10. The Han Dynasty - The First Empire in Flames 

I cant sleep watching these, I'm too interested lol

This is like my asmr when I sleep. The only jarring part is the poem at the beginning.

This series is how I go to sleep every night

It took me one week to finish one episode. I always fell asleep.

I thought it was just me lol

Thanks Charles, much appreciated!

The BBC used to produce things like this but now they go for visuals and looks rather than substance and content

That's because they don't think anyone will watch it unless you have a known person presenting on a big fee with their own production company producing it rather than someone with skill and passion. Hence next week, Danny Dyer on Diocletian!

@@justme-hh4vp "Diocletian was a right proper geeza, he was top dog son"

I believe you mean kilograms per hour

Right?!? The power comes from the points of view that are represented, new POV’s to those we learn of in traditional learning situations. The plan is to engage us with stories of people like us, regular people who are generally forgotten in time. It’s impact is far greater than if we’re given the usual history lecture, show etc. I’m so thankful for this new kind of history lesson. I believe it even lowers my blood pressure, mind and body are better off from the experience even though it can be devastating.

It's tragically beutiful because it shows these people were jist like us normal people who just wanted thier stable lives back.

That hurt me more than I thought it would

And that will be the fate of us all as Climate change removes the homes we knew throughout the planet, and we have been too passive or corrupt to stop it. A city can be rebuilt, but not the gift of a liveable planet, once ruined.

Zap 😊lp mmm

😨

@@harishthethird why make a face? I hope I still have a love of learning and her age

@@richarddavis8863 no it's supposed to convey astonishment xd

This makes me so happy to see the older generation able to utilize new technologies to continue to learn more! Love this

@@Winteramen .

The poem is actually an integration of several short poems, which are all from a collection called 《昭明文选》or mostly known as 《古诗十九首》（19 ancient poems）. The writers of these poems had been unknown for a long time.

One interesting thing: this kind of poems in Han dynasty were more like lyrics. They are used to be sung in some specific tunes.

@@salazar3494 in fact ancient Chinese poems are probably read like songs, old Chinese does not sounds like modern Chinese at all.

Well said.

And climate!

Read Guns, Germs, and Steel

@@MattGrovesFTW Yes, a real eye opening book, or RU-vid video. Ronn

“Guns, Germs & Steel” is an excellent read!

.7

In most days and ages people know when they’ll lose their loved ones? Nah. Repent.

@@paulhallett1452 Why? Plenty of my loved ones wouldn't even be in heaven according to Christianity. Why would I want to spend "eternity" away from the ppl I love? Also, it was a reference to Covid, genius.

​@@paulhallett1452 Repent yourself.

@@paulhallett1452 Go away.

I interpret it more like we should be nicer to each other and love the living that are here, learn from the past and all...

Says something about the quality of many teachers.

@@insaneweasel1 more so the quality of the curriculum

I swear school curriculums go out of their way to make their subjects as awful and uninteresting as possible - usually while obscuring the subject and leaving students with false impressions (especially when the subjects concern subjects that have political implications). And history is one of those subjects where you can just about ignore everything you learned in K-12 cuz it's probably wrong.

Remember, friend, whenever you learn something about human culture, human history, you also gain a better understanding of yourself. To get to know yourself better, it helps to learn how mankind has operated and acted and reacted and resurrected down the millennia. Never stop learning. It is the gift that never stops giving back to you. Peace to you.

How do you feel about the term "erased from the historical record"? When you think about it... this is really scary.

@@georgehenry76 Have a day off.

@@LordZama Take your own advice.

@@sgswaney You got a point, luv?

We have Amazon. They just banned Clarence Thomas's book

ty😅😉😉😜😘

f😉😘

It is all very evocative and engaging

Junior or senior? A jackelope Aunt Jackie would be fun probably.

Sleep pandies

Ditto, but adding, "Excellent and Superb!"

