God it's so nice to just get well researched, knowledgeable, and concise history about China without unecessary and uncomfortable "jokes" and/or political statements that boil down to naked orientalism. Keep up the amazing work.
While I generally agree with your statement, the term "naked orientalism" engenders some strange visions of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres paintings or Sir Richard Burton in the nude. This is probably a bad joke, I suppose...
I'm a big fan of Chinese history and have learned the history mostly in texts. Your channel has just brought my understanding to a deeper level by adding knowledge of maps, especially the terrain ones. This, elaborated through your videos, has illustrated reasons behind many decisions and strategies in the history. History of China is inextricably linked to its geography and landscape terrains. Thank you so much for sharing the invaluable knowledge in such a comprehensible way. I'm now a big fan of your channel and looking forward to next great videos!
Thanks, I'm glad to hear you've found it helpful. I think with Chinese history especially there's been a long tradition of studying the geography and terrain, but it also means that so much of the narrative is linked to this knowledge, and especially for political history there's a basic assumption that the readers already know these things. It also doesn't help that so much information is lost with romanization. Chinese is a very descriptive language, and a lot of times when reading in Chinese the readers can make very good guesses on the geography simply by the etymology of the place names.
The non Chinese materials you find are often inaccurate, which can make learning history more difficult. I know some Chinese channels, but they are not friendly to non Chinese users (involving a lot of Chinese professional vocabulary). As a history enthusiast, I feel regretful about this situation.
I am so glad that I found this channel. I would have wanted to do this kind of research myself, but I run into issues with translation and the fact that the names of geographic features were called different things in different times.
Even native Chinese people have issues with names: sometimes people believe "A is the ancient name of B", but in fact the center of A is far away from the center of modern B.
Thanks, glad you've found it helpful. Chinese historical geography names can be a ridiculously complicated subject, especially since it seems like educated people both past and present like to outsmart each other by naming ever more obscure ancient names for a place. It also doesn't help that romanization gets rid of the characters, which contain a ton of context in themselves.
Your detailed description of historical geography gives so much context to the historical events themselves. Often I find myself more fascinated with the geography than the narrative. I've always known the Qin were powerful because of this vague idea of their territories being naturally fortified, but no one really described the passes and mountains and rivers like you have.
Thanks for the kind words, and glad you've found the video helpful! Some of this geography can be quite complicated to explain, and I feel like the video format on RU-vid, especially with topographical maps, works very well to illustrate these concepts.
Thanks, yeah history and geography, both for Chinese history and the rest of the world, are such intertwined subjects that we'd be missing out on a lot of context without the historical perspectives.
Glad you enjoyed it! I'm working on part 2 right now and have gotten lots of helpful feedback in this comment section, so am working on updating some of the earlier draft for it too.
Thanks, glad you've found it helpful. To be fair there's virtually no sources I can find in English that talk about a lot of these concepts, and my initial motivation for starting the channel was just to explain some of this geography.
I wish I had access to this video when I watched the Qin Empire series, as I was never quite able to fill in on all the geography of the area and its political context. Thank you for making this.
Glad you've found it helpful! I've watched a few episodes of the Qin Empire series, and IIRC they have a map in the series, albeit in Chinese and very simplified.
I recently found your channel and it’s the best Chinese history content I have found on RU-vid. I love how you describe the origins of idioms and allusions in the chinese language. Please keep making these great videos!
Wow, thank you, glad you enjoyed it! This channel has been a big passion project for me and it's very meaningful for me to be able to share these concepts that I'm very interested in with a broader audience, so I look forward to doing a lot more in the future.
these keep getting better and better!! thank you for your hard work. just moved to China for school as a 2nd generation Chinese American and have been obsessed with these
Amazing. Please keep doing what you are doing. I am an American that loves learning about Chinese history, and our English-language historical sources are severely lacking. If you type Qin into youtube search you get a thousand videos about Qin Shi Huang. This is apparently the limit of interest and curiosity of most English-language history channels. What about the thousand years of Qin history prior to Qin Shi Huang? What about all the kings and dukes and counts who ruled these lands prior to unification? What of Duke Mu? Duke Xaio? King Zhaoxiang? They are silent on the matter. Your channel goes into the minutiae of important geography and historical events spanning the ages. Please continue to produce this content. You have a viewer in me.
