History Summarized: Ancient China 

Hey Blue, thanks for the shout-out! :-)

It seems that there are still many gaps in our understanding of ancient Chinese history. Perhaps the archives are incomplete?

china's history is just "this dynasty sucks, we need to split up" then "being split up sucks we need to form another dynasty"

You pulled a Suibhne and are making us wait for part 2

China: Forms a Dynasty Peasants: "HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TEACH YOU THIS LESSON OLD MAN!"

"Machiavelli would be very proud." Damn it Blue you have to bring Italy into everything don't you.

So, China went from city states, to empire, to bigger, smaller states, to bigger empires, to states, to empire, to different empire, to other empire. Are we sure this isn’t just Greece?

Chinese person here. *YES.* THE VALIDATION IS REAL. I LIVE IN BLUE’S PLANE OF EXISTENCE.

I like how the history of China follows closely with Taoism, with cycles of order and chaos. Yin and yang.

Great video! It should also be noted that the Xiongnu/Hun link is a bit debated. But so is just about everything in ancient history.

Still think it's pretty cool how China's writing system became so uniform under Shi Huangdi. There were tons of different dialects of spoken Chinese but no matter where you went, the writing style was always the exact same so even if two people couldn't understand what the other one was saying, they'd be able to understand each other perfectly in writing.

Fun fact about Sima Quan (don't know what you're calling him Blue, or why?) he had the choice about to get executed or castrated. He chose castration so that he could finish his Shiji (Also known as Records of a Grand Historian) which were originally written by his father, Sima Tan, who died before finishing. Sima Quans choice was an incredible dishonor, automatically making him a second class citizen, but the Shiji was so formative that it basically defines Chinese Historiography. I guess you could call him the Chinese Jesus. He sacrificed his dick, so that we could get great courtly intrigue stories 2000 years later (seriously read the Shiji, it's basically just game of thrones in China)

Honestly, you pronouncing it as ‘Shang’ instead of ‘Shaeng’ is better than 90% of people in America. You did good

"Yeah, my empire broke." "Have you tried turning off and on again?"

My History Class composed of: (in no particular order) Overly Sarcastic Productions Kings and Generals Extra Credits Shadiversity

The Mesopotamian and Ancient Egypt had their records and scripts massively on clay and stone, while ancient China used mostly bamboo slips which could easily rot away before paper-making was improved, PLUS mid-Shang dynasty had a prosperous divination culture. This was probably one of the reasons that the oracle bone script and bronze inscription turned out to be the earliest record in Chinese history that was discovered. Those bone scripts were so sophisticated that one cannot stop believing that there had already been a long time of Chinese writing before 1600 BC.

Everything went well until the Mongols attacked

So when are we going to get the next exciting chapter of *Tripataka Gets Kidnapped Again Due To The Incompetence Of Piggy* ?

You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this

Alright, Blue didn't really cover much of early China, especially the first three legendary dynasties, so I'll give it a go. The name of the first real "emperor," or rather local king has been lost to time, but in China it's almost universally accepted that such a man did exist, and that it was roughly around this time that numerous advances in agriculture such as irrigation techniques as well as herbal medicine. His successor was a man referred to as Yao, and what's unique about the first two successions was that the kingdom was basically handed off to whoever impressed the previous guy rather than the normal dynastic succession in which the ruler's descendants inherit the throne that developed shortly after the Xia dynasty. It was around the time of Yao that a man emerged named Shun. Long story short, his stepmother and stepbrother were really abusive, tried to kill him by burning him and tossing him down a well, but Shun, being the nice and benevolent person he was, forgave his relatives who tried to kill him, and this event was later recorded in a text known as the The Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety. Yao was really impressed by this, and as a result handed the throne over to Shun. All was well for a few years until the Yellow River began flooding, causing massive amounts of death and destruction, hence why the river is known as "China's Sorrow." Shun appointed a guy named Gun, who was the Prince on Chong and a distant relative of Yao, the previous emperor, to resolve this issue. Gun attempted to use a series of dikes and dams to control the river, which failed. Shun was furious and had him banished, and in his place appointed Gun's son, Yu, to control the flooding. Yu decided to focus on drainage and created a series of irrigation canals as well as dredging the accumulated silt in the Yellow River, in particular an area near Mount Longmen which had a narrow channel that blocked water from flowing into the ocean. After around thirteen years Yu managed to resolve the flooding issue and Shun was so impressed that he decided to hand the throne over to him, thus beginning the semi-legendary Xia dyanasty.

