Why was ancient China more advanced than Europe ?

Wasnt there a huge cultural, economic and technologic decline in China following the Mongol invasions which took until the 1700s to finally get fixed? People often claim that Song was on the verge of an industrial revolution when it fell.
Not really. The immediate invasion was terrible, but afterwards Pax Mongolica enabled economic growth and rapid technological spread.
 
Not really. The immediate invasion was terrible, but afterwards Pax Mongolica enabled economic growth and rapid technological spread.
Iirc repopulating Northern China from the losses of the Mongol invasion and rule took until the 1500s or so, and didnt the Qing invasion take 60 years or so to completely take over China? That's a lot of fighting, disruption and destruction not to mention neglect by nomadic people of the advanced canal systems and logistical networks enabling such large urban populations that were achieved in China at that time. As well as the war time spending that could go to other places of course.
 
Iirc repopulating Northern China from the losses of the Mongol invasion and rule took until the 1500s or so, and didnt the Qing invasion take 60 years or so to completely take over China? That's a lot of fighting, disruption and destruction not to mention neglect by nomadic people of the advanced canal systems and logistical networks enabling such large urban populations that were achieved in China at that time. As well as the war time spending that could go to other places of course.
The Mongols brought the entire Silk Road under the same polity and employed experts from across the Empire in a vast, merit driven, multicultural bureaucracy. The nomadic elites invested in expanding output and maintaining the canal systems etc. The level of peace within the Mongol Empire was unprecedented, and even after its collapse the successor khanates maintained incredibly close relations. All this allowed goods, people and information to travel quicker and easier across the Silk Road.

The Ming followed the Yuan, and the Qing wasn’t until much later?
 
Been looking at some of this stuff. There is evidence of high carbon steel SE of Ankara from 1800 BC.

There is also evidence that High carbon steel was used in weapons by 600 BC. Interestingly enough, the Romans used iron weapons til late in the empire. So the answer to the question may well be that in China the higher tech cities formed the empires and kept the tech. In the west, it may well be the reverse. The higher tech cities fade and what is effectively a bunch of low tech barbarians with a great logistical network and great fighting skill (Romans) founded the lasting empire, and set technology backwards. I guess it would be like instead of the Xin uniting China, it was some barbarian people on horses who were using bronze or iron weapons.

Interesting idea at least.
That could have been the case, but 1800 BC was the middle of the Bronze Age, when large stable empires (Egypt, Mycenae, and the Hittites) existed without threat from barbarians. There were plenty of other individual things in Europe, like the Antikythera Device, the large ships built in Egypt and by Archimedes, Hero's steam engine, etc, but the Iron Age didn't start until 1200 BC, steel smelting didn't start until about the late Roman Republic, water wheels weren't used until the Middle Ages, blast furnaces weren't used until the 1400s, etc. All of this was not delayed by barbarians (in fact iron smelting and waterwheels seem to have become widespread right after the bronze age collapse and the Roman Empire's collapse, respectively), while in China those technologies were in widespread use long before they were in Europe.
 
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