The Ancient Empire | Animated History of China | Part 1 

Stay tuned for part 2!

China's history in a nutshell *Collapse* *Reunite* *_Repeat_*

Mongol: I have fought China the most! Japan: No, I have! Korea: Idiots, I have fought China the most! China: Amateurs.

I've been finding myself interested with ancient history, thanks for a nice introduction

1:30 Xia Dynasty 夏朝 2:10 Shang Dynasty 商朝 2:29 Chou Dynasty 周朝 3:05 The spring and the autumn 春秋戰國 3:35 Qing Dynasty 秦朝 4:49 Han Dynasty 漢朝 6:00 Xin Dynasty (Xin Mang) 新朝（新莽） 6:23 3 Kingdoms 三國 6:27 YiJin South North Dynasty 魏晉南北朝 6:47 Sui Dynasty 隋朝 6:52 Tang Dynasty 唐朝 7:30 5 Dynasty and 10 Kingdoms 五代十國

"Yu the Engineer" Well of course Yu is Engineer. Yu must be engineer. Or doctor. Or scientist. Or Yu are disowned!

I took a Chinese history course in college it was really interesting and I loved it

Awesome stuff as usual Suibhne. Your animations are really improving, keep it up! Griff

"Those long divided shall be united; those long united shall be divided: such is the way of the world." “天下大势，分久必合；合久必分。”

"Famous for inventing paper... which is apparently what people used to write things on." XD

As a person knowing Chinese and English, “Doesn’t translate well into English” makes me smile

That is a great book. I read it 10 years ago when my Chinese friend recommended it to me. I had asked him how I could learn more about China. He bought me that book. Very interesting

The level of detail when a lake is shown only in a zoomed in view that lasts about 3 seconds when it’s an animation and isn’t necessary to the video at all is just very impressive

Wow, you only mentioned the brief 3 Kingdoms period for only a few seconds. Even though it's a mere small blip in history, it gave rise to one of the great classical literature, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Numerous opera shows, movies, tv serieses, and even video games were inspired by that period of history.

Hello from France ! I really hope there will be subtitles in this channel ! Good job btw

I don't know how to say it, but... "Spring and Autumn" makes a lot of sense

Oh no... This is not gonna be easy for one episode... 1) Calling the period after the breakup of Shang "Spring and Autumn" is correct because there's no other way to put it when in Chinese it just means the same with "春秋时代" in Chinese just means "Spring & Autumn Period" in English. 2) Qin Shihuang, China's actual 1st ruler and the emperor of unified China under Qin, was a maniac. The reason on why he ordered books to be burnt was not that he's fearful of books but he saw that books are the weapons of intellectuals and if the state has more intellectuals, his regime would be "corrupted" by these smartasses and his power would wane. So, he ordered books to be burnt and anyone who was caught keeping books to have their entire generation of family members be it close or in-laws to be executed. This led to massive unrest and many past generals that kept war manuals hid their bamboo books underground. He even ordered his own burial ground to be littered with thousands of terracota warriors and chariots to be buried with him when he died so that "These beings can follow him to the netherworld and still protect him" while laying his body around a makeshift river of mercury. In fact even after building his tomb, hundreds of workers were even locked inside and starved to death in order that the location of Qin's tomb won't be leaked. That's how maniacal Qin himself really was. 3) The Great Wall isn't as great at Qin Shihuang's time to what we know today. In fact, the Wall has been just dirt moat all the time with only bits and pieces of the wall being reinforced. It only took almost 5 centuries during the Ming dynasty under a competent general, Qi Jiguang, that completed the wall to how we know it today taking a huge amounts of money and manpower. Due to the ridiculousness of the expenditure and loss of live during the entire construction, Qi himself was nearly executed but thank god his ambitious project came to life. 4) Tang was really the golden age of China. Not only half of what we use in the modern world now were made from the Tang dynasty, they were also known to be the safest period in all of China's history where it is known that people don't even have to lock their doors when they sleep as everyone is rich enough that no one would even steal anything due to the immense wealth everyone had. In fact, when it comes to technologies, many were from the Tang like gunpower (It was popularized and spread by the Ming but it was actually invented by the Tang), compass, cold steel technology, nailless architecture (Japan and Goryeo (Present-day Korea both learnt their architecture skills from the Tang), mass printing and many others.

