NationStates

Which dynasty of the Middle Kingdom does NS think the greatest?

Zhou 周
1046 BCE - 256 BCE
Kings - 37

The longest reigning of all the dynasties (over 900 years), Zhou was a fountainhead of classical Chinese civilization and much of the Chinese ethos is the product of this time. The feudal system it created would later backfire and result in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, which would give China some of its most important philosophical and military ideas



Qin 秦
221 BCE - 206 BCE
Emperors - 2

Though it lasted little over a decade, it can be credited with doing the "dirty work" of the reunification of Chinese society under a single empire, an idea which would have far greater longevity.



Han 漢
206 BCE - 9 CE, 23 CE - 220 CE
Emperors - 30

After the collapse of Qin, China very nearly fell right back into the Warring States Period, but the strong Han state prevented this from occurring. While Qin unified the country for the first time, Han can be credited with many great cultural achievements.



Sui 隋
581 CE - 618 CE
Emperors - 3

Sui has often been compared in temperament to the Qin dynasty in the shortness of its rule and the ruthlessness of its grand achievements. The Grand Canal, a colossal engineering feat, was a product of this era, as well as the rapid spread of Buddhism through the country. It reunified the country after a very long period of disunity.



Tang 唐
618 - 907
Emperors - 23

Tang is to Sui as Han was to Qin. It stabilized the country and provided many great cultural achievements. It conquered the Gansu Corridor and the Tarim Basin, establishing a major trading empire along the silk road and reaping great profit from it.



Song 宋
960 - 1279
Emperors - 18

Some consider Song to have been the zenith of Chinese cultural and technological achievements. An explosion of productivity and technology on the scale of the Industrial Revolution combined with a flowering of creativity, the arts and literature and a rediscovery and rekindling of classical Confucianism has led many to call this period the "Chinese Renaissance".



Yuan 元
1279 - 1368
Emperors - 11 (From Kublai Khan), 16 (Retroactive application to earlier Mongol Khans), 18 (Northern Yuan)

The Mongols under Kublai Khan completed the conquest of China in 1279 and established the Yuan Dynasty. This sinified Mongol state, while it destroyed much of what Song built, helped to pollinate that tech across Eurasia and exposed China to more outside influence.



Ming 明
1368 - 1644
Emperors - 16, 23 (Southern Ming)

Ming was a reinvigoration and refinement of Chinese artistic and cultural aspects, as well as period which represented perhaps the height of China's military power. The state could field millions of well trained men in its armies and could set sail ships which made contemporary European ships look like toys in comparison. Sadly, it was also a time when China began to look increasingly inwards and shun the rest of the world to its later detriment.



Qing 清
1644-1912, 1917
Emperors - 12

The period around the end of Ming was a cataclysm for China on the scale of the Fall of Rome in the west. Millions of people were killed during the period of the rebel Shun Dynasty of Li Zicheng, the psychotic rule of Zhang Xianzhong in Sichuan (from which the region never quite recovered) and the invasion of the Manchu from the north. However, out of these ashes the Qing Dynasty would help to rebuild the shattered country. Patronage of the arts and promoters of Chinese culture as well as further refinement of Chinese literature made this period very interesting.




These were the major dynasties. Due to the limit, I decided not to include the bronze age Xia and Shang dynasties, or the short lived Xin, Jin, and Shun dynasties, or empires which, while note-worthy, never actually unified all of China.

Do the Yuan and Qing really count as "Chinese"?

Why no split between East and West Zhou?

I'm gonna go with Han, considering all the cultural and scientific achievements that came out of it, including paper. After that, the Qin dynasty, for the system of taxation and weights and measures they established.

The Cao Wei, which was a Han Chinese dynasty (220-265).

You forgot the Shang Dynasty which was first. 1556 BC to 1046 BC

The Xia were a fictional dynasty. The Shang were first.

Long Live the Yuan, Grandson of the Scourge of G-d!

The Mao dynasty. Under Mao and its successors, China went from a mostly agrarian and famished country open for colonisation and invasion by anyone to a world-stage superpower, both economically and militarily. In 70 years.

Merizoc wrote:I'm gonna go with Han, considering all the cultural and scientific achievements that came out of it, including paper. After that, the Qin dynasty, for the system of taxation and weights and measures they established.

