Geopolitics are my favourite subject, and you're one of the only RU-vidrs who makes clear, straight to the point, yet elaborate videos upon the subject, without sensationalism nor appealing to nationalistic tendancies. You have a new subscriber! Hope you do more videos set in East or SEAsia!
Excellent piece of work and in-depth work. Your pronunciation of Chinese is also very good. One piece of jigsaw was missing in your text - re-population of the northern border. It started off from Han dynasty after capturing of west side of Yellow River and the corridor, that the Han Emperor started moving people to these regions. Incentives to farmers at first then undesirable elements of the society. Anyone on exile sentence would be shipped to northwest China. Further development to these buffer provinces would be self-provision of the soldiers who would devoted certain percentage of his time to farm his own food, who later progress into the militia-famers Fubin (府兵), as you know Mulan. Although Fubin lost its favour during Tang Dynasty, the practise of self-provision soldiering remained unchanged for another 2000 years, even today being practised by PLA!
Re-population of the northern border was actually more complicated. Migrating "mainland" elements to the north was only a small part of the strategy, attracting friendly minority tribes like Xianbei to live on the Han side border and joined the Han army was a significant master strategy. Xianbei provided excellent cavalry and was willing to adopt core Chinese values including farming. In fact, nobody challenged Sui and Tang Dynasty were "foreigners" as Xianbei was considered Chinese. Take Mulan for example was a by-product of this strategy - use Normads against Normads. Rome tried something similar with Goths for example but failed miserably, probably because Han emperor was able to appoint suitable officials to execute this strategy.
@@cyrilchui2811 Sui and Tang are seen as Chinese dynasties because they primarily ruled without ethnic distinction. As in, they respected that there were different ethnic groups, but politically it wasn't forbidden for any particular ethnic group to hold certain political positions in the bureaucracy, although some where institutionally favoured over others. Note that this was not down to racism but practicality; the military arms had significant and voluntarily ethnic minority overrepresentation (specifically, nomad representation) since Han Chinese, as agricultural people, didn't like fighting, especially if said fighting was with nomads who were always on the move. Similarly, the Han people made up most of the civilian officialdom. The Yuan used ethnic distinction during their governance and Mongolia is independent in the modern day, but its also undeniable that the Yuan eventually adopted Chinese culture fullscale so the jury is out on whether they are a Chinese dynasty or not. The Qing also used ethnic distinction, but since all Manchus are Chinese now the Qing is recognised as a Chinese dynasty by modern historians. There's also the case that the nomadic lineage of Imperial Family in the Sui and Tang dynasties came from the maternal line. As those ancient Chinese dynasties were patriarchial, as well as most nations today who study this period of history, its just more commonly accepted that the paternal lineage is more important for ethnic classification even if there is a modern political reason to look at ancient history in that way.
@Avalanche More than 90% of the soldiers in the Sui and Tang Dynasties are Han people. Han people are the most good at fighting in Chinese history. Genghis Khan also studies Chinese art of war. Manchu people were ruled by Han emperors as early as the Tang and Ming Dynasties. Manchu people have been Chinese since a thousand years ago
Settled civilizations throughout history: REEEEEE STEPPE PEOPLES But for real, the amount of effort, resources and well, sophistication the Chinese were capable of using at this time is incredible.
The parallels with the Late Roman Empire really are something, in terms of gradual barbarization of the military and eventual territorial balkanization. I guess the main difference is China got back together again while Rome was never able to, despite the efforts of Justinian or even Charlemagne.
@@universalflamethrower6342 that is only happening during modern era. Which is a very short period compare to the time after the collapse of roman empire
@@g-rexsaurus794 dude people are getting dumber and dumber by the second, they have no or little patience over this type of stuff, alas this is one of my few favorite hobbies Y_Y
Another great video. I was, I admit, a little disappointed you didn’t go later into the mongol incursions and the Yuan dynasty but for the amount of time you cover you’re very concise and your narrative flows very well. Thanks for doing what you do.
Thanks! I plan on treating the Mongol and Manchu invasions separately - also, hopefully, Alastair Iain Johnston's work on Ming strategy discussions vs Mongols.