Thanks, glad to hear you enjoyed this video. Yes I eventually want to do a chronological series on ancient Chinese history (to the fall of the Han Dynasty) and would want to cover these rulers in detail. For now though I'll try to go around the main cities in China doing geography/history videos on them to explain their significance, and may also be helpful for people who are traveling to those places.
The non Chinese materials you find are often inaccurate, which can make learning history more difficult. I know some Chinese channels, but they are not friendly to non Chinese users (involving a lot of Chinese professional vocabulary). As a history enthusiast, I feel regretful about this situation.
Found your channel very recently and really loved it. I was bummed out when I notice that you only upload about only once a month so I'm going to be eating good tonight. Your focus on geography really answered a lot of questions I had when I watched other chinese history videos on RU-vid.
Welcome aboard, and thanks for the support! My goal is to post more than once/month too, just lately things have been busier than usual and I'm working to improve my maps and production workflow, so things are backed up more than I'd like.
This channel is gold. Is so difficult to find this kind of explanations including geography, meaming of words etc. Thank you for your work and keep it up please!
Amazing video, thank you. Guanzhong, Shanxi etc. were terms I'd read before in histories of this period but I hadn't really understood what that meant in practical terms for the polities inhabiting them until now.
I love this channel, thank you for the these well informative videos. As a history lover, i really find great joy in learning about other cultures and histories especially eastern cultures. From Carthage with love.
Thanks, glad you've found it helpful! You must be Tunisian then? I'm looking forward to making videos on the Mediterranean too, and Roman Africa is definitely on the list.
Thanks for making these videos! The geographical perspective of ancient history you offer is immensely useful, and I wish more content was taught with this approach. Spatial relationship is such a strong aspect of the human mind, and information is so much easier to process, remember, and connect when presented like this.
Wow, this is such a good video! I've been reading up on Chinese history, but nowhere have I found accounts of ancient geography and strategy as detailed as this. There are many channels on Roman or modern history, but not enough about Chinese history even though it's such an amazingly interesting topic. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, appreciate the kind words! Working on this channel has been very rewarding for me, albeit something tiring too lol, and looking forward to making a lot more in the future.
What great content! This explains so much about early Chinese history. Thanks for doing the research and presenting the material in such an easily digested form!
fyi, I personally would like and consume any multi-hour-long lecture/essay videos you produced. As a westerner, I've long known that Chinese history was a gap in my knowledge base, and that gap remained for many years. I wanted to learn more, but I always had to remain concerned about any biases of the researcher/teacher, that are often inherent to the study of history. I've been watching you for awhile, trying to determine if you're a propaganda outlet or not, and I've slowly concluded that you are not. You actually try to make academically neutral content. The reason I tell you all this is because I hope you understand how important your work is. We do not have many people that are doing what you are doing. So, if any given topic is genuinely worthy of a very long exploration and discussion, I would encourage you to simply make it that way. Even if it doesn't achieve the same success as other videos you produce, the information, with all the little details, will at least be accessibly out there, for interested people to watch.
Thanks for your support, and yes this lack of information on Chinese history and geography was what motivated me to start the channel. I feel like the Chinese history stuff available in English tend to focus on vague descriptions of culture or be very in-depth explorations of certain socioeconomic themes, all of which are definitely important, and are areas even Chinese historians often feel don't get emphasized enough in traditional Chinese historiography. But at the same time, I grew up reading Chinese history in Chinese, and so much of it is centered on learning key events, culturally significant stories, and geography. I feel like Chinese history is some of the most story-driven history around the world, and so much of it is quite exciting and dramatic, but also not well-accessible in non-Chinese circles given the language barrier and the large amounts of background information needed, so I hope I can help demystify some of that.