Agreed. The fact that the majority of the population of China identifies as "Han Chinese" speaks for itself.

Ivania wrote:Long Live the Yuan, Grandson of the Scourge of G-d!

That wasn't a Chinese dynasty, it was a Mongolian one...

Western European Republic wrote:The Shang were a fictional dynasty. The Zhou were first.

Shang was real. The Bronze Script and oracle bone script date from the period and have provided contemporary evidence for its existence, even down to kinglists which corroborate with those found in the Bamboo Annals. There is also a wealth of archaeological evidence which also proves the existence of a major civilization at the time corresponding to descriptions of Shang.

The Xia Dynasty, once considered purely mythical, is even being reconsidered for historicity as palace complexes and urban sites from the early bronze age have been found corresponding to descriptions, though no writings have been found so far.

I didn't include them due to the 10 poll option limit.

Utceforp wrote:

Ivania wrote:Long Live the Yuan, Grandson of the Scourge of G-d!

That wasn't a Chinese dynasty, it was a Mongolian one...

It was a very sinified state, and even the following Ming Dynasty acknowledged its possession of the Mandate with the Book of Yuan. The same is true of Qing.

Rio Cana wrote:You forgot the Shang Dynasty which was first. 1556 BC to 1046 BC

I know, but the limit for poll options is 10. If there weren't a limit, I would have included Xia, Shang, Eastern Zhou, Xin, Jin (晉), Cao Wei, Southern Qi, Chen, Liang, Xi Xia, Jin (金), and Shun.

The one that lost the Opium Wars and gave us Hong Kong.

Britannic Realms wrote:The one that lost the Opium Wars and gave us Hong Kong.

Qing then.

I'm rather fond of the Han and the one named after a fruit-flavoured beverage.

Song are also cool because they brought about gunpowder.

The Song dynasty was one of Chinas greatest Dynasties. Traders, Scholars and diplomats from other nations flocked to China. Japanese and Korean diplomats copied Song dynasty bureaucratic way of administering and taxing system. Also, religion, literature and way of writing. Then they took it back home where it was implemented.

The problem with dynasties like the Shang and Xia is that we're not really sure if they were 'dynasties.' Most likely they were similar to Egypt's "dynasty zero" rulers, more akin to tribal chiefs who had gained a bit of power than to anything like the later notion of 'emperors.' We just tend to get this idea of China being a unified country with a distinct cultural identity back in the 4th millennium BC because the Chinese have been telling themselves that story for so long that it upsets them when somebody comes along and shows them different.

I've personally always been fond of the Ming. Big ships, big guns, big emperors. They were sort of like China's college years. Full of big ideas, parties and hedonism. At least after their freshman year.

Napkiraly wrote:

Britannic Realms wrote:The one that lost the Opium Wars and gave us Hong Kong.

Qing then.

I'm rather fond of the Han and the one named after a fruit-flavoured beverage.

Song are also cool because they brought about gunpowder.

So you like the Qing Dynasty. You are in luck. On another site, I found someone who posted a youtube historical French film from circa 1908 taken during the Qing Dynasty. The Qing fell in 1911.

video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZRhDmUn3m4

OMGeverynameistaken wrote:The problem with dynasties like the Shang and Xia is that we're not really sure if they were 'dynasties.' Most likely they were similar to Egypt's "dynasty zero" rulers, more akin to tribal chiefs who had gained a bit of power than to anything like the later notion of 'emperors.' We just tend to get this idea of China being a unified country with a distinct cultural identity back in the 4th millennium BC because the Chinese have been telling themselves that story for so long that it upsets them when somebody comes along and shows them different.

I've personally always been fond of the Ming. Big ships, big guns, big emperors. They were sort of like China's college years. Full of big ideas, parties and hedonism. At least after their freshman year.

The first Ming Emperor was despotic. And some that came later were no different. They also spent money like there was no tomorrow. Overtime, the Ming dynasty got caught with there pants down while everything fell apart. Yes, there was silver flowing into China from international global trade. This is considered the first real modern globalization.

Mismanagement of the government, economy, factionalism in the government combined with unpopular methods to try to correct things which led to revolts all weakened the Ming. It also opened the door for the Manchus who invaded and started the Qing dynasty.

