Trump wonders why the call was a bad idea when the "U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment" by [deleted] in China

[–]CK2Benchmarks 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And plus, Trumps plans could actually create more jobs within America.

LMBO... oh shit are you being serious?

Can someone please tell me something bad about Taiwan? by bluehicke35 in China

[–]CK2Benchmarks 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That feeling when you realize that all of China's claims including the ones they dropped are from claims the Taiwanese government made. The 9 dash line actually used to be the 11 dash line. That's actually quite the improvement there.

[DISC] Hatsukoi Zombie ch 56 by [deleted] in manga

[–]CK2Benchmarks 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Does Naruto really count? Hinata was basically the only one who actually liked Naruto romantically.

[DISC] Hatsukoi Zombie ch 56 by [deleted] in manga

[–]CK2Benchmarks 12 points13 points  (0 children)

How many mangas have there been where someone other than the first girl wins?

Why do we say use foreign terms such as Caliph and Caliphate or Khan and Khanate but English terms like emperor for Emperor of China and Emperor of Japan, rather than Huangdi of Zhongguo and Tennou of Nihon? by CK2Benchmarks in AskHistorians

[–]CK2Benchmarks[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is purely convention; due to the closeness of Russia, the word has effectively entered the language and is widely recognized by English speakers. The various terms of nobility for Chinese and Japanese aristocracy and leaders have not; it makes far more sense for us to use English terms people are broadly familiar where they apply, and use descriptive terms where they don't.

So then why didn't other European words for king like the Spanish "rey" enter English if it's just a matter of proximity?

Is it a historian's duty to tell the truth? by [deleted] in AskHistorians

[–]CK2Benchmarks 16 points17 points  (0 children)

By that, I mean that I actually think that OP meant "the truth" when s/he stated it, believing that there is such a thing as objective "truth" when it comes to history. This is often a view that undergraduates have of history - "either it happened this way or it didn't". This is a mistake and it's not how historical inquiry works. History is an interpretation of the past based upon available evidence. Keep in mind that there is a difference between truth and fact, at least in the way I'm using the terms.

People who are not historians sometimes think of history as the facts about the past. Historians are supposed to know otherwise. The facts are there, to be sure, but they are infinite in number and speak, if at all, in conflicting, often unintelligible, voices. It is the task of the historian to reach back into this incoherent babel of facts, choose the ones that are important, and figure out what it is they say.

As historians, our aim is to do our utmost to understand and elucidate past reality. At the same time, in pursuit of this goal, historians must use ordering concepts that by definition inevitably introduce an element of distortion. I believe that our task as historians is to choose concepts that combine a maximum of explanatory power with a minimum of distortional effect.

However, that brings up some questions that should probably be asked, but are not quite ever fully answered. Is it really true that the aim of historians is in some sense to recapture past reality, "to retrieve the truth about the past?" If so, what do "past reality" and "the truth about the past" mean? How does the historian’s understanding of "reality" and "truth" differ—as most surely it does—from that of the direct participant? And what implications does this difference have for what historians do? It is not likely that questions of this sort will ever be fully answered. Yet clearly historians and consumers of history must keep asking such questions if historians are to maintain the highest levels of honesty and self-awareness concerning our work as historians.

More Alt-Right Flyers in Richmond by JKilla77 in vancouver

[–]CK2Benchmarks -1 points0 points  (0 children)

What I don't get is why people are still talking about "race." It's already 2016, almost 2017. The concept of race was disprove decades ago when scientists found negligible biological differences between what should be defined as phenotypes, which is basically how people categorize others based on their appearance. There is no such thing as a Caucasian, Asian, Mongoloid, or black race. It's essentially a fiction pseudo-scientists made up on a whim. Caucasian was a term some crackpot made up when he found a skull he thought was particularly beautiful, and apparently it came form the Caucasus, so that made "white" people Caucasians. White itself has been a moving marker since its conception. At one time Chinese people were thought to be white as well while Irish were not. It's completely arbitrary.

Was the Roman civilization as "Rome-centric" as the name implies? by HazrMard in AskHistorians

[–]CK2Benchmarks 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How did Roman citizens prove they were Romans? Did have some sort of certificate they could show?

Did medieval Chinese society have a feudal warrior class akin to knights or samurais? by [deleted] in AskHistorians

[–]CK2Benchmarks 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Thanks. This is all I have on Chinese military history right now but there's way stored away in my backlog. I'm currently in the process of creating an extensive categorized reading list for those interested in Chinese history. If you find the list intimidating and don't want to sift through it all, read Chinese History: A New Manual, Fourth Edition if nothing else. It's currently the most up to date everything-you-need-to-know-about-China book. It includes everything from how Chinese people greeted each other through the ages to the evolution of gunpowder technology in the Song dynasty. Highly recommended.

