On the Wikiped's list of wars by death toll, various Chinese conflicts are ranked very highly. In particular, the three kingdoms period, the Ming-Qing transition, and the Taiping rebellion seem to be three of the five deadliest wars in human history. What causes Chinese civil wars to be so incredibly deadly? Is it just the result of China's high population, or is there something else going on?

How was mandarin selected as the offical language to be taught in the Republic of China? How wide spread was it before it became the offical language? Other than Cantonese were there any other dialects/languages in contention

Thanks so much for this AMA! I have several questions, and I'm going to highlight the relevant time period in hopes of making it easier for the flairs to see:

1. Tang Dynasty--the Tang is often portrayed as a relatively egalitarian period for women in pre-modern China. Of course I know that there were many powerful princesses in the Tang court, and even China's only empress regnant, but was life actually better for middle-class or peasant women than in other periods?

2. Song Dynasty--Was the factional division over Wang Anshi's reforms more of a policy disagreement or a personal vendetta against Wang himself? In Chinese literature classes we study a lot of writings by anti-Wang scholars but they never seem straightforward about what problem they really have with him

3. ROC/Tibet--Did the Republic of China have a long-term plan for what was going to happen to Tibet (other than the vague guarantee in the constitution that their "autonomous system" was to be respected)? Were any Chinese politicians advocating for self-determination for Tibetans, or conversely were any of them advocating for assimilation of Tibet until it became a regular province?

What happened to the specific form of Christianity that the Heavenly Kingdom practiced after the Taiping Rebellion was defeated? What parts of that, if any, survived and continued to influence Christianity in China?

During quarantine, I've been steadily working my way through The Princess Weiyoung on Netflix, a drama set in Northern Wei in the middle of the fifth century. It's given rise to some questions!

1. A lot of the first half of the show is taken up with household politics, particularly dealing with the relationship between the first wife/her children and a concubine/her daughter. So basically: what were the general family dynamics within imperial or aristocratic harems at this time? I know that all of the children were considered the wife's children, legally, but was there any sense of the wife's biological children being higher status or more legitimate heirs?

2. I understand that the Tuoba clan was (possibly? probably?) from Mongolia; did they have some relationship to the nomadic Rouran?

3. While looking at the Wikipedia pages for the actual history that the show is very, very loosely based on, I saw this:

Emperor Taiwu created him the Prince of Gaoyang, but then reconsidered, believing that a princely title was inappropriate for his oldest grandson, and therefore cancelled the title—signifying strongly that he intended for Tuoba Jun to succeed him.

What is going on here? What was the meaning of princely titles, if having one made a person seem less likely to be selected as a successor to the emperor?

How were the failings of the Qing dynasty during the "Century of Humiliation" used by both Communists and Nationalists for ideological purposes in the 20th century? Has there been a difference in how Chinese and Taiwanese scholarship has treated them since the end of the 1940's?

What was contact and trade between China and the Philippines like just prior to the Spanish colonization c.1500? And how did China respond to the Spanish colonization? AFAIK there is basically no Confucian presence in the Philippines nor were they ever considered a part of the tributary system.

Thanks for doing this. Do you have any good novels or movies which you can recommend? Any "classics" so to say? Preferably available in an English translation or with subtitles.

Chinese has widely divergent dialects today. Was Chinese split into very different dialects in ancient times, like the Han Dynasty?

There's a Chinese saying, "天高皇帝远" or "heaven is high and the emperor is far away". It's meant to convey the attitudes that no one is watching so I can break some minor rules (like perhaps the One Child policy is rural modern China).

This has always made me wonder what the local bureaucracy was like outside of major cities. How much contact would an average villager actually have with local officials? I get the feeling it probably didn't change that much over time so let's narrow it down only to Tang dynasty through the fall of the Qing. Correct me if that's a bad assumption.

When I'm studying ancient Chinese History(at high school level), there are always mentions of the four barbarians, Nanman(南蠻), Beidi(北狄), Xirong(西戎), Dongyi(東夷). Who are they exactly? What happened to them? Did any of their culture integrated into Han culture and preserved in modern Chinese culture?

