Questions tagged [medieval-china]
Questions about China after the fall of the Han Dynasty (A.D. 220) and prior to the early modern period.
68 questions
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What was Hunanese cuisine like before chili peppers were imported to China?
Today, chilis are strongly associated with Hunanese cuisine, which is regarded as the spiciest Chinese regional cuisine. However, Chinese recipe books didn't start mentioning chilis until the 1790s, ...
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How many times in history has a government completely "moulded to its own shape the physical character of the people"? [closed]
Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet published the book "Travels in China" in 1804. In it he made poignant but quite accurate assessments about then China. I am Chinese and I am reading this book ...
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Where/when does the wok start to differentiate itself from pot-style cooking vessels?
I can understand how basic pottery imitating gourds can lead to "cauldron" style hanging pots, and on to the modern shapes used predominantly in the west. Similar for the flat cooking ...
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How many soldiers fought in the Mongol conquest of Song
Wikipedia says the Mongols invaded the Song with an initial force of 90 tumens, or 900,000 soldiers at full strength. Considering the war lasted 44 years and the Mongols must have provided continuous ...
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How did scholarly education work in Song dynasty China?
In Song dynasty China, the Imperial Examinations were held to determine who would become the new government leaders to replace the older hereditary system of power. According to several sources, any ...
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Did ancient Chinese and/or Japanese scholars speculate about what lay across the Pacific?
Before the age of exploration, a good number European scholars speculated about the Atlantic beyond the Iberian peninsula, whether it was the location of Atlantis, or whether or not Japan could be ...
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How should a Westerner visualise Chinese civilisation under the various dynasties? [closed]
I have a decent knowledge of European history (if I say so myself!) but, like many Englishmen, my grasp of Chinese history is very poor, and, over the past few months, I've taken some modest steps ...
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Did Kublai Khan's army consist largely of Mongol warriors or native Chinese?
Kublai's army is always referred to as a 'Mongol' army but I suspect that after the initial conquest of China, his army consisted largely of native Chinese. Is this correct? Did the Japanese and ...
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How was law enforcement handled in medieval China before professional police?
This question came from:
How was law enforcement handled in large US cities before professional police?
China (Zhōng Gúo 中国) has had very large cities with more than a million people since the early ...
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How did China deal with the Black Death during the second plague pandemic?
As far as I know, Europeans quarantined people. Sometimes neighbors sent food, and some people checked and marked houses infected by the Black Death. Sometimes corpses were burned in a mass pit, and ...
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Were the commentaries and subcommentaries part of the Tang Code?
Are the commentaries and subcommentaries in Wallace Johnson's translation of the Tang Code (Princeton University Press) written by Wallace Johnson or are they part of the original text of the Code?
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What are the historical equivalents of cooperative storytelling like modern role-playing games?
I understand the direct history of RPGs mostly coming from Dungeons and Dragons, which had grown out of the combat game Chainmail, but I am wondering if there were any close equivalents in older ...
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What exactly is a Tang dynasty 壺 (pot)?
I have asked this question on Chinese Stack Exchange but received no satisfactory answer there so far. I think it is relevant to the History Stack Exchange and will link these two questions together.
...
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Was Al-Tusi's observatory (1262) the first specific-purpose-driven international research institution (like CERN)?
In the biography of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1273), among other sources, we learn that:
The observatory at Maragheh (Persia) became operational in 1262.
The Persians were assisted by Chinese ...
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Why where individual servings replaced with shared dishes during the Song dynasty?
In part six, "Song," of section thirty-six, "Food & Drink," of Endymion Wilkinson's Chinese History: A New Manual, Fifth Edition (2018) there is the following excerpt:
Sitting on chairs to eat ...
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Where to find Cixi‘s 1865 decree dismissing Prince Gong?
Zhang Rong‘s Cixi biography titled »EMPRESS DOWAGER CIXI: THE CONCUBINE WHO LAUNCHED MODERN CHINA«, Chapter 6, Loc 1365 on kindle claims:
Without the rigid etiquette, she realised, Prince Gong was ...