@@StrategyStuff could this large conflict...forcing the steppe into a more bare bones hard time lifestyle..had partially caused the climate of the rise of culture type that would help them conquer the world? And did this squishing of a rival/ enemy cause a weakening of Chinas own military? Or was the time gap too big?
@@claudeyaz you could say so but the impact was indeed small. It's an indirect factor. The nomad has been living a tough live regardless of the operations from the Chinese dynasties
@@Telenil The wall didn't always works, about three times I got invaded by the nomads. What works is their assimilation, that forced any migrants to be chinese.
@HoiNam Superior Southern Chinese thats from a han chinese perspective, but from the xianbei's they have no choice but to assimilate unless they want a constant han rebellion. They need to so they can be accepted as the ruler of the middle kingdom. Same thing like vikings in england, mongols, and the mughals.
Just discovered your channel. I'm by no means an expert on Chinese history , but from what I can tell, this is a very accurate, well researched piece, down to small details ( like the pronunciation of Chinese names). So I'm gonna binge-watch your videos now, in the hopes of becoming a master of strategy.
@@xunqianbaidu6917 Ever heard about the 9 dash line? That's a lot of alienated countries. I wouldn't call trapping 3rd world with countries with debt as winning over either. I agree they are good at divide and conquer with hypocrisy and bribes. They are very good at that.
That never was the objective. This guy is biased. The Han always aim temporary success. He is making unrealistic goal for chinese. If he rules the country, the country will collapse with years.
This is a truly excellent analysis of the Early Chinese strategic dilemma vis-à-vis the Nomads of the Steppe. Can we expect strategic analysis for Tang, Song and Ming China for the same Nomadic threat?
This is an excellent piece of work. The narrator's English is better than most American and British RU-vidrs (e.g. he never once pronounces the indefinite article as the name of the letter "A", which is an annoying habit of many native speakers trying to sound learned.) I shall recommend this channel to every history buff and student I know.
Fantastic Videos. Please keep them up. We need more channels like your one. The only advice I would say is to add in some images between the slides (which are great for those who want detail) just to keep those who are easily distracted interested. Perhaps even some total war footage or just some stock images of Chinese or Hun soldiers. But please dont't take this as critiscism. Your videos are great and thanks.
So, that was the original "Belt and Road" initiative. Good to know. The Chinese are busy cutting off tributaries again. 10/10 well done, you won the game!
very nice and highly appreciated presentation on the push north and northwest expanding the control of interior Chinese states to encompass the yellow river as land and boundry belonging to the Middle Kingdom ~
The Xiongnu, early Huns emerged from the Cimmerians( known since the Shang, Yin and the Zhou dynastie sources as Xunyu, Guifang and Xianyun) which assimilated the the Son of the last proto-Chinese Dynastie of Xia and his last king Jie and his followers Shunwei, which after the demise of the Xia empire went into exile in to the north! From the mix of the Cimmerians with the upper class of the proto-Chinese Xia dynastie the first ethnic substrate of the proto-Xiongnu emerged! After that this proto-Huns went in to southern-Siberia and northern-Mongolia where they meet the Dingling-Jenisseians, such as the Ket, Kot, Yugh, Asan ,Arin and Pumpokol tribes and mixed with them! Because of this long-standing symbiosis with this ancient paleo-Siberians the Huns emerged as a distinct new people-a mix of ancient Cimmerians, Xia-dynastie descendants, Dingling-Jenisseians as well Scythian-Saka tribes! According to the Chinese sources the core of the Xiongnu-Huns made up from the Shanyu clan as well 4 tribes which was tied to the Hunnic Shanyu through dynastical mariage relation! One of this 4 tribe bore the name " Lan" which is identical to the Scythian-Saka tribe of the Alans, under the leading Hunnic tribes!
Beginning of the vid: Could you indicate the geo locations your are talking about to help visualize please? like making a blinking name or something. Otherwise very good content
Another extraordinary vid on a not very well know strategy. Thank you. I'd also like to see one on the strategy of the Vatican to hold power in Europe over the centuries. Maybe another on the rise of the domination of Europe of most of the rest of the world.