In 2001 Michael Nylan wrote

Recently, the political gerontocracy in Beijing seems intent upon confirming accounts in the Documents by various manipulations of archaeological evidence, the better to shore up nationalistic slogans touting China’s historical uniqueness and unquestioned superiority

Assuming this refers to events before twenty years ago, what exactly was she refering to?

Was the Sweet Dew plot's resolution as comical as the wikipedia article makes it sound (being spoilt by a gust of wind, eunuchs forcibly carrying off the emperor litter as conspirators try and hold it still and the Emperor commanding people to stop yelling at him.

Or is it likely this was written by later historians with a stake in making everyone involved look inept and frankly a little silly.

In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu are made brothers and considered the “protagonists” of the story. Why is Guan Yu the only one to be deified? Also, what’s up with his beard? Cao Cao gives him a bag to keep his clippings; was this common? Or is this a bit of literary liberty taken by Luo Guanzhong?

What was refugee life like during the Chinese civil war and the Vietnam war in Hong Kong? How would a refugee arriving in Hong Kong be processed and what grounds were applicants accepted or denied asylum/citizenship. How quickly did they assimilate into Hong Kong life and were there problems with languages for Vietnamese, Chinese and other southern eastern asian refugees who spoke dialects/languages?

Why was the early CCP centred in central and southern rural populations? Why not in better educated urban areas? How were ideas of communism able to become so popular in places like Jiangxi and Shanxi? Thanks for doing all this.

What are the prominent factions and demands of protestors during the 1989 protest across the protesting cities. Did the majority want Glasnost and perestroika styles reforms or did they want a western style capitalist democracy?

We're a family of peasants outside Luoyang during the Tang dynasty. What is our farm like?

Do we farm a small plot ourselves, or a large field communally with our neighbours?

What crops and livestock do we have? Do we specialize or practice mixed farming?

How different was farming for our ancestors in the Han dynasty? Our descendants in the Ming?

Do/ will we ever own our own land?

I just finished Mandarin by Robert Elegant and he has one scene where Tibetan and Mongol monks chant Sutras during the dynastic transition from Tongshih to Guangzhu. A pretty normal thing for the Gelug Buddhist Manchu dynasty. But the event is told through the perspective of a Chinese Mandarin (a Jewish Chinese Mandarin at that) who scoffs that the monks don't even know the meaning of the Sanskrit they are chanting.

That's most likely wrong, but has me wondering, do we know what the average Chinese (or even above-average, like the Mandarins above) would think, know, and believe of the Tibetans or Mongols they shared the 19th Century Empire with?

How did the sutras brought from India by monk Tang affect Chinese Buddhism?

How did Tibet's Buddhism differ from Chinese or other forms of Buddhism in southern Asia?

How strictly were the three rules of discipline and eight points of attention followed by the red army and PLA during the Chinese civil war, Korean war and sino Vietnamese war/skirmish? Reddit, YouTube, quora comments and a few articles tend to describe the communists as extremely brutal and commited numerous attributes without providing any examples nor scholarly sources that back up their claim.

Were there women acupuncturists and doctors in medieval China, especially in the Song Dynasty?

What caused the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to fail militarily? The Qing stereotypically had a backwards military that was unable to defeat European powers. Were reforms implemented to restructure the army, or were there other reasons?

Do we know anything about either male or female homosexuality in the Song and Yuan Dynasties in China?

I was reading notes from the traveller Zhou Daguan when he was in Cambodia, where he noted that there were homosexuals soliciting favours from Chinese men in the markets, which Zhou Daguan considered "hideous and vile", so I was interested in more context about this from the Chinese side.

This is my first time participating in an AMA and I could not be more excited! Thanks to all participants, your contributions are so insightful and valued. Were the Three Ways ( Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism) universally adhered to in China or where there other native religions that did survive until the early modern period? Furthermore, what was the official attitude towards foreign religions and were there any influential/popular ones? I know Christianity was propagated by missionaries and Islam by proximity especially in the central regions of China, but what about Shinto or other strands of Islam from modern day Indonesia for example? Thanks again!

I have always wondered abut racism within China, how represented are none Han Chinese represented within the CCP and its local regions leadership

Is there an account of the tiananmen square massacre that is widely accepted as truthful? Western opinion and Chinese seem to differ greatly

I’m an average Chinese student in the 2000s. What should I expect to see in my history textbook?