Clearly the Han dynasty for all of us who love nostalgia. The first 'true' Chinese dynasty - it had the stability and longevity that previous dynasties lacked. I'm sceptical that the Zhou can even be considered a single dynasty as it was so fractured. The Han dynasty established China culturally and intellectually and administratively, laying the foundations for future dynasties. In this way the Song dynasty was also great as it built on this, and especially the Yuan dynasty, where the greatest Chinese literary traditions really took off.

Rio Cana wrote:

Napkiraly wrote:Qing then.

I'm rather fond of the Han and the one named after a fruit-flavoured beverage.

Song are also cool because they brought about gunpowder.

So you like the Qing Dynasty. You are in luck. On another site, I found someone who posted a youtube historical French film from circa 1908 taken during the Qing Dynasty. The Qing fell in 1911.

video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZRhDmUn3m4

I like the Tang.

Rio Cana wrote:

OMGeverynameistaken wrote:The problem with dynasties like the Shang and Xia is that we're not really sure if they were 'dynasties.' Most likely they were similar to Egypt's "dynasty zero" rulers, more akin to tribal chiefs who had gained a bit of power than to anything like the later notion of 'emperors.' We just tend to get this idea of China being a unified country with a distinct cultural identity back in the 4th millennium BC because the Chinese have been telling themselves that story for so long that it upsets them when somebody comes along and shows them different.

I've personally always been fond of the Ming. Big ships, big guns, big emperors. They were sort of like China's college years. Full of big ideas, parties and hedonism. At least after their freshman year.

The first Ming Emperor was despotic. And some that came later were no different. They also spent money like there was no tomorrow. Overtime, the Ming dynasty got caught with there pants down while everything fell apart. Yes, there was silver flowing into China from international global trade. This is considered the first real modern globalization.

Mismanagement of the government, economy, factionalism in the government combined with unpopular methods to try to correct things which led to revolts all weakened the Ming. It also opened the door for the Manchus who invaded and started the Qing dynasty.

I know. Thus the analogy. I guess I wasn't clear enough.

OMGeverynameistaken wrote:The problem with dynasties like the Shang and Xia is that we're not really sure if they were 'dynasties.' Most likely they were similar to Egypt's "dynasty zero" rulers, more akin to tribal chiefs who had gained a bit of power than to anything like the later notion of 'emperors.' We just tend to get this idea of China being a unified country with a distinct cultural identity back in the 4th millennium BC because the Chinese have been telling themselves that story for so long that it upsets them when somebody comes along and shows them different.

I've personally always been fond of the Ming. Big ships, big guns, big emperors. They were sort of like China's college years. Full of big ideas, parties and hedonism. At least after their freshman year.

I think that Xia and Shang were less akin to the pre-dynastic period of Egypt and more akin to the early dynastic period itself. Extensive cultivation and city dwelling, as well as palatial complexes typical of other bronze age societies and, in the case of Shang, newly discovered written evidence corroborating with established sources, points to something like a unified society at least along the Huang He.

One story that is interesting in particular is that of Jie, the last king of Xia. During the last years of his reign, during the 1600s BCE, there was said to be a time when snow fell in midsummer and the weather was extremely erratic, which sounds a lot like a description of a volcanic winter. This is special because we know that Santorini erupted around that same time.

Aggicificicerous wrote:Clearly the Han dynasty for all of us who love nostalgia. The first 'true' Chinese dynasty - it had the stability and longevity that previous dynasties lacked. I'm sceptical that the Zhou can even be considered a single dynasty as it was so fractured. The Han dynasty established China culturally and intellectually and administratively, laying the foundations for future dynasties. In this way the Song dynasty was also great as it built on this, and especially the Yuan dynasty, where the greatest Chinese literary traditions really took off.

Western Zhou was a unified, centralized kingdom while Eastern Zhou was when the fracturing happened. The feudal lords which the Zhou kings had delegated control over certain provinces became too powerful and, eventually, formed effectively independent states which grew and gobbled each other up until only seven large ones remained and the Zhou king was reduced to a tiny rump state around Luoyang. In hindsight, the hegemon system was a really dumb idea.