Disclaimer: Neither Hetalia nor its characters belong to me. They are property of their author.
This is a 99% historical fanfic. This is basically a summary of the history of each country. Today I bring to China!, one of the oldest "countries" in the world.
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-Clarifications:
Everything here will be nothing more than a small glimpse of what Chinese culture and history are. Many historians agree that Westerners will never be able to fully understand Eastern culture, so this will only be a description, not an understanding of Chinese history.
I will begin the story during the Xia Dynasty, and I will not take the Hongshan, Longshan, and Liangzhu periods properly as chinese history, because there was no such conception yet.
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-New characters:
Tibet: personification and representation of Tibet. He is a cousin of China.
-If the nomadic peoples of the North are mentioned, they mostly refer to Mongolia.
- The Da Quin is the Roman Empire.
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As I said, this is basically a summary. If one wants to internalize more about certain topics or historical figures, or philosophy such as Chinese Taoism, Confucianism, I Ching, among other concepts, you should definitely study it for your part, this is only a summary.
Now yes, enjoy it!
中国 (Zhōngguó/China)
-The beginning:
The Chinese civilization, one of the oldest in the world, along with India's, began long ago, when the world still slept and was not awakened. Little is known about the oldest of Chinese history and culture; it is a mystery. But it is known that, while humanity was just emerging from the Neolithic, the Chinese people already had an advanced civilization for the time. China was already ten steps ahead. And China invented the world. Everything, except for some of the inventions of the Industrial Revolution, everything was done first by China, who in his loneliness, in his remote world, with care everything was done. Navigation, compasses, maps, medicine and astronomy, China was doing it before everyone else because almost all humanity (except India and some others) were just opening their eyes.
Everything that the West then rediscovered, China had done before. And all the models that then, much later, would experience the West, the empires, the republics, the representative democracies, the absolutist kingdoms, all that China had experienced and carried out much earlier. China invented a lot, what the West did later was to rediscover what he had already done. Greek philosophy and the Greeks could have been like grandchildren of China in that aspect, because even with their philosophy and arts and science, they were not even close to China, who at that time was the most powerful and advanced human civilization.
But China's history is complex and profound, and much happened to the great Red Dragon in his existence.
-Three Augusts and Five Emperors, Chinese Mythology:
This period of time is a historical almost fictional one, where probably there were real characters but wrapped in mythology, as in all stories.
Chinese mythology is a meeting of traditional mythology with Taoism and Buddhism, which over time were collected. According to Chinese mythology, the beginning of time was like this: at the beginning there was only a great chaos in the void, and out of that chaos an egg came out. When the Yin and Yang forces were balanced, Pangu was born from the egg, who took on the task of creating the World. Pangu divided the Yin and the Yang and as the Yin was heavy, it went down, creating the Earth. And since the Yang was light, it flew and became Heaven. Pangu held them for 18,000 years until he got tired and bullied. His body became mountains and his hair in forests. The Moon was born from his right eye and the Sun from his left eye. This is how the world was created according to Chinese mythology.
Humanity was then created by Niwü and Fuxi, two creatures with half serpent body, and half human body.
According to China, whom many ask who his parents were, he always replies haughtily that he is the Son of Heaven, son of the Jade Emperor, lord of Heaven and Earth, mythological deity of Taoism.
Chinese mythology is very broad and deep, it has many variants and many legends that were compiled by Taoism especially.
There is also the legend of the Journey to the West, where the monkey spirit, by punishment of the gods, had to travel to the westernmost part of the world. Between his adventures, to reach the most western of the world knew that he had reached the same place where he left. This indicates that from the beginning the Chinese knew that the earth was round and that it revolved around the sun.
-The Great Flood:
Like many other cultures, China also has a flood in his mythology.
According to those then, the Clan Xia had a huge rivalry with the clan of the god Chi You (god of war and rain). According to the story, Gun, the father of the Chinese hero Yu the Great, was the oldest registered member of the Xia clan, and when the Yellow River was flooded, many tribes united with each other worked to control and stop the flood. Gun was appointed by Yao to stop the flood. He ordered the construction of large dams to block the water path. Gun's attempt to stop the flood lasted for nine years, but it was a failure because the floods became stronger. Gun was ordered to be executed by Shun (new lord of the clan) in Yushan, a mountain.
Yu was highly trusted by Shun, so he appointed him to finish his father's job, which was to stop the flood. Yu's method was different from his father's: he organized people from different tribes and ordered them to help him build channels in all the big rivers that flood and drive the water to the sea. Yu was dedicated to his work. People praised their perseverance and were inspired so much so that other tribes joined in the work. Legend has it that in the 13 years it took him to successfully complete work to stop the floods, and he never returned to his hometown to stop and rest.
-Xia Dynasty, the first dynasty of Ancient China:
Although this is considered the first historical dynasty of China, this is unlikely to have really happened. This dynasty is located between the 21st century BC and the 16th century BC, being this dynasty the most remote childhood of China.
Yu's success in stopping the floods increased agricultural production (since the floods were destructive). The power of the Xia tribe increased and Yu became the leader of the surrounding tribes. Shortly after, Shun sent Yu to lead an army to suppress the Sanmiao tribe, which continuously abused the border tribes. After defeating them, he banished them south of the Han River area. This victory strengthened the power of the Xia tribe even more. As Shun grew old, he thought of a successor and yielded the throne to Yu, whom he considered worthy. The succession of Yu marks the beginning of the Xia dynasty. As Yu approached death he passed the throne to his son, Qi, instead of passing it to the most capable candidate, thus establishing the precedent of dynastic rule or the hereditary system, which previously didn't exist, the throne was given to the most capable. The Xia dynasty began a period of control of the family or clan.
If this dynasty was real, it's attributed as a slave dynasty.
In these times the small China was called Huáxià.
The last king of this dynasty was said to be corrupt, and was overthrown by Tang, the first king of the Shang dynasty.
-Shang Dynasty:
The Shang Dynasty was the dynasty that succeeded the legendary Xia Dynasty. This second dynasty lasted between 1766 BC until 1046 BC. This is the first dynasty in which there are reliable records. This dynasty encompassed the valley of the Yellow River.
The last king of the Xia dynasty was supposedly corrupt and tyrant, so an uprising was mounted against him. The one who defeated him formed his own dynasty, the Shang dynasty, also known as Yin.
During this dynasty, the capital moved six times. The urban centers were boisterous and centers of court life. The king was the highest head of the ancestor cult. The royal tombs indicate that the monarchs were buried with many valuables they would need in their next life. In addition, hundreds of plebeians (slaves) were buried alive next to their lord.
In these times, little China was very young, and he was alone. However, since he had never been with anyone, he liked his loneliness. Little China from his most remote childhood was already vain and arrogant, believing himself the maximum culture of what he knew, and to some extent he was right. The only other person he knew was his cousin Mongolia (northern tribes) and their relationship was always bad, since Mongolia always attacked him for annoyance at the arrogant look with which China looked at him. The little Chinese did not know anyone but him. He still didn't know who would be his teacher, India, and none of his younger brothers had been born yet, it was remote times. Even so, the intelligent little boy knew of the existence of other peoples in the West apart from him, but for China, the West was boring and far away.
The Shang Dynasty lasted 720 years, until finally China would learn that life was a constant cycle, only the change was permanent. He knew this when the Shang dynasty fell and another dynasty came.
Shang Zhou, the last King Yin, committed suicide after his army was defeated by the Zhou people. His army betrayed him by joining the rebels Zhou in the decisive battle. The classic novel Fengshen Yanyi deals with the war between the Yin and the Zhou, in which each group was supported by a set of gods.
After the fall of Yin, the survivors of the royal family changed their surname to adopt the name of the defeated Yin dynasty. The family continued to be aristocratic and often provided the necessary administrative services to the Zhou dynasty. King Zhōu Chéng, through the regent, his uncle the Duke of Zhou, offered Wēizi's fiefdom to the ancient Shang king, brother of Zhou, in the old Shang capital, becoming the territory in Sōng state. The state of Song and the royal descendants of Shang maintained their rites for the already dead Shang kings and survived until 286 BC.
In those times a disenchanted prince Yin named Jizi, who refused to give power to the Zhou when they overthrew the Shang dynasty, left China with his garrison and founded the Choseon state near present day Pyongyang, and so the first Korean state was born. The young Chinese opened his eyes to the impression, because without his having expected it, a brother of his was born. His brother Korea was already born. And although China had a bittersweet feeling, China soon influenced and managed his new little brother.
-Zhou Dynasty:
The Shang dynasty finally fell to the Zhou with the famous Battle of Muye, in 1046 BC. China accepted the change. When the Zhou triumphed, ancient nobles of the Shang Dynasty changed their surnames and became officials of the Zhou. The imperial rice shop opened immediately after the battle to feed the hungry population. The young Chinese looked at what was happening with attention.
This event, which could be considered one of many similar war events that occurred in northern China in antiquity, has been widely narrated in Chinese sources and was interpreted as a transfer of power from a corrupt dynasty to a new dynasty of virtuous kings. This vision responds to a concept introduced in Chinese thought during the Zhou period: the "mandate of heaven", the legitimacy of government granted by Heaven (considered a deity at this time) to a virtuous class of leaders who ruled with justice.
From this legitimistic vision, the last Shang kings appear as cruel and corrupt kings, while the first Zhou kings would have been righteous and wise. The first three known rulers of the zhou deserve a special mention: the Civilizer King 'king of culture', wise king who died before the victory against the Shang; the Warrior King, who completed the strategy of the King Civilizer and achieved the final defeat of the Shang, becoming the first king of the zhou dynasty; and the Duke of Zhou, brother of the previous one who ruled as regent after the death of the former and consolidated the power of the zhou.
During the Zhou Dynasty, China grew up a bit. Agriculture was intensive during these times, and all the lands belonged to the nobles who lent them to their servants, as feudal system.
During these times, a man appeared who would mark China significantly, Confucius. Confucius (name in Latinized version), was not a prophet, or a chosen or anything like that, was simply a compiler of philosophies and codes of China so far. And big was the impact that the little China had before him. The compilations of Confucius became doctrines in China and soon became a complete social system. That Confucianism said that "not oppose the course of nature." Confucianism became the something that shaped the deep Chinese culture, making it equally strict. In the Chinese confusions social system, there is no individualism. The concept of individualism that made the West thinks so many centuries later did not make sense in China. Each person was important to society to their measure. Society was a great machine and each one is a part of it, like a gear, and you cannot get out of there, there is no individualism and such an idea China would not have even understood.
Society and life was like a Ying and a Yang (Taoist concepts), the two opposing and complementary fundamental forces found in all things. Even in advanced Chinese medicine, every part of the body has Ying energy and Yang energy. China was growing and adopting all this during this dynasty, in which he also met another person who would greatly influence him. Lao Tzu was a great teacher for young China and his thoughts left him in awe. Lao Tse had said that if there were no laws, there would therefore be no laws to infringe and therefore there would be no criminals, although many opposed that thinking, China never forgot it.
With Confucianism as an almost social code and now Taoism, a deep philosophy, China was maturing, from arrogant to an arrogant with knowledge, philosophy, and wisdom. And with the essence of Chinese Taoism, he said, with a heart full of wonder and emotion:
From not being
We will understand the essence of Tao;
And of being
We only see its appearance.
Both things, being and not being, have the same origin,
Although different name.
Its identity is a mystery.
And this mystery is the door of all wonder.
With the influence of Taoism, the philosophy of China par excellence, he began to take on the identity with which he would be known later on. Deep and beautiful was China, one of the greatest of civilizations.
During the Zhou period, China began to emerge from childhood, although he still lacked to carry what he called the spring of his life.
China was poetic: history, times and life were divided into seasons, according to him. He was in the summer of his life yet.
During those times, Confucian and Taoist art, lyrics and music emerged even more. China did not have a linear thinking structure. He did not understand the concept of cause and effect, China understood life as "instants". "Eternity is an instant," said China. And how China understood the world and how he would translate it to his future brothers, it's simply seen in his writing. Chinese writing are ideograms. They do not represent words or sounds but ideas. A letter can be an idea. So China codified his world. Ideas, cyclical instants, the culture and mind of China were very complicated to understand even by his neighbors, like India. With his philosophy, Taoism and Confucianism, China was writing for time to time the famous book I Ching, the Book of Changes or Mutations. During these periods of China's childhood, the book of the Rites says: "When it went down the path of virtue, the world was no more than a community. The men of talent were chosen as leaders. Theirs voice was sincere and they practiced harmony. Men treated the parents of others as their own. The elderly were provided with shelter until death, men in the strength of life work, young people in education. Sweetness and compassion were manifested for widows, orphans, people without children and the sick, so that they cared for them. Each man had a job and each woman had a home. People despised the waste of goods, without hoarding them, however, for them. They liked to work with all their strength, but without seeking the individual benefit. Therefore, individual ambitions could not develop. No thieves or bandits were known and the outer doors of the houses were always open. It was the so-called period of Great Unity."
Despite the depth of China's being, his philosophy and his way of seeing the world, and considering that he was one of the most advanced civilizations of the time, China would face the other side of his power, the other side of his greatness, and see how the blood would continue to be spilled poor flowers and meadows.
-Western Zhou: King Wu kept the ancient capital of the Shang for ceremonial purposes, but built a new one for your palace and nearby administration. Although Wu's early death left a young and inexperienced heir, the Duke of Zhou assisted his nephew King Cheng in consolidating royal power. He stifled rebellious princes Zhou, feudal rulers, and Shang supporters; counterbalanced Zhou legitimacy crisis by exposing the doctrine of the "Mandate of Heaven" (divine idea that justified the Zhou in power) and configures the fengjian system to maintain the Zhou authority over its considerably expanded territory. The Fall of the western zhou in the year 771 BC., was by an alliance formed by the state of the shēn and the nomadic people of the quǎnróng who launched an attack against the court of the capital, in which the twelfth zhou monarch, King You died.
China saw all this with surprised eyes, and soon proceeded to see carefully what was happening. The attack was due to the fact that King You had repudiated his wife, daughter of the Marquis of Shen, replacing her with a concubine. King You's successor, King Ping, eventually moved the court, in 722 BC. C., to a safer place, further east, in Chengzhou, near the current Luoyang. However, the Zhou court (the "eastern zhou" as of now) no longer effectively controls the territory and China saw them as weak. Its theoretical authority will still be respected but, in practice, the territory will be divided into independent states led by sovereigns who will often face each other. These confrontations will become habitual wars in the period of the Warring States. In this era, one of the states, that of Qin will become the most powerful. And without young China waiting for it, it would be no time for him to live in peace again, because with sword in hand, wars would become very common.
-Springs and Autumns:
Soon, the court of the Eastern Zhou would be no more than puppets of more powerful states, and would only be spectators of years and years of wars.
In northern China there were tribes that were called "barbarians" by the Chinese. However, these tribes had a mixture with the Chinese and soon had their own powerful states, the Wu and Yue states.
In those times the big states no longer wanted to help the smaller and weaker states as was the tradition and instead they took advantage of them or annexed them. The dukes of Qi and Wen of Jin State tried to carry out a strong feudalism while annexing more land of small states. With this, the states of Qin, Jin, Qi, and Chu grew exponentially, which became the hegemonies of the place where they tried to help the smaller states but actually abused them.
Among all this, the young China was stunned and didn't know what to do. His only consolation to live between constant wars was to continue studying philosophy and art, because China was intelligent, he always was, and he knew that the war was backward and he would never allow himself to decay. He, who knew he was the greatest.
The Zhou were just puppets without authority that were sometimes not recognized by the powerful states. In those times, the local administration that facilitated trade, taxes, and agriculture began to be implemented.
The great states of Qin, Ji and Qi did not bother with each other but instead focused on repelling the attacks of the state of Chu, whose leader had become king. Soon, the state of Chu invaded the area of the Yellow River.