One that /u/lordtiandao might like to answer but happy to hear from others too as it's quite general - how far did central ritual authority extend into the countryside in the period you cover? Do we have a sense that ordinary people, especially peasants not living in cities, would have had an integrated sense of how the emperor's place in the tianxia worked, and seen that as an integral part of their own world? Are there a lot of local ritual authority structures that vary across China within the same time frames? Was there syncretic treatment of central ritual in local religious culture, or was there an attempt to keep them separate? (If there was an attempt, was it by the centre, and did it work?)

Thank you all!

Why did the Sino-Vietnamese split happen later than the Sino-Soviet split? Was there any unwillingness to support the North Vietnam in the Vietnam war in the late 1960s, given that Vietnam was firmly in the Soviet camp?

/u/Total_Markage

The Mongol paper currency suffered from hyper-inflation. How much of this was due to forgeries, and how much was due to government issuing notes without regard to inflation?

For /u/lordtiandao

The single whip reform has been mentioned from time to time on the sub

1. How fast was the change? Was it one piece of law issued throughout the empire, or a set of many laws passed throughout the 16th century?
2. For a typical farmer, what's the amount of public obligation before the reform? What about after? Was it different for artisans/merchants?

Why did Daoism experience a rise of martial gods following the Tang, and what influence did this have on the religion?

How did someone prepare themselves to write the imperial examination, were the special schools, were women allowed to write. Did the questions differ between the various dynasties. How long did it take to prepare.

Also from what I have picked up from browsing reddit a lot of western universities have problem with mass cheating from Chinese students. Was cheating a big problem during the imperial period?

What was the Communist China's reaction to the 1967 Opium War?

What evidence is there of 王玄策, a Tang diplomat who was attacked by an Indian king, and lead a combination of Tibetan and Nepali troops in a successful counterattack, capturing said king and bringing him back to China?

When did giant pandas become an iconic creature of Chinese culture? When did they start appearing in Chinese art?

China's system of bureaucracy seems like an extremely advanced governing system for it's time, and allowed various Chinese dynasties to rule massive amounts of land and people with relative stability and prosperity. Yet it seems to have only been adopted by Korea, Vietnam, and for a few centuries Japan. What were some disadvantages to the system that influenced neighboring nations away from adopting it, or barriers that prevented them from adopting it?

As I’ve travelled through China, I’m amazed by how much history has been preserved but I recognize many artifacts, buildings, and places have been drastically changed or destroyed. What factors went in to whether some artifact of history was destroyed during the past 120 years?? What are some of the most noteworthy buildings/artifacts that were destroyed? What are some of the most noteworthy that were spared? How about things taken out of the country (to Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, or elsewhere)?

I know very little about China, but one thing that always interested me was the Ming expeditions. Did the Chinese actually think anything of note was to be found on the other side of the Pacific? How much was actually invested into naval exploration? And was there ever any other significant periods of Pacific exploration?

This one may be for u/lordtiandao or u/jasfss or u/fraudianslip...

One of my senior students (IB History) has written a pretty interesting paper in which she argues that ZhengHe' s expedition fits a modern narrative of china opening trade and diplomatically engaging with the world... But the motivations for the expedition may have had more to them.

She says there is a more conspiracy-minded theory in which the yongle emperor (perhaps paranoid) sent zheng he to find the former Jianwen emperor (perhaps alive).

She says that the "manhunt" motivation is minimised because it doesn't fit with the key narrative, but that there is enough evidence to mean that completely discounting it is a mistake.

She's a talented student, and has written what looks to me, like a measured exploration of the sources... But I'm not an expert, and I don't know the academic culture around these questions. Has she, by giving credence to an oft-dismissed theory, just been a bit gullible?

I've heard it said that there was a dynasty prior to the Qin, the Zhou dynasty. Yet most other historical sources cite the Qin as the first and Emperor Qin Shihuang as the first person to unite China under one banner. Can you tell me more about the Zhou dynasty and why they are the first dynasty (or aren't) and why some historical sources don't recognize them as such?

