From: yjhbhc@dante.lbl.gov (Joe Huang)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: Re: Will America fall?   teeter, teeter
Keywords: Chinese history
Date: 17 Apr 92 09:16:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: dog.22777
Reply-To: yjhbhc@dante.lbl.gov (Joe Huang)
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.106

Zhimin writes:
>> 
>> >>Harry Xu writes:
>> 
>> HX> 2. The Yuan Dynasty was the largest empire ever existed, being about twice
>> HX> 	the size of the Islamic Empire and the Roman Empire (which is not 
>> 
>> I think you exaggerated a bit, if not confused. You see, before 
>> Chingis Khan died, he divided the huge Mongol empire into four Khanates(each
Following 50 lines explaining the breakup of the Mongol Khanate 
deleted for brevity ... 

(by the way, the Il-Khan was in Persia, not Arabia, and there is
too much emphasis on the breakup of the empire, which was gradual 
and not catastrophic. The other khanates by-and-large accepted the 
supremacy of the Great Khan, and trade routes were kept open, allowing 
people like Marco Polo to go from Europe to China. In terms of 
historical impact, 1271 (pronoucement of the Yuan) pales in 
contrast with 1279 (destruction of the Song) or 1368 (expulsion of 
the Mongols).

>> 
>> JH> I'm always surprised that Chinese would take credit for the Yuan
>> 
>> First could the author who wrote the above kindly stop using this kind of 
>> generalizing and lecturing language.  What Mr. Xu or Mr. Shi wrote are
>> opinions of nobody else but their own. 

I guess I need your advice on how NOT to sound "lecturing", since I
had purposely stated that this is a personal reaction ("I'm always
surprised...") and nothing else. I accept your point about the
previous comments reflecting only on their authors, and apologize
for the overgeneralization. I should have added "some" or "a" before
the "Chinese".  

>> 
>> JH> Dynasty, a regime founded by the Mongols at the cost of an estimated
>> JH> 35 million dead in China.
>> 
>> I believe it is history we are talking about here, not merely the numbers 
>> of deads during Mongol period. The point is that Yuan dynasty is univerally
>> regarded as a Chinese dynasty. Please name me one western book that says 
>> otherwise...

Really ? We must be looking at different books... I would say 
(my opinion only!!!! :-)) the prevailing presentation of the Yuan in
Western books is that that of an alien dynasty of conquest, i.e.,
a Mongol sitting on the Chinese throne.... I have yet to see a book 
refer to Kubulai Khan as other than a Mongol emperor, and would ask 
you to show me a book referring to him as a Chinese Emperor. But more
on what is "Chinese" later...

>> ... I think the above author should perfectly know there were
>> large numbers of dead in any wars, in any founding process' of any Chinese 
>> dynasties, or in histories of any other regions(how about the civil wars of 
>> Japan)....

True to a point, but you're in danger of cutting off your nose to spite
your face if you imply that the Mongol conquest was no bloodier than the
founding of any other Chinese dynasty.  There's ample evidence to show
that it took North China centuries to recover from the Mongol wars. As
you probably know, the demographics of China by the end of Southern
Song reached something like 10:1 (South to North) compared to
something like 2 or 3:1 (North to South) in the Tang and before.
(I know the Mongols are not totally to blame for this depopulation, 
but they made the final and most devestating blow). This resulted in the
permanent shift of the cultural and economic center of gravity to 
the South, especially the Jiangnan area, which has been evident down to
modern times.

>> JH> In talking to friends from Korea, Russia,
>> JH> and Iran, I find that they regard the Mongol period as one of 
>> JH> destruction and horror. 
>> 
>> However, it seems laughable for an expert of history to form his opinions
>> by talking to so-called friends....

Laugh if you must, I won't mind....but when did I ever claimed to be 
an "expert of history"?  I've abandoned that field decades ago, and
everything I say now is strictly amateurish and recreational. If you're
hoisting me up so as to throw me down, you're wasting your time :-)
Yes, I admit my account is strictly anecdotal and that I have not 
travel the world to document local opinions of the Mongol empire :-).  
However, I consider myself fortunate in the opportunity of hearing 
different historical perspectives through living abroad (Korea,
Pakistan, etc.) and now working at a place with people from all over
the planet (my neighboring officemates are from Iran, Iraq, and Turkey).
Several of these "so-called friends" (your term :-)) share my interest 
in discussing history, which on occasion touched on the Mongol 
period. These have been parables about terror and bloodshed.
 