Calling the state of Chu "barbarian" was just a warning so that this state did not interfere in their spheres of power. The invasion of Chu was put to the test three times with the violent Battle of Chengdu, which occurred in 632 BC, between Chu and Jin, with the victory of Jin. The Battle of Bi, occurred in 597 BC, with the victory of Chu, and the Battle of Yanling between Jin and Chu, where Jin's state was once again victorious.
After much fighting, China watched with naive relief as the states of Qi, Qin, Jin, and Chu gathered at a disarmament conference in 579 BC. In the conference mini states became satellite states of the largest. In 546 BC, Jin and Chu agreed to a truce. And China breathed a sigh of relief, but in reality, this would be a prelude to a long era of wars and fighting states and China would have to wait with painful patience the day it all ended. And China watched in frustration as four states were killing each other, landlord families were waging war.
The Chen family eliminated their enemies in Qin. The legitimacy of the rulers was challenged by civil wars and by members of the royal family of Qin and Chu. And China was anguished. Just thinking about art and philosophy made China feel better. Deep down he did not know why this happened, it seemed unreal in a world so full of wonders. But soon China would get his relief, his treasure. In those times, China saw the birth of his favorite brother, who would be his biggest pain, Japan. Japan was very young at the time and was very close to China, who to forget what was happening was responsible for influencing Japan along with his other young brother, Korea. At least there was peace between the three brothers, but that would one day break.
The Warring States period began in the year 403 BC, where the elites of Jin, Zhou, Wei and Han remained and further divided the state. Zhou's court was forced to recognize these states.
During a brief period of relative peace in the sixth century BC, the states of Wu and Yue prospered and gained power, after the death of King Fu Chai of Wu, Yue became the last great manor recognized.
-Warring Kingdoms:
For these then, there were seven powerful states, also known as the seven heroes among the Warring States. This period was also known as "the lords of war still consider themselves dukes of the king of the Zhou dynasty, but they began to call themselves kings".
During this time the handling of metals for the war was improved, and the states of Chu and Yue were getting closer to the Chinese culture. This turbulent time of wars did not prevent China from continuing his life as a scholar and the movements and new philosophical ideas called Hundred Schools of Thought arose, which was based on and studied Confucianism, Taoism, Legist and Moism. In addition, China sought that despite the war trade would flourish and would not be greatly affected.
By this time Jin's status was the most powerful but it was declining and Jin fell under the power and influence of six other large families.
At the beginning of this period, after many struggles, the remaining families were: the Zhi, Wei, Zhao and Han families, with the Zhi family ruling the state of Jin. Zhi Yao, last lord of the Zhi family, tried to form an alliance with the Wei and Han families to overthrow the Zhao. However, the arrogance and disrespect of Zhi Yao towards the other families caused the families to secretly ally with the Zhao, and jointly launched a surprise attack on the Zhi.
In the year 403 BC, the three great families agreed to the partition, with the approval of King Zhou, of the state of Jin in three parts, Han, Zhao, and Wei. The three families obtained the titles of marquises and as the three families were natives of the state of Jin, they were known as the Three Jin.
In the year 389 BC, there was a change of government in Qi. The Tian families took control of the state of Qi and were named dukes.
The old family, the Jian, continued to exist until 379 BC, when the state was finally absorbed by the Quin state of the Tian.
In 371 BC, the Marchioness of Wei died without leaving a successor, causing internally a war of succession was unleashed. After three years of internal war, the Zhao and the Han took advantage of this fact to invade Wei surprisingly, however, and then they became indisposed without knowing what to do with the state, so they withdrew their armies mysteriously. The consequence of this was the rise of Hiu of Wei to the throne.
In the year 354 B.C, Hui of Wei attacked and invaded Zhao's state in revenge for the previous invasion and soon the important city of Handan was besieged and the Zhao suffered a heavy defeat. The neighbor of Zhao, the state of Qi decided to help him and used a famous military tactic, suggested by the illustrious military tactician Sun Bin, who proceeded to attack the state of Wie while the armies of this were in Zhao. This is why Wei's army had to retreat and return. When they set out to return, they had to face Qi's army, at the Battle of Guiling, in 353 BC, which resulted in a great victory for Qi thanks to the strategist Sun Bin. In all the battles, China watched from afar, with impotence and certain coldness. China considered them all idiots for fighting for nothing, when the world cried out for him to reveal its secrets.
Meanwhile, around 359 BC, Shang Yang initiated a series of reforms that made the state of Quin become a second state to one of the most powerful in China at that time. Without the exasperated China knowing, his destiny began to look for him.
In the year 341 BC, Wei's state attacked Han and Qi interposed. The same generals and states of the Battle of Guiling clashed at the Battle of Maling, where Wei was once again defeated.
Everything got worse for Wei when Qin saw its defeats invaded and forced him to give up land. With this, Qin and Qi became the most powerful states in China.
In 334 BC, Wei and Qi were reconciled and sovereigns recognized. The lack of power of the Zhou since the beginning of the Eastern dynasty all the states declared their independence and many did not recognize the Zhou.
In 325 BC, Quin proclaims theirselves "kings". Then Han and Yan imitated them in 323 BC, and then the governor of Song in 318 BC, and then the Zhao imitated them.
The state of Chu was one of the strongest of that time in China. It reached a good level when the King of Chu appointed the famous reformer Wu Qi his prime minister.
Chu reached the summit in 334 BC, when it gained extensions of territories. When Yue prepared to attack Qi, Qi sent an emissary to persuade Yue's state to attack Chu instead. And so it was done, China watched without much emotion as Yue attacked Chu on a large scale. But soon Chu began to take the lead and soon began the conquest of Chu towards Yue.
China was tired but used to it. He knew that life was cyclical and that it would not last forever, but his body hurt a lot. Everything hurt and bled frequently from the mouth. The only thing that made China happy was his little brother Japan, although China was persevering and firm, and left to Japan the freedom that he wanted. Even so, China always liked to visit him. But soon everything would change in China, and he, who had been like an expectant spirit in wars and invasions, would take sides.
-Unification of China:
In those times China never represent a country, because he was divided into independent city-states or states. What he represented was the culture that everyone shared with each other. But soon that would change, when a certain Qin Shi Huang appeared before him, imposing, and told him that soon, he would unify the states, and that he should take sides, accompany him in the campaign. China could be a quiet being who admired the stillness of the world with depth, but at the same time, he was the best of all warriors and the most sublime of all. Soon, young China already had a sword in hand.
The state of Qin became for the end of the Warring States in the most powerful of all the states. That is why the other six remaining states began an aggressive and threatening policy against Quin, and an alliance bloc called Hezong was formed between the states of Zhao, Qi, Wei, Yan, Chu and Han, with the aim of repelling the expansionism of Qin. The second alliance was the Liangheng, formed by the state of Qin and other minor states. Despite the good start of the Hezong block, the alliance failed and Quin invaded the states one by one, and China was there, with a reckless look in his eyes. China, who was characterized for being suspicious and intelligent, sent many intellectuals of the Hundred Schools of Thought to make "tactics of pressure" to the other states.
With the armies of Qin, China was part of this process. He conquered the Shun area in 316 BC, Han State in 210 BC, Zhao and Wei in 225 BC, Chu in 223 BC, Yan in 222 BC, and Qi State in 221 BC. These campaigns were known as China's Unification Wars.
And China went to war, but with a goal and since he had an indestructible temper, after the war he returned to his life because China knew that the war was a savage and that there were much more important things to do. And great was his satisfaction when he unified, because he knew that now he would have time to flourish again.
In the year 256 B C. the army of Qin destroyed the Zhou court, overthrowing the last king, king Nan and 35 years later, in 221 BC. the sovereign of Qin manages to subdue the other states under the new Qin dynasty and assumes the new title of "emperor", becoming the Initial Emperor, better known today as Qin Shi Huang.
-Qin Dynasty, Imperial China:
"The august emperor founder of the Qin", marked the beginnings of the imperial China, period that lasted (with certain interruptions) until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912.
The king of the Qin finally founded a new dynasty and took for himself the new name of Huángdì, of religious connotations, which means "emperor". From this historical moment, all subsequent Chinese monarchs will use this title, abandoning the denomination of "kings" (wáng). The new emperor was called Shǐ Huángdì ("first emperor"), seeing himself as the first of what he expected to be a long dynasty of emperors. It is the first dynasty of a unified China and much larger than that ruled by the Zhou. With this dynasty arises, for the first time in history, a strong, centralized and unified Chinese state. And China smiled. Growing up, his childhood was over to make way for something new.
The Qin State carried out an intense task of unification of standards: the weights and measures were unified, as well as the writing system. The infamous burning of books was ordered, in which writings were destroyed that did not conform to the religious and social model of the new empire. This did not please China very much, all that knowledge lost by the burning of books bothered him, but he considered that knowledge never is lost, and new knowledge would find him.
During this dynasty, huge palaces were built in Xianyang to convert their former enemies into courtiers. China was not at the peak of his potential yet and his life, but he knew that he was in a place much higher than anybody, and for that reason he decided to leave traces of his power, of his greatness: the famous Terracotta Warriors were built, sculptures to human size with different characteristics in each, model of the great army of the dynasty. And China saw the world from above. And it was during this dynasty, when China, preemptively and with pride in his being, decided to unite the isolated walls that impeded the entrance of the northern tribes (Mongols) and thus, it was that the Great Wall of China began to take shape, a of the wonders of humanity. China was the wonder of humanity, said China to himself. Although he little knew about humanity, China was aware of his greatness status.
This dynasty lasted from 221 BC to 206 BC, and despite the military success of unification, the characteristics of the Qin state made its survival unviable, and it collapsed after the death of Qin Shi Huang. His cruelty and the numerous works he imposed on the people and the militarized state form and the intolerance of the Confucianism sowed the discontent in China who wanted to continue with his unified situation but wanted a change of dynasty; after his death in 209 BC., the rebels took advantage of the reign of his weak son Èrshì Huángdì ("Second Emperor"), to end the Qin dynasty and destroy its capital, Xianyang. In 206 BC., Liu Bang, who led the military rebellion against the Qin army, proclaimed himself emperor, founding a new dynasty: the Han.
-Han Dynasty:
Liu Bang established a new dynasty, the Han. China prospered rapidly, agriculture, industry and commerce flourished. This dynasty lasted between 206 BC to 220 AD.
As much as China should fight sporadically against the Huns, soon, and something unusual in him, he wish to have contact with the other nations of Asia apart from his brothers Japan and Korea and created the famous and important Silk Road, where his products sold very well and began to have contact and knowledge of the West. There he met his peer, India, who soon declared himself his teacher. As much as China became sporadic student of India and from time to time there would be friendship between them, in reality they had a latent revalidation, since both were the powers of Asia, and in reality, the powers of the whole world, and therefore, there was always some competition between both in philosophy, art and the art of war.
China was at that time a pre-adolescent and India was a young adult, and even so, China never got discouraged and proved to be up to India. There was cultural exchange between them through the Silk Road, and although to India sometimes the arrogance of his young student bothered him, decided one day to give him a gift.
When China met India, he brought with him a gift made by him, but in the end, it was only for China. When China took the gift, it weighed like a baby. The gift of India was Buddhism, which despite having emerged in India as a derivation of Hinduism, only in China took strength and was transformed. China was amazed by the gift from India and suddenly his heart opened like a flower in spring. Before Buddhism, China was one, and then he was the same after it, but with a different aura. China loved Buddhism and fit perfectly into his structure of thought. Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism coexisted peacefully and the three formed the way of China seeing's world, his behavior, and the abstract philosophy that China possessed.
Buddhism came to China via the Silk Road and soon became popular in that place. India smiled with this. China saw Buddhism as a young flower, and placed it sweetly in a fountain so that it could bloom. And indeed Buddhism flourished in China.
The ideals that helped to raise the dynasty were disappearing, the people who were disgusted are increasing their rejection of the regime and revolutions arise in different parts of the country, such as the "Green Woodcutters" and the "Red Eyebrows", which force move the capital from Xi'an to Louyang in the year 25. And that of the Yellow Turbans, in the year 184, will end up ending the dynasty.
The Han dynasty is divided into two periods: the Western Han, who had their capital in Chang'an, and the Eastern Han, who maintained less effective control over the territory, and had to move the court east, near the current Luoyang .
Between both periods, the Han dynasty was briefly interrupted by the "usurper" par excellence of Chinese history, Wang Mang, who established his own Xin dynasty and tried to organize a state based on Confucian thought. To China the presence of this parallel Chinese state bothered him very much but he didn't dislike the attempt to bring Confucianism to its maximum expression.
The Western Han period was a period of economic and cultural prosperity, especially during the reign of Emperor Wu (Han Wudi, in Chinese), which defeated the nomadic people Xiongnu along with China, and opened trade routes with Central Asia and India, in particular The Silk Road. During the reign of Emperor Wu, the great Chinese historian Sima Qian completed the Historical Memoirs, a work begun by his father, Sima Tan, which tells the whole Chinese history up to that time.
It was during these years that China grew up to pretend to be a teenager, and where he extended his power to have a new sister, Vietnam.
And it was also, where he met a peculiar person from the West.
In his little interaction with the world, with India, China heard of a great empire in the West. And soon, he got a strange curiosity. Soon, to learn more about this empire in the west, he sent an emissary, the military Gan Yin, to the capital of this empire. But even though the ambassador tried to travel to Rome, he could not get there. This annoyed China, who was eager to meet this empire that China called Da Quin: the Roman Empire. And although India warned China of the vain, brutal and ignorant personality of the Roman, China only wanted to meet him and one day, when he visited his southern sister, China found him. And his eyes opened wide.
The Roman Empire and China met with the look, and the Roman confused him with a girl. China confirmed what India said about the West, but even so, China took love and respect for him. The Roman Empire was impressed with the Chinese Empire and felt small with respect to him.
Although in appearance China seemed younger, he was much older and more powerful than the Roman Empire, who knew this fact. The Roman visited him sporadically and China came to fall in love with him. The first romance that China had in his life was with him. India understood it. Even though China was abstract, wise, unattainable and profound, China was attracted to power, and the Roman Empire had power. The romance that Da Quin (Roman Empire) and China held was ephemeral and one day, the Roman Empire never came back, and China always wondered why, waiting until he knew the truth. But for the time being, China was able to enjoy the short Western mind of the Roman who gave him so much fun.
And even though China greatly enjoyed his unified life in those times, he would soon have to face the difficulties of life again.
After two hundred years, the Han dynasty was interrupted for a short period that lasted from the year 9 to 24. The economic situation deteriorated in recent years and Wang Mang, a member of the landowning families who had acquired great power during the Han government, took power and founded the Xin dynasty, which lasted only a few years until the Han dynasty was re-established again.
A distant relative of royalty Liu, Liu Xiu, led the rebellion against Wang Mang with the support of the merchants and landowners. He succeeded in restoring the Han dynasty in Luoyang, which he would rule for another two hundred years, and became the Guangwu emperor.
In 105, already in the Eastern Han dynasty, an officer and inventor named Cai Lun invented the technique to make large paper. The invention of paper is considered a revolution in communication and learning, drastically reducing the cost of education. This was one of the most prosperous periods of the Han dynasty, at least during the reign of the first three emperors, during which there were no major revolts, neither within China nor with the Xiongnu people. Trade flourished and the Silk Road became one of the most important routes for foreign trade. But the accumulation of power by the landlords and the increasing pressure on the peasants began to generate new rebellions, accentuating the agrarian crisis. The disastrous floods of the Yellow River around the 170's only worsened this situation. The loss of the crops created periods of famine that fueled the rebellions. The most important of all these rebellions was the Yellow Turbans in the plains of northern China, the main agricultural area of the country. This rebellion was led by Zhang Jiao and his two brothers, who defended the Taoist doctrines of equal rights and equality in the distribution of land, also present in the sect of the Taiping. And even though China wanted to remain unified, deep down he agreed with the Taoist thoughts and supported the rebellions.