Thanks to everyone on the panel for doing this AMA. I've a few questions:

1. When and how did historians ascertain that there probably never was a historical Laozi? What evidence did Confucius have for his existence that just wasn't there for Laozi? (bonus: does anyone have recommendations for Daoist religious history?)

2. A precursor to consequentialist ethical philosophy, Mohism was one of the leading Hundred Schools during the Warring States era but failed to be revived after the Qin collapse. Do we know of any attempts to revive Mohism during the Han (or later) dynasties? Why was there a lack of interest in reviving Mohism?

3. Other than the KMT, did any other warlord during the Warlord era come close to reunifying the country with relatively more popular legitimacy than their rivals?

4. To what extent can we describe the historical KMT as a Leninist (but not Marxist) party? What features of Leninism did they borrow from the Soviets, and how did it diverge from the Soviet (and later Maoist) model of party organization (besides ideological content)?

5. How much influence did the KMT have in Hong Kong, as well as other Chinese expatriate communities? (I'm aware of the history of Rennie's Mill and that some Hong Kong newspapers used the Republican dating system during the Cold War)

6. How did Beijing perceive Maoist insurgencies in Peru, Nepal, and central India? I know those insurgencies happened at a time when Deng pulled back from Mao's foreign policy of exporting revolution, but how did those insurgencies impact PRC relations with those three countries? Do we know of any neo-Maoist voices (the Bo Xilai sort) in the Party who were sympathetic towards those insurgents?

I know it's a lot of questions but I'd love to hear any thoughts on any of the questions. Thank you all!

What titles would a Qing emperor in the early 1800s use? With European royalty, you tend to get a whole lot of titles overlaping in one person - eg Francis II held the titles of Holy Roman Emperor or King of Bohemia along with a whole lot of other ones. Did the Qing emperors accumulated them a similiar way, or was the title of the emperor all that they used? If you could take this into an explanation how this can point one to how ideas of rulership and power of the Qing empire differed from contemporary Western Europe, I would greatly appreciate it.

Also, since I have no idea where to find this, how did eg the French refer to the Qing in the same period and what can it tell us about the ways they understood their empire? Did they use China/Qing/empire/kingdom, neither, a combination of these or something entirely else?

Thank you in advance, it's fantastic to have such a comprehensive pannel!

How and when did the taboo of writing characters of the emperor's name arise?

Can you point me to any resources regarding Azhaliism (啊吒力教）？

I've been getting very interested in Mohism recently. Are there any other ancient texts that deal with it (either by Mohists or anti-mohists) that have decent English translations? I've read the Mozi and am working through Chris Fraser's "The Philosophy of the Mòzĭ: The First Consequentialists", but resources about it seem to be pretty scarce. I've also heard there was a rediscovery of the texts in a much later dynasty, but can't seem to find any translations of writings from that era either. Any suggestions?

What cause Confucianism ideas to spread around the vicinity of China ?

i heard that Elisabeth I (Queen of England and Ireland ) sent a letter to Wanli Emperor of Ming Dynasty, hoping to establish a trade deal . it that ture ?

Did the Chinese compete with Europeans for trade in South- and Southeast Asia in the 18th century ? We always hear about the european East India companies, but not much about China as a maritime power.

In the 19th century, the two Opium Wars that China lost forced it to pay reparations, ceding the Hong Kong islands to the British, paying millions of dollars to the victors, etc. During this time, there was a major influx of Chinese immigrants, mostly men, in the United States. Is there a connection between this? Would it be fair to say that some of these immigrants were also refugees of the wars and perhaps the Taiping rebellion? Finally, what political, cultural, and societal effects did the Opium Wars and their subsequent reparations have on the later founding of the republic in 1912?

​

edit: a word

What was the academic curriculum like of an average student in the Tang Dynasty? Did they cover a wide range of topics in mathematics, literature, history, etc.? Was there a unified schooling system in place for the public?

"During the GPCR and the few years after its end, a notable phenomenon was the popularity of “xiaodao xiaoxi” (a verbal transmission of news). People very often would rather believe information from obscure sources rather than news released through the official media. " - He, Henry. Dictionary of the Political Thought of the People's Republic of China

I haven't found any info on how the CCP reacted to these informal channels. Did they try to crack down on those who peddled them or at least watch over what was being said?

