditional Chinese feudalism transition to a more 'European' scenario? Its something that I've put some thought into. Most people believe that the proper PODs are in the warring states period or in something that shatters the very fabric of china. This is something I wanted to avoid. Instead I focused in on a period of Chinese history that I have a fair bit of knowledge, though still far from an expert. Inside the Three Kingdoms Era of China there was one particular point in time where china was nearly united, but had a large number of autonomous regions.
When Cao Cao invaded the holdings of Sun Quan after his conquest of Jing the dynasty was at its closest to unity. The Han government was strong, though the emperor himself was weak and in the hands of Cao Cao. The Gongsun clan in Liaodong, the Ma clan of Xiliang, the Shi family of Jiao, and dozens of small, but powerful, regional lords all gave submission to Cao Cao. These autonomous generals and warlords ruled without much interference from a central government and from there sprung my idea. Gongsun Kang's son, Yuan, ruined the Liaodong/Korea autonomy. Ma Chao's rebellion ended with most of them dead. Han Sui waged war and eventually died. Shi Xie was a relatively peaceful man, but Sun Quan eradicated his entire line.
What if there were more of these autonomies and their tragic fates were avoided? The easiest way to accomplish this would be a quicker unification, avoiding the Three Kingdoms era entirely and leaving these autonomies to themselves. As time goes on the central government under the Cao's becomes reminiscent of the Zhou Dynasty. All that's needed after that is a succession squabble and the complete collapse of central authority for china to be born again in a true warring states like period where it is possible to create European like feudal structures. This can be accomplished without China being shattered immeasurably by death and warfare and without avoiding the development of the Chinese pseudo-identity.
That said, I'm curious what others think of such an idea and how truly workable it is. What do you guys think?