This may seem a strange question to ask, *but* my own continued interest in certain historical periods being what it is, it seems to be something which perhaps you'd be particularly well positioned to answer, perhaps even in a longer form with a video in the future. The question -- at what period in China's history did the Iron Age begin? And what role does technological know-how play in the various cultures who were competing for expansion, or survival? Because: (a) I noticed that you've claimed the northern steppe regions didn't have a nomadic culture prior to 1000 BCE, and (b) it seems to me that the Middle and Near Eastern region, including the Mediterranean sea, went into a period of Bronze Age decline starting at about 1200 BCE, and were certainly in an Iron Age by 600 BCE. Hammurabi's reign is approximately 1750 BCE; India knew about Iron by then.
My sources re: this are from Ralph Sawyer (Ancient Chinese Warfare) and Nicola di Cosmo (Ancient China and its Enemies). Widespread use of iron in China started during the Western Zhou (c.6thC BC) but adoption for military use was during the Warring States Period (c.4thC BC). Both Sawyer and di Cosmo posit that Chinese ironworking was stimulated through cultural contact with northwestern cultures (Sintashta etc), similar to how horseriding came to China. The 'nomadism is an advanced societal structure' hypothesis is based on the idea that it's impossible to domesticate animals initially without existing agricultural surplus. So basically it would be a process of sedentary animal breeding -> pastoralism -> nomadism.
@@StrategyStuff A follow-up question -- trade-routes sich as the SIlk Road and Amber Road helped to spread some technologies far and wide. Damascus Steel seems to me to be a likely candidate for importing; is there any evidence of that?
When u were talking about vassal states and nomad territories on borders, i was expecting to see some lines on the map delineating their area of influence. That never came. Was kinda disappointed. But i liked the video nevertheless. It was awesome.
A theme in these videos is geographical determinism. Which I agree with just like I agree with biological determinism for behaviour of people and leaders in geopolitics and diplomacy. With the degree to which people act in self serving ways/nations act in self serving ways. Geography/demographics/economic trends should be deterministic if it wasn't for the 'chance' factors such as technology, strategy, economic instability and perhaps now climate change. Will be interesting to see how China adapts to such things in the near future.
I'll make a few additions as the video goes on, just from the Mandarin pronunciations you deserve subs of at least a hundred thousand. Early on, of the four different categories of barbarians around the Spring and Autumn states, only the Yi (夷) was correctly identified in terms of culture as it was in contact with Middle plains culture for a long time before Zhou dynasty. The Di (狄) was likely a failed attempt at summarising all Northern barbarians and the name was ditched quickly. Of the Rong (戎) people take different ideas: Some believe it is another name for the more eastern branches of pan-Qiangic civilisation, others believe it differs from Qiang, and is the origin of Zhou and Qin ancestry. As someone with half their family in the Chinese nw, I incline towards the former, as like Rome the Huaxia people at that time did not spend much time categorising the barbarians and often are mistaken. The supporting evidence for the former is that only in Zhou dynasty did the Huaxia call them Rong, prior to that the character 羌 (Qiang) was already used to represent these people, and in Han dynasty they did switch back to this name. The Qiang deserve their own paragraph. They are not Tibetan, but a branch in the wider Sino-Tibetan scale, with similarities to both the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burmese. The confusion between Tibetans and Qiang was largely brought by an invasion by several tribes of the Qiang onto the Tibetan plateau during the Eastern Han dynasty, crushing the primitive Tibeto-Burmese culture there and assimilating, losing the majority of their culture and their language. Their culture is characterised by the 图腾 (the best English translation is the sigil) of goats, like using goat horns on headwear. The representative character in Chinese also stems from the image of a man with a goat's head. Qiangic civilisation lost their last independent state to the Mongols and most of their genetic descendants are within the Northwest Han category, where according to my mom goat horns are still regionally used in cultural events. Standalone Qiangic cultures in China right now include the Qiang ethnicity, which retained most of the new Qiang culture, and the Yi (彝, a different one) which now resides in Sichuan and only kept the linguistic features. Some are also categorised