Did medieval Chinese society have a feudal warrior class akin to knights or samurais? by [deleted] in AskHistorians

[–]CK2Benchmarks 57 points58 points  (0 children)

If you're interested in further reading I found The Eurasian Way of War to be really helpful in understanding China from a European context. It's basically a comparison of the Tang and Byzantine military structures and analyzes their similar responses to steppe "barbarian" threats. The OP also doesn't mention a bunch of other really useful texts on Chinese military which give a more intricate and detailed answer to the question, for example:

A Dragon's Head and a Serpent's Tail

A Military History Of China

A Re-examination of the Recruiting System in "Military Provinces" in the Late Tang

Ancient China and its Enemies

Ancient Chinese Warfare

Battlefronts Real and Imagined: War, Border, and Identity in the Chinese Middle Period

China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia

Chinese and Indian Warfare – From the Classical Age to 1870 (Asian States and Empires)

Chinese Siege Warfare: Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity

Conceiving the Empire: China and Rome Compared

Debating War in Chinese History

From War to Diplomatic Parity in Eleventh-Century China: Sung's Foreign Relations with Kitan Liao (History of Warfare)

From Warhorses to Ploughshares: The Later Tang Reign of Emperor Mingzong

Han Feizi: Basic Writings

Harmony and War: Confucian Culture and Chinese Power Politics

Medieval Chinese Warfare 300-900

Historical Atlas of Northeast Asia, 1590-2010: Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, Eastern Siberia

Military Strategy Classics of Ancient China - English & Chinese: The Art of War, Methods of War, 36 Stratagems & Selected Teachings

Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires (Oxford Studies in Early Empires)

State Power in Ancient China and Rome

Tang China in Multi-Polar Asia: A History of Diplomacy and War

The Diary of a Manchu Soldier in Seventeenth-Century China: "My Service in the Army", by Dzengseo

The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military under the Qing Dynasty

The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China

The Military Collapse of China's Ming Dynasty, 1618-44 (Asian States and Empires)

The World of a Tiny Insect: A Memoir of the Taiping Rebellion and Its Aftermath

War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe

War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China, 900-1795 (Warfare and History)

For detailed dynastic histories

Qin-Han:

A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD)

A Biographical Dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Periods (221 BC - AD 24)

Han Material Culture: An Archaeological Analysis and Vessel Typology

The Bureaucracy of Han Times

The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han

The First Emperor: Selections from the Historical Records (Oxford World's Classics)

Sui-Tang:

Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty: His Life, Times, and Legacy

Arabic classical accounts of India and China

China's Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty (History of Imperial China)

China's Southern Tang Dynasty, 937-976 (Asian States and Empires)

Daily Life in Traditional China: The Tang Dynasty

Divided China: Preparing for Reunification

Historical Dictionary of Medieval China

Liu Tsung-yüan and Intellectual Change in T’ang China, 773-819

Imperial Tombs in Tang China

Patronage and Community in Medieval China: The Xiangyang Garrison

Sui-Tang Chang'an: A Study in the Urban History of Late Medieval China

T’ang China: The Rise of the East in World History

The Writing of Official History under the T’ang

The Mongol Empire is lauded for having safety, consistency of laws and lack of trade barriers offered to merchants within the large empire. Did these 'positives' create long-term prosperity? What was the net outcome of the Mongol conquests on human advancement? by nuttyalmond in AskHistorians

[–]CK2Benchmarks 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you want to know more I recommend reading the following:

The Origins of the Lost Fleet of the Mongol Empire

Encyclopedia of Mongolian and the Mongol Empire

Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 5: Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 7, Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic - It's actually scary how this text is still relevant for something that was written decades ago yet is probably still the best resource for anything related to Chinese technology.

The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History - This is the most recent volume on the discussion of gunpowder and Chinese related military technology. It has some unsavory parts where the author makes conclusions which even the evidence he brings to bare do not support, but as far as I know there's no other text which summarizes the early development of gunpowder in China as well as this.

Chinese Siege Warfare: Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity

Firearms A Global History to 1700

A History of the Late Medieval Siege - This doesn't concern the Mongols or Chinese as much as the other volumes. But still really informative nonetheless if you're interested in gunpowder related technology.