>> ...As far as I know, the prestige of 
>> Chingis lineage counts quite a lots in many above-mentioned places long 
>> after the Mongol rule disappeared. Otherwise, it wound be the case that
>> one conquerer after another kept claiming that title.

You're referring to the "successor states" in Central Asia after the
fall of the Chagatai Khanate and the Great Khan with their Mongol or 
quasi-Mongol (often Turkic) nomads - Tamerlane, Babur, etc. This 
tradition of the Mongol lineage still survives to a degree in 
Afghanistan, according to an Afghan friend (:-) no lie..).
I was referring to the historical traditions in the conquered 
sedentary areas (Russia, Iran, and Korea), where the Mongol era 
is remembered as a dark period. 

>> 
>> JH> However, many Chinese seem to not only 
>> JH> downplay the fifty years of bloodshed (1220 to 1270), but regard
>> JH> Mongol conquests as their own. 
>> 
>> Please justify the statement that "many Chinese seem to", hopefully
>> not again from some so-called impression of talking to friends...

I was referring to the glorification of Chinggis Khan in the 
historical museum of Hohhot, at his tomb in Inner Mongolia,
as well as statements like the earlier one about the Yuan being 
the largest empire on earth, a comment I've heard several times in 
China. Your own insistence that the Yuan is a Chinese dynasty
can lead to some strange rhetoric. The Japanese talk of repelling
the Mongols, not the Chinese. Do you regard Khubulai's attempts as
"Chinese" invasions of Japan ? 

>> The latter statement of the above(regard 
>> Mongol..) seems even more bizarre, if not pure nonsense. As I said above, 
>> there were four seperate Khanates even before Yuan dynasty was formed.  I am 
>> sure I am not as well read as this history-expert author since I have never 
>> niticed any books in Chinese that downplayed the Mongol brutality. All of them 
>> regards the short Yuan dynasty as one of misrule and full of corruptions and 
>> palace coups,etc. However there is no need to deny that the Yuan dynasty is 
>> a Chinese dynasty (snide personal comments deleted.)

I suppose by your definition there were never any non-Chinese dynasties
throughout history... Do you not see any qualitative difference 
between the Song and the Yuan, and regard the Mongol conquest as a 
squabble between two competing ruling houses?  Just curious... These
horsemen came swooping down to conquer the place by the sword in over
five decades of near-continous war. They categorized the population 
as fellow Mongols, Se4mu4ren2 (other non-Chinese, i.e., Turks, Arabs, 
Tibetans, etc.), Han4ren2 (Northern Chinese and Nuzhen), or Nan2ren2 
(Southern Chinese), employing the former and keeping power out 
of the hands of the latter two. They garrisoned troops throughout 
the conquered land, spoke in Mongol, wrote in an alien script developed
by a Tibetan monk, disregarded the scholar elite, etc. It all sounds 
a bit like alien domination to me...

Of course, one can always rationalize the situation by saying that
Mongols were actually Chinese, but to speak of Chinese without a
common heritage, language, culture, or identity seems a play on words
or an attempt to shoehorn medieval history into 20th century concepts 
(my opinion only !!!! :-)).

>> JH> On another note, the anecdote of being neither holy, Roman, nor
>> JH> empire referred to the _Holy Roman Empire_ (9th to 16th centuries),
>> JH> _not_ to the Roman Empire, which was Roman and the biggest empire
>> JH> ever seen in Europe.
>> 
>> Thanks for another lecture.
>>

Qi3gan3 , qi3gan3... my pitiful one-sentence correction to a rather 
obvious historical mistake hardly ranks as a footnote, let alone a
lecture, compared to your opening 50 line exposition on the dissolution 
of the Mongol Empire and the origins of the word Yuan. I guess some of 
us are just born to lecture...  :-) 

Joe Huang