Sinology student here: 天 tian1, although it literally translates to "sky" or "heaven", has little to do with what we in the west think about heaven. It's more like "the universe" or probably "the largest something", "the extreme". The Chinese character 天 shows a human 人 ren2 who reaches for the highest that there is: the heaven. Please don't confuse tian with God or heaven in our western tradition.

Well, that was about 1/3 of a semester I took on Chinese History condensed into 13 minutes. Yeah, about that Chin's habit of book burning: They decided that philosophy was dead and they would create a historical library to house one copy of all 100 philosophies of the Zhou (pronounced Joe) dynasty and burned all other copies. That library later burned down... as large centralized libraries sometimes do. Fortunately, the most popular ones, the Tao De Ching, Confucious, and Sun Tzu all survived because some copies were hidden instead of burned.

The Han also had invented paper from the mulberry tree. Thank you Cai Lun.

Ancient Chinese history with Blue? Zhu Li, clear my schedule!!!

Glad you made this. Ancient China is one of my favorite subjects and it's always great to learn more about my heritage.

History: "Hey, so, how many China's are there?" Asia: "Yes."

The year 2019 will be year 4717 according to Chinese traditional calendar...

Blue this was amazing. I do hope you plan to continue with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms era. I'll admit that I've been obsessed with the Three Kingdoms since I was a young teen because of Dynasty Warriors. Please do this, it'll make my day and I'm sure so many of us would love you to do so as well.

"I could go on for another thirty minutes about Confucianism amd Taoism" Pls do

Great resource, would have helped with my Far East History class. It's always much more impactful to know the history of a place when you visit it. In 2002 I paid $5 and got the entire Forbidden city almost to myself for a walk through. To think it used to take a siege or... having things cut off... walking through that gate on a fiver, was a pretty unique moment. Keep them coming!

Thank you for this! My teacher sent it to us for our lesson and I love how you can be funny here and there but still make since about what Ancient china!!

I just need a many part series of this Blue, thank you. Seriously though I love this.

When the Mongols attack, 🎵 *LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS, TO DEFEAT THE HUNS!* 🎵

8:10 Poor Qin had to learn not to drink Bone-Hurting Juice the hard way.

Romance of the three Kingdoms! Finally someone will talk about it, can't wait for the next video!

This was great! Glad you did this series Blue!

Aww come on. We were just getting to the good part. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Sure it's pretty much just a remake of the other dynasties of China, but still it was "Probably" the most interesting. With characters like Cao Cao, Lu Bu, Dong Zhuo, Liu Bei, and the Wei-Wu-Shu 3-way war, it was practically the setting for a grand epic.

Your pronounciations aren't bad at all, and no one expects you to get tones perfectly right without actually learning Chinese first, so good job, Blue!😁👍

I've only just started a university course on east asian history and I'm already feeling really overwhelmed. This video, while probably not usable as an academic source, certainly is helping me spring board into understanding the flow of how the history turned out and a starting point for my studies ^-^

Another great video! I'd love to see you do a history summarized video about the battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

