Comments | jrittenhouse: AH: a question for the audience

jrittenhouse

AH: a question for the audience

Jun 26, 2009 15:15

I’m looking at a point in the history of the Kingdom of Qin during the Warring States period that would have most easily short-circuited the Qin efforts to conquer the other kingdoms and establish an empire. Suggestions welcome.

What I’m looking at is that the idea of China as a unified imperial state is nowhere near a certain thing, and that it ( Read more... )

china, writing_projects, history, maps, gates, ah, warring-states

Comments 8

aisb23 June 26 2009, 20:51:20 UTC

You thesis certainly sounds very valid, especially given the linguistic and ethnic diversity of what he call China now. Unfortunately I know diddly-squat of Chinese history and so can't give you a good PoD.

xirpha June 27 2009, 06:03:47 UTC

You could assume that King Hui of Qin "successfully" reverses the reforms of Shang Yang's resulting in a strong aristocracy that would resist the centralization of power that was required to conquer Ba and Shu. Without resources of Ba and Shu, Qin would not be large enough to take on the eastern kingdoms. This should of resulted in a long term stalemate that would give rise to nationalistic states along natural boundaries.

jrittenhouse June 27 2009, 07:00:53 UTC

Ooh, I like that one. That seems to fit the situation pretty well, and Shang Yang's nasty Legalism foundations - yeah. Or have Shang Yang meet the wrong people as he left Wei for Qin at the behest of Duke Xiao...

Just perfect. Thanks!!!!

xirpha June 27 2009, 07:27:16 UTC

I always considered the tendency of pre-industrial Indian and Chinese government strives for one total Empires inside their "natural" boundaries a weakness. Mostly these Empires are barbarian tribes that quickly overrun and replace the existing government and almost as fast quickly collapses into a long period of corruption.

The European feudal states are each very weak, but it was very hard for any external barbarian state to conquer all of them.

jrittenhouse June 30 2009, 05:32:45 UTC

Closest that came was the Mongols in the 1200s.

princeofcairo June 29 2009, 22:41:21 UTC

Farther down the road, you can have the palace coup against Shih Huangdi succeed in 238 BC, or either of the assassination attempts in 227 BC could succeed.

jrittenhouse June 30 2009, 05:32:15 UTC

True, but that was after a long period of Qin smashing up the other states, and you'd probably end up with something very similar to the history that followed him in any event.

princeofcairo June 30 2009, 08:56:42 UTC

You can make that argument about the assassinations, of course (although one never knows) but the palace coup looks like it could have plunged Qin into a dandy civil war if the gaff hadn't been blown early.