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Did Empress Cixi divert funds for the Beiyang Fleet to build the Summer Palace?
There is a popular story that Empress Dowager Cixi diverted funds originally intended for the Beiyang Fleet in order to upgrade the Summer Palace. This is significant because the amount - approx. 22 ...
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How did East Asia circa 1500 produce cosmetics?
For a work of fiction, I need to know how one would produce cosmetics from the available products at those times (circa 1500).
I imagine I would need
- beeswax, which was probably widely available
- ...
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Book (and/or podcast) recommendations for providing a historical & cultural context for Sichuan?
A couple friends and I plan on taking a tour in the southwestern region of China, specifically Sichuan & Yunan, around spring of next year. I find that it always makes the trip more engaging and ...
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How much (area) territory did Chinese dynasties control?
I am looking for the area of the territories controlled by the different Chinese dynasties since Zhou all the way to the Qing. There are maps available of the different territories but I haven't found ...
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What was the de facto rule by which the imperial title was transmitted in various Chinese dynasties?
I seek to find information about which rules or trends - if any - applied in Chinese imperial succession during different dynasties.
I found this source, but I can’t get access and what I see in the ...
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Is this a Qing costume and did it have a purpose?
According to this article, clothing during was very codified during the Qing dynasty.
Is it reasonable to think this suit may be of Qing dynasty, and if so, what would have been its wearer status and ...
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Was this kind of porcelain service common during some Chinese dynasty?
Here is a Chinese porcelain service of particular (lotus ?) shape :
The squared cup actually doesn't belong to the same set, but the fact that it fits perfectly makes me wonder : was this kind of ...
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In Romance of the Three Kingdoms why do people still use bamboo sticks when paper had already been invented?
By the time of the setting of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, paper had already been invented. Why do kings often (according to the movies) receive letters on bamboo sticks?
Is this historically ...
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What are some Chinese sources testifying the extreme weather events of 535-536 CE?
The Wikipedia page Extreme weather events of 535–536 lists under "Documentary evidence" that:
Low temperatures, even snow during the summer (snow reportedly fell in August in China during the ...
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Was 'Jade Mirror of the Four Unknowns' published in 1303, and how do we know?
Wikipedia gives the date for Chinese mathematician Zhu Shijie's Jade Mirror of the Four Unknowns (四元玉鉴, Siyuan yujian) as 1303, citing
Elman, Benjamin A. (2005). On their own terms science in China, ...
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Why did the Mongols outlaw intermarriage between the Mongols and the Chinese and forbid the Chinese from learning the Mongolian language?
When the Mongols invaded China and established the Yuan dynasty, why did they outlaw intermarriage and forbid the Chinese from learning the Mongolian language?
I am reading this from a textbook for ...
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Were Mongol or Chinese cavalry charges among the largest in history?
In 1683 at the Battle of Vienna, 20,000 Polish, German and Austrian cavalry charged the Ottoman lines in what Wikipedia says is the largest cavalry charge in history. Other references are more ...
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Why did Europeans (and not people in other regions) dominate oceans?
Having a brief look at civilization history, I find that Europeans have a significant dominance over other regions when it comes to sailing. This becomes more obvious after the 15th century when ...
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Why didn't the Black Death result in favorable results for surviving peasants in China?
The Black Death affected Europe and China alike.
In Europe, the Black Death resulted in increased social mobility for the peasants and, as a result, labor-saving innovations were introduced. All ...
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How far would the average Silk Road caravan travel during the early reign of Justinian?
So what I am asking is not the total travel distance that the Caravan would travel in a lifetime; instead I am asking how far they would tend to go one-way on a two-way trip and how long that trek ...
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Did Song troops spread black beans on the ground as a means to defeat the superior Jin cavalry? If so, in which battle?
According to this page on the website Changing Minds,
When the superior Jin cavalry were attacking, the inferior Song troops
scattered black beans on the ground which the cavalry horses stopped
...
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How did the Chinese crossbows that shot bullets work?