into Han or Tibetan inaccurately by the government (which apparently wasn't a big deal to them). In fact, as the Qiang had stretched their cultural areas all the way to modern day Shaanxi and Shanxi, many Chinese surnames do have Qiangic ancestry, like mine (姜), which interpreted original meaning was straight up "a woman of the Qiang", the feminine connotations was due to China being a Matriarchal society during when most surnames were created and the Qiang had to follow this custom despite the society shifting to a Patriarchy. Also, China during the first 3 dynasties before Qin was highly diverse in terms of culture. At that time most of China proper today was barbaric, and all of the Middle plains states have diverged in terms of spoken and written language. Think Europe now. If Bai Qi had fallen into a pit when he was a child this would have continued on to today and my parents would need a translator to speak to each other. This means that at that time there wasn't as much of a difference between barbarian states and Middle plains states, some formally recognised ones had been entirely barbaric in origin like Chu and Yue, others like Qin and Qi consists mostly of assimilated barbarians. This means a higher tolerance towards states not yet converted to Middle plains culture. It is only during Han dynasty that Duke Huan of Qi's stuff was brought up again (the fact that the Qi royals had a Qiangic origin and a population of Yi doesn't make it more believable) as the Xiongnu threat pushed Han officials to go into propaganda campaigns in order to defeat the Xiongnu once and for all. It is also easier as now the differing cultures in China had a common identity and no one made any comments about possibly allowing Xiongnu to assimilate (which of course happened eventually, I have a Chinese classmate with a Xiongnu surname). At 5:48 the Qin conquest of Ba and Shu is shown but not explained, these states occupied parts of Sichuan and all of Chongqing in modern day terms. The great excavations in Sanxingdui gave us an insight on these cultures and their difference with the Middle plains Chinese. They probably died out, but that's Zhang Xianzhong's fault during the collapse of Ming dynasty. The Hun-Xiongnu difference and similarity had been debated by many, I'll put my theory here. Several Turk forums pointed out that the currently surviving Hunnic names and word (one single word in Roman records) were Northern steppe tribal in origin, although this was used to promote turanism it is still somewhat reliable. Clearly written in Chinese records was the North Xiongnu escaping west while the South Xiongnu assimilating (last attempt of Chinese conquest made by Helian Bobo circa Jin dynasty). However, another evidence is the description of Huns being obviously Indo-European: Large noses, sunken eyes, etc. My theory is that a small amount of Xiongnu elites were able to escape to Scythia, where they used their superior tactics to reform the Scythian tribes and unite them under one flag, and maybe under one language as well. Therefore, the culture was not exactly Scythian but the gene pool remained more or less Indo-European. 14:58 At least in historical records, the Han army was able to increase the quality of their army so greatly while defeating Xiongnu forces. Huo Qubing's campaigns completely ushered the Xiongnus for a long time and that was around the origin of the military pride coined with the term 一汉当五胡, meaning one Han soldier could hold his ground against 5 nomadic soldiers. This was achieved around Emperor Huan's time, where the entire Eastern Han dynasty was nearly bankrupt due to the highly costly wars with the remaining Xiongnu forces. The only actually non-crippling campaign against northern nomads was the Tang dynasty one, relying on the 府兵制 mode of soldiers (meaning that soldiers were individual elites that paid for most of their weapons and maybe a steed, quite similar actually to nomad customs). That saw the 37-year campaign which obliterated the monstrous Gökturk Khaganates and caused Ashina Helu to flee west, prompting the appearances of Turkic cultures in west asia and eventually Anatolia. Song dynasty's constant failures against northern dynasties also could be traced back to economic failure- Most of the time the Song army could be inches away from defeating their northern foe before being called back as the central government had no money, in extreme cases the general could be killed for south-north relations, the most famous of which Yue Fei. This video was the best one I've found so far on RU-vid about anything Chinese in general, it really is great seeing the culture not being misrepresented and actually seeing an accurate representation. As an internet rebel had coined, it is a historian's duty to rescue the history of a people from a nationalist Government. If I made any mistakes please correct me, I am also still in the process of learning!