Did the portrayal of gods and immortals in popular novels like Investiture of the Gods, Journey to the West etc affect the image and popularity of these figures in the religious sphere, and if so in what ways?

I know that some Chinese emperors executed their children. Was this a common occurrence? Did Emperors feel great regret and remorse for this or did they view their children as expendable, having so many from so many different women would make family life quite different from that in the west, and for that matter their own subjects.

How were laws recorded and promulgated during the Song dynasty? Were written law codes mediated through other institutions besides just the government?

Can someone offer an overview of recent scholarship on the development of writing in China, particularly with respect to the Anau seal, and possible Indo-European influences on the development of Chinese writing?

I'm very interested in Indo-European history, and have been reading about IE presence in what's now western China (Tarim mummies, etc.), and came across some really interesting speculation about this seal and the symbols on it, and interpretation of them which conflicts with mainstream academic scholarship on the history of Chinese writing. But outside of IE history circles, it doesn't seem like historians discuss this much.

From the Ming Dynasty, do we know much about print culture at the time? Who was debating what, and how were the tracts printed and distributed?

From the Han Dynasty, is it fair to say that Wang Chong’s rationalism passed without much of any influence or following?

From the Qin, was it force that ended the influence of the Mohists, more so than persuasion?

From the Song into the Yuen, how did Zhu Xi’s reputation change so rapidly, from the end of his life to a century after his death?

Were there any atrocities committed by the Japanese army in Fu Jian during ww2 and how was life there?

Where can I find out about a Chinese queen was a warrior. I just remember that when they found her tomb that she had been buried with her horse, armor, lots of treasure and it's possible she was worshipped??? I have only heard about it once and couldn't find anything else. I am very interested in women in ancient times. Also did China have a similar class of people like samurai? I always thought that was more a Japanese thing. I really love studying Asian history.

Were the laws and punishments of the Han actually any fairer or more merciful than those of the Qin?

Why didn't China follow up on its easy victory in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war to get anything valuable?

China invaded Vietnam in 1979, partially to demonstrate the impotence of the Soviet Union in the region and partially to force Vietnam to withdraw from Cambodia, where its army had ousted the Chinese-supported government.

The Chinese army got past the Vietnamese border without too much trouble, but then they just sort of stopped. Why not force the Vietnamese to withdraw from Cambodia, or get anything else of value?

While the devastation of the sparrow population is a well known causality of the Four Pest campaign causing no small ecological damage, how were the other three pests (rats, flies, mosquitoes) controlled and were they successful?

How much did life for the average Zhou change between dynasties? Were changes mainly noticeable at the top, or did they affect the whole of society?

I remember reading about an old book describing all the wild places and crazy creatures living on the other side of the western mountains, kinda like the stories in Europe about giants and cyclopes in faraway lands. Can someone remind me what it's called and if I can get it in English? It sounded so interesting!

For /u/Jasfss, /u/cthulhushrugged, /u/FraudianSlip

In my very limited knowledge, in Chinese sources until the Qing, the Records of the Three Kingdoms seem to be one of the few sources where the army numbers are sometimes at least plausible. Even the Book of Ming recorded the to-be emperor's foe as having 600,000 around a medium-sized lake.

Of course China isn't alone in this. But in other areas of history mobilization numbers play a large part in making assumptions about population and the government's system of manpower mobilization.

Given this then, are there any studies done, using I guess archaeology, snippets of evidence from sources, surviving census figures (that may or may not be accurate), and comparisons to other, similar agrarian societies to come up with population estimates at different important points in history, and estimates on average annual population growth/drop rates of a period?

And are there any attempts, also using these kinds of evidence, to figure out what the probable army sizes actually were, and how much of the population could be mobilized by the state?

How did the magical eminent monks of China differ from those of India, and to what extent did existing understanding of the xian or aspiring xian shape these figures? How did these two traditions interact?

Archeologists over the last century have made some exciting finds, especially of texts preserved in tombs. While I know there exists a venerable tradition of "rediscovering" old texts, do we know of any historical finds more in the modern fashion?