@@gatesofkilikien Now that you mention it, your heavy focus on interweaving the cultural and linguistic elements was the main thing that convinced me you were delivering a non-Western-biased account. I don't actually have a sound way to determine that myself, I can't check your work because I don't read Mandarin. I have no choice but to trust you to a certain degree, really, as far as I can determine. Incidentally, I determined you weren't delivering a Chinese-biased account simply because your account is not flattering enough. That was actually pretty easy to figure out. And don't get me wrong, I do have a lot of appreciation for things like Kings and Generals covering the Three Kingdoms period, but I know that without direct access to scholarship in Chinese, their accounts can never be fully trusted to not have some (possibly important) details incorrect. They're missing that ability to draw the whole, cohesive picture together into that gigantic, socio-historical milieu that is China. btw, looking forward to your Warring States Period coverage. For years now my brain has been getting Chinese Warring States Period (which I know nothing about but periodically hear) and Japanese Warring States Period (which I know a little bit about) crossed.
Amazing video, i enjoyed it greatly. I thought your narration was on point. It was very informational. Ill definetly subscribe to your channel because I want to see what the future videos will be. Wishing you the best, thank you very much for this great video! Cant wait for the next part!
Thanks, appreciate the support! I've definitely learned a lot since I started this channel 1.5 years ago, and looking forward to sharing a lot more in the future too.
Amazing explanatory style and attention to detail. As a non-Chinese student of Chinese history, I really appreciate that you're a native speaker. It's so frustrating to listen to audiobooks or watch videos about China narrated by people who can't pronounce things right, because it makes it some much harder to learn the correct pronunciation.
Thanks for the kind words, and glad you've enjoyed watching the video. Yeah it helps me a lot when making the videos that I'm bilingual, so at least pronunciation hasn't been an issue.
Glad you've enjoyed it, and I'm glad I can help share some of that wonderment about the past which I also feel when I read history. Chang'an and Constantinople at their heights were two of the most splendid cities ever built, and I'm looking forward to writing more about the heights of Chang'an in Part 2.
Every history lesson should have a geographical component, knowing the land forms makes the political, cultural, and military changes vastly more understandable
Glad you enjoyed it. I'm working on part 2 now, and incorporating some additional stuff based on the feedback for part 2. Looking forward to releasing it when it's done.
The Qin people to the Central Plains Chinese powers were similar to how the Macedonians were to the Greeks--a fringe, almost barbarian entity that eventually managed to surpass everyone.
You're the first non-brazilian I have seen that pronounced Manaus correctly. Instant like (Even though I was already planning to like at the end because your channel is awesome).
The Hangu Pass has been used to name several passes around that Xiao mountain. The Qin's Hangu Pass is different from Han Hangu Pass and even different from Three kingdom Hangu Pass. Hangu pass, though with a different name, dated back to the Shang dynasty.
Thanks for the feedback, and yes I plan to talk about the Han Dynasty Hangu Pass in part 2. I couldn't find any information on any Hangu Pass fortifications prior to the state of Qin, and it looks like even though people have been traveling through it long before Qin conquered the region, the eastward facing fortifications started under Qin.
@@gatesofkilikien According to this video here the scholar mentioned Taolin fortress (桃林塞) dated back to the Shang: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MQPI4BO1hrk.html
I will do so eventually - planning to do a series on ancient Chinese history in addition to the current one I'm working on for medieval Chinese history.
Thrilled to have found your channel! The maps are so helpful ( I found myself googling locations while trying to watch other history channels vids) Getting ready to binge watch...
Brah, the stories I read when I was a kid, mentioned directly about the battle at Xiao Mts where Jin army annihilated Qin army on the way back from assaulting Zheng. It was such an interesting story. Before Qin army took off, Jianshu (or Uncle Jain) advised to not attack due to this geographical limit at Xiao Mts, but the whole court talked shit about his advice "if you had normal longevity the tree on your grave will be large enough to be hugged", while Jianshu saw he couldn't convince the court, cried to send his sons to the expedition saying things like "my sons, I see you going but don't see you returning", "there are two hills at Xiao mountain, the north hill, King Wen of Zhou took shelter at the north before; and the south hill, Hou of Xia was buried there. You will die in between, and I will collect your bones there". Comes after the stories where Zheng citizen pretended to be cow merchant delaying and disorienting Qin's expedition on Zheng, and when returning, Jin people annihilated them. Without your maps and videos, I could barely put everything into perspective. I am just, just, amazed for your videos. Amazing works!!!