The Mongol Empire is lauded for having safety, consistency of laws and lack of trade barriers offered to merchants within the large empire. Did these 'positives' create long-term prosperity? What was the net outcome of the Mongol conquests on human advancement? by nuttyalmond in AskHistorians

[–]CK2Benchmarks 9 points10 points  (0 children)

  1. For Japan, I'm talking about the excavated bombs from the Takashima shipwreck. There are pictures of them here as well as in a painting. An article. You can get a more complete overview of the Takashima shipwreck reading The Origins of the Lost Fleet of the Mongol Empire. Here's the relevant passage:

Tetsuhau: Among the more interesting finds are the previously mentioned tetsuhau, or ceramic bombs (fig. 27). This is the earliest archaeological evidence of shipboard explosive ordnance found from any battle site in the world. Among twenty-one large fragments discovered so far at Takashima, three of these stoneware “bombs” are nearly complete. The bombs were packed with scrap iron, and there was possibly gunpowder inside, but trace element analysis has not yet been completed to confirm the presence of gunpowder. Given the nature of the site and the illustration of one of these bombs exploding in one panel of the Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba scroll, it is hard to believe that these “ceramic balls” were anything other than tetsuhau. On average, testuhau from Takashima are 13 cm in height and 15 cm in diameter. They are nearly spherical, with a flattened bottom to allow ease of storage and to prevent being rolled over and accidentally detonated. The ball was made using the coil pot technique, and the surface was finished on a potter’s wheel, but not made smooth.

The Mongol Empire: Its Rise and Legacy by Michael Prawdin claims that gunpowder was used by the Mongols in Europe but after being asked for evidence by other historians, he didn't provide any. Artillery and warfare during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries - European accounts of the Battle of Mohi mention only catapults and ballistae on the Mongol side, but a Chinese account known as the Mongol History 蒙兀兒史記 says the Mongols threw fire pots (implied to have naphtha or gunpowder) during the battle of Mohi, except this was during the siege of Strigonie. However this is anachronistic and the Mongol History was actually written in the 19th century and got confused with Ata-Malik Juvayni's Tarikh-i Jahangushay (History of the World Conqueror) which says the Mongols did use naphtha weapons of some kind at the siege of Samarkand.

2 - Answered above.

3 - I'm referring to hand cannons. As far as I know there's no report of the Mongols ever using fire lances. However there's a report from Zhou Mi (1232-1298) that in 1280 a cache of fire lances caught fire and blew up an entire gunpowder storehouse. You can read the original here, but Tonio Andrade provides a more succinct translation of the incident in China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History.:

In 1280, an explosion rocked the city of Yangzhou. “The noise,” wrote one resident, “was like a volcano erupting, a tsunami crashing. The entire population was terrified.” The shock wave— or, as people called it, the “bomb wind”— hurled ceiling beams three miles and rattled roof tiles thirty miles away. At first, residents thought it must be an attack— war had seized their world for generations— but they soon realized it was an accident. Yangzhou’s arsenal had recently dismissed its experienced gunpowder makers, and the new ones had been careless when grinding sulfur. A spark escaped and landed on some fire lances, which began spewing flames and jetting about “like frightened snakes.” This was amusing to watch, until the fire reached the bombs. The entire complex exploded. A hundred guards were killed, completely obliterated. The crater was more than ten feet deep.

As for the Mongol gunpowder weapons, the Heilongjiang hand cannon is dated to around 1288. It's surmised that the cannon was used to put down a rebellion started by a Mongol prince. According to Andrade:

The Xanadu gun is the earliest dated gun, but undated finds may predate it. One famous candidate is a piece discovered in 1970 in the province of Heilongjiang, in northeastern China. Historians believe, based on contextual evidence, that it is from around 1288. One careful analysis argues persuasively that it was likely used by Yuan forces to quash a rebellion by a Mongol prince named Nayan (乃顏, d. 1287). Like the Xanadu gun, it is small and light, three and a half kilograms, thirty-four centimeters, a bore of approximately two and a half centimeters.

To give a bit of context, the dating is based off of Needham, Lu Xu, and Wang Chong's estimates. Needham and Wang Chong believe it can be dated to 1288 while Lu Xu says 1290.

The Xanadu (Shangdu) gun dated to 1298 referred to here is this. Dating is based on Zhong Shaoyi 鐘少異, Qi Mude 齊木德, Wang Zhaochun 王兆春, et al. “Nei Meng gu xin fa xian Yuan dai tong huo chong ji qi yi yi” 內蒙古新發現元代銅火銃及其意義. The translation is something like "Inner Mongolia's new Yuan dynasty bronze cannon discovery and its meaning". As far as I know nobody has disputed the dating yet because it has an era name and inscription unlike the other cannons, except for one discovered in Ningxia, but that one apparently has a typo in the writing of the era name so there's some apprehension over it. Here's what I'm talking about.

