WIP Map Thread
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Something I've been planning on working on for a while, basically the premise is that the Song industrializes between the late 900s and the early 1100s, resulting in the world literally changing forever. The map in place is roughly at the 1400-1600s, I would REALLY appreciate input on where I should go from there.
Asia's going to be a bit different (that'll happen with a surviving omani empire, and a collapsed china), but at least it's not africa
also africa's because I wanted more nations in the scramble
Yes, but much more slow in comparison to them. Song I believe would become and be the only industrialist society for multiple decades, due to the sparse requirements for industrialization, mostly a lack of materials, bureaucratic environment and a population. Im thinking that maybe korea could become a corporate republic for Song while the song would travel south and such, maybe the industrial technology spreads through the silk road, resulting in a continous arabian golden age (also mongols are voided bc butterflies)
Continuation to previous map
Just because the Industrialization occurs, it wouldnt mean that the Song would fall. the Later Jin eventually takes over all of northern china and, due to the Song just not prioritizing a militaristic stance, would result in a north-south divide between the two dynasties. Eventually the Jin dynasty collapses into warring states, with multiple dynasties gaining holding and later perishing. The Song dynasty, on the other hand, successfully industrializes and enters a revolutionary period with enterprises and colonial communities gaining a rapid commission against the state, resulting in the taking advantage of song laissez-faire economics to produce massive companies across the Song coast to expand into the indies and so forth via chinese mercantilism. As well as this, philosophies of Chinese industrialism would spread north (and eventually through the silk road and maritime routes into the middle east, india, east indies and the swahili coast) Resulting in more developed societies based on Chinese economic principles and bureaucratic policies, especially with contingents of chinese corporates in the north, particularly situated to trade towards the forbidden city.
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How will these companies behave? Will they be seeking resources and set up Kongsi or will they do like the East India Company and go in search of port cities and then grow from there? Or will there be some of both?
A mix of both, mostly european mercantilism with kongsi characteristics, because there arent going to be settler colonies for the direct purpose of nearby state encouragement from the malays borneos etc. and instead encouraged colonies by the corporates and indirectly the dynasty itself.
Is that a mega Xi Xia I see
Also, if the Jin collapse into warring states the Song are so going to take the opportunity to push the frontier northward
Yes and Im more or less thinking that the Song ITSELF will remain pretty neutral, as its become a puppet of corporates, or in this kongsis, which are already pushing into the northern states and taking advantage of it.
I'm always dubious of "Song industrializes" TLs because they always tend to project 18th century British industrialization onto 12th century China. Aside from the fact that the actual institutional of industrial society would never be a permanent thing in China, recognizable industrialization akin to otl is asb as "prerequisite" such as an intellectual revolution, supply shortages, and a need for high-output material goods just isn't there in 12th century China. China had a massive population boom during the Song dynasty, mainly through a significant focus on agriculture, the population growth was so massive that any individualism outside of agricultural institutions is hard to break out of, so a sizable shift in urban manufacturing and the establishment of a labour division is highly unlikely.
There's a theory known as the high-level equilibrium trap which basically goes into detail about why China never industrialized; granted the author is referring to the Ming dynasty, but most of the points are very paralleling to the Song. Even if a very unrecognizable form of industrialization happens in the Song dynasty via merchant guilds, there is no way Chinese industrialization is going to expand outside of dejure China for any conceivable time. It took over two centuries for Chinese innovations (firearms) to make it to Europe and the Middle East, and afaik, they never seeped into other East Asian nations (China rarely used firearms themselves). These are weapons mind you, so very practical in the middle age landscape; using some funky steam contraption comparative to traditionalist reliable methods isn't going to get implemented. Continental Europe also had very similar geopolitical and economic problems as Britain, so naturally, industrialization expanded there, this isn't the case for a China-East Asia relation.
The silk road is also extremely unstable via Turkish control, and if the Jurchen conquest of Northern Song still happens, it gets even worse, it was only after the Mongol conquest that stability was reestablished. While the Song had a massive trade complex, intellectualist institutions aren't going to spread.
It's also worth noting not to project European colonialism and imperialism to 12th century China. Chinese companies aren't going to expand outside of China the same way as Europe because the needs of this earlier industrialization doesn't require far-out material goods and a population base to extract such goods. China is already massive, in both population and raw materials, most merchant guilds were happily confined to the structured society and landmass of China.