After the death of the three brothers, the rebellions continued. The power of the emperors became less and less influential in favor of the military estates, which are what governed the country. The last Han emperor, Xian Di, was a puppet emperor placed in power by Dong Zhuo, an army commander, reigning until the 220 although without any real control. In this way the Han period ended and China ceased to be unified into a single state for more than fifty years, until he was reunited again by the Jin dynasty after the turbulent period of the Three Kingdoms.
-Period of the Three Kingdoms:
The eastern Han dynasty ended when the power was divided between the three regional rival leaders named Cao Cao who controlled the area north of the Yangtze River. Liu Bei controlled the interior including Sichuan in the southwest, and Sun Quan controlled the southeast. The north was called Cao Wei, the southwest was called Shu Han, and the southeast was called Dong Wu which means Wu of the east. The Han dynasty had ended in natural disasters and rebellions that reduced the power of the dynastic court. There were also major conflicts in the Court of the dynasty that ended in murders in the same Court as well. The Han dynasty was divided into three economic geographic regions that were separated by the natural limits of the Yangtze River and the central mountains, where the Three Gorges are. Through natural disasters and war at the end of the dynasty and during the Three Kingdoms Period, the population of the region declined. And when the Han dynasty was to break, China can only cling to his strength.
This is the period when China was divided after the fall of the Han dynasty and the struggles that spread throughout the country. Briefly it was unified under the Jin of the East, to again be divided into numerous dynasties of brief reign. The Wei dynasty of the north stands out founded by the Tuoba, a village of the family of the Huns that from the capitals Datong and later in Luoyang gave an impulse to the establishment Buddhism, the only thing that made China happy during this stressful period. In this period the construction of the majestic caves of Yunggan, Longmen and Mogao began.
Cao Cao's authority in Luoyang, where nominal power still resided in Emperor Xian, confronted his two military rivals Liu Bei and Sun Quan.
-The legendary Battle of the Red Cliffs:
After defeating Yuan Shao, Lu Bu and Yuan Shu, Cao Cao had the largest army and acted on behalf of Emperor Xiang-di. In the fall of 208, his army opposed Liu Biao, who ruled the Jingzhou district. Liu Biao soon dies, and between his children the hostility begins. In the county capital, the youngest son Liu Biao Liu Zong, who decides to surrender to Cao Cao, settles. Liu Bei, the military commander who was then in the service of Liu Biao, tries to resist the invading forces, but the forces were too unequal and must withdraw to the city of Syakou. Liu Qi, the eldest son of Liu Biao, who supported Liu Bei, settles in Jiangxi.
After occupying Jingzhou and withdrawing his forces, Cao Cao begins a war with Sun Quan. The Cao Cao northerner's army had no experience in water battles, so former fleet commanders Liu Tsung Tsai Mao and Zhang Yun are appointed to lead the fleet and train the army. Liu Bei joins with Sun Quan to destroy Cao Cao.
Cao Cao's fleet was defeated at the Battle of Sanjiangkou. Cao Cao tries to introduce spies into the enemy's camp, but they are exposed, while military leaders Huang Guy and Pan Thun, who pretended to be on Cao Cao's side, presented him successfully. Having succumbed to disinformation, Cao Cao executes Tsai Mao and Zhang Yun, and in directing the fleet he puts inexperienced naval officers in the army.
According to Zhou Yu, Cao Cao's troops, who came with him from the central part of China, numbered between 150 and 160 thousand people. Of the old troops of Liu Biao, he was joined by between 70 and 80 thousand people, but he was not sure of his loyalty. The troops of Sun Quan had 30 thousand people.
And soon China would be involved in a battle that would transcend history, and would know the artificial ardor game, and never forget, with remembering with grief and pain.
Cao Cao's troops, mostly from the northerners, who were not used to fighting in the water, suffered from dizziness. Following the advice of the Sun Quan agents, who were sent to Cao Cao's army, the ships were chained to reduce the launch. Sun Quan was precisely in this and counts and prepares boats loaded with fuel. Long spines were installed in the bow of these ships, so that when they collide with enemy ships they cling tightly to them. The boats with fuel were burned, the fire quickly moved to the tied boats of the Cao Cao fleet, sowing panic among their troops. At the same time, land attacks were carried out in coastal camps.
As a result, Cao Cao with the remnants of the army went to Xuchang to maintain the defense of his commanders. Sun Quan's army, advancing forward, was caught in the battle with Cao Cao's troops from the cities of Nanjun and Hefei.
The most benefited of this victory was Liu Bei: his troops took the cities of the counties of Xiangyang, Nanjun, Jingzhou and Linglin, Ulin, Guiyang and Changsha.
After the defeat of the only potential unifier, China remained fragmented for another 70 years.
After the Battle of the Red Cliffs, in the year 208, when they defeated the troops of Cao Cao, the empire was divided into three. In the year 220, after the death of Cao Cao, his son Cao Pi overthrew the last Han emperor and proclaimed himself emperor in Luoyang of the new Wei dynasty. Liu Bei did not accept the legitimacy of the new dynasty and in 221 he proclaimed himself the continuator of the Han dynasty in Chengdu, in the state of Shu, now Sichuan province. Similarly, Sun Quan, from his power base in the lower Yangzi, after failing to reach an agreement with Cao Pi, founded the Kingdom of Wu in 222, and a few years later, in 229, he proclaimed himself emperor. In this way, China was divided into three kingdoms, Wei, Shu-Han and Wu, which disputed the legitimacy of the continuity of the Han.
This period of Three Kingdoms, where China was again divided, lasted from 220 to 280, and its history, since the fall of the Han dynasty, the Three Kingdoms and the reunification in 280, are told in the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
But China was strong, persevering, knew that life was like the seasons, and after winter, spring always comes.
-Jin Dynasty:
This dynasty lasted between 265 and 420 AD.
China wanted a reunification; it was more beneficial for him, so when his opportunity came, young China took it without thinking.
The reunification of China occurred under the Jin dynasty, which can be divided into two stages: the Western Jin, who managed to unify China, and the Eastern Jin, who continued to rule southern China.
In the year 263, the troops of Wei conquered the state of Shu, with which the three kingdoms became two. In 265, Sima Yan, of the prestigious Sima family, descendants of Sima Qian, overthrew the Emperor Wei, ending the power of the Cao family, and established the Jin dynasty. In the year 280, the Jin conquered the kingdom of Wu, with which they managed to reunite under the new dynasty the old Han Empire. The process was painful for China, like all the processes, but he desperately wanted reunification, but even when he obtained it, China would knew that unification was not synonymous of peace.
-War of the Eight Princes:
Even though he was now reunified, that did not mean he was exempt from wars and power fights. And soon his destiny would continue to shake him.
When Emperor Wu-di died in 290, the crisis of power led to a struggle inside the house of Sima. The new emperor, Sima Zhong, was young and unable to govern on his own. First, the stepmother of the Empress Dowager, Yang, before that led to her family being led by Yang Jun.
The emperor's wife, Empress Jia Nanfen, Sima Weiyang (brother of the emperor) and Sima Liang (emperor's great-grandfather) and his troops killed Yang Jun and his henchmen in the palace in 291; the Empress Dowager was imprisoned, where she died.
Power resided in Sima Lien hands. Therefore, Jia Nanfeng convinced Sima Wei to kill him. When Sima Wei carried out his order, he was executed as a criminal. The Jia Clan remained in power until the year 300, when the Empress killed the heir to the throne, Sima Yu, the son of the emperor of Xie Tszyu's concubine.
The commander of the imperial guard Sima Lun (brother Sima Lian) killed the Empress and destroyed the Jia clan. Sima Lun tried to control the princes of the capital; which led to Sima Yao's rebellion and the campaign against the capital: Sima Yao was killed in the Battle of Luoyang. Sima Lun arrested the emperor and sent him into exile, and began to behave like an emperor.
In response, Sima Jion led a coalition army, including Sima Ina and Sima Yun, against Sima Lun. They defeated Sim Lun and killed him, he returned the emperor, Sima Jion became powerful in the court. The power began to concentrate in the hands of Sima Jung, and Sima Ai, went to Changshu where he raised a rebellion, crushed and killed Sima Jun.
Sima Ai did not remain in power for long, since Sima Yue was defeated and executed. Sima Ying was defeated and the emperor fled to Luoyang. He was captured by Sima Yun, who was defeated by Sima Yue's forces. Emperor Hui-di was poisoned in 306, and his brother, Sima Chi, ascended to the throne. Sima Ying and Sima Yun were finally captured and killed; Sima Yun died on February 7, 307, which became the official end of the war.
And China saw all this anguished, because with this noble war, the Jin Dynasty went into decline and his reunification was in danger. And indeed, things got worse.
Soon China was again harassed by the northern tribes, his cousin Mongolia, and by the time he wanted to defend himself, he realized that he was really devastated. The Jin could not contain the invasion and the uprising of the nomadic peoples after the devastating War of the Eight princes.
Soon, the capital of China was taken, and as he could he had to flee.
Military authorities and crises plagued the court of the Jin Eastern government during its 104 years of existence. He survived the rebellions of Wang Dun and Su Jun. Huan Wen died in 373 before he could proclaim himself emperor. The Battle of Fei gave a victorious result to the Jin government through a brief cooperation relationship between Huan Chong who was Huan Wen's brother, and the prime minister (of the imperial secretariat) Xie An. Huan Xuan, son of Huan Wen, usurped and changed the name of the dynasty to Chu. But his position was taken from him by Liu Yu, who ordered the reinstated Emperor An to be hanged.
The last emperor and brother of Emperor An, Gong, was appointed in 419. The abdication of Emperor Gong in 420 in favor of Liu Yu, then Emperor Wu, led to the Song Dynasty and the Southern Dynasties.
Meanwhile, northern China was ruled by the Sixteen Kingdoms, many of which were founded by the Wu Hu, a distinct ethnic group from the Han Chinese. The conquest of the Northern Liang by the Northern Wei Dynasty in 439 gave as result the northern dynasties.
And before such a panorama of disintegration, China not only knew that again he was divided disadvantageously, but he knew that if it was not taken care of, those of the north could kidnap him. This had a strong impact on the mind of China, who wanted to intensify the Great Wall.
Soon, China would be in one of the most stressful moments of his young adult life.
- Sixteen Kingdoms:
This period of China lasted between 304 and 439. In this period the north of China was divided into sixteen non-Chinese kingdoms. These kingdoms were Hanchao, later Chao, Ch'ênghan, former Liang, later Liang, northern Liang, western Liang, southern Liang, previous Yen, later Yen, northern Yen, southern Yen, former Ch'in, later Ch'in, western Ch 'in and Huhsia.
All these kingdoms were from nomadic tribes of the non-Chinese north, but among them they coexisted peacefully and although China was annoyed to be divided again and was exempt from these kingdoms, curiosity attracted to them.
These rulers of foreign origin, however, assumed the Chinese models of government and administration, and all of them claimed their status as emperors or kings in the Chinese style. For their part, the Han Chinese (China) founded the four northern Yan states, Western Liang, former Liang and Wei State. Six Chinese rulers of former Liang remained titular under the rule of the Jin Dynasty. The Northern Wei dynasty is not considered one of the Sixteen Kingdoms although it was founded during the period. And even though China didn't represent the Sixteen Kingdoms, but the four states of Han, China felt sympathy for the Sixteen Kingdoms and their people who adopted his culture and for the time it lasted, China visited them frequently.
-North and South Dynasties:
This time, which lasted from 420 AD to 589 AD, was one in which China, tired and lagging, settled into two kingdoms with different dynasties.
The division of China after the Jin Dynasty had begun with the invasion of northern China by non-Chinese nomadic peoples from the north. In the year 316, the capital of the Jin Dynasty, Luoyang, was destroyed in an invasion of the Tuoba or Tabgach, people who founded in 386 the Northern Wei Dynasty. The Jin dynasty was forced to take refuge in the south and the territories of Chinese culture would remain divided into two political entities.
Although the north was by then in the hands of the first of the Northern dynasties, the Northern Wei, the date of the beginning of this historical period is conventionally placed in the year 420, when the Jin dynasty sheltered in the south reached its end, and was replaced by the first of the southern dynasties, the Liu-Song dynasty. The period comes to an end when the Sui dynasty, proclaimed in the north in 581, defeats the last of the southern dynasties, the Chen dynasty, in the year 589.
Despite the political division and clashes between the north and the south, this era was characterized by an intense artistic activity mainly due to the spread of Buddhism in both kingdoms, religion from India, which, under the patronage of some emperors, and in spite of the persecutions on the part of others, it would become an inseparable part of the Chinese culture that has been maintained until our days.
And even though China was disillusioned and surrendered to the idea of unification, these periods of division were happier and more bearable than the bloody periods of Spring and Autumn and Warring States.
-Sui Dynasty:
Soon, China would reach his destination, and soon a unification would arise from one in him that would make his old arrogance return to his chest.
Wendi, a former general of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, made great achievements. Among them was the restructuring of the government to simplify internal administration, a revision of the penal code and numerous public works projects, including the creation of a complex canal system that linked the Yellow, Huai and Yangtze rivers. Wendi was also a supporter of Buddhism, and encouraged the spread of this religion throughout its domains.
He also took care to protect the borders of his new empire. In the north the Yuezhi dominated a confederation of nomadic warriors of Turkic descent. They controlled the Mongolian steppes from Manchuria to the edge of the Byzantine Empire in the west; internally, however, the confederation was undergoing a division between two rival groups: one controlled the western half of the yuezhi territory, and the other controlled, to the east. Wendi offered his support to the western yuezhi, and worked to undermine the power and authority of the Khan (maximum state) of the eastern yuezhi. These political machinations, together with the reinforcement of the Great Wall, an increase in the number of troops patrolling the northern border and the creation of the Grand Canal, greatly reduced the threat of attacks from the eastern Yuezhi. Simultaneously, this policy also allowed the reopening of Western trade routes, and again a prosperous commercial relationship with Central and Western Asia developed, and soon, China was already in his wanderings again.
Yangdi in several aspects was even more ambitious than his father. He built a second capital in Luoyang, in the east, to complement the one built by Wendi in Chang'an. China, in a momentum of strength, returned to possess and impose himself again in the south, especially in his sister Vietnam.
The imperial power that China had once had returned and in an ecstasy he felt to explode, since much had wanted to do and could not because of his divisions and wars, but this new moment would soon thin.
Although it was Yandi's ambition (combined with poor financial management) that ultimately caused the loss of the empire. Their attempts to meddle in the internal politics of their nomadic neighbors led to an isolation of the western Yuezhi fraction, which lost control of the city-states of the Tarim Basin, previously under Sui protection.
In the year 612, desperate and angry, China confronted his younger brother Korea, whom he considered disobedient, since until then he had refused to pay tribute to him.
To hit China again, disastrous floods compounded the cost of these failed campaigns, both in resources and in human lives. A few years later, a rebellion broke out throughout the empire. China, angry as a battered woman, broke out in anger and anger, in addition to frustration. And in the year 618 Yangdi was killed by his own collaborators.
This dynasty, in which China emerged with enthusiasm but ended in pain and distress, lasted from year 581 to year 618, and was the prelude to something very big, something that would take China to his maximum flowering, to his maximum imperial splendor , to his maximum power. The adulthood of China had arrived.
-Tang Dynasty, the most glorious of all:
When the Han dynasty fell, in the year 220 AC., China had lived a long period of disunity, social chaos, political disorder, economic and cultural isolation between the south and the north. The country reunified in 589 with the Sui dynasty and entered a stage of prosperity and stability until the appearance of despotism and bureaucracy during the reign of the cruel, extravagant and licentious Yangdi ruler.