Great stuff. what books, videos, materials, or other resources would you recommend for building a basic understanding of the fundamentals of strategy? aside from the art of war, of course
Actually, I wouldn't recommend 'The Art of War' at first because it's NOT a systemic book - there are a lot of 'Dos' and 'Don'ts' BUT you don't get a feel for the underlying logic. Same with most other classical texts. STRATEGIC LOGIC: Personally, I read Edward Luttwak's 'Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace' when I was in uni and I thought the book was a readable introduction to the basics of strategic logic (Use of paradox, Culminating Point, Efficiency etc). Some of his other books - The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire, Coup d'Etat, The Endangered American Dream - illustrate his theories in a more practical form so they might be more interesting. Just don't treat them as 100% factual history. I've never really appreciated the strategic/geopolitical writings of the well-known modern writers like Robert Kaplan or John Lewis Gaddis, but their books tend to pop up when discussing the subject. One exception I'll make is Graham Allison's: 'Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?' GEOPOLITICAL LOGIC: Stratfor's 'The Geopolitics of X' series is a good introduction into geopolitical logic, particularly the ones on Brazil, the USA and Mexico. Again, don't treat them as 100% historical or geographical fact. (This tends to happen quite a bit because history is messy; when historians write strategy they tend to argue that leaders had no real strategy and improvising on top of events - a conclusion I don't always agree with and in any case is not helpful for analysis). HISTORICAL GEOPOLITICAL ANALYSIS: Jos Gommans' 'Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire 1500-1700' Chp. 1 is the best (also my first RU-vid video on this channel), Donald Stoker's 'Strategy and the US Civil War', Andrew Lambert's 'The Crimean War'. VIDEOS: Lambert's video on Crimea; Stoker's on the US Civil War. BLOGS: I read 'The National Interest' (US thinktank), Lowy Interpreter (Australian) and ASPI (Australian). Every now and then they produce something really good. I approach strategy from a more historical ('British' school) rather than theoretical perspective ('American' school) so I'm not an expert on game theory etc. More generally, if you approach strategy from the historical perspective you should a fair amount of political and diplomatic history,
Essentially it's not the mic (I have a pretty good one), but Powerpoint's poor voice capture and the way I have to control my speaking in order to control volume. I tried audio editors but it only made the problem worse. Still in the early stages of learning about other video editors.
There is a lot of information, names, places, and minutiae, to absorb in very short vignettes. It becomes too much information as most of the place names, tribes etc. get quickly by-passed and it's on to the next screen. To understand this well-documented series requires regular pauses, and it eventually becomes information overload, when it's really not that necessary. I can understand why it's not as well followed as it deserves to be.
Cameron Rothwell Yes, and the mod is filled with bugs and seemingly always friezes after 150 years of gameplay. But the time frame is not what I care about. What I want is a game focused less on uninspired gimmicks like dip points, and more based on the actual kinds of decisions made the history.
@@axelandersson6314 Totally with you there. When you first play EU4 it seems very complicated, with so many weird numbers you can't figure out. But then I kinda start to see all that as needlessly complicated, and just there to give the player buttons to click on, to make them busy. The designers have made up strangely abstract concepts such as 'administrative points' or 'trade power' or 'force limits', rather than just looking at things like food production/consumption/surplus, population growth, infrastructural development. Much prefer some of the mechanics in Stellaris, especially the role different types of population play in the functioning of each area (planet).
Sounds like he predicted the rise of the SCO and its encirclement by the island nations of Britain, Japan, the Philippines and Australia backed by the US and India, and the MidEast as a pivotal flashpoint.
It seems quite likely, given the pattern of Han policy vs Xiongnu so far, that the idea came from the pro-war factions in Emp Wus court (inc. the Emp himself). WQ was always focused on the N front, while HQBs campaign seems to have initially started out as a speculative movement (prompted by the reports of Zhang Qian) that achieved outsize success.