Alot of it is just smart use of stock footage I believe

Like Mathew said. It's a lot of stock videos. In the first 4 minutes of the video, not a single shot was of Luoyang, an ancient inland city. There was 15 seconds of CGI, 3 minutes of a abandoned village on a small fishing island, and some fillers. You can't really call this a documentary.

Nat Geo is overrated. Lots of competition nowadays. I only stick to RU-vid and Netflix. I dont even know why i have a tv. Serengeti is amazing, though.

@@jaytang3972 thanks, I'm wary of long videos because adhd

Rome and The Han were contemporaries and had a trading relationship. In China Rome was called “Da Qin”

@@SeanHiruki I am surprised it wasn't mentioned, but the first diplomatic contact between China and Rome occurred in Lingdi's reign (186-190 CE somewhere around there), with an envoy sent by Marcus Aurelius.

where do you see paralels between han and rome? Besides the usual things in any empire/ clan etc. etc

@@SeanHiruki The supposed connection between the Romans and the Chinese was tenuous at best. The Chinese were vaguely aware there was some important barbarian city somewhere to the west where Chinese goods may haven eventually made their way to, and that was it. The Romans, for their part, knew nothing of China.

@@webeskimo The Romans and the Han (indeed, all Chinese imperial dynasties) are strikingly different. For instance, the Roman Empire survived the rise and fall of many dynasties, even within a single year, whereas the Chinese empire collapses with the fall of the ruling dynasty, often descending into protracted periods of internecine war until a new dynasty comes out on top and rebuilds the empire.

The arid climate of the Zhongyuan plains and the dryness of bamboo and paper makes for a very flammable environment.

Thanks Bryan, much appreciated.

My face

Wise Words

@bastiat I rather think not!

@bastiat You generally acuse the whole podcast as garbage... This is just ridiculous. Argumenting that history disagrees is even more weak. So what exactly you are talking about. It looks like that we agree to disagree...

@bastiat @bastiat You are changing topics and start to accuse me as well... That's rude and unprecise. The podcast is bad... Now it's some kind of weird 'argument' (it's literally not an argument, but just one word..) about human systems in general and media. Speak thoroughly to prove your point. I think, education needs different perspectives and presentations to reveal layers of 'truth' and 'knowledge'. Again, you say the whole podcast is bad. I totally disagree. It's made by a person that cares about this world and tries to combine many aspects of education and uses a modern form of presentation. The podcast informs about very important times, societies, personalities and civilizations around the world. I can't think of anything that is more useful in our time. The podcast tries to show 'us' (in a globaliized world) how fragile societies and systems can be. Furthermore, if you look at episode 8 for example it informs about key aspects of human civilization in general. Ex oriente lux!

Excellent channel. I also strongly recommend Stefan Milo channel and David Reichs book as an short introduction to properly understood history of humanity

Can you recommend more documentaries like this one? They can be in putongyu as well. I'm a Chinese descended American and I want to learn more about the country of my ancestors

《中国通史》《从秦始皇到汉武帝》《楚国八百年》《帝陵》《丝绸之路》《张骞通西域》

Malaysian Chinese here, there is many historical documentary about ancient China make by mainland itself ​@@PatrickLongblkwhtrbbt

Thank you, I'm glad you like it!

@@FallofCivilizations You should do Soviet Union one day. ;) It's a joke of course but only half so. It was a unique civilization in a way, which is not more.

@@manichaean1888 i'm not sure if you can do the soviet union without the russian empire . so i think it would be a great episode and i second this

@@ascadorcern6106 On one hand, you are right, the SU is still continuation of Russia. On the other, it is a unique culture and civilization on its own. So, it it limited in time in this sense. But anyway, I was joking.

@@manichaean1888 I actually do rather like the idea... Even if it doesn't really work, the reasons for its collapse are still in debate and interesting, but maybe a bit too modern. You'd get a lot of arguments in the comments.