As a Chinese, I compliment your effort to make this video as accurate as possible, but there are several errors. No mentions of Xiongnu dividing into northern and southern Xiongnu, no mention of the Tartar Confederacy who originally rivaled the Mongols, and why is Song written as 西夏? It is not Thai, but Nan Zhao南昭. It is called Spring and Autumn period because Confucius wrote a chronical book about this period called 'The Chronicles of Spring and Autumn'. No mention of the Han came to power by defeating Western Chu. Xiongnu are not direct ancestors of Mongols, but one of the nomadic tribe subjugated by them is(东胡). No mention of Gokturk being divided into Eastern and Western Gokturk, and no mention of the rivalry and wars between Tang and Umayyad, and Abassid Caliphates, which were pivotal to world history! No mention of other schools of thoughts outside Confucism, such as legalism which helped Qin defeat the other warring states. And most pronounciations are off, sorry to say because I know you are not a,native speaker and your mother tongue is of a non-tonal language.

Great video! Wang Mang is a man said to be a time traveler :-). There is just a small error start from 7:32 to the introduction of Mongolian where it is “Song" and 宋 in Chinese, but it is translated as "西夏” on the map while there is "Xixia 西夏“ to the left of the middle of the map. Going to watch the next part.

There’s a mistake in the video at 5:15. At the time of the Han dynasty, the Tarim basin was inhabited by Indo European people, not Turkic people. Turkic peoples arrived a millennia later and conquered and displaced the original inhabitants.

2:20 It should be 鳴條instead of 名盜 2:38 Wangcheng should be 雒邑 3:59 It should be Xianyang instead of Wangcheng again 5:31 It should be 喀什instead of 喀市 The Border between Jin and the sixteen kingdom and Northern and Southern dynasty is not accurate both Chang'an and Luoyang should be included in the north rather than the south 6:55 Thai? You got to be kidding me. It should be 南詔 Nanzhao instead of Thai; And also Goguryeo 高句麗instead of Goryeo 高麗 7:33 宋 instead of 西夏 Please check the Chinese translation before you release part 2. If you need any help, I would be happy to give you some. Your animation is great, but the mistake in translation are too obvious.

History would have been so interesting in my school days if they taught us with videos like these.

Loved Part 1! Can't wait for Part 2! A quick note about the Tarim Basin as being referred to as Turkic during the Han dynasty. Actually they were not so, at least during the Han dynasty. Horse-borne Turkic people were still East Asian- and Mongoloid in appearance then, and had lived on the steppes of modern Mongolia. The Tarim Basin was then ruled by the Caucasian Tocharians and other Indo-European peoples who spoke Sakka in various oasis city-states. Many served as Han clients and governors. The Tarim Basin would not became Turkic until the 10th- 12th centuries where the migrating Uyghurs (who were East Asian in appearance) married with the native Tarim Basin inhabitants. Another minor quick note is the polity marked as "Thai" and 泰国- which translates to "Thailand" in the areas of Yunnan and northern Thailand- that area was called Nanzhao, and later the Dali Kingdom. Anyway, aside from those small points I just want to say great videos as usual man, and I look forward to see more coming out. Thanks again for making this

2:40 In the "Spring & Autumn"(春秋) era, they are actually just "lords" rather than "warlords". This is very important because it's the early form of Chinese feudalism which then transformed to different forms over the years, it's not just a cycle of "Collapse -> Reunite".

one error with the Chinese word for "Song dynasty", should be “宋”

YEEEEEEES, FINALLY A NON-EUROPEAN COUNTRY GETS IT’S HISTORY AIMATED BY SUIBHNE!!!!!! Also, I’m really excited for Genghis’ steamrolling, also, didn’t China meet a little bit with the Romans?

This was really fascinating. I love learning about the history of these nations in a condensed form for me to choose wha I want to expand upon. The next chapter is something I've wanted to learn about for years. I'd really love for you to cover Japan and then onto the Koreas at some point as, as far as I'm aware, they connect with this and each other really well.

zhongguo means "center kingdom" not derived from zhou

I love this channel.. by using those cute drawings of people makes it more interesting. Straight 3 watching from diz channel!.. shout out for the new ep. Thanks!!!