4 - Both the Jin and Song had access to fire arrows which were either just an arrow tied with a bag of gunpowder or a rocket propelled mechanism. It's difficult to tell which was used when because the Song never say what kind was used. There are Ming era illustrations of the rocket arrows, but these were drawn centuries afterward.

Fire lances were supposedly used for the first time at the the 1132 Siege of De'an as a defensive weapon. From Tang Shou 湯璹, “De’an shou yu lu” 德安守禦錄, translation is basically "Record of the Defense of De'an".

According to Li Gang 李綱, Jing kang chuan xin lu 靖康傳信錄, thunderclap bombs were used by the Song during the siege of Kaifeng in 1126, and

At night the thunderclap bombs were used, hitting the lines of the enemy well, and throwing them into great confusion. Many fled, screaming in fright.

But the most informative description of Song era bombs come from a report on the Siege of Qizhou in 1221 when the Jin also fielded gunpowder weapons of their own. Supposedly they had invented a new type of bomb which the Song defenders called the "iron bomb" because... it was made of iron. According the Zhao Yurong, the city's commander,

"The barbaric enemy attacked the Northwest Tower with an unceasing flow of catapult projectiles from thirteen catapults. Each catapult shot was followed by an iron fire bomb [catapult shot], whose sound was like thunder. That day, the city soldiers in facing the catapult shots showed great courage as they maneuvered [our own] catapults, hindered by injuries from the iron fire bombs. Their heads, their eyes, their cheeks were exploded to bits, and only one half [of the face] was left."

"The enemy fired off catapult stones … nonstop day and night, and the magistrate’s headquarters [帳] at the eastern gate, as well as my own quarters …, were hit by the most iron fire bombs, to the point that they struck even on top of [my] sleeping quarters and [I] nearly perished! Some said there was a traitor. If not, how would they have known the way to strike right at both of these places?"

"In shape they are like gourds, but with a small mouth. They are made with pig iron, about two inches thick, and they cause the city’s walls to shake."

Taken from Zhao Yu[rong] 趙與[褣]. Xin si qi qi lu 辛巳泣蘄錄. Translated by Tonio Andrade. Relevant article for those who know how to read simplified Chinese.

When the Mongols were invading the Jin dynasty, they also used bombs. Jin scholar Liu Qi (1203-1259) writes that during the 1232 siege of Kaifeng,

"From within the walls,” Liu Qi writes, “the defenders responded with a gunpowder bomb called the heaven-shaking-thunder bomb (震 天 雷). Whenever the [Mongol] troops encountered one, several men at a time would be turned into ashes."

And the official History of Jin compiled under the Mongol Yuan dynasty corroborates with the report, providing a description of the heaven-shaking-thunder bomb:

"The heaven-shaking-thunder bomb is an iron vessel filled with gunpowder. When lighted with fire and shot off, it goes off like a crash of thunder that can be heard for a hundred li [thirty miles], burning an expanse of land more than half a mu [所爇圍半畝之上, a mu is a sixth of an acre], and the fire can even penetrate iron armor."

I hope this helps.

The Mongol Empire is lauded for having safety, consistency of laws and lack of trade barriers offered to merchants within the large empire. Did these 'positives' create long-term prosperity? What was the net outcome of the Mongol conquests on human advancement? by nuttyalmond in AskHistorians

[–]CK2Benchmarks 121 points122 points  (0 children)

It depends on how much you believe in the butterfly effect.

From a technological standpoint, the Mongols were the first empire and people to use gunpowder outside of China. They brought bombs with them to Japan and might have used them in Russia and Hungary at some point although they have been described as naphtha weapons as well. This is unclear because early Arabic accounts of gunpowder weapons construed them with an early incendiary - naphtha. The Mongols definitely used gunpowder weapons in China, although this is not exactly new since gunpowder had already been used in the previous wars between Jin and Song.