The Wall of China is always built in the borders with Inner Mongolia and Manchuria where Mongolian nomadic pastoral groups and Turk living in Xinjiang or Turkestan are peaceful peoples
it rather misleading to call it turkestan as the people who inhabit the area were from the persian culture group not turk. the turk conquered and assimilated them only after the rise of islam, which would be over 1300 years later. this is why xinjiang has very complex anicent waterwork. they were not nomadic turk, they were great city building persian.
This was good but would have been even better with a comparison to either/or Imperial Roman walls in E.g. britain, Germany and political marriages, which certainly figured in Medieval European politics; or the US strategy against some of the Indian tribes some of whom were also subsistence nomads. Imperial decadance leading to martial weakness. Predatory invasions leading to short term illusory prosperity as a result of devastation, leading in turn to disinvestment, destitution. The failure of acculturation to "civilize" "barbarians" Paying blackmail always fails because they don't stay bribed. Defeating an enemy leaving that enemy no choice but all-out war: the inability of states to limit their own victories. Failure of fortresses and walls as defensive means to end a strategic threat: these are large immobile static investments easily rendered irrelevant by changing borders, changing technologies, and changing alliances. I would also liked to have seen this go forward to explain how the failures with respect to the Xiongnu set the stage for the Mongol conquest.
the strategic approach: 200-900AD - marry them 900-1200AD - bribe them 1300-1644AD - fight them to the death (and get owned lol) the solutions are getting more and more stupid as time goes on
i dont dislike you or your channel and this is an interesting video but youtube decided to recommend this video every other video so i gota block your channel now sorry
That conclusion was a complete bullshit. He create a non existent object and goal. That no one in the ancient would even dream of doing such absurdity. Han wants to prevent nomad invasion forever? It was exactly because Han wu di’s victory against Xiong nu the Chinese civilization could survive. The Xiong nu were so bloody they could wipe out China if they keep going. The other time when Chinese didn’t beat nomadic people by force were Song Dynasty. The Mongol invaded China because of that. The region above were infested by nomad groups in the first place. There’s no way to prevent the nomad invasion forever. It’s also completely impossible to rule such huge and waste land. The only thing chinese could hope for is temporary success and destruction of huge Nomad alliances. Which is exactly what chinese were aiming for. The Han wudi victory wasn’t just for strategy purposes. It also help form the supremacy of Han culture in the region. The later Xiong nu were proud of their Han heritage that comes from heqing. Which makes the sinolization possible when nomads comes into China. Lot Xiong nu eventually become Chinese for fuck seek. xin dynasty were result of politic, not exactly the wealth of nation. The whole Xin dynasty is still Han dynasty. As they soon recovered from it. Xiang bei also happens much later. The objective of neutralize nomadic threat were achieved already. Compared that to bloody Rome who got completely fucked by Barbarian and never recovered their land mass. Also later completely vanished from history. Is that the better solution you talking about? In fact the victory of Han dynasty was the only reason China could withstand any nomad invasion during the three kingdom period. You call that a objective failure by creating non existent objective in the first place? You either too bias or have very limited knowledge regarding Chinese history!
Every time you question the wise of ancient policy, question your assessment of the history again. You are saying you, a foreigner researcher are wiser than all the decision makers at the time that dealing the subjects many many years. You will never smarter than time.
was this video made by chinese government?? 15:00 wrong information...no evidence Huo qubing had reached Khentii mountain, Langjuxu moutain was NOT khentii moutain, but Lang mountain 狼山 in inner mongolia.
I am five minutes in, and I'm giving up: you have said the word 'CHINESE' a million times, sometimes more than once in the same sentence. There was NO CHINA at this time, so it's totally confusing. I am constantly deciphering what you just said as you're speaking about the next thing. EG, call the Zhao 'the Zhao', not 'a Chinese state', which they never were. Shame, because I was really interested in the topic.
when you speak ENGLISH you pronounce stuff in ENGLISH. I don't care if you speak CHINESE and know how to pronounce their places, it sounds awful when you mix ENGLISH with CHINESE pronunciation. Completely kills the flow of your speech