China was Taoist and Buddhist, but he had a very strong mythology and believed he was a son of the Heaven and believed in the great will of Heaven, but China also believed that the mandate of Heaven can always be withdrawn and granted to the revolutionaries, and in this case the revolutionary victor was Li Shimin, who, out of filial piety, put his father on the throne before assuming himself the role of emperor and founding the Tang dynasty. And by the time this happened, China was already an adult, and the splendor of his being illuminated the world.
The Tang territory, acquired through military conquests of its first rulers and devastating wars that caused the death of millions of people, something that hurt and made China bleed, but he did not stop until he reached the top. China was now bigger in territory than the Han Dynasty. Encouraged by renewed contact with India and the Middle East, the empire experienced a boom in creativity in numerous fields. Buddhism, which had emerged in India in the time of Confucius, continued to flourish during the Tang period and was adopted by the imperial family, becoming an essential part of traditional Chinese culture. The development of the block printing extended the dissemination of written works to broader audiences. That's right: the printing press was already known and existed in China much earlier than many. China began to rise like never before.
During this time, so ecstatic and excited, China decided to be more sociable and to establish a closer relationship with his Indian teacher and the peoples of the Near East. Until before that, China only limited him to doing his will on his brothers Korea, Japan and Vietnam, and this was not profitable since his brothers were too similar to him, and nothing new China could see.
When he forged a friendship with India, he brought many gifts, such as Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism was a Persian religion practiced in the Near East and those areas, and one of the religions that were part of the set of stories of Christianity. Zoroastrianism came to China through the Silk Road and India. Without anyone from the West knowing, China already had knowledge of Western religions and of Christianity and his worldview expanded and his contact with Western peoples intensified. When the Byzantine Empire came to his house one day to forge business ties with him, China only asked about Da Quin (the Roman Empire), his sporadic lover. But China knew something that would impact him. Annoyed and cold, the Byzantine Empire told him that the Roman Empire had died. China opened his eyes wide and felt something in his chest. For him, human cultures never die, his life is immortal. And China had never seen or heard of the death of nations until that day. With a heavy and disturbed heart, he rejected Byzantine and thought of Da Quin, who would no longer be with him. But China, persevering and strong, in his own world set out to overcome it and continue, since his destiny was great.
During the times of the glorious Tang Dynasty, China intensified Buddhism by combining it with Taoism and Zoroastrianism. It was there that one day, India and a Hindu monk named Bodhidharma went to China to guide him in his practice of Buddhism. India and the monk considered that it was beneficial for their spiritual practices that the monks had healthy bodies and good health, so they taught them a series of exercises, to help them in their meditations, which gave rise to the "18 LuoHan" which consisted of 18 exercises that resulted in fighting skills. It was thus, that through Buddhism, and the practices of China, that the most famous Chinese martial art was born, Kung Fu. It is considered that the origin of Chinese martial arts (as such) does not emanate from the struggle but from philosophy, that is, from his philosophical principles, and it was completely true. China was a philosophical being in every sense, and from this, combined with Taoist philosophy and Buddhism, Kung Fu was born. And India, jealously admired China. Everything China did was done in the best way, he had always been done. He was the most skilled and now, advanced of all. And while China was doing a martial dance combined with the soft music of the Chinese violin, the Erhu, focused, India could not help exclaiming: Oh China! You are the Great Prince of this World!
The Tang period was the golden age of Chinese art and literature as well. A system of government supported by a large class of Confucian lawyers selected through the administration examinations was perfected during the Tang government. While this competitive procedure was designed to capture the best talent for the government, perhaps a major concern for the rulers of the Tang period, aware that the imperial dependence of powerful aristocratic families and military leaders could have destabilizing consequences, was that of create a body of professional officers without territorial or functional autonomous power bases. During this time the Mandarins, officials of the emperor, first emerged. It was for the this dynasty that the orange fruits from China were called tangerines. Civil and military careers were no longer distinguishable in China; the predominance of civil virtues was not absolute: they were really poets and officials, writers and politicians.
It was also during the Tang dynasty that it is presumed that the famous complex Chinese game of Mahjong arose, which arose when China and some astronomers began to record the progressions of the Sun, the Moon and the planets, using a simple mechanism, a board, to calculate the positions of the celestial bodies. The movement through the heavens was recorded by moving counters around the divisions of the board. This, or another similarity, is possibly the origin of this complex and famous board game.
The maximum splendor of the dynasty took place during the reign of Li Shi Min, famous emperor in which political ability and beneficial government skills were united for the population. Something that characterizes this dynasty was that most of the emperors thought of the life of the population that had really bad living conditions due to the continuous wars. Li Shi Min was initially feared and somewhat rejected by China, because of the way he ascended the throne. Li Shi Min murdered his older brother, whom they had proclaimed successor, and his younger brother to force his father to name him successor. This caused China to fear him and feel rejected by him at the beginning, but thanks to his brilliantly reing, in China he is remembered as a great emperor.
Li Shi Min reigned from 626 until his death in 649. His reign began when he forcibly took the throne from his father and after killing his brothers. At the beginning of his reign the empire was weak and had to pay tribute to the Xiongnu (confederation of nomadic peoples of the north) not to be attacked by them, and for Xiongnu to not settle and plundered cities constantly. Li Shi Min decided to make reforms in the army and adapt it to have any chance of defeating the Xiongnu. The army until that moment was formed to a large extent by infantry. China knew that the Xiongnu were skilled archers on horseback and that the reason they could not fight with them was because the Chinese infantry before reaching them were attacked by Xiongnu arrows, the infantry was decimated before they could fight body to body. That's why China decided to buy horses from the Xiongnu, who had very fast and resistant ones thanks to that since they were foals they trained them for war. After buying enough and having trained an army of archers for about three years, he organized campaigns against Xiongnu that after long struggles in which they were defeated ceased to be a threat to the empire. China, who had perfected himself and was a mortal warrior, left Xiongnu wounded to the death, which, bleeding, went north and did not return until death came. And China felt strong and unstoppable.
After defeating the Xiongnu, the empire experienced an era of splendor and power. The empire had a prosperous economy and the population was rich and happy with the government, because of the land-distribution reforms that Li Shi Min did. In the current Chinese teaching books it is said that during the time of Li Shi Min, even if people left the door of their house open, nobody would steal it because everyone had great fortunes. At that time the empire was one of the richest and most advanced in the world of that time. This is why China remembers Li Shi Min as one of the best emperors of his life and did not give much importance to how he ascended the throne, something he had done before. That the Chinese poetry had its maximum splendor in this dynasty is because people having money were dedicated to travel to places that were beautiful and that they served to inspire and write beautiful poems.
During the Tang Dynasty, China went with all his splendor to visit his little brother Japan, who was amazed with the greatness of his older brother, and a strange feeling arose in the being of Japan, a feeling that would be transformed into something that China should face, and life would be hard with both brothers, and more with China, who being with his brother in those days knew something of this, and said that Japan was being on earth that he loved the most. Japan was the one China loved the most, and that is why cruelty would be the destiny of both.
After the Tang dynasty, because of complex and pride, relations between China and Japan were dramatically opposed, although both loved and wanted each other. China taught martial arts to Japan and impregnated on him something of his being, but Japan wanted to be unique, Japan claimed to be a son of the Sun and China claimed to be a son of Heaven, and their destinies were separated, although China always waited for him to return.
It was during these times, where China, with a little more connection with the rest of the world, in that, not only was visited by the Byzantine Empire with which he learned of the death of Da Quin (Roman Empire), but also knew the Sassanid Empire, that went to visit him, and also, China began to sail by the West. All cultures developed ships in their time, but China was the first to do so in childhood. China came up with that idea when, a long time ago, he was sitting near a fort watching the ducks swim. When he observed them, he saw the movements they made in his swim and how he did it, and from there he had the idea of making objects similar to the ducks that glided through the water, that is how Chinese boats were born for the first time a long time ago. But China little sailed, since the world seemed very dull and boring. Nothing compared to him, to his wonderful being, thought China. Therefore, China ordered to burn all the boats since nothing interesting was in the world. However, during the Tang Dynasty, China was forced by his own context to travel. During these trips, China reached the eastern coasts of Africa.
But as always, nothing impressed him more than his own selfhood.
-Empress Wu Zetian: the Tang dynasty was briefly interrupted when, one of the emperor's concubines, upon his death, she proclaimed herself empress and imposed her own dynasty. Given this, China was surprised and stunned.
Wu Zetian had been the concubine of two emperors, father and son. The emperors had official consorts and then several concubines, as was the tradition. And despite the fact that many women had influence over the emperors, none went so far as to be named Regent Empress, running sideways to her own son. When she usurped the throne, everyone was scandalized, especially the moralists, who didn't look kindly on a woman in power. But China, even though she was a usurper and meddled at such a time in her life, China admired her, although he never said it. China did not hate her and actually spent time by her side. The Empress established poetry as an indispensable requirement to access official positions. And in the time that she was empress, China kept her in his heart.
Finally, in the year 705, at the age of 80, a few months before her death, the Empress was forced to abdicate, and the Tang Dynasty continued. China never forgot her.
And China boasted in his state, while the Tang Dynasty was the largest of all, China ruled Asia, along with India, and was by far the most powerful nation in the world at that time. While he and India ruled powerful Asia and the world's trade routes, while in America the great empires rose, Europe was the most backward place in the world.
But like everything, everything changes, and the splendor of China would soon dim.
-Battle of Talas: during the Tang dynasty China had begun a great expansionism that had led him to influence Central Asia and almost the Middle East, however, soon, in his expansionism led him to run into the masters of the region, the Muslim Arabs. This battle took place in the year 751, when China came across the Caliphate of Abbasi, and it was there that he decided his destiny. The power of the time was undoubtedly China, India, and the Muslim Arabs, and this battle marked the strongest. Due to the decline of the dynasty and the strength of the Muslim world, China, in the battle account, not only experienced betrayals and setbacks, but felt the scimitars of the Arabs nailed to his body. Not even with his struggle and power could China, and it was there that his influence on Western Central Asia ended.
Bleeding, China returned to his home, where fate awaited him.
-Rebellion of An Lushan: It during the Tang Dinasty that a rebellion happened that was considered to be the bloodiest event of humanity in which 15% of the world's population died at the time. It was a military rebellion that took place in China between 756 and 763. The rebellion shook China who anguished and wounded, saw how the blood stained the silks of his clothes.
The rebellion encompassed the reign of three emperors. The first emperor, Xuanzong, had to leave with his court the capital Chang'an and fled towards Sichuan. During the flight, his soldiers demanded that he order the killing of the famous concubine Yang Guifei and his cousin, Yang Guozhong.
Emperor Suzong, son of Xuanzong, was proclaimed emperor by the army and the eunuchs of the itinerant court while another group of Confucian local and enlightened officers proclaimed another prince in Jinling (now Nanking).
The rebellion was suppressed during the reign of Daizong by generals Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi. Despite being victorious against the rebellion, the Tang dynasty was greatly weakened by it and in successive years was affected by the growing power of military leaders, and China saw his splendor began to disrobe as delicate silk.
The internal economic instability and the subsequent rebellion of An Lushan signaled the beginning of the military decline for the Tang empire. The appreciable system of land distribution, which characterized the first years, disappeared and the peasants, who previously supported the military by paying taxes, were forced to move and fight in the border areas. More and more, the resources fell into the hands of the army, who achieved great independence from the central government and greater control of the economy. This happened, as well as the rebellion of An Lushan, because the military and landowners wanted to have control and privileges again.
The loss of effective power by the state, which had had to make concessions to the military and border towns to end the rebellion, as with China's cousin, Tibet, meant that effective control over the territory's resources was reduced. A drastic way. The centralized and strong state model that the Tangs had implanted collapsed, and a strong and centralized state would not exist again until the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in the 20th century.
The time came when bad government, court intrigues, economic exploitation and military rebellions weakened the empire, allowed the military commander Zhu Wen to seize the throne to found his own dynasty in the year 907. In this way, it began a new period of fragmentation in the history of China: The period of the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms, the last fragmentation that China would live, before facing his imminent destiny.
The Tang dynasty, the most glorious in China, lasted from 618 to 907.
-Period of the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms:
When the situation became untenable for the Tang dynasty, Zhu Wen had the last Tang emperor killed, and he founded his own dynasty, the Liang Dynasty.
After the end of the Tang dynasty, with the founding of the Liang dynasty in northern China, began a stage of instability that would see happen five short dynasties in northern China (later Liang dynasty, later Tang dynasty, later Jin Dynasty, later Han dynasty and later Zhou dynasty), whereas in the south ten independent kingdoms appeared. At this time, from 907 to 960, China remembered this period of his life as "period of the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms", and it was a stage where China had to lower his fumes of greatness and begin to be realistic, since new problems would come to him.
The Five Dynasties (called Wu Dai, in the north) and the Ten States (called Shi Guo, in the south), refer to the kingdoms formed both in the north, Wu Dai, and in the south, Shi Guo. The five dynasties were: Liang, Tang, Jin, Han and Zhou, which make up the Five Dynasties. It is from the fall of the Tang Dynasty when a swinging movement began, in which the south will replace the north from a point of view not only economic but also political and artistic. The north was continually threatened eternally by invasions, which led to its inhabitants fleeing to the south, where they felt protected from the barbarians and where they could develop economically through agriculture or trade. Among the invading peoples the kitanes prevailed over the rest and began to annoy China, who represented mostly the northern dynasties. The kitanes extended geographically from the present Manchuria to the province of Hebei, conquering the city of Yu (today, Beijing); and as its power was very great that allowed him to demand a tribute to the Jin dynasty and continue his conquests to the south, leaving China extorted by the tribes of the north. Together with the kitanes, with a smaller force and presence, a people from Tibet, cousin of China, the Shato, was established. Through their military might they imposed their forms of government and customs on the Han, residing their value in their military might, instead of the reason and strength of their culture. While in the north they were creating more or less solid political structures that hinted at the possibility of a reunification, and because they paid tribute to the tribes of the north so that they would not attack them, the Ten Kingdoms of the South (Shi Guo) were weakened by small wars of conquest, facilitating the invasion of the northern kingdoms.
In short, China was divided into five dynasties to the north and ten to the south. As the northern dynasties were attacked by the northern tribes the south was able to flourish economically and culturally, since the tribes never went so far south. However, when the northern dynasties began to pay tribute to the tribes of the north and their relationship improved, the south fell into wars and fights with different Tibetan peoples.
China would not see a new attempt of reunification until the year 960, where Zhao Kuangyin (Emperor Daizu, later), initiated the process of unification of the country, inaugurating a new dynasty, the Song.
-Song Dynasty:
In the year 960, the military of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin, founded the Song Dynasty, continuation of the five dynasties that followed one another in the north after the fall of the Tang. This dynasty, which established its capital at Kaifeng, managed to conquer the ten southern kingdoms and reunify much of the territory that had previously been under Tang sovereignty. And China, faced with this really believed that a new reunification would take place, but in reality it was not so. This dynasty lasted from the year 960 to the year 1279.
During the Song period, there were three important states formed by non-Chinese ethnic groups in the north. The Kitán would found the Liao dynasty in the northeast. In the northwest, the Tangut found the Western Xia Dynasty. The third of these states, and the most important, would be the Jin Dynasty, founded by the Jurchen who would conquer northern China, forcing the Song to flee to the south in the year 1127. These three states adopted the Chinese dynastic model, so traditional Chinese historiography includes them in the lists of dynasties. And these three states became dangerous and annoying neighbors of China (Song dynasty), although they always united among themselves if the Mongols approached.
The Song period could be divided into two parts: "Song of the North", until 1127, when the dynasty controlled the main part of the historical territory of China, and "Song of the South", from 1127 to 1279, period during which the court Song had to take refuge in the south, establishing the capital in the current Hangzhou, after the defeat against the Jin. From the south, China maintained the objective of reconquering the north, but they could never face the military superiority of the Altaic peoples (Mongolia).