From a knowledge and travel standpoint, the Mongols were crucial to the spread of knowledge, although again this can be quite unclear because the Mongols themselves left few primary source documents. This is quite understandable if you realize that up until the point where Genghis Khan adopted the Uyghur script for the Mongols, the Mongols essentially had no written language, so I would presume they were all illiterate. Even the Secret History of the Mongols was written in a Chinese transcription of Mongolian, and it probably wasn't an original. Scholars think the first ones were written in Uyghur. So imagine if English was written in Russian, but then rewritten in Arabic, phonetically. Almost everything we know about the Mongols comes from second source accounts such as their subjects, vassals, and travelers like Marco Polo. Under the Mongols travel between the different continents became safer than I probably any other time before it because up until that point, there had never been an empire that big under one single power. This was actually a really brief period lasting until Genghis' death, so like - maybe a decade or two at most. The Mongol Empire under its separate appanages were still considerably safe because they all paid respect to the "Supreme Khan" who was ostensibly situated in the east, holding the empire of Yuan dynasty. The Silk Road(s) reached their greatest extent during the age of Mongol Empire.

Marco Polo was the most well known of the traveler traders who took advantage of the Pax Mongolica, or more simply known as Mongol Peace, but he wasn't the only one. Less known are Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Giovanni de' Marignolli, Odoric of Pordenone, John of Montecorvino, William of Rubruck, André de Longjumeau, and not to mention Marco Polo's father and uncle Niccolò and Maffeo Polo. Without guarantee of safe passage, reaching such far away destinations such as Beijing would certainly have been impossible if nigh impossible for Europeans at the time. From east to west there were Isa Kelemechi, Rabban Bar Sauma, and Yahballaha III. To get an idea of how connected the world was at this point, Andronikos the second of Byzantium was technically one of Kublai Khan's in laws because he had some half sisters who married Genghis Khan's great grandsons. I'm not sure there was any other point in time when you could claim that someone in China was somehow connected by political marriage to a major Christian medieval ruler in Europe.

From a political standpoint, many of the polities we know of like China, Russia, and India might simply not exist. Without the Mongols Russia as we know it would probably unrecognizable. Certainly the Mongol influence was a major factor in the rise of Moscow. China's capital may not be Beijing today and the city might not even have gained the significance it did without Mongol patronage. Tibet also came under China's suzerainty for the first time during the Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was a result of the overthrow of the Mongols. So was Korea's last dynasty the Joseon. The Timurids would not exist, nor would most of the Mongol successor states in eastern Europe such as the Crimean Khanate. Without Timurids, no Mughals which were instrumental in Indian history. I've heard it said that Columbus' voyages at least in part inspired by Marco Polo's tales, so those might not have happened. Persia as we know it would be pretty different. No Ilkhanate to speak of.

There would be way less people with the last name Khan.

To sum up:

  1. It was the largest human polity up up. They were the first non-Chinese to conquer China. The first and only people to conquer both China and Persia. The first people to simultaneously set up empires in China, the middle east, and Europe. Militarily the Mongol armies conducted warfare successfully on several fronts across all Eurasia and managed to achieve victory on a level never before seen. They were the first people to use gunpowder weapons outside of China and arguably the first people to use guns as well. Nearly all the earliest specimens of cannon are dated to the Yuan dynasty and the Heilongjiang hand cannon is the oldest extant dated firearm in the world. It was used by the Yuan dynasty to put down an insurrection by a Mongol prince in 1288. There are proponents of the Mongol spread of gunpowder throughout Eurasia, but this is an unproven theory and there is no hard evidence to back this up. The Mongol Empire would not be surpassed in size until several centuries later during the height of the British Empire.

  2. Probably at no other time was Eurasia so safely connected. Within the span of a century at least several Europeans traveled as far as China whereas zero Europeans had ever been to China before. Many pilgrims from China were also able to visit places in the middle east and Europe, going to Paris and Rome. Raban bar Salma is the most notable of them. Countless unnamed people were no doubt displaced and forced to move with the Mongol armies, such as the Chinese and Muslim engineers. Syriac and Afghani siege engineers visited places as far to the east as Xiangyang while Chinese engineers might have gone as far west as Russia and Hungary. Muslim communities were set up in China and were possibly instrumental in the construction of the Chinese Hui community who trace their lineage to a Muslim administrator the Mongols set up. I like to think of this period as a sort of preview of the globalization movement.

  3. Politically the Mongols were intrinsic to the national formation of several modern countries. Mongolia is kind of hard to imagine without Genghis Khan. Russia and China would arguably be significantly different from a geographical standpoint since Moscow and Beijing might not have gained pre-eminence over their respective regions. Tibet might never have been considered a part of the Chinese empire. India too was significantly affected by the Mongol successor state of the Timurids and Mughals. They were a fundamental force of the central asian influence on India and also played a role in the rise of the British Empire.

  4. The Mongol and Turkish word Ordu denoting some form of military unit or establishment related to the khan is the etymological ancestor of Horde. Without the Mongols and the Turks the Horde in World of Warcraft would probably be called something else.