So the mid-700s were a pretty crazy time throughout most of the world — specifically, 750-760. Does anyone have a bit more information on the background of the Battle of Talas River? From what I understand, the newly ascendant Abbasid Caliphate was more or less consolidating its rule over the huge territory it now governed in Central Asia. I haven’t, though, found a good answer for why Tang Dynasty troops were there in force, even bringing mercenaries with them — the site of the battle is on the other side of the passes in the area, and Tang territories seemed pretty stretched as it was. Were the Tang actively trying to expand into the Syr Darya basin at the time, or was this just a border force the the Abbasids ran into and decided to test?

Also, I’m curious as to what you think may have happened if it weren’t for the An Lushan rebellion. Apparently the Tang had increased their hold on their western territories in the years since the battle and were gathering another force for an expedition into Central Asia before the rebellion broke out. If they managed to follow through, what kind of effect do you think a protracted war beyond the mountains would have had on the Tang economy and domestic morale — would they have been able to sustain a war against the Abbasids and protect any potential gains, or would the strain have been too much for an already massive empire?

Also, it would be really cool to hear a brief overview of the An Lushan rebellion from someone well-versed in the topic, for those who haven’t heard of it. It was a massive catastrophe that killed millions and mortally wounded a thriving empire at its peak, and it seems not a lot of people are aware it happened, or of the sheer scale of the destruction it wrought.

tl;dr:

• Why did the Tang Dynasty fight at the Battle of Talas River?
• Could it have sustained significant Central Asian holdings for long?
• Just how awful was the An Lushan Rebellion?

What were relations like between the Yuan Mongols and various Indian kingdoms and sultanates, like the Delhi sultanate and the Rajputs of India?

Did they have contact with dynasties in Southern India as well?

How have post-1911 Chinese historians attempted to explain the success of the Manchu/Qing conquest of China and the eventual solidification of the Manchu rule? Especially the reasons for the continued collaboration of many Han-Chinese even after the Ming and Li Zicheng were defeated. Has any part of this topic had any taboos in Chinese historical discourse?

Did Qing try to learn from the mistakes of Yuan?

On a recent episode of Curiosity Stream, he said that the Plague that caused the Black Death started in Wuhan, China. I was looking online and couldn't find any convincing evidence that the bubonic plague pandemic that caused the Black Death started in Wuhan. Is there any evidence of an outbreak of plague in Wuhan in Chinese historical records a few years before the Black Death?

How did Mongols in China react to the Dzungar genocide?

The influence of Persians and Central Asians on Tang, Yuan, Song and Ming dynasties is well known. What effect did European and Arabic trade have on Chinese culture and art, specifically?

Were human-animal hybrid gods/spirits such as those associated with the various mountains in the Shan Hai Jing broadly worshipped (or more generally interacted with) in China at the time of its writing?

The An Lushan rebellion is one of those genuinely mindblowing civil wars that sound like it completely upended a civilization that was near its peak - even if as /u/Kochevnik81 points out that the death toll is probably not quite as devastating has been speculated.

What I'm really curious, though, is about is the aftereffects. What were the biggest cultural, political, and military changes in the decades following the rebellion, and what unique aspects of the Tang dynasty never reappeared following it?

More of a general question, what are some of the major inventions that were actually from China but are not accredited to western people.

How did each dynasty and through now seek to address corruption in the governing entities? Were there different philosophies and/or methods used to motivate non-corruptive behavior, rather than through just punishment?

Why is the Tang dynasty widely considered the best and most prosperous? How true is it, versus a revisionist viewing of the time?

I recall reading somewhere that one of the Chinese dynasties (I think it was the Qing) would give smallpox vaccines to tribes who were allied with them, but embargo the vaccines to tribes who were opposed to them, so their allies would be less affected by smallpox. Is there any truth to this?

The Yuan Dynasty is know for having an interesting policy on creating paper money, fiat currency, hyperinflation, and accepting some old dynasty’s coinage as payment.

Was their actions natural discovery or did they know what they were doing from previous dynasties, particular economic philosophies (tied to Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism), or from Europe?

Did the Yuan or other dynasties ever purposefully used debasement on vassals or other states (past or present) to establish economic power?

Bonus Q: Did peasants or wealthier individuals lose trust in the number and frequency of currency changes and used a certain asset or currency as a safe haven?

When did wildlife markets become a thing?