• TranscendentalEmpire
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    3 months ago

    You may know better but continuing to use China as the example - weren’t they also repeatedly conquored and resettled by steppe people?

    Eh, I guess it depends on who you consider to be Chinese, and what period of history you’re talking about?

    For the most part the steppe people like the Turkic or the Mongolians did the majority of what we consider conquering in China in the 13th-14th century.

    Before that they didn’t really comprise a large threat unless you are going much further back in history. If we are examining the Han dynasty, who shares a piece of history around the same time as the Romans, then yes. We don’t exactly have a bunch of primary sources, but we can tell a lot by the distribution of dna and language that they historically occupied large aspects of northern China, and are related to modern Manchu people’s, and those who hail from Manchu people like the modern Koreans.

    Like, not only have they not had a 5000 year historic settlement but they have had as chaotic history of conquest and resettlement as just about anyone in history.

    If we are speaking of the migration and conquest carried out by the Han, it’s not even really been hundreds. In the 19th century during the Taiping rebellion the Han started a civil war/genocide that killed around 30 million people. You get some pretty contextual quotes that kind of put into perspective the ethnic conflict native to China "“China is the China of the Chinese. We compatriots should identify ourselves with the China of the Han Chinese.”

      • TranscendentalEmpire
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        The Mongols ruled China during the Yuan Dynasty. The Manchu ruled China during the Qing Dynasty

        The Manchu people also known as the Jurchens, are descendents of the mongol and Turks.

        Xianbei and Xiongnu ruled parts of China for periods

        Yes… Which were both tribes of steppe people from the eastern han dynasty, which is what I claimed in my post.

        the Warring States

        The Qin dynasty is a bit more complicated as it was multi ethnic, but was originally founded by people who would one day consider themselves Manchu. But this is prior to the han dynasty and really before conflict in the area stratified into mostly ethnic based conflicts.

        Taiping Rebellion

        I already covered the Taiping rebellion in a separate reply.

        China is drastically more complicated than our eurocentric perspective suggests

        Lol, I’m Korean, a descendent of the Manchu people.

        I think the problem you are having is that in Europe transitioned away from classical imperialism much sooner than Eastern Asia. So most you tend to have a hard time separating nationality with ethnicity, as that is typically how you guys divided empire into nation states

        So when you use vernacular like mongol, you don’t realize that it’s interchangeable with things like steppe people, Manchu, or Jurchen depending on what era or dynasty you are talking about.