This really helped with my school project

Hey man, awesome video and great research! Glad to see a China video finally. However, one friendly critique: your pronunciation of many Chinese words/names is off. (Sorry, I can’t help it; I was a teacher in China.) I know it’s not easy if you’re not learning the language; pinyin is notoriously non-phonetic. Just a few examples: Zh is a hard J, so Zhou” is said “Joe”. X is an sh, so Xia is shya. Good job in catching that Q is a ch sound. Any word ending in “ng” is a long vowel, so Shang is said Shon. So Yan is, well, Yan lol, and Yang is said Yon; Tan is Tan but Tang is Tong. When Y precedes A or E you say the Y, but not if it precedes a U, as in Yue, in which case just say “üe” (yes, it’s the same sounds as the German ü). And J is a soft J sound, so Jin is said Gene, not Gin. It’s all a serious pain in the butt, I know, and honestly you did better than most, but just a heads up if you make future China videos. Heck, I’d be happy to coach your pronunciation if you want. All the same, keep up the great work!

Chinese history: Fascinating Chinese culture: Ritch Chinese food: Incredible Chinese government: *[redacted]*

Gotta say, another guy corrected a lot of things but, as a East Asian History student as of today, I feel the need to add a couple things: First of all, the Xia Dinasty is recognized as such due to the discovery of the Erlitou archeological site, considered their capital. Also, there were some states (mainly Jinsha and Sangxidui) in the modern Sichuan during the Shang Dinasty period. Finally; Xia, Shang, Zhou (and the states of the Late Zhou periods) weren't empires; the first emperor was Qin Shi Huangdi (which name translated roughly if I recall to "First Qin Emperor") and that his dinasty name is the origin (probably) for the European words for "China". Nevertheless, it is a great video.

@7:32 The map has a typo: "SONG" is labeled "西夏" (Xixia), but in fact should be labeled "宋" or "北宋". (Note that Xixia appear twice on the map). Also, after Jin's rebel and conquering Liao, Song should be labeled as “南宋”. @3:54 Confucianism became popular in Han dynasty because it was not until then that central government adopted it as the official ideology.

Spring and Autumn is the name of the history records written by Lu, one of the states in Zhou dynasty. It went all the way to the point when Lu was terminated by another state. As it’s history came to an end, so did the Spring and Autumn period, and the Warring States period started in which many states fought and terminated one another and consolidated to only 7 states.

"Yu, an engineer" Wait, what do I have to do with Ancient- Ohhhhhhhh

Very nice vid! just a small point of correction: the Korean kingdom that was taken in the 7th century was goguryeo, not goryeo. Goryeo came in the beginning of the 10th century.

4:33 by the way, it’s due to this that gun powder is invented

The History is Very Important. Thanks❤

Why am I finding this channel now?! It's so awesome!

Good work! Though I feel everything after the Han Dynasty separated into the Three Kingdoms gets a bit rushed. Also, several others have already pointed out, you have a typo at 7:32, Song should be 宋 in Chinese, but instead you wrote Xixia 西夏 twice.

1:30 it is impressive that they developed writing early, and I don't want to detract from that but being connected to others and learning from them is super important ... the mediterranean also had systems like the hieroglyphs of the Egyptians (I guess drawing things comes first) but then the Phoenicians made the leap of writing letters ... that was a big leap (Syro-Hittites made it and then Phoenicians spread it ... Greek Latin etc. all come from it). The Chinese in their isolation went in a different direction. They did not get that crucial input of switching to letters.

Chinese history is more amazing if u look closer,there r many reasons and potential hazard but fun or even epic important characters to every kindom

Even the audible advert was executed perfectly!

Wow,Over 5000 years of history! I’m blown away.

0:32 I love how they just floats

I’m Chinese and I’m just here to learn about my country since I only know the history through historical tv shows

5:58 Yes Wang Mang did seize over the Han government for a short period but he did not use a single pawn. He instead poisoned the emperor and made religious relic items that made people think that he is the real emperor assigned by God.

3:46 the emperor of Qin dynasty was afraid of diversity of ideology, because in Spring and Autumn(almost 500yrs)it created a lots of philosophers and thinkers that provided massive talents,arts, cultural things, also different countries continued to merge and divide, so after Qin conquered them all, he unified the weights, currency, taxes, characters etc. exercising centralized despotism.

its 宋，not 西夏

Obviously a great introduction, loved the video. These are a great way to just get started with things, and jump on in! That being said; how could they have hated books before paper was a thing? Were books made from other materials before that time? (I dont know much lol)

Thanks for drawing drawing Asian people with eyes just like everybody else’s: D

For anyone wondering I just wanted to add any chance of civilisation in China before the Xia dynasty is the three sovereigns and give emperors period. Part of the mythological era.

