Category: China

China’s enemies also came overland during this period. However, as the Mongols pressed southward across the Yangzi (Yangtze) River and encountered Chinese resistance along the coastal waterways, they, too, ordered their Chinese prisoners to construct a fleet. The last Song (Sung) emperor drowned at sea after suffering final defeat at the hands of the Mongol […]

Han Dynasty: circa 202 BC – 220 AD Chinese naval developments occurred far earlier than similar western technology. The first recorded use of rudder technology in the West was in 1180. Chinese pottery models of sophisticated slung axial rudders (enabling the rudder to be lifted in shallow waters) dating from the 1st century have been […]

Soldiers from the Green Standard Army. Defense of the Qing Empire initially fell on the shoulders of the Eight Banners (baqi) and the Green Standard Army (lüying). By 1800, both had long ceased to be effective as the country was subjected to Western intrusion and increasing social upheavals. THE EIGHT BANNERS Created by the founders […]

The Foochow Arsenal under construction, between 1867 and 1871. Three albumen prints joined to form a panorama. The Chinese flagship Yangwu and the corvette Fuxing under attack by French torpedo boats No. 46 and No. 45. Combat naval de Fou-Tchéou (‘The naval battle at Foochow’), by Charles Kuwasseg, 1885 The naval battle off Ma Wei, […]

Liang Qichao founded the newspaper Shibao in Shanghai in 1904. Propaganda is central to the operation of the Chinese system of government. Aspects of propaganda—in particular the formalization of imagery and language—can be traced back to the earliest period of Chinese history, but propaganda has been most effective in the twentieth century thanks to the […]

Xia dynasty (Tangut, Xixia, Hsi-Hsia) When Chinggis Khan united the Mongolian plateau by defeating the Kereyid and NAIMAN khanates in 1203–04, Ilqa-Senggüm, son of the Kereyid ONG KHAN, sought refuge in the Xia. After his adherents took to plundering the locals, however, he was expelled. Perhaps in response to the initial offer of refuge, Chinggis […]

Propaganda is central to the operation of the Chinese system of government. Aspects of propaganda—in particular the formalization of imagery and language—can be traced back to the earliest period of Chinese history, but propaganda has been most effective in the twentieth century thanks to the mass media and a powerful authoritarian government. The earliest surviving […]

The Qing had the largest army of any Chinese dynasty. It was so large they had to divide it into 8 huge banner armies. Initially the banners were divided into ethnic lines, predominantly there were Manchu, Han Chinese, and Mongol banners. But shit got hairy when the Han armies returned home while Jurchen banners are […]

Qing dynasty at its greatest extent in 1820. The central difference, of course, was that whereas Mongol unification lasted barely 90 years, Manchu conquests survived to the end of the imperial era in 1911. What is more, insofar as the bulk of Qing annexations were retained by 20th-century governments, the Qing lay the foundations of […]