I love your channel so much! Your highlighting of geographic features is unique on RU-vid! Do you mind if i ask what programs you use for your video development? I'm looking into a simple Adobe Illustrator -> Adobe After Effects workflow.
Thanks, and glad you've enjoyed it! Right now I'm just using (very embarrassingly) PowerPoint and then Adobe PremierPro. I've been meaning to learn how to use After Effects for over a year now, but just haven't had time. And since I've so far been able to get what I need illustrated just on PoewrPoint have also not been too motivated to upgrade.
I've been binge watching your videos, they are so interesting. Any plans in the future to do some episodes on key geographical features/cities of non-Chinese origin? Namely I'm kinda interested in the importance of Jerusalem(especially in light of recent events), was it a key geographical location, or it's importance is mostly religious?
There's a restaurant in New York called Xi'an Famous Foods, which originally began in Flushing but the son took over and spread into the rest of the city that specializes in Xi'an food. Always love to stop by there whenever I'm in NY, just love how different it is from all the Chinese food I've eaten as a Korean immigrant, from the Shandong-inspired Korean-Chinese to the Americanized Chinese food I ate in America, to even more authentic stuff that my Chinese American friends took me w/ stuff like Peking Duck etc. You could actually taste the Middle Eastern influence in the food, with lots of cumin and lamb in the food. Almost like tasting the history of the Silk Road
I recently came across your channel and and happy to have done so. I'm glad to subscribe. When learning English, were you encouraged to maintain a neutral tone? I don't mean to insult you, it's just noticeable to me that you maintain a very neutral tone. It makes it a bit difficult to listen to your content until I got accustomed to it, as it sounds something like a run-on sentence with no tonal punctuation. Keep up the great work!
Thanks, appreciate the support. I have noticed that since I write a script and then read it out loud, it seems like it takes more exaggerated pronunciations to avoid sounding stilted, far more than is necessary for day-to-day speech, so it's something I'm working on adapting. I also tend to write longer sentences, so that may contribute to sounding like run-on sentences too.
I'm going to China in a couple weeks and will be seeing the Terracotta Army. It's cool to know the background history of place before visiting to know why it is important and significant. I hope the part 2 gets uploaded soon.
Thanks, glad you've found it helpful. I visited Xi'an in 2016, including the Terracotta Army of course, and it's definitely quite impressive, although don't forget Mt. Li nearby which also has lots of famous sites. I'm working on part 2 right now along with a few other videos, it's just taking longer than expected since I'm also incorporating feedback from Part 1, but hopefully the pieces fall together for it soon.
Just found this channel, and have spent the last several days trying to marathon the vids here. Literally caught up just now, and I now want to drop my two cents. I can't for the parts dealing with the interactions with Goguryeo, and I can't wait for the "meme emperor" Taizong to show up.
Thanks, glad to hear you've enjoyed the videos, and I'm looking forward to writing about those topics too. I should be able to introduce Gorguyeo slowly in my videos on 400s-500s AD China and then build the narrative from there.
Can you recommend a book that details the spring and autumn/warring states period (in terms of battles/reforms/political intrigues like the partition of Jin) written in English? I am most fascinated by the period but there's almost no book written about it in english. And if possible, maybe you can make a series about the spring and autumn/warring state period at some time in the future. Please keep up the good work! :)
Thanks, appreciate the support. At some point I'm planning to start a series on "ancient" Chinese history from the beginnings to the decline/fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and would of course be going through this period in detail. Since most of my research is in Chinese I'm not too familiar with English sources. I suppose for political events you could always just read a translation of the Zuo Zhuan, but that would be like reading Thucydides to learn about the history of the Peloponnesian War and would be quite dense to read.
These videos are so good! I have a question though looking at all these maps- why are there no big cities (in ancient times and modern day) between the lower Yellow River and Beijing? It seems like a big fertile region should have a big central market somewhere?
Because: 1. Barrier lakes are easy to form in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River, causing frequent floods in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River; 2. Frequent floods cause the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River to easily change its course; 3. The riverbed of most sections of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River is higher than the plains on both sides, so it is very dangerous to build large cities here.
Hope you enjoyed it! Things have been busier than usual lately and I've been spending a lot of time improving my maps and production technique, so haven't been able to upload as much. Working to speed up things in the future though.