I am not being sarcastic with what I am about to write. Of course you see parallels between Han era China; sadly, no, depressingly, there are very few true variations in history. Details may vary, but overall, history just repeats itself, millennia after millennia, in every country, in every culture. Out of periods of chaos and upheaval, civilizations emerge, struggle to a peak, even a flowering, then decadence and decay set in, then fall and the process starts all over. Sometimes the process is measured in centuries, at other times, far less. When I was in school, one teacher, the wife of a Southern Baptist preacher, spent more time going on about parallels between the fall of Rome and the USA in the early 1970s, and pointing out that a sign of "the second coming" was that there would be wars and rumors of wars; a braver classmate pointed out that there had always been wars and rumors of wars. Of course that was not well received, but as unfit as that teacher was, the worst was the geography teacher who was, 20 years later, an unreformed McCarthyite, and how terrifying life was in Soviet Russia and how, Ft. Benning, a first strike target for atomic war, was only 30 miles away. As dysfunctional as this was, I am sure that it has been repeated for millennia - Babylonian teachers terrifying their students with tales of the evil Assyrians, Chinese scholars railing about the evil Mongols. We humans never truly, completely learn.

@@jeraldbaxter3532 Unfortunately, scaring children has been a powerful mind control method that leads to an intoxicating feeling of great power to the people in charge and mass compliance in the populace. It requires a bit of head shaking to clear the mind and violent revolt from time to time to reset for the next round,. We have nothing to fear but fear itself is true to a point. Fear puts you in shackles. Power corrupts, and you have to hide the corruption or you're out of your job. The Catholics taught us all that very clearly and it's pretty much a universal truth when all the checks and balances collapse or are done away with.

Your reference "coalesced like beads of mercury on a table" - wow that brought up memories of playing with beads of mercury from a bottle of it that my brother and I had as kids in the late forties. Kids don't have the joy and fascination of such amusements any more but that reference sure brought back memories. I still have that vial of mercury pilfered from my father's home medical office.

@@spshea I teach children. They still have that fascination. You have no idea the bizarre things I catch children playing with in my classroom, in addition to their smartphones and laptops. Haven't caught mercury yet, but I wouldn't be surprised. LOL. Kids are still kids.

What awards can we submit him for?

Apparently China had morals at one point, death of a dynasty. China is now enemy #1

@ because Americans can't get richer anymore exploiting them? You are the enemy!

Completely concur with Dragan. Incredibly detailed information & background, all presented without hype or fanfare, laid out in a wonderfully logical & chronological sequence with diversions to other times &/or characters where appropriate. Cannot recommend this video highly enough. MANY thanks for all of your hard work & efforts. joe in buenos aires

@@joebuenosaires3539 Thank You Joe. Sincere regards to You too.

Thanks my friend, very kind of you.

you are encouraging me to watch this video 6:26

The highway t

Why would you unsubscribe from other channels? Why did you subscribe in the first place?

@@culwin i don't really get what OP meant either 😅

This is the only comment reply I won't delete

Don’t listen to ‘em, Nora. I get the sentiment.a.x

there's peace of mind in realizing how little of what we do will have lasting effects.

@@busTedOaS ...might be wishful thinking at this point, but I hear you

It really is captivating yet relaxing, it’s probably why this particular podcast has such a loyal following and great success.

@@busTedOaS wonderful reply

The title does not suit the narrative. But the story line is quite apt

Mmm

Not real history, Anglo-Saxon conspiracy

@@user-qp4eq1oj5r How so?

Slow doom. Yeah great way to describe the series. Heartbreaking but yeah very well done.

This is how history should be taught! Not by textbooks.!

I doubt that. The main difference between any class and RU-vid is that you decide what you watch. If this interests you, you will listen to it. Any class has the disadvantage that no matter how interesting it tries to be, if you don't care about the topic you won't pay attention. I think it would be best if we could have mood based learning. Imagine schools would let you choose what to learn after a certain degree of basics completely by yourself. Or let's say you have a set amount of classes you have to attend each year, but you get to decide daily what you feel like learning. Sure, this is a very broad generalization. But I could imagine it would cause people to actually pay attention

These shows make me look back and wish I would have become a history teacher

@@eccomi21 well yes and no.. The self selecting nature of RU-vid does matter, but investigation into the matter has confirmed that test-based curriculum makes it far less likely that children, especially boys, will pay attention in class. Presentation to purpose, like this, does wonders in restoring attention. When students can see why it matters and why it is important AS they learn, it makes a huge difference. Even if students are exposed to this learning style outside matters they care about, they pay more attention and are more engaged.