Amazing work as always, Blue! Also, another philosopher who Machiavelli would get along with from this time would be Han Fei Zi, the leading philosopher of the Legalist school. Especially since Han Fei Zi was known for being skeptical of idealism and had a tendency to use a lot of parables and humour (partially inspired by the Daoist Zhuangzi) to make his point. Another interesting thing about Mencius is that while he did do a lot to cement Confucianism, he also was something of a radical due to his belief that the Mandate of Heaven was given to the ruler by the will of the people and as such the people had the right to rise up if the ruler was bad. As for Wang Mang and his obsession with titles, that seems to be an overly literal interpretation of the Confucian principle of the rectification of names: the idea that if you are in a certain position (ruler, teacher, parent, etc) you need to act in accordance with the proper values of that position so that you live up to that ideal. For Mencius, for example, that meant being a ruler meant being a benevolent and attentive monarch who looked after the well being of the people and any monarch who acted tyrannically was betraying those principles and thus not a true monarch (and therefore free game for assassination and usurpation). Finally, one of the most hilarious things regarding the First Emperor's tomb is that sources such as Sima Qian's Shiji described there being literal rivers of mercury flowing through the tomb, and such claims were dismissed as just exaggerations...until they measured the mercury levels around the tomb and found they went completely off the charts. Qin Shi Huang REALLY loved his mercury.

1:49 I need this Owl Wine Vessel and i need it *now*

I always love tuning into this awesome videos guys! Thx red and blue 😀

BEST DAY EVER! This video is so interesting. Thanks a lot blue! :)

its not fun anymore when you are actually Chinese and have to memorize every single emperor, commander, official, governor and every policy and law that went wrong and the relationships and betrayals among the government for school

I have been waiting for ages for this video... it was worth it.

Great video! Chinese history, along with the Mesopotamian Bronze Age, has always been fascinating to me, but something that I honestly haven’t done a whole lot of study about. It would be interesting to know what kind of research goes into these videos, something that would allow me to pursue my curiosity further.

Love the dreams of Venice soundtrack in the background. Good touch!

Nice vid

ancient china is definitely me when i think i have succeeded in forming a good habit

Terrific as always. I am waiting with giddy anticipation for the next video.

One of the things I love about these videos is the comment sections you learn a lot hearing others perspectives. I'm not to good with words or articulating my viewpoints but I believe things like that can bring us together as people.

And my social studies class just got done studying China. But I still love the video Blue

The Zhou 周 is more like Joe, not Zou 邹 a small vassal in Shandong. Overall though pretty well summarised. Just finished a tour of several Shang, Zhou, Han, Tang and Song sites in Henan province. Highly recommend it. City walls that are 3000 years old make the Great Wall look pretty young. The Oracle bone script is pretty interesting too.

Hey, i love your works. I understand everything i need to know, keep up the good work!! My grades in history and literature are in great condition. Tnks!!!

I just love how beautiful your maps are :)

I am a big fanga of the "kingdom" manga so as soon as i saw "China" i was happy

Thanks for putting Bill Wurtz into it! I laughed at that part.

love you blue, love you red. happy new year guys!

Looking forwards to the Romance of Three Kingdoms video, should it be done. With the kind of quality work you guys do, its bound to be good.

Hey Blue, have you ever considered making a video about Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was a truly unique country with a special government form however there seems to be only a few videos about PLC and they are mainly about it's partitions. Love your work and hope you continue making such awesome videos

From what I've heard, much of the reason we have so many gaps in ancient Chinese history is due to the book burning spree that the Chin went on (Blue mentions it around 8:40). It's also supposedly why Confuscious became such a big deal, as while he didn't do much during his life, his writings were some of the only texts that survived (the Chin targeted everything except books dealing with specific necessities like farming and medicine).

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LONG IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS

Blue this is great! The Chinese pronunciations are also pretty good! Look forward to your next video!

"Are you sure you want to settle on the yellow river?" "Well it's the best water source around, so why not?" "You REALLY want to drink every day from the _yellow river?_ And bathe in water from the _YELLOW RIVER?!"_ "Why are you being so weird about this? It's just a river." "I give up..."

"Evidence of overlap between Shang and Zhou." Considering that Wen of Zhou was Count of that aforementioned title and served under the Kings of Shang...this is not surprising.

OMG. Red. Please summarize Romance of the Three Kingdoms! That would be pretty cool follow-up to this episode!