It's commonly accepted that East Asian people invented the crossbow. However, it seems they had crossbows that shoot bullets as well. As an example, Jing Fang uses this description when explaining his ...
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Was the Korean King Chungnyeol instrumental in persuading Kublai Khan to invade Japan?
The Mongol invasions of Japan were costly failures. According to Wikipedia, the Korean King Chungnyeol (by this time a vassal of the Mongols) was
...known as the fixer who instigated Mongol ...
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Scholar-farmer-artisan-merchant social ordering in ancient/medieval China
The phrase scholar-farmer-artisan-merchant (士農工商, shi-nong-gong-shang) is well-known in China and other Confucian countries. These were the four broad classes of people in ancient/medieval China.
The ...
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The history of toys: Who invented the first porcelain dolls?
I've been reading about the history of toys online, as part of a personal project. One thing that surprised me was that every article I've found lists porcelain toys as having been invented by ...
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Where does the phrase "behind the wind" come from?
In Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years, chapter 4 ("The World Behind the Wind"), the second-to-last sentence:
On the evidence of the events of the fifteenth century, in the world east ...
user23608
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Why have eunuchs been so influential in Chinese history?
Throughout the history of China, eunuchs amassed power, destabilised dynasties, and commanded armies. They were a major cause in the decline of the Han, Tang and other dynasties.
What customs or ...
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What's the historical basis for Water Margin / 108 Heroes of Liangshan?
Chronicle of the Water Margin (alternatively known as Outlaws of the Marsh and All Men are Brothers), one of the Four Great Famous Works of Chinese literature, is a novel attributed to Shi Nai'an (施耐庵,...
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Are there any influences of sinification in modern times? [closed]
Sinification is the process of changing a civilization into a Chinese style. It was very prevalent in Korean civilization, a bit less in Japan, and very little in Vietnam.
Are there still any ...
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Did anyone ever try to beat the Great Wall of China by digging secret tunnels under it?
I know the Great Wall was useful to defend against enemies on land, but is there any record that people ever tried to beat the Great Wall by digging tunnels under it? If not, why didn't it happen?
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Why were the Mongols so victorious? [duplicate]
I read that the Mongol Empire conquered and unified China. My question is... how were the Mongols able to conquer so much when China's population almost certainly was larger during that time period? ...
user21713
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Why does the Great Wall of China follow such a bendy route?
Why does the path of the Great Wall of China bend back and forth so much? Naïvely, it would have taken less material and guards to defend if it had taken a straighter path, so there must have been ...
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Why haven't bankers gained as much power in China as the Medici got in Europe during their height? [closed]
While the monotheist religions had bans on loaning money, Buddhism doesn't. Why didn't bankers manage to consolidate power in China during the Middle Ages?
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Were there ever Taoist missionaries?
Taoism is not generally known as a proselytizing religion these days, but was there ever a time when Taoist missionaries were found?
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Did Western China have special-named martial arts during Islamic era?
Islam brought by Prophet Mohammad had reached (parts of) Central Asia in less than 50 years after his death. Central Asia, especially China, is nowadays famous of its martial arts. Even in some muslim ...
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Why do some sections of Great Wall of China seem to be bidirectional?
Official historiography says that Great Wall of China is built "across the historical northern borders of China to protect the Chinese states and empires against the raids and invasions of the various ...
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Why didn't Emperor Gaozu of Tang let Crown Prince Li Jiancheng command battles more often?
When Emperor Gaozhu of Tang (唐高祖） was reigning, there were a number of battles that were helmed by his second son, Li Shimin（李世民） instead of the crown prince Li Jiancheng(太子李建成), such as:
The ...
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Did cavalry in China use spears instead of swords?
In Japan, yaris (spears) seem inferior to katanas. In Shogun: Total War, for example, spear-wielding troops are "cheaper" than samurai. The spear-wielding troops are peasants. The samurai are members ...
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Was Tibet ruled by Yuan Dynasty empires?
Did Yuan dynasty empires ever ruled Tibet as they claim or was it always an independent state as claimed by The Tibetan Govt in Exile?
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