The reunification of China would occur, in the future, thanks to the conquest of Chinese territory by another foreign people from the north: the Mongols.
For reasons of foreign policy had two capitals, the first was Pian (today Kaifeng) in the province of Henan, where the Northern Song Dynasty reigned from 960 to 1127. By the advance of the kitanes and the Mongols to the south it was advised to move the capital to Linan (now Hangzhou) in Zhejiang Province, beginning a second period called Song of the South.
During the Song dynasty arose the intellectual and artistic Renaissance Song, due to the development of internal and external trade, as well as political measures channeled towards coexistence with the peoples of the north through the payment of taxes.
The Minister of Emperor Shenzhong, Wang Anshi, was the one who developed these reforms with the Memorandum of Ten Thousand Words or the articulation of social change appropriate to the new times.
During the Song dynasty there was a great development of trade. The use of money became widespread, and the movement of people and merchandise within the country increased dramatically. This increase in trade leads to the appearance of large cities.
Even so, there would be something that China did not like at all: there was an absence of social mobility, by the establishment of an enlightened class (Shih) on the rigid examination system; this was one of the reasons why Technological and economic innovations was not the engine of social change, as happened in Europe. Wang Anshi, with his political and economic reforms, tried to provide the mercantile class (Shang) with sufficient power in order to counteract the lack of movement of the Shih, that is why he introduced the State knowledge technical and scientific, ignored until that time. It also favored the development of paper money and bills of exchange, in order to facilitate trade between the different regions, as well as protect small landowners and peasants by balancing the tax burden. He developed the system of granaries, as a pantry of the State. The development of internal communications and navigation favored economic development, but were not effective in stopping the military advance of the peoples of the north.
In the year 1127, after the capture of Emperor Huizong and the Empress Regent, the court fled to the city of Nanking and from there to Hangzhou, where it was provisionally established. The city of Hangzhou became thanks to the Song dynasty in a rich city and the most populated in the world at that time, with a way of life quite different from the north, due to the development of its monetary economy and the export of tea and porcelain.
Despite the political and territorial setbacks suffered by the tired and mature China during this period, great things also arose for him when no one expected it yet, but China already had it: Gunpowder, which used to be used for fireworks in China, was now fully implemented in the military. The Chinese lance and cannon fire already had them while in Europe they were still fighting with arrows and swords. Medicine explored a great boom in China, and wind and hydraulic power became popular. Advanced mathematics, cartography, and sailing continued as advanced in China as ever. The Chinese of the Song era were experienced sailors who traveled by ports of call reaching as far away as the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. They were very well equipped for their trips abroad, with large sea-going ships directed by rudders located in the stern, and guided by compasses. China was the first of all to locate the True North. Without the world noticing, China suffered early industrialization and was, silently, for a long time, the power of the world. The only reason why few knew that China was the power was because China was a disinterested and discreet power.
And so, in difficult times, China had to let go of his whims and move on even in his not so good times. And soon, while China continued with life, a double-edged yoke would fall. Because great would be his annoyance and pain, but in turn, it would be for him the key to complete unification. The dynasty ended with the military victory of the Mongols and the beginning of the Yuan dynasty. By the time he wanted to react, he had Mongolia face him, in his own house, and when he wanted to get away, Mongolia already had him tight.
-Yuan Dynasty, the marriage of China:
While China was on his own, he did not know that his destiny was not different from many, he would also suffer like everyone else. In the north, Mongolia had unified and had begun one of the greatest empires in the history of mankind. And one of the first to suffer it would be China.
Under the great Mongol leader Genghis Khan, the Mongol conquests came to unite under his rule territories as distant as Eastern Europe, Iran and China. By the time China realized, Mongolia conquered and killed the western Xia state, and defeated / killed the weak Jin dynasty in 1234. And soon he fixed his dark gaze on China, who when meeting the eyes of his feared cousin, his enemy of life, his heart jumped.
When Mongolia tried to capture China, he slipped away and fled to the south, believing that he would not reach him, but this time there was no way out.
The Mongol Empire had been divided into four administrative zones or Khanates. One of them, the Great Khanate, occupied a large part of the territory of present-day China and Mongolia. In the year 1271 the Great Kublai Khan founded a dynasty in the Chinese style, under the name Yuan, with capital in Beijing.
And when he did this, China gave him a chill, with panic he sensed what was coming.
When Mongolia approached to capture him, China rose up trying to defend against him, and there was the Naval Battle of Yamen, in the year 1279, where the new Yuan Dynasty of Mongolia and the Song Dynasty of China clashed ... and China lost.
Cruel and decisive was the battle and China fallen to Mongolia, who captured him with pleasure. The Song dynasty had fallen, now China was under the power of Mongolia, under the Yuan Dynasty, although China never accepted it. He fought, kicked, struggled and screamed. China had always seen his cousin Mongolia as his greatest enemy, so he had built the Great Wall over time, and now, finally being in his hands was like a bad joke, a bad end to his poetry, which was his life. But Mongolia was happy and satisfied; he had always wanted to capture China for anger and resentment. China insulted him and spat in his face, refusing to Mongolia. And suddenly, Mongolia fell on him, hold us tightly, and harshly told him that his grudge against him was because China always despised him, always treated him as inferior, "barbarian", but now he was the largest empire, more than the ancient love of China, the Da Quin (Roman Empire), and China heard his words with pain and surprise. China had always been considered the most illustrious and great of humanity, and had always treated the peoples of the north as barbarians and uncivilized, China was always very discriminating and with this he knew that it was true, that what Mongolia said was partly true, but China didn't want to accept it and more than once wanted to escape, in vain.
Being China under the Mongol power and being part of his empire, Mongolia took China as his trophy, and soon, forced him to marry him. It was there when China knew what was to be conquered, what was decadence. At the time he was his husband, he didn't love Mongolia. The Mongol always went to the west to conquer and left China, who in his solitude cried and cried for his fate.
As Mongolia was in love with China in a vengeful manner, he was especially to invade Japan, because he knew that China loved him over anyone. China asked him not to do it but out of jealousy, Mongolia went to Japan and China cried for it with anger and anguish. But great was his surprise and pride when he learned that Japan had liberated himself from Mongolia.
And yet, even after the conquest, of the complicated past of both and everything he detested of Mongolia, China was touched in heart when he learned that Mongolia was trying to be like him to please him. The Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty had several Chinese teachers of the Han tribe hired by them. Mongolia sought the advice of Buddhist Chinese and Confucian counselors. Mongolia built schools for Confucian scholars, issued paper money, revived Chinese rituals and approved policies that stimulated agricultural and commercial growth. And because of this, because of Mongolia's attempts, although China didn't show it, he came to love him.
The Mongol Empire was divided into four khanates or administrative areas, which actually recognized the Great Khanate (Great State) of Mongolia and China, but the other three, were quite independent and autonomous. The small Russia, of whom China heard about his husband's side, was among the khanates and parts of the Mongol empire. It was at that time that, although not known, China and the small Russia were within the same empire and same situation, under the same lord: Mongolia, and China didn't imagine the fate that it would give him and the little Russian.
No matter how great the Mongol Empire has been and that even China came to love him as a husband, things didn't go well for the Yuan dynasty at the end. The Mongol emperors had to face the difficult task of governing a society very different from theirs. They classified the population into various ethnic categories and, after a period of interruption, they resumed imperial examinations to recruit officials for the administration. The Yuan period was marked by great social instability, a situation aggravated by natural disasters, such as floods in the valley of the Yellow River, which caused famine, and also by the epidemic of plague, which affected a large part of the territory.
By the time the Mongol Empire fell into decline, and Mongolia was weaker, China knew how that would end. And despite the affection that took for his Mongol husband, China had well in mind his desire, a desire only for him. When Mongolia left China to go to war somewhere, that was the last time they saw each other as husbands, and while Mongolia leaved on his horse, China reached him and handed him a bunch of Peonies, and said scornfully: "Wǒ de màoxiǎn hěn bàng, wǒ de ài. Dàn tā jiéshùle."* And from there, Mongolia left and China did not wait for him again. Finally, China would be China, China and no one else. The period of the Yuan Dynasty and the marriage of China with his cousin Mongolia lasted from 1271 to 1368.
-Ming Dynasty, industrialized China, the first true industrial revolution:
The social disorder of the end of the Yuan dynasty provoked numerous rebellions against the Mongols. China did his best to deal with this and sought a solution. Soon, China fervently supported a rebel leader of humble origin, Zhu Yuanzhang, who in the face of the Mongol decay and rebellions that made the Yuan dynasty collapse, founded the Ming Dynasty in 1368, establishing the capital at Nanking. And with this, China and Mongolia separated. Never again did China see him in the same way as at any time in his life, and Mongolia did not feel the same about China either. Now, as a person released, China returned to his own. But as always, the beginning of every dynasty is difficult. This dynasty lasted from 1368 to the year 1644.
Zhu Yuanzhang, the new emperor, would be succeeded, after a brief civil war, by his son Emperor Yongle, who moved the capital to Beijing.
Emperor Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty, who died at the age of 71, survived the death of the Empress and her son and heir for five years. Dozens of concubines were burned alive at his funeral and buried with him, which disturbed China a little when he heard their cries of pain and terror while the fire of the bonfire illuminated the night.
During the Ming Dynasty, China would become the first maritime power in the world. The whole time that China was under Mongolia, in wars and civil wars, everything was a setback that made China feel oppressed and reduced, but now, with no one, China exploded in everything he could.
In economic, industrial, commercial, arts and philosophy, China returned to the power.
In the economic sphere, paper currency fell into disuse during the Ming period, due to the inflation problems it generated, and silver began to be used. From these moments, China understood before all that paper money only generated problems and debt.
China rearmed his marina and along with the famous navigator Zheng He, China decided to remove the doubt and see the world environment at last. And China did it. As a marine power of the time, before Spain was, China toured with his arms Asia, Africa, and even came to America. China was making a map of the world, and was removing from each place some rarity to take her home. Pre-Columbus Chinese maps show things of what is now Argentina, which clearly proves that the Chinese, thanks to Admiral Zheng He, were aware of America at least 70 years before Europe. And despite this, China kept seeing the world dull and boring. But at least he was happy, because from being a Mongolian husband to be free was a big step, although traces of the past would always remain in him. Despite China's disinterest in the world, he admired Zheng He, who was curiously Muslim. During the Ming Dynasty, thanks to his trade and new contact with the world after the Mongols, religions such as Islam came to China but did not have much impact. Despite having seen the world, and having contact again by trade, China began to be strict with whom he traded. The trade became his hobby and a way to know the world without having to leave his house.
As he began to be strict with it, a sure trade route was with his brother Japan, and for his happiness, Japan agreed to trade with him. Thus, after centuries, their relationship resumed, but nothing was the same. Sadly, China saw that his brother changed tin. Because of battles and wars, Japan was now cold and unscrupulous, and China did not know what he was thinking about but at least he was happy to walk with his brother again.
During this period his bad relationship with the Mongols came back, where China became obsessed with fortifying the Great Wall and new fights against them in the north took place. In addition, he soon began what would be his bad relationship with his other cousin, Tibet. The Ming dynasty was very arbitrary with Tibet and there was a popularization of Taoism over Buddhism in China, which pitted China against Tibet. There were sporadic military advances from China to Tibet but he could not continue as Mongolia interposed between them as protector of Tibet. These were one of the first altercations that Tibet and China had, but they would have many more in the future.
During the Ming Dynasty, the famous Forbidden City was built.
During this time, China industrialized like no other country before. Firearms, guns, gunpowder, industrial furnaces, the first mechanical machines emerged in China. Printing and mechanics became totally common. China industrialized; China was really the first real industrial revolution. China had everything, trade was just a hobby because China literally had everything, and that was why he was not forgiven.
When Spain and his brother Portugal became the powers in Europe and in America, they soon visited Great China, but they could do little. Europeans could do nothing or say to China, who was the real power and who had everything. In fact, Europeans practically begged China, since no reasonable deal could be made since China did not need anything from them. China saw the Europeans as small ants but also saw the danger in them. When Portugal and Spain wanted to conquer him through religion, sending missionaries to China, they also failed. The Chinese, cults in philosophy, criticized Christianity suspiciously and refused to abandon Buddhism and Taoism. In addition, they already had enough of monotheism with Islam. When Portugal tried to amaze him with the Greek sciences he realized that China already knew everything and was even more advanced in science and medicine than they and the ancient Greeks. With shame and envy, the Europeans could do nothing more than beg sporadically to China, who watched from above. The gunpowder and the first European firearms brought them from China, where industrialization was.
And although it was not very noticeable that China was the power because he had a big disinterest in the world, China was the most powerful of all. But soon someone would make his life impossible. When England began to compete with Spain, he made the same mistake of believing that China would need him. Laughing, China sent a letter to the King of England telling him that he understood the desire of the English, who came from a tiny island, to want to go to them, the Chinese, but that he was disinterested and needed nothing of them. Faced with such humiliating rejection, England, embarrassed to the teeth, swore to make China fall at any rate, but together with France, for a long time they had to prostrate themselves before China and beg since nothing could be done against China and without China.
China was the industrial power of the world, had the Europeans begging himand in spite of everything, was not smart enough to see the future that awaited him, didn't see the glare of the eyes of England. And China would pay the price for underestimating them and for believing that he would never fall in the way he fell. His destiny was approaching him.
-Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty of China:
The destiny of China was approaching, and he, blinded in his pride, could never foresee what destiny had in store for him, when in fact, the truth was always before his eyes. By the time China realized his future, in the year 1644, the Qing dynasty, coming from Manchuria, conquered Beijing.
This dynasty, destined to give continuity to a political system whose origin is lost in the centuries, was foreign, coming from Manchuria, and was never considered proper by the Chinese population and was always denied in the eyes of China.
The origins of the Qing Dynasty are in the Jurc people, the same that in the 12th century invaded China establishing the ephemeral domination of the Jin. In 1635, a few years before ruling the country, the Jurchens, organized in the steppes of Manchuria, adopted the name of Manchus. Their project to replace the Ming dynasty was slowly forged inside and outside its borders. In the first place, they created a political and military organization uniting the different tribes under the command of Nurhachi; their economic base was based on the control of certain very valuable merchandise, such as pearls, precious stones, skins, which gave them a wealth capable of sustaining their territorial ambitions. The administrative and political base was created based on an organization based on military units, which followed the model of the Chinese garrisons. Like the Mughal Emperor Kublai Khan, Nurhachi surrounded himself with Chinese advisors, thus allowing a rapid assimilation of Chinese culture and tradition. In this way it was not difficult for him to get the alliance of other Mughal peoples and to direct his gaze towards the conquest of China. On the other hand, the instability in the last years of the Ming dynasty had favored the intrusion in Chinese territory of the Manchus armies like allied forces of the emperor against the internal disturbances. This situation caused that the Manchu had like final aim to supplant to the Ming dynasty, which they obtained in 1644 after the flight of the Ming court towards the south and the suicide of the emperor Kangx. By the time all this happened, China was already in the hands of the Qing Dynasty and his destiny signed.
In China, the Qing Dynasty has been considered a very oppressive dynasty. Manchus imposed their style of hairdo and its form to dress to the Chinese population, and the Manchu language was used for the most important subjects in the court, dominated by the class leader of Manchu origin. All this greatly angered China who protested and kept a special grudge against this dynasty. But what China did not know was that his destiny and his life would take a huge turnaround very soon.