I hated all history classes in school. Now here I am in adulthood. Haha

Mark Twain.

Beautifully commented. I so agree with you.

Unfortunately, psychopaths with out of control desires for money and power do NOT learn.

@ritasjourney it is the people that follow the psychopaths and grant them power who are the ones who don't learn from history. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I think the quote ( it doesn't appear in his books) is "History may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes."

That goes for every ancient civilization. Always complex and above all... Corrupt.

Not surprising considering China is one of the cradles of civilization.

It's called Home at Last by John Bartmann! He'd probably get a kick out of hearing your version.

@@FallofCivilizations A John Bartmann - EDM remix would be great

@@tommole645 No. Just, no.

All gone now they destroyed their own history

@@cosuinofdeath like how?

@@cosuinofdeath The Summer Palace and other historic buildings were not destroyed by the Communists, but by Western colonizers (They did the same in Iraqi museums)

@@cosuinofdeath troll spotted

They destroyed them to survive, or what is the point of a Christian, English speaking China?

Hi Lee, yes I certainly have thought about it. It could be in the works soon. Thanks for the suggestion.

One of my favorites is the Khmer Empire.

If Kongming himself gives such praise you know it is quality content

“This too shall pass”- saying of ancient Terra

@@cosuinofdeath cool!

Won't be up to the mark

@@REHANKHAN-en5zn why not?

I doubt it. The indus script is not deciphered. Which means we know so little about them.

Dont think we know enough

This would be a very interesting. Would love to learn about the Different Indus clans and kingdoms

And one of the main characters of the dynasty warriors video games

Qin Shi Huang IS his title he adopted after he unified China into the Qin Empire. It’s not a personal name and is different from the reign name of western sovereigns. Huangdi means Emperor which was the title of all Chinese sovereigns since then. Tianzi means son of heaven which was what the emperors were regarded as, not a title. Those titles such as Han Gaozu etc were the titles given to deceased emperors by their successors, not reign names either. Very confusing indeed.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. The name is not Important, the man is..

Just be prepared to listen to these over, and over, and over again. They don't get old and I seriously think at this point I can't get to sleep without Paul's voice.

Thank you. I don’t know why I’m haunted by it, but I am. Deeply.

So sad that EVERY last bit of their society and culture knowledge and prosperity were just incinerated in the equivalent of an instant. Crazy and a wild story. I have also watched it several times as well as every other episode several times. Just one of the BEST all round history channel in all aspects. Perfect and so intriguing and informing. Collected knowledge of these cultures and their fall you wouldn't get anywhere else unless you did the research yourself and even then would not be as interesting and entertaining.

The Khmer Empire episode is my personal favorite.

Yeah, I just heard that last poem, imagining myself being this poet as he rides into this ancient Chinese city of 2,000 years ago, contemplating the passage of the seasons, of time. And it hit me hard. He's talking about going back to the past, to those long gone, to his long-dead memories. To revisit his childhood home. But time and history and death march ceaselessly on, and his village is no more. So when he says "there is no road back" he means that figuratively, in that we can't unwind time and go back to our cherished memories. THAT is the reality we ALL face, and the reason I also teared up a bit. I also get hit with this strong nostalgia for my memories, my past once in a while...

@@Luboman411 same, man. Same.

D Lll

Same

This isn't new

same

@@iamperplexed4695 actually yes it is lol

@@diogopinto6039 It was uploaded to this channel on Feb 24, 2020 and currently has almost 482 000 views.