These are just my two-cents, make the TL however you want to though.
I really enjoy your input and that you lead me to think about this in a different perspective, so, saying this, here is what im thinking could solve this issue.
1. China never encourages people to cultivate barren land/does it in an extremely less efficient way, resulting in further requirement for the spinning wheel as well as less organized cheap labor for the state.
2. Wang Anshi's Law and Decree Act on Irrigation in 1069 happens much later, resulting in less crop production and a reliance on cash crops like hemp and cotton, and also for the Song population to stabilize about 50-60 million people, 30-20 million below what they would be.
3. The transition from coal to bituminous coke occurs later, resulting in more of northern song to be tarnished and polluted, causing even more injury to the Song's agricultural industry and a reliance on cash crops and indochinese slave labor, which as a result encourages chinese enterprises to expand outwards. This also results in a over reliance on Southern china and a lessened hit caused by the Jin taking over the tarnished and polluted North. Many see it as land that should be abandoned or simply just dead land, and as a result many future beuraucrats and even chinese emperors detesting an invasion of the north.
As a result of smaller agricultural growth and a need for expansion of the industry and a source of labor, the chinese enterprises would befall into two parts; with one remaining in Song to benefit off of the second; which organizes mercantilist exports of slaves in indochina and zomia, organizing company/kongsi ruled states and concessions due to reliance on chinese trade. This goes back to the internal companies who would eventually discover the foundations of revolutionary industrialization through the steel and coal industries.
4. This brings me to the fourth point, a effective company expansion and need for resources such as cash crops and further agricultural benefits would de escalate confucianism in the chinese beuraucracy in favor of taoism.
Eventually China would solve their agricultural problems in part due to industrialization and by later organized reforms, however, due to the effective cheap labor coming from these communities and the benefit of maritime trade and export of these products and import of slaves would result in chinese society to effectively keep the implementation of industrialization for centuries to come.
status report on the map; check map thread xx 262 for the lore
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Coming along nicely, I'm looking forward to the finished product!
Two questions because I'm curious: how long is the naval reach of the Song and its kongsi's, and when and by whom will the Old and New Worlds be connected? Sorry if you've already stated either of these.
Thank you! The naval extent of the song is primarily oriented around the east indies, while the kongsi can extend into arabia, particularly towards kuwait and then into the swahili. I plan on possibly having Andalusia and the Majapahit to mutually colonize/trade, with eventual kongsi organizing small trading communities across california. By now, the old and new worlds have already been connected, and there hasnt been any marginal colonization attempts (most nations are in favor of outright tributaries etc.) which would result in the strengthening of the natives, as well as islam being dominant in both continents
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This most recent attempt of mine at a cover of GURPS' "Armada-2" is coming along pretty well, although I'm becoming very aware of the limitations of the WorldA and cartography in general in regard to depicting non-Westphalian entities. The biggest offender here is the United Provinces of New France, which includes the Wabanaki Confederacy and the Council of Three Fires as associated states; the problem is that their territory overlaps with multiple provinces, and isn't always coterminous with them either. I'll be making inset maps to show things like this in greater detail, but on the main map I'm still struggling to find a good-looking way to show them. There's also Siam: it's under French influence but has vassals of its own, and to make matters worse most of those are vassals in name only at this point.
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Fine work! I also struggle with the "vassal of a vassal" situations. A distinctive colored border for the Wabanaki might help. I am somewhat reminded of US Indian reservations, which can have territory in more than one US state (notably, Navajo lands).
Indian reservations are probably the closest parallel, although unlike the OTL US these are basically just provinces with more specific citizenship and greater autonomy. I was inspired by Malê Rising's Kingdom and Republic of Hawaii, among other things. In the context of TTL this system doesn't really work that well: the fact that the native nations have different laws than the provinces they coexist with causes a lot of problems already, but land ownership is a nightmare to try to negotiate and the nations have proportionally more power in the federal government thanks to their lower populations. Native sovereignty is practically to the United Provinces what slavery was to the USA; that's not to say a civil war is necessarily in the cards, but it's an issue that should've been resolved a long time ago and will increasingly dominate national politics until a solution is found.
