A perennial question in r/totalwar is "Why is there no Total War: China game?" In the latest go round I spotted this comment:
If they did China alone, it would not be diverse enough. Even with all the different cultures and ethinicities in "China", they all had a single, general cultural, militaristic, and administrative system. If you look at the Qin, the Han, the Manchus, and the Zhuang, they're going to be pretty much the same in everything but ethnicity.
This attitude struck me as rather ignorant, but also made me realize that I am too ignorant to refute it, as I know basically nothing about Chinese history beyond a vague timeline of emperors->mongols->westerners->communists.
Kindly correct my ignorance! How different was the military and political organization of one Chinese state from another? I chose the Three Kingdoms period in the title because it sounds interesting, but I'm open to hearing about any chapter of Chinese history.
If you are looking for clashes of different cultures in ancient china, then three kingdoms really not the best example.
Early Han dynasty, five dynasty and ten kingdoms period, Tang Dynasty, late song, late Ming and early mid Qing dynasty are where I would suggest looking into.