With the passing of time, and under the oppressive Qing Dynasty, China began an expansionism and military force that allowed his to have under his rule his younger sister Taiwan, Tibet and Mongolia. With this, added to the abundance and population of him, he made his dislike for the Qing go to the background. The Chinese army became infallible. However, the problems for China were not long in coming back: the social order that had ruled China since time immemorial was the confucianism that maintained the culture and Chinese society molded. However, soon this social order was completely broken, generating a great instability in China, who began to feel anxious and desperate. His only salvation was when Neo-Confucianism became popular, which was implanted in society by the Qing to keep the social environment calm. However, China had other serious problems, they were, without doubt, the beginning of his downfall: in the eighteenth century England had become the marine power of the world, and as if it were a hungry dog, he didn't take long to carry out colonialism everywhere he could. And England knew well, that his biggest rival for the moment was China. Only China prevailed in power against England but England could do nothing against China directly. He had tried to blackmail him economically and even impose himself militarily but he could never, China was untouchable and infallible, but not by much. England was smart and had a plan that was literally malevolent. China was very upset when England invaded and put India under his power. England wanted India because he was a very convenient strategic place for him. In what remained of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, China was harassed in vain by England, who having no result with China took his plan under his sleeve: opium.
England was small compared to China, but he was mortally intelligent. England, to annoy and indignation of India began to cultivate opium to market it for East Asia. Faced with this drug, to which China knew how harmful and bad it was for people, banned the opium trade in him.
England smuggled opium to China and smuggled it from India. And soon, his plan was working, the Chinese began to become addicted to opium, but he too. Faced with the illegal action and the smuggling of opium by England to China, he, tired and angry, wrote a letter to the Queen of England, Queen Victoria, asking her to please leave him in peace. But obviously, this didn't happen. England wanted to introduce opium in China and break the temper of the Chinese, make them dependent on him something, and so he would win. And that China prohibited opium did not stop him at all, but even served to justify an armed conflict with him. Soon, feigning outrage, England, claiming that China was ruining his business, declared war on him, and China, with eyes wide open in surprise, fell into England's bait.
-Opium Wars 1839-1842 / 1856-1860:
When in the mind of England was to destroy China because in those days, before the German Empire existed, was his greatest rival and enemy both economically and in other aspects, nothing would stop him. As villainous as it sounds, England put together a game where it would destroy China from within. And China, who underestimated Westerners, couldn't see it.
Soon, the English extended their cultivation by his possessions in India, using it as currency for the Chinese tea more and more demanded in the metropolis. The consequences of this trade were disastrous for the Chinese economy, since less and less money was entering the state coffers, causing a deficit in his trade balance on the one hand, and on the other, corruption among officials increased considerably as it went up the number of addicts. The situation reached such an extreme that it was the determining cause of China's first war with a Western power (England) and the beginning of imperialism in Chinese territory. China, sick with opium inside, would discover the pain, the real pain, and England, with pleasure would present it to him as soon as possible. Soon the war began.
China was infallible and his army was strong, but not if they were all addicted to opium. England knew this and that is why he did everything. A dirty play but in the end, for the misfortune of many, it worked. Slowly China watched as his world, the fantastic world of his life was falling down, while he saw the malicious smile of the Englishman and felt every part of his body in an extreme pain by the effects of the opium. The consumption of opium causes the system to stop producing the substances that keep the body protected and alert. With addiction, the body stops producing this substance and the body is weakened and totally exposed, in a terrible pain. And China suffered like no one, although England could not get away from his own game and also became addicted. England was strong, the strongest at that time, and China was weak and decayed like a weak leaf, which saw how with the blood of his own and their world was corroded by the West. And China lost miserably, and that was the end of his greatness. Before China was still standing and he was the only obstacle in England, but now, he had finally fallen as well. And England did not take long to deal with it, while China fell in dismay, without understanding what really happened.
The First Opium War (1839-1842) ended with the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing, the first of the so-called Unequal Treaties, by which China, through tears and blood, had to give England to his younger brother Hong Kong, to pay compensation of 21 million dollars of silver and to open to the commerce the ports of Amoy, Shanghai, Canton and Ningbo, falling the economy of China at the hands of England and that meant everything. Now China was a vassal of England, and vassal is a euphemism for what he really was.
And although China became after the First Opium War an economic vassal of England, being pressured and harassed in every way, China until the middle of the nineteenth century had the naive hope of autonomy and freedom returned. But then this hope would be crushed.
Soon, China in his last attempt of rebellion, had another war against England that also revolved around the destructive opium.
In the 1850s there was a rapid growth of imperialism. Some shared objectives among Western powers include expanding their overseas markets and establishing new ports of call. Both the French agreement known as the Huangpu Treaty and the US pact called the Wangxia Treaty contain clauses that allow the renegotiation of these treaties after twelve years. In an effort to expand militarily on China, England asked the authorities of the Qing dynasty to renegotiate what was agreed in the Treaty of Nanking, in 1854. The British demands included being able to exercise free trade throughout China, legalize the commercialization of opium; abolish the taxes to foreigners for the internal transit, to regulate the traffic of coolies (Workers semi-slaves) and to allow the British ambassador to reside in Beijing, among other things. China, with tears in his eyes of indignation, rejected the demands presented by England, France and the United States. For all this, the Second Opium War broke out (1856-1860) which can be considered as a continuation of the First Opium War (1839-1842).
This war, no matter how much the opium excuse was used again, was a clear attempt by England and France, masters of the world at that time, to expand militarily on China. Even if England had won the first opium war by economically reducing China like a whore, they still did not have the excuse to invade him militarily and for this reason, they were desperate to make him war, and they succeeded. China put all his efforts in winning, even had hopes, but he could not against France and England, and he lost again. And when he did, officially he was lost, China the greatest of all, had been defeated and reduced, by those who had been the most insignificant at first. After the First Opium War England sabotaged him, and took almost all industrialized things, or imitated them, expanding his own Industrial Revolution, and China was thrown into agony. And when the hands of England and France seized him, China closed his eyes, everything was over for him. China fell into a dark hole where he could not leave until the mid-twentieth century. And all the problems that would mutilate him, that would make his past full of greatness look far away was the fault of the Westerners. Soon, the bloodiest event of the nineteenth century would occur in China.
-Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864):
China was ill for opium, without strength. He was economically reduced to a vassal of England. Added to the bad government of the Qing Dynasty, China had fallen and could not leave his home, being besieged and imprisoned by England.
And soon, he would continue his suffering. The Christian missionaries did not wait when China fell at the foot of England, and went to try to evangelize the Chinese, in a moment of discomfort. It was precisely because of the discomfort of the Chinese that Christianity could finally emerge as it had not been able to before, when China was the power. And soon, the Chinese who converted to Christianity professed a fanatical Christianity.
And soon, this issue would take on great relevance in China. The Taiping Rebellion was a civil war with great religious connotations that took place in China between the years of 1851 and 1864, in which the imperial forces of the Qing Dynasty and the Heavenly Kingdom of the Great Peace faced that occupied during the conflict important zones of southern China.
The Heavenly Kingdom of the Great Peace was a theocratic state ruled by a Chinese Christian named Hong Xiuquan, a Christian convert who proclaimed himself king of the nation and as the new Messiah, even declaring himself the younger brother of Jesus Christ and sent by God to eradicate the cult to the devil in China. Facing such a bizarre situation, added to his great discomfort, China exploded in disbelief and in deep anger. With the few remaining forces he went to war and was in each battle, where with his weapons he annihilated every follower of Hong Xiuquan and every Christian Chinese supporter of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace. Of peace and celestial it had nothing, and China without mercy, by the wounds and pain that he had to endure, he annihilated them all, one by one. And China almost fell dead too, spitting blood and on the verge of unconsciousness, because what happened there was very bloody. The death toll in this war reached 50 million, this conflict being considered as the bloodiest war before the Second World War and bloodier than the Great War.
China, despite triumphing and emerging victorious, bathed in blood and even addicted to opium, left evidence of the social and economic volatility that China suffered during the second half of the nineteenth century, which would trigger subsequent rebellions and overthrow the Imperial government in 1911 with the Xinhai Revolution.
But it was missing for it, and when more China suffered, more England tried to abuse him.
-Dismembered, prostituted and mutilated China:
After having lost the opium wars, after having fallen into the addiction that England controlled, after his economic denigration, after having given Hong Kong to the English, and after having lived through one of the bloodiest passages in his history, China was lost. England controlled him as he wanted. He soon entered his house and imposed himself. England hated him because he had been over him. England hated all authority other than his own. He had hated the Catholic Church, and had created the Anglican Reformation conveniently. England hated anyone who was above him because he was a maniac of power, and he hated China to death just because he knew he had been bigger than him, bigger than he would ever understand. And for that reason, when he had China so weak at his mercy, he soon enjoyed it. He entered his house and slapped him, kicked, and insulted, until he was able to rape him. He reduced China in a degrading way, one that made China hate him with all his being. Also, since he knew what it meant (because he had lived it in person), England gave China a little to France, and did to China many things that China didn't want to talk about or remember.
Both abused China in an inhuman way. Most of the population fell into extreme poverty, the girls had to prostitute themselves or die of hunger and the foreigners came to destroy everything and above with discrimination. Imperialism and colonialism was like someone entering your house, beating and raping you, emptying your refrigerator, sitting at your table and in the pit will be discriminated against you. When foreigners entered China, they treated the Chinese with enormous discrimination, as if they were superior, and doing so was an act of total ignorance. England forced China to sleep in the mud, played tricks on him to humiliate him and in fact it was very common that in bars the signs said "Forbidden the entrance to dogs and Chinese", until that point China was humiliated. Sometimes England invited China to eat together in the same table, with France and the Netherlands, and always humiliated him as much as he could in front of others. France laughed and Holland was silent. And China, devastated, hated them all to death. A completely everyone, abused both economically and politically, prostituted and abused, beaten and reduced to the category of a dog, China found how cruel could be the Westerners and how deep was the dark hole in which he was. A deadly hatred was born in the heart of China.
Even so, England still had the propriety not to treat China as if he were a colony, making he believe that he was still a free nation.
In the political, after the mortal defeats that supposed the Wars of the Opium, a new leader emerged: Empress Dowager Cixi. Cixi was the concubine of Emperor Xianfeng, mother of Emperor Tongzhi, and aunt of Emperor Guangxu. From the beginning, she controlled the Qing Government and was the de facto ruler of China for 47 years. Sometimes China loved her because of the Empress Dowager's insistence on preserving China without Western influence. But sometimes China hated her since her actions only made him worse.
The empress bequeathed to carry out a coup to expel Sushun from the regency, designated as such by the last emperor. She was known as the "ruler behind the curtain" in Qing politics, as she told her son, the emperor, what to do from behind a curtain.
During this time that he was under the precarious tutelage of England, and as there were no political parties proper, a lot of secret societies were formed, like the ancestral secret society of White Lotus, among others, and all had the goal of getting up at some point against the imperialism that was beginning to destroy China. And this one, in spite of sometimes not being able to stand up, he was very active in the societies and had in mind at some point to get rid of imperialism.
During the 1860s, the Qing dynasty had conquered social rebellions with the help of organized militias. The Qing Government then proceeded to deal with the problem of modernization, which it sought with the "Self-Movement". Several modernized armies were formed, such as the Beiyang Army. And when China believed at least a little that things at least could not get worse, they got much worse.
To worsen his situation and morals, the Berlin Congress soon took place, where the European powers, including Japan, planned to divide parts of China. China was present but was not part of the decision table, and he cry bitterly watching as even his brother participated in his partition. China felt miserable. "It's what happens when you're too big for spiteful insects," China thought of his situation. His only slight consolation was to think that the young German Empire stayed with him, because he liked him more than England, and China had a bit of fun watching the Englishman writhe with envy and fear before the young German, who was his new rival now. But China would never suffer anyone, and the destiny would continue to be beaten until China said Enough!
-First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895):
There came a time when Western games would afflict China with his cruel destiny, one that would make heart break completely. Soon, China, completely tired and exhausted, saw something that made his eyes fill with tears: his brother Japan had also been approached by Westerners, but instead of making him a vassal they made him an ally of them. And now, Japan, forced to play the game, faced his older brother, the one who loved him the most. China felt disgust and a deep sadness for everything. In his eyes, Japan was also a victim of Westerners and should do what they ordered and that is why, despite that war, China didn't hate him.
Japan, now the Empire of Japan, wanted to expand so as not to be left behind with respect to the Westerners, and set his sights on his brother Korea. Korea, most of the time, was a vassal / satellite state of China and soon, Japan wanted him just for his own. When this happened, to the sadness of China, began the cruel war that pitted these two brothers, three if count Korea. Japan was industrialized and had the upper hand over China, who was drugged by opium, beaten and wounded by everything that happened and even so, China proving to be the biggest, fought in the war firmly with his modernized Beiyang fleet. Soon Japan gave a coup d'état to Korea to put a pro-Japanese government, but China with force interposed himself. Enraged by everything, the Nagasaki Incident happened, where China went to that port city and bombed it, killing many people. And when Japan reproached him, China annoyed with his brother, refused to apologize. But China's destiny would be to keep falling and falling. China lost the war, and Japan enjoyed it very much. While China cried of impotence, it was signed that he handed Taiwan to Japan and Korea ceased to be a vassal state of China, now being under the influence of Japan.
China lamented and wept, what he did to him was cruel. To make him addicted to opium, to make him a vassal that would benefit the interests of the English, and now, to make him fall more for his brother, his dearest brother. And even though China was filled with hatred, he could not yet hate his brother Japan, whom he thought was another victim of Westerners. China felt a deep pain for the fate of both.
And soon, China could not take it anymore. From the Opium Wars, the economically prostitution, of the imperialism that devoured everything, and the discrimination and mistreatment that he suffered, added to the devastating Sino-Japanese war, made in the wounded and mistreated heart of China a terrible hatred was born, a very strong one, which would make China finally reveal himself, but in vain as well: the Boxer rebellion.
-Rebellion of the Boxers and the Death by a thousand cuts:
Between the years 1899 and 1901, the fearsome rebellion of the Boxers arose, an ultra nationalist Chinese uprising. It was logical that such an extreme rebellion should arise considering the political and social economic situation in China at that time. The so-called Boxers were Chinese who fervently wished to expel foreigners, eliminate Christianity from China and keep Chinese culture intact. The Boxers were characterized by their xenophobia and hatred towards the West because of all the evil they did to China. The Boxers wore swords and exercised Kung Fu as a fight.
When this terrible rebellion took place, China made the mistake of supporting and joining them. Along with the Boxers, China took 500 missionaries and Westerners hostage and murdered them as a message to Westerners. In this act of extreme rebellion, led by his rancor and pain for everything, China began to try to expel the invaders and to preserve as always had been able to do before. The Boxers were secretly financed by Cixi, the Empress Dowager. And China really believed that with such an act of rebellion, with such a nationalist uprising could stop the advance of Occidentalism on him, and could, finally, return to be free. But his mistake was big. This rebellion, however anti-foreign, to the Westerners served they well, and in fact, it was the key that England so much sought: to lead them to the military invasion of China. Now, with the justification that the Chinese were violent and that they murdered missionaries and Westerners, England and theirs had the perfect excuse to invade China, and China would know that all of that were a big mistake. England formed the Eight-Nation Alliance, which were England, France, the United States, the young German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, Russia and even Japan, and they all invaded China at the same time and China would finally know the punishment that it implied his rebellion.
China and the Westerns lived in their own flesh, while screaming in desperation and pain, the Death by a thousand cuts, which was to kill a person in thousands of pieces while still living. All the powers that invaded him punished him and China to they in this way. And they bathed in blood and pain. Thousands of Chinese died in this way at the hands of the invading Westerners. Although officially there were only eight invasion armies, unofficially there were fourteen different nations to do everything to China. And China suffered it like never before. The boxers' rebellion was annihilated by 1901, and China had to live the years that followed with cuts and wounds all over his body and a lot with eight nations installed abusively in his home, well, maybe it was not his home anymore from that moment.