Always love learning about history not usually covered in High School. It's so interesting

My teacher turned this off when it said “screw it” The kids where making memes lol great video

Me before the video: YOU THINK YOU CAN SUMMARIZE SUCH A VAST HISTORY IN ONE VIDEO? Me after the video: huh, pretty good

Thankfully their is a part 2, can't imagine someone summarizing Ancient China in only about 15 minutes

Make a video about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, please Also, I really like your videos, keep up

Yay! A video on my home country

It protec, It attac, But most importantly, The Mongols ain't comin bac. 😒🏹 😡⚔️😠

Nice Work Blue!

I was automatically in love with this video the very instant you put a Bill Wurtz's clip there. That one video is the best I have *ever* seen.

Yes!

Finally a RU-vidr that actually tries with the pronunciation.

I really love this channel and I’m glad to have found it.

Could you do a video specifically on the Ming dynasty? Thanks for a great video as always blue

*_We need to build a wall_*

"There's no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare" Sun Tzu really haven't lived enough to see the US.

Great video, Blue. Could you please do a History Summarized video on the Ancient Celts?

Great work here, very engaging!

So China was the result of a line of google translate?

Internet History Curriculum, to mark this historic posting Overly Sarcastic Productions Extra History (campfire history, great people history) Crash Course History (as title indicates) 10 Minute History (whole series on British history and a few summaries) Jabzy (short summaries, extremely diverse and a bit eurocentric) Historia Civilis (mostly romans, battles, politics by year) Bonus mentions : PBS Eons (before humans history), ERB (Epic Rap Battles of History), Sam O'Nella Academy (Sam O'Nella Academy), Shiadiversity (medieval), Linfamy (Japanese), Cogito (Byzantine), Early Music Sources (renaissance music and shit), Epimetheus (summaries by country), Suibhne (summaries by country), Name Explain (name explain), The Great War (the Great War), It's History (summaries), History Uncovered (great men), Knowing Better (shoehorns history in many topics, mostly U.S), Soliloquy (a good CGP-Grey wannabe), History with Hilbert (lectures), BazBattles (battles), Kings and Generals (summaries, wars, stories) Maps : Ollie Bye, Emperor Tigerstar Now go, my children, and also suggest other channels below

I have been waiting for this for so long!!!

What did you read my mind!? I was wondering on ancient china and started last night watching "Empress of China" and "Empress in the palace" and then BAM there you are with this!! I love you guyssss

Great video. However, the Han Dynasty didn't fight the Huns. They fought the Xiongnu Confederation. The Huns might be "some" of the distant descendants of the Northern Xiongnu who migrated west towards Western Eurasia, but the evidence is not firm for the link. The Huns are definitely not the Xiongnu as the Huns didn't even exist until centuries after the Han-Xiongnu war and after the Xiongnu migrated west to intermingle with other Central Asian people...so at best, the Huns "may" be the distant descendants of the Xiongnu. The Xiongnu themselves were a very diverse confederation of different people, and their descendants were also a variety of diverse people.

China's history is like my hope in humanity

Thanks for telling the history of the world, I guess. Really good production

can't wait for part 2!!!!

Wonderful video. Could you please make a video about an African empire maybe Mali, Ethiopia or the Ashanti, pretty please.

"if overly sarcastic is sponsored by squarespace, does that mean that they are not sponsored by squarespace since they are overly sarcastic?" i do not know what came inside my mind

Thank you for the Sima Qian mention, Blue! I'm VERY slowly trying to translate the thing to practice my Classical Chinese, but it's DAMN hard...😅

Thank you for all your great work

8:00 "in the 70's when they found the terracota army everyone stopped laughting real fast" global powers shat their pants when they realized china had an ARMY OF ANCIENT GOLEMS

Overthrowing dynasty -30 social credits

Burned turtle shells providing evidence of early writing is really interesting. I am very curious about the earliest civilizations, and I am glad to see you on it Blue.

Hello, I’m from Hong Kong and my Chinese history exam is coming up, you have NO idea how thankful I am for this video.