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If you think you miss out on that much in European schools, you have absolutely no idea how much American schools leave out. When I was in high school all I knew about the Han dynasty was that it existed in China. They taught us nothing else about it. Not the rise nor the fall nor who was involved

@@richardscott2719 Americans barely know anything about U.S. or Western history, let alone the history of ancient China.

@@PaulvonOberstein I agree 100%. Our education system is a facade. In my honest opinion.

Well, it seems someone has been to an awful lot of European schools to form his opinion. While I did learn about the Qin and Han at school and from what I remember about the Tang and of course the Mongols, Yuan and Ming, it was just the size about a chapter or so each and more an overview. I grew up in a city founded by the Romans, and the education received about them did outsize that of any other empire building civilisations ancient or not by several magnitudes, except the history of my native country. I can understand that people don't remember their education after some years, but I was always hungry for this kind of information. Never ask me about math please. School education simply doesn't compare to this excellent documentary, which I enjoyed watching already a couple of times. There is just too much history in our small little world, and I am all the more glad for it when presented in such an utterly compelling way.

And Korea! Westerners often mention China and Japan while skipping right over Korea, whose dynasties were very stable indeed, and who conducted broad trading.

Thanks my friend, very kind!

Or more succinct: China's whoooole again. Then it brooooke again!

After the historic U.S. Capitol putsch on Wednesday, I'm starting to get a sinking feeling that this is the fate of the great continental power of the United States: "such is the way of the realm - long divided, it must unite; long united, it must divide." Wise words from a great author about events that happened roughly 2,000 years ago.

@@Luboman411 I think there is a term for the occurance, that being The Punic Curse, that Rome suffered after it had defeated its Greatest challenger to future power in Carthage. I do wonder how come the life Empires/Super powers seem to be declining, Rome (900 years approx) Ottoman (600years approx) British (200years) although those older 2 seem to have both survived some sort of reform in the middle of those lives, which obviously the British empire didnt. I think the easiest way to see where a Empire/Superpower is can be seen in what inflections are attributed to the term "foreigner/Barbarian".

@@Scasne Ironically, most empires fell due to internal crisis rather than external threats.

@@omegabulldog5001 agreed, and often when they do fall to external forces it's because they were facing internal issues, civil unrest/wars, succession issues, economic,disease, famine, all combine, but an external enemy does form a unifying factor if they are perceived early enough as an actual threat rather than contempt.

when i heard the name Lu Bu i came

I'm new to ancient chinese history but I played dynasty warriors a bunch when I was a kid. Now I'm just learning that all those characters were based on real people 🤯 I wonder if LuBu was as much of a savage as he was in the game

@@accidentalcoleslaw I still have fond memories of think to myself "nah, I can probably take him on" before getting one shot through a block haha

@@theendofmyropemydude I'm not ashamed to admit I fell to his blade on many occasions 😅 loved that game

@@accidentalcoleslaw greatest backstabber of all time it should be called Lu Bu instead of Benedict Arnold

Same here. The documentaries are my bedtime stories. I often drift to sleep while half listening. His voice is sooo soothing. In the morning i have to replay again to confirm if i really heard everything.

Thought I was the only one :D

Olive

Agree with the aesthetics but history ain't art haha

@@jaystewart3395 RN

This whole series should be named “Lament”.

Pleasantly surprised somehow, every time

its just an audio podcast that the person puts b-roll footage over. i can even recognize several video clips from history channel documentaries. production value? maybe all of $10 at best. just need a decent mic and then clip out footage from other stuff that is of decent quality (and is free), slap podcast audio onto the second track and bam, you got this.

ololoooooooopooooolooooooooooooooooooooooooooooopoooooopolooooooooooo

Peck oooooooopooooooop

millermonsterair ol

@James Smith I agree with your insights. I should have been more clear that I was referring to the reality TV cesspool they have become...or at least were when I stopped watching them 5 years ago.

Totally true, Frank!

There was a famous saying from Tang empire Li Shining to his advisor: one can learn his dressing from a mirror, the rise and fall of dynasties from history, and the right and wrongs from other people.