Tired, disappointed and hurt, the only force that China had was, oddly enough, it was his chilling neighbor Russia. China hated all Westerners for obvious and obvious reasons, and Russia was no exception, but with Russia it was different. Russia began to harass him from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but China had always ignored him. By the time China was invaded, Russia took the opportunity to seduce him with an interesting proposal: Russia wanted to have influence over Korea, and asked China to let him have influence over Manchuria and thus stop the advance of Japanese influence. Even though China detested Russia and still loved his brother Japan, he accepted. China believed that Japan would not have a chance against Russia and that by losing, he would need him. Therefore, when the Russo-Japanese War occurred in 1905, China was neutral. But when Japan won, China knew that everything had gone backwards and surrendered in every way to his situation.
In 1908 the Empress Dowager Cixi dies and ascended the throne with only three years the one that would be known as the last emperor of China, Puyi. And in spite of this, China already began to move away from his emperors and from everything in which he had believed and known and soon, it was seen in a true crossroads. The secret societies that represented as political parties in China soon captured him and made him see his reality. For China, there was no way out of his situation unless he did what he had tried to prevent: choosing between two Western models. When China was faced with that, he knew that Westerners had won anyway, because now he had to choose between two models that China, with his abstract mind, didn't understand, and didn't really want to do it. He had to choose between carrying out a reformist republic, or a fairly radical idea, communism. And China saw himself at this crossroads, lamenting that he could not understand this and see how Westerners had forced him, in one way or another, to fall into their game. And since China had nothing to lose, nothing to wait for, his choice was made.
-Xinhai Revolution and the Wuchang Uprising, the fall of the dynasty:
Since the second half of the nineteenth century is glimpsed in Chinese society that nobody liked that Western nations dismember their nation. The last five decades of the nineteenth century are characterized by an awakening of national consciousness, in which there are few attempts to stop the Western expansionist zeal and the politics of the Qing Dynasty.
When, at the beginning of the twentieth century, China had made his forced choice of future and uprising, the revolution was stealthily prepared among the ranks of Wuchang's army and had not been discovered in advance by the police, alarmed by the outbreak of a bomb in the city. The city of Hànkǒu on October 9, 1911, it would have taken a little longer to rush. The discovery of the police led to investigate, while rescuing the survivors of the explosion, why they kept hidden bombs and what they discovered were lists that linked the military with anti-monarchical activities. It was decided to take drastic measures with those soldiers, who before being captured preferred, starting with the Eighth Engineer Battalion, to take up arms and revolt, expelling the imperial power that was in Wuchang. This is known as the Wuchang uprising of October 1911. This insurrection is considered the beginning of the Revolution, unleashing a wave of adhesions and acts of rebellion against the Qing court in Beijing. And by the time this started to happen, even if China knew that he had fallen into the game of the West, being stuck in their world, still, China also revolted again and preferred to die to continue as he was.
On October 11, the city of Hànyáng fell into the hands of the revolutionaries and the next day Hànkǒu did it. Thus fell the triple city divided by the Yangtze and Han rivers and strategic point in the center of China, Wuhan.
At that time the revolutionary Sun Yat-sen was in the United States.
Nevertheless, these revolutions were frequent in southern China and were often stifled by the central government. But it took a long time to resolve the conflict, which increasingly encouraged the revolutionaries, while the armies of the neighboring provinces were added, as was the case of the New Army troops in the provinces of Shaanxi and Hunan, who mutinied and sided with the Wuhan rebels on October 22. All participated, students and workers of the cities. China had had many rebellions in his history, but in a few took sides as in this revolution, where the goal of China was to eliminate the emperors, to be a strong republic and get rid of the Westerners. That was all, although China had not wanted it that way, it was.
To cope with this situation, the dynasty asked who had been appointed Minister of Beiyang in 1902 by the Empress Cixi, Yuan Shikai, a powerful soldier who had participated in the First Sino-Japanese War, commanding the prestigious Beiyang Army also known as the Army of the North, to organize the offensive against the rebels of the south. On October 30, revolts took place in Kunming, Yunnan Province, which began at nine o'clock at night with a series of shots and which three hours later would achieve possession of the city. In addition, two other provinces, Shanxi and Jiangxi, joined the rebellion. On November 1, the military government of Yunnan was founded. Likewise, on November 3, Jiangsu province joined the rebellion, while on November 22 Sichuan and December 12 Shandong.
A day later, the Beiyang Army attacked Hànkǒu and took possession of it. But Yuan Shikai started negotiating secretly with the revolutionaries. As the days passed, the rebellion advanced, and the commanders of the army demanded that the court accept a series of petitions called the "twelve claims," which promoted the parliamentary system and the reduction of the power of the emperor, replacing his figure of government with that of a prime minister. The Manchu court, knowing that it was impossible to refuse such demands due to their deteriorated military situation, was forced to accept those conditions. Yuan Shikai assumed the position of Prime Minister of the Qing Empire.
In March 1912, the parliamentary constitution was enacted with a parliamentary and presidential election, the first to be held within a period of ten months. Sun Yat-sen, with the intention of being able to participate in the elections, creates the political party Guómíndǎng, better known in the West as "Kuomintang". Once the elections were held in 1913, Yuan Shikai refused to leave power. Civil wars broke out between factions of the army loyal to Yuan Shikai and Sun Yat-sen. China was so overwhelmed by the change of his life, how everything had ended, how his world was disengaged like silk by the wind, he could not choose or think which of the two leaders to choose. The factional civil wars ended with Sun Yat-sen sent back into exile. Little by little Yuan's government transformed into something very similar to what was the Qing Dynasty until in 1915 it restored the character of "Imperial". On January 1, 1916, he ascended to the throne as emperor and only three months later, yielding to the pressures of China, who was no longer undecided and decided to take power, abolished the monarchy again.
-The Chinese Republic, The Lords of War, and the Soviet Republic of China:
All this turbulent period of China, from the end of the century to this sudden revolution, was like a period in which China risked his life and after all this he could breathe at last. And when he opened his eyes, he was a republic. His world, the world he had known for thousands and thousands of years suddenly seemed strange. The Westerners had won, however. That he had to organize in a republic, to make a revolution and all this, was because Westerners had gotten a hand in his world, but nothing of it would have happened as it happened. He knew, with sadness, that from now on, until it was over, he would be back in the world of Westerners and play with their rules, his world of mysteries was over. But China swore to at least be strong and never again let anyone put their hands on him. And with melancholy and strength, he began his new journey.
When the Russian Revolution took place in 1917, China, like everyone else, looked up surprised. Russia was now a communist, and when it rose, China's eyes shone with the brightness of Russia. And, even though China still felt an aversion to him, he confessed to himself that Russia was very brave or very foolish. However, the emergence of the Soviet Union was not a minor issue in China. As the Chinese Republic was now a bourgeois republic, China strangely during the First World War was allied to the Entente, which surprised him as he had fought to be far and away from the Westerners, especially England, and from one moment to another, with questions of policy, were his ally and indirect ally of his brother Japan. As now the greatest danger was Russia, England ordered China to also send armies to sabotage the Bolsheviks of Russia. China annoyed, he did, because he did not want to have conflicts with England and having now been a republic. Even so, if it had been for him, he would not have intervened in Russia, he didn't care. But all intervention was useless, because Russia could, and emerged as the Soviet Union. China did not know what to think, he had many problems but Russia would be present in some of them.
During these times after the Qing Dynasty, Mongolia and Tibet remained, with force, to obtain their autonomy from China.
The death of Yuan was the beginning of the transition from Imperial China to Republican China. And it was a really chaotic transition. Immediately, it became evident that the republican government of that period was weak (with 45 legislations, 5 legislatures and 7 constitutions). For prestige, many governments were accredited the functions of government on the representation of the entire territory. Nepotism and corruption were breeders, with a constitution based more on the good faith of their politicians than on efficient controls. In less than four years, without a strong figure to guide them, the Chinese territory was divided around his original political configuration, and the so-called warlords (military chieftain) of each region began to control all matters related to the ancient empire.
In an automatic way, China was divided into two large spheres, which in turn were divided into territories governed by different military chieftain. In the North, a series of governments characterized by their warlords succeeded each other in power; which was characterized by numerous hand blows, changes of loyalty, betrayal and foreign intervention, which made China, angered and began to become disenchanted with the situation. In addition, with Japan as their largest and most influential ally, these cliques destroyed each other, as well as fought tirelessly with the South until they weakened enough to end their power base.
In the South, on the other hand, Dr. Sun began quietly rearming his power base. Based on the centralist democracy postulated by Lenin, he began to design an organization based on a single party (Kuomintang), as well as a military academy at the service of the party. Even with his death in 1925, Chiang-Kai Shek completed his dream with a military strengthening of his organization, the defection on his part of two military of the North and military genius. By 1928, China seemed to have been unified around the government of Nanking, but remained a prisoner of military, of lesser power but similar influence in many of the Chinese provinces.
Corrupting and the absence of power in the government were openly denounced by the Chinese Communists, who were increasingly noted. Under the influence of the warlords who supported him, Chiang Kai-shek initiated the communist purge, which started in a civil war. While retaining the communists as a thorn in his side, the Kuomintang party finally conquered Peking, getting the military recognition that so desperately wanted, culminating Dr. Sun's dream of unifying China. While this entire power struggle was happening, China was beginning to become disenchanted with everything. And although at first China was faithful to the Kuomintang and had an aversion towards the communists, this vision began to change. The extreme misery in China meant that, in 1931, an unrecognized parallel state, the Soviet Chinese Republic, emerged in the south, led by a communist committee headed by a certain Mao. When this happened, China became quite alert. The people had won over the communists in times of misery, and even if China were to conquer this new state, he often went to see it secretly, where, surprisingly, he found Russia. Russia knew of the existence of this state and wanted China, but China was not ready yet, there was still something missing that would make China exploit that situation.
This parallel state ended in 1937 when the army of the Chinese republic began to persecute them and had to flee to the north. China would not forget this, and a great chill felt to know that Russia was waiting for him. China wanted to cry for everything. But this was the beginning of the end. Concerned about having a powerful neighbor on the other side of the sea, the Japanese attacked China to destroy him and use him as a platform for their own development. By 1937, the communists and the Kuomintang had to face a common enemy, in the Second Sino-Japanese War, which cost the great colossus more than forty million of his population and years of misery.
-Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II and Chinese Civil War:
The world began to settle and form as a result of the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles, and Japan, China's younger brother, would soon look at him with intense eyes of desire. But China did not understand much what happened because even though he contributed a little during the Great War, he had not been very involved to understand this chain of consequence. But soon it wouldn't matter. Japan wanted to possess Korea definitively and wanted to defeat China, wanted to have his resources and didn't want to have competition. And when China learned the wishes of his younger brother, he euphorically asked that the quarrels and rivalries of the Kuomintang and the communists stop, because there was an enemy outside, the Empire of Japan.
China was very worried but didn't really know what would happen to him, and how it would mark that for life.
In the conflict that would be the Second World War, China was the first to suffer, China was the one who suffered the most. Without prior notice, in 1937, Japan sneaked up on China. And he perceived him. China believed that Japan was approaching him to harass him or something, and China, saddened by his fate, turned his back on him as he spoke to him, and suddenly, he sanitized a throbbing pain. A sharp pain made China, with his eyes wide open, turn to his brother. Japan had taken out his katana and cut China from behind. And China more pain felt in his chest. His brother had betrayed him openly. China had not hated Japan before, believing him to be another victim of Westerners, but now, seeing Japan's empty gaze, the love he felt for his brother became thinner. In 1937, Japan invaded China, beginning with the Second Sino-Japanese War. The results were devastating. The anti-Japanese sentiment gripped China, who sanitized a deep grudge and anger towards his brother. When Japan came to China and invaded him, he committed all acts of barbarities, such as the execution of thousands of innocent citizens, torture and mass rape of women. China suffered like never before and worse for him, when his own younger brother reloaded his body. The massacres and abuses of the Japanese towards the Chinese is something that still today is a subject of pain and controversial. And before such brutality, before such a cruel massacre, China didn't think a moment and went to fight against his brother, to fight for real. China resisted as anyone, was filled with a frenzy of euphoria and anger, because what was happening beyond the limits of his own cruelty. And China, sadly looked for the last time at his younger brother, whom he told, before attacking him: "Wǒ bù zài wèi nǐ gǎndào rènhé ài. Wǒ conglái méiyǒu xiǎngguò zhè shì kěnéng de, dàn tā shì ... Rìběn". And it was there when the entire affective bond between them ended up being broken forever, China never again loved Japan, because the cruelty that this one did to him, and that entire quarrel, made the heart of China darken, and no longer forgive his brother.
The Japanese invaded China and both internal fighting forces in the conflict (the Kuomintang and the Communists) united to face the external danger. However, the Kuomintang's army devoted itself more to the anti-communist internal struggle than to defeating the Japanese, being unable to promote a guerrilla war, as the Communists did: defeat the external enemies and extend the revolution in the countryside.
The fact that the Kuomintang sometimes fought against the Japanese and other times secretly allied with them caused their popularity to diminish. Those of the Kuomintang said that being Japanese was a "skin disease" but being a communist was a "disease of the soul", so their position against the Japanese actually hid alliances between them, since they were coming together, making everything very contradictory. The ambiguous position of the Kuomintang really annoyed China, considering them traitors, and made him get closer and closer to the communists, who had a stance against the Japanese throughout the course of the war.
Before and during the war, a de facto state controlled by the Japanese and their interests had been created, which had as emperor Pu Yi, ancient and last emperor of China. This fact terribly annoyed China, who outraged, not only did not accept this state which was Manchukuo (Manchuria), but considered his former emperor a complete traitor.
Because he was openly at war with Japan, the United States decided to support him without taking much account of the strong communism that was growing in China, what was most important for now was to eliminate Japan. China cared little and nothing about what happened in Europe and the messes and those "imperialists" were doing, the only thing that China wanted was to get Japan out of the way, free his brother Korea, who was kidnapped by Japan, and at the same time look for the way to deal with the civil war (communists and nationalist) that ate at him from within. Russia had promised China that when he ended with Germany he would go to help him, and it definitely happened. When Russia had defeated Germany, he quickly declared war on Japan. When seeing Russia with him, strangely China felt relief and happiness. But soon all thought would be interrupted when the United States dropped the bombs on Japan. China saw it perfectly, saw the glow, and heard the screams. And despite the hatred he felt for Japan, tears fell from his eyes. China then knew that from the war, Japan paid the highest price. But that didn't stop the fact that, during the war trials, China protested indignantly that Japan must apologize for the massacre and killing he had done in him. But to the United States that didn't suit him, as he began to Cold War it suited Japan on his side, so he helped to hide his crimes. That is why Germany was the most demonized by the war, when China knew firsthand that Japan had done the same or worse, because they were brothers. Outraged, to this day China asks Japan to apologize.
Being one of the first countries affected by the war, China was the first to sign the United Nations, but none of that mattered. For him, the fight was not over, and China would soon make the most radical change of all, and it would impact the world. For China, nothing was over, everything was about to begin.
-Chinese Revolution, Mao Tse Zedong:
By 1946, although the Chinese had triumphed against Japan and gained the support of the United States, the corruption and decay of the model that governed it began to fall apart in the face of the communist onslaught. With a fulminating blow in Manchuria at the end of 1948, the Chinese Republic was destroyed militarily; and as a bulldozer the once betrayed communists took power, under the promise of agricultural reform, equality for all individuals and the promise of a bright future.
There came a time when China closed his eyes, and could not take it anymore. In a torn scream, he exploded in every way, for he could no longer bear the life he had been carrying since England captured him. From that moment, China no longer cared, was that he joined the Communists, his last hope.
For once the world war was over, internal disputes continued, even with greater intensity, showing the strength of the revolutionary forces.
The communists advanced in a north-south direction and in 1948, they controlled the city of Harbin in the far north and almost all the rural areas of Manchuria, changing their tactics from war warfare to open war, seizing the cities of Kaifeng and Jinan. In January 1949, the communist army entered Tianjin and Beijing.