3:12 Spring and autumn period can be understand as fast rising and falling of things, as to my personal opinion, Chinese is a very heavy metaphoric language, so spring represents growing and rising, autumn means harvest and time to farm or fall. Meanwhile, there are 4 seasons in a year, spring (1) and autumn (3) are the odd ones (meaning YANG in Yin & Yang concept) in order of numbers, so they are used to represent the year as well as for years passing by to represent "history".

The Animated History of Greece please !

Animated history of Greece!

I would love you to mention more about the Spring and Autumn period, the Warring state period and the Three Kingdoms period But I can’t blame you because the quality of this video is on point

If something is divided, it will unite, If something is united, it will divide.

Great video man!

Can you do animated history of Morocco plz And thnak you for your great work keep going

It’s kinda sad that I know nothing about China’s history even though I’m Chinese so this video is great!

lol the rise of HAN was such a significant part of Chinese history, and you just glossed over it

Brilliant works.....ur videos should be played in every kindergarten n elementary school, so educational

I'm here because of the manga Kingdom!! Awesome manga based on reality between 770-220 BC. This is an amazing video! Thank you for the Quality and also you should read that manga, is THE GREATEST MANGA OF ALL TIME!

So many basic mistakes: 1. During Zhou Dynasty, you mark two "鎬京" on the map. And what the hell is Wangcheng? 2. 高句麗 is not Korean people. 3. There was no Thai in Tang Dynasty, it should be Nanzhao in the map.

Correction: The Mongols descended from the Xianbei while the The Xiongnu that you mentioned as "ancestors of Mongols" were the first Turkic state known in history.

I am Chinese. In Chinese legend, Nuwa and Fuxi are half human and half snake

I literally LOL’d when Emperor Qin died from one of the alchemist poisons… I mean, potions. Amazing animation and narration

Fun fact, Tang dynasty was brought to the brink of collapse in 750-770 by a "trusted" Gokturk general, who was given the command for a large portion of the Chinese army.

I love how you can use flash to keep the same map in view, change the iconography and move forward in time all in one video. Great use of maps! More of these please.

Nice Crash course clip at 1:11

This helped me with my Chinese history exam, Thank you!

honest to god you helped me through my japanese degree and i just started my chinese degree and turns out you also have chinese history. i love you

Umm..you should talk more about the history of Song Dynasty, apart from its’ weak military power, the remarkable economic strength, trading really worth a mention!

When the king died trying to find immortality from a potion that was supposed to grant....immortality nothing more poetic

Good job but can you do eygpt

History of Finland 🇫🇮

PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE do a history of Belgium at some point! It's so weird and quirky I would love to see your guys' take on it

Very nice

Great Chinese culture, people and achievements are never depicted in right way in India. I love Buddhist agnostic beliefs Love China ❤️👍

And remember, you can't end part one of two unless you end it on...wait for it... The Mongols *Cue Mongoltage

Long time no seen I missed you and your videos

This is the best video i have ever seen.

Very very very blessed video. Bright and beautiful 2D arts and colors

suggestions: 1.Tell more about the time before Xia dynasty,that period is quite interesting and full of legends. 2.You can translate Xiongnu to The Huns and Qin Shi Huang to First Emperor of Qin(In fact the first Emperor in Chinese history).

“U” and “Ü” are two different vowels pronounced differently in Chinese. The Ü in Nüwa/Nvwa (女媧) is pronounced similarly to the German ü or the Russian ы

I love your channel, but it bothers me that you treated The burning of books and burying of scholars as a weird little quirk. It was a deliberate, Fahrenheit 451 style attempt to wipe the historical slate clean and create a new mythos of the FIRST emperor.

this very helped me

im so glad that you use traditional chinese!!

匈奴Xiongnu were not Mongolian, they were Huns.

You labeled “song” as 西夏 actually it should be 宋

Make an animated history of Sweden video please

I thought he said “you the engineer” like a started China🤣

nice video!

7:34 ，SONG should be matched to “宋”, not another “西夏”

Do history of japan!!

3:29 this is we’re Disney’s Mulan takes place *WOOOW*

Had to watch this for school

Thank you so much for helping me with my homework 😅☺️👌

Cara eu não sei falar inglês mas por obséquio poderias colocar legenda em português nos vossos vídeos pois adoro história e gostei da forma que você faz os vídeos com esses desenhos (Então se alguém souber falar inglês e português por favor passa esse meu pedido em inglês para que ele possa entender e se possível que ele realize meu pedido)