On October 1, 1949, the Communists were victorious, with the Soviet help, and established the People's Republic of China, under whose command they placed their leader, Mao Zedong, with a population of approximately 500,000,000 inhabitants, putting his constitution, proclaiming communism as a single party, from 1954 onwards, while the nationalists constituted their own government, the Chinese Nationalist Republic, Taiwan, renegade sister of China.
The "Great Helmsman", as was nicknamed Mao Zedong, tried to rebuild the Chinese economy, damaged by the Second World War, following the model of Soviet communism, fundamentally reinforcing the industry and collectivizing the rural properties, whose production he tried to stimulate through a plan known as "Great leap forward", where they wanted to achieve a productive surplus, especially of cereals, to distribute among urban dwellers.
And the fervent feeling that consumed and mobilized China so much was understandable, because the peasants before the revolution, died of hunger, ate the bark of the trees. Children, women and young people were sold for forced labor in factories, domestic services or prostitution. In the Shanghai International District, only in 1930, was buried or disposed of different ways of more than 28 thousand corpses found in the street or floating in the canals, most victims of infanticide. And after the revolution, China felt as if his soul had been born again, sanitized as, after years of being a semi-colonial country, it was strong again, stood up again and looked everyone in the face, for the revolution collectively resolved the food, access to health and education of millions of Chinese, of hundreds of millions.
The Chinese Revolution (led by the Chinese Communist Party headed by Mao Tsetung) was the first to triumph in a dependent and semi-colonial country. It was carried out and the road triumphed whose tactics and strategy, elaborated by Mao Tsetung, goes from the countryside to the city; where the peasantry was the main force and the proletariat the leading force. That is, millions of poor and middle peasants along with the working class consummated national and social liberation proclaiming the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, and then advanced towards socialism. And China, ecstatic, excited and new, while smiling with strength, tears fell from his eyes, a cruel passage of his life just finished. China was once again the great one, but something would never be the same again. China would not forget, and would not forgive.
Through protracted people's war, the armed revolutionary struggle faced from the start the armed reaction of imperialism and landlords. The revolutionaries had to face several stages of the revolutionary process, with different enemies and alliances, from the foundation of the party, to achieve the triumph: the First Revolutionary Civil War (1924 - 1927), the Second Revolutionary Civil War (1927 - 1937), the War of Resistance against Japan (1937 - 1945) and the Third Revolutionary Civil War (1945 - 1949).
With the conquest of popular power there was a gigantic revolutionary transformation in China. In 1950 the Agrarian Reform began. The Great Leap Forward (1958) mobilized large masses for the construction of socialism. The collectivization of the field advanced towards the form of popular communes in which organs of popular power were integrated with production.
From this, Mao, together with China, developed the Marx theory after the revolution; he launched a gigantic mass revolutionary mobilization, the Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) with the aim of preventing the capitalist restoration in China. And with all this, China not only won enemies and loves, and admirers, but he changed and impacted the world.
-China after the Revolution:
China realized what few (one until that moment just Russia) had ever been able to do: a communist revolution. And China emerged from it with strength and ecstasy, and again, China would continue with his interrupted fate, be the biggest as he had been, but he would have to go through a lot for it.
When the Chinese Revolution occurred, the whole world was shocked, and soon, China already had enemies. The one who got the most angry was the United States, who for a moment forgot about Russia and began to verbally attack China. But China would never let himself go down again, and he didn't hesitate for a moment, his gaze said everything. And also, he got admirers, and a lover. When the revolution triumphed, China became the second to rise in communism, and Russia completely loved him. Russia and China found themselves in a deep embrace and a passionate kiss, in which Russia tried to dominate him but China would never let that happen again, not even for his now boyfriend Russia.
Communism was internationalist, and Russia patiently waited for more to join communism, and when China did, Russia loved him terribly. But theoretically, the communist revolution was predestined to industrialized countries, where social classes and class struggle existed, obviously the Prussian theorist Karl Marx thought the revolution of the proletariat for countries like Germany and England, but poetic was destiny, because the revolution was not given in England or Germany, it occurred where theoretically it was impossible, it happened in Russia, and it happened in China. Both semi-feudal countries before the revolution. And for that reason when once the revolution was realized, both Russia and China had to invent with respect to their culture as communism would be carried out, since as it was said, the revolution was not planned for countries like them. And that is why China made his own version of communism, the so-called Marxism-Leninism Maoism. And he did not let Russia try to break it. As Russia had been alone at the beginning, he had made his own version of Communism, based on the Party, and soon, when China's communism emerged, despite being happy to have a partner and the world to join, soon, a rivalry between both born. Meanwhile, China and Russia began a really strange courtship.
Meanwhile, China had his things to do. The ancient emperor of China, Pu Yi, had been handed over by the Soviets to China, who had a great plan for him. China had seen how Russia had wanted to introduce communism to his tsars and their children, especially Russia's beloved Anastasia, but they had to be shot. But China wanted to do what Russia could not: soon, the former emperor was put in political prison, which more than a Chinese prison he called it a place where each would observe their own mistakes. Political dissidents and political prisoners in prison were given classes in Marxism-Leninism, historical classes, and especially the former emperor, who had lived in a world where he was like a god. China wanted the emperor to become a communist, to understand the Chinese people and China. The emperor was given classes and they talked about his past, and then, he was faced with victims of the Japanese invasion, of which he had been an accomplice. The former emperor had to see the consequences of his actions, see fragmented families and hear horrible stories about war and hunger. And the old emperor was filled with guilt. He apologized to each person victim of the war and the bad government, and wept in front of them. However, the former emperor was moved when a woman said she didn't hate the Japanese, she had faith in humanity. Faith in humanity. The ancient emperor knew that China lacked this, and asked him to feel it. But China was incapable, almost incapable of feeling it.
The old emperor began to play plays parodying himself and the British invasion of Egypt, and began to have a huge faith in communism. To himself, he had to learn to dress himself, and do things for himself. In the end, the former emperor was understood in his context and became a very humble person. And after years in the "rehabilitation" prison, China freed him and the former emperor became a normal citizen, sweeping streets and then became a gardener. And China did it, did what Russia had tried to do but could not, his emperor had understood communism and now he was happy in it, supporting Mao. Nobody could believe it but it was so, and the same old emperor wrote a self-criticism of himself in which he confessed all his previous evils. Pu Yi lived as a gardener and died peacefully, and China boasted of his achievements.
China was the most meticulous of the communists, and with his leader, agreed that for a revolution to be maintained, each person had to have historical awareness, class consciousness and understand the process of revolution, for which the Red Book was written, explaining all this so that the Chinese understood everything that had happened and why. As a great communist country, and with his boyfriend, the great Soviet bear, China did not forgive what the United States was doing and tried to get his brothers and sisters to unify under communism. During the Korean War, China together with Russia supported the North, and to this day they continue to do so. When the bloody war in Vietnam happened, China did not doubt and supported his sister with all he could, and great was his happiness; even tears fell from his eyes, when Vietnam joined them. China would defend his own, and would never forgive the imperialist Westerners, as he called them. And it was because China was so rigid and faithful, that his relationship with Russia began to fracture.
-Sino-Soviet Rupture:
With the revolution, China cut his limp hair, which he did every time a stage ended and something new began. And yes, China started his own version of communism and how to carry it out, that's what caused his relationship with Russia to fracture. Russia had been alone at the beginning and had created his own version of how to carry out communism, which made all people and parties on the left take it as an example. But Russia was no longer the only one, now it was China, and China did not take Russia as an example, but rather did Communism himself. China, despite being in a courtship with Russia, did not like the socialist form of Russia, since Russia's communism had become dogmatic and permissible to capitalism. In addition, the leader of China, Mao, didn't agreed the leader of Russia, Stalin. China considered Russia a revisionist and soon the first fights began to emerge. Although China really appreciated Russia and his time with him seemed wonderful, China considered that they should attack and not be permissible with capitalism, something that Russia, because of his leader, did. Stalin had betrayed the revolution and had agreed with the capitalist West, which made Russia not very hard with this. But China, who still felt the pain of imperialism and invasions, still remembered the hunger and mockery of England, felt that capitalism should not be allowed. These were one of the problems they had. Then, because of the lukewarm posture of Russia, China began to call him revisionist, and Russia was really offended. When Chinese communism rose in its splendor, the international left suffered a rupture and there were strong cultural impacts. Soon, conventional socialism followed the Soviet model, while the radical left looked with greater admiration at the communism of China, in addition, when the crimes of Stalin and his pacts with the West came out, many people were outraged. In Europe, with Soviet socialism Chinese communism was not well seen, but in places like Latin America, Maoism was transformed into a new current of thought. This was enough, and Russia cut with China, seeing him now more as a rival than as a lover. The Soviet Union withdrew support for China and China was upset, considering Russia a "foolish and immature revisionist". From that moment, strangely China only had reliable support of Albania, which surprised him enough and did not know what to think about it.
From that moment, China and Russia became rivals in the Cold War, but not enemies.
During the government of Mao, there was a movement called the "One Hundred Flowers". After years of communist rule, disagreements began to take place among Party leaders and, discreetly, voices discordant with the line of action of the Communist Party began to be heard. Prime Minister Zhou Enlai was in favor of allowing bigger freedom of expression to the intellectuals so that constructive criticisms could be made to the management of the Party, which would allow bettering understanding the concerns and desires of society as a whole.
It would be Mao Zedong himself who would promote a period of bigger freedom of expression that became known as the Hundred Flowers Movement. In a private speech before party activists, Mao quoted the famous poem "that one hundred flowers flourish that one hundred schools of thought fight among themselves," which would give the movement its name. In this way, Mao invited the intellectuals of the country to freely express their opinions. The intention was effectively to take advantage of the constructive criticisms of the intellectuals to adapt the government's strategy to the needs of society.
However, to the surprise of China, who was confident at that time, the Hundred Flowers Movement would take a different direction. Contrary to what he and Mao expected, confident that stability and economic and social achievements in the early years of the regime made him really popular, criticism was rising and even came to pronounce openly anti-Communist statements. Seeing that the situation had led to unfounded and abusive criticism, with the approval of China, there was a turn of policy and launched the Anti-Rightist Movement.
And China was upset and angry. People were idiots, he told himself. The revolution had taken him from the dark pit he was in and now he was better than ever. There was public health and education; they had even written a book (Red Book) so they could understand the situation, but no. People believed what they wanted to believe, he said with disappointment. Still, most of the Chinese supported Mao. China loved him very much.
After the Sino-Soviet rupture China entered into border conflicts with his former teacher and friend India, who was supported by Russia, although China didn't hate him at all. Also, during these times, China violently occupied Tibet. All the evils that Japan had done to him, China did to Tibet, which to this day, tries to break free from China.
-After Mao:
When Mao died, China went into deep sadness. He had loved and admired Mao very much, and before saying goodbye to him, China thanked him for all the good he had done, and forgave him the bad too. China looked at the infinity of stars and tried to find Mao, and find himself. Mao Tse Zedong was burned. China had wanted it that way, as was the Buddhist tradition. China remained attached to his religions, Buddhism and Taoism. Maoism had a lot of Taoism, although Mao had said "religion is the opium of the people", there were things that China had not been able to leave behind.
Mao's successor and his successors were not like him. They started introducing capitalism slowly in China and opened it economically, which made China angry and made him cry with rage. Still, China was strong, stronger than Russia.
When the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union fell, China saw everything coldly. But he understood inside how Russia felt.
The 90s were cruel for Russia, but China, who had meditated a lot, had planned his own destiny.
-Present:
When the Soviet Union fell, he was the only obstacle of the United States and theirs had, and China knew what it meant, and would take the reins himself. Now, he was the boss. After the end of Russia's ordeal in the 1990s, China approached him and stroked his hair. Russia looked at him, and was ashamed of himself. But China forgave him, forgave him all the past and lifted him out of his depression, and with force in his voice, he told him something new would start. From that moment on, and when Russia was once again a power, he and China went back to their courtship. China had a plan, China wanted to interpose the United States, and Russia would accompany him.
At present, China is the most powerful and strongest economy in the world, and it's no secret that he will be the next power in the world. Thus, as the United States and his father have their vassals, China has his followers as well. Russia is his right hand, India has also recently approached him, Iran is a great ally of China, as well as the younger sister of Russia, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, among others. They all follow his orders, although Russia also has voice and vote in their side.
China could never forget the pain and mistreatment that he suffered since he lost the Opium Wars, and with a grudge in his being, he swore never to forgive, and play the game, play the game and beat them all, and then break the game to pieces. Even so, even playing the game, being so powerful, it was difficult.
Due to his tremendous enormous power, the United States and especially his father, England, hate him as always. And every time China becomes aware that everything seems to repeat itself and be a wheel of no return, China cries. England asked him sharply because he was crying, and China said: "Wǒ kūqì, yīnwèi wǒ yǐjīng kàn dàole zhège shìjiè de wúxiàn wúxiàn de qíjī, érqiě wǒ shíbùshí huì shīqù duì suǒyǒu rén de xīwàng."* And so, the great dilemma of the heart China was not to lose hope, but that was inevitable to see the world and the attitude of his peers.
When playing the game of power, it was inevitable that capitalism would enter a little bit into him. Currently, China is a "socialist" country, but more than anything else he is a country of state capitalism. State capitalism China uses it to finally jump completely to socialism, according to him.
And China was big before and is big now. The power before and the power now. What happened in the nineteenth and twentieth century was only a pause, a passage in his history, the Great Red Dragon will always be there. With an infallible economy, China is heading to his destination. It is still a land of mysteries, like that wall of him where his inhabitants have blond hair and blue eyes. He has blond hair for this. Nobody knows why it is, many attribute to that that is what remained of contact with his former lover, the Roman Empire, but it is a secret of China and only of him. Nobody will know, only China.
And so goes China, in the year 4715, and even today continues to ask outraged, that Japan apologize for the atrocities committed against him in World War II. And more outrage is China, to see how in Japan people who are in the government were in person in the massacres carried out in him. But all that China asks of Japan, all the evil that Japan did to China, China did to Tibet, who also hopes that China will release him and apologize.
And in his journey through life, China always tries not to lose hope in humanity, as Pu Yi had told him, but his faith is always weakened.
And still, China prefers to be there, with everyone, sharing their sufferings and sorrows on earth, and never lose faith in humanity, like Buddha, even when he has no hope.
Phrases in Chinese:
-Our adventure was wonderful, my love. But here it ends.
-I do not feel any love for you anymore. I never thought that was possible but it is ... Japan.
-I cry because I have seen the immensity and the infinity of wonders of this world and still, from time to time, I lose hope in all of you.
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Sorry for taking so long to upload this chapter, but I didn't have time for anything, besides doing China was very complicated and complex.
After studying the history and culture of China, I know that European history and culture are too overvalued. China (and India) were the cultural powers of antiquity for a long time and if you want to study history in general you should start there. European history does not take global relevance until the fifteenth century in fact was one of the least advanced cultures of the world at the time. Also, I wanted to do China because I had too many Europeans chapters (Italy, Germany, England, France and Russia) and one and half Asian (Japan; Russia), so China was my choice.
Bibliographic sources: Wikipedia attachments, documentaries. I like watching the documentaries of a Colombian historian named Diana Uribe who is great at explaining history. I recommend her to anyone who likes history, but unfortunately she speaks only Spanish. And I decided to read the Red Book a little, to understand that part of Chinese history. Chinese literature.
Movies I saw to put me in context: House of the Flying Daggers (the most beautiful Chinese movie I saw, set to the Tang dynasty), the Curse of the Golden Flower, Hero,The Tiger and the Dragon, The Last Emperor.
Music that inspired me: sountracks of the films I saw,; Lovers theme of the House of the Flying Daggers's sountrack; Chinese music with the instrument Erhu.
I put it in the story but just in case: China is in the year 4715 currently.
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Well, I really hope you enjoyed this chapter of China. Soon I will try to upload another chapter of another country.