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Related to the Shang oracle bones: did you know that today, in Taiwan, some people use two wooden bars which they toss to the floor? People looking for answers from the spirits, first make questions to the spirits holding these wooden bars and then throw them to the floor, and the way the wooden bars end up on the floor may be a "yes" or a "no" from which people assert their decisions.
There is only one thing I can think of that can be corrected: Yu is not a figure with mythical power that fixed flooding with his power, but an engineer that left his family for decades to plan and build a waterwork project that fixed the flooding problem. The myth was his sacrifice earned him the leadership of his people. Of all myths in Chinese history, this is probably one of the more realistic ones.
@@anypercentdeathless It's literally a myth/folklore. I'm not sure whether there is any archaeological evidence but it's the story of 大禹治水, something all Chinese speakers are familiar with and likely read about since birth. Legend has it the king appointed Yu as the chief engineer to fix the flooding problem as 2 previous engineers to tried to dam the waterway failed to fix the flooding of the yellow river. Yu came up with the idea of using a canal instead of damming the yellow river to decrease the flow of water, a project that took him decades, without going home, to achieve. His achievements led to the king appointing him as his successor. The written record of this was in Records of the Grand Historian aka 史記 Note that this is not the story of the first emperor of China. Instead, the first "emperor" of China should be the mythical 黃帝, or the yellow emperor. This is the guy that all later emperors pray to for legitimacy an action later known to the west as the mandate of heaven.
@@benlex5672 I mean you take any very important historical figure in a state with very poor surviving records and the story will change over time as different cultures add their take. A cultural game of, "telephone" if you will. The story of Diogenes is considered mostly apocryphal even though the greeks had writing and recorded history most of his tales are by word of mouth rather than written in stone.
There is also a mythological story around him, I made my bachelor degree about Qin Dynasty, and I track the Ying family existence since the time of Yu the Great, well I started a bit early with the creation of the world and all the mythic era. Any way, when I started with Yu the Great and Xia Dynasty, most of the information I found where similar with Greek myths than those who present a real image about him. In those story it begins with Gong Gong the God of Rain, he got anger at mankind and wanted to destroy them, he broke the cloud and bring the great flood that was planed to kill all the humans. The people started to run to the mountain and close to their pecks as the level of the water increase more and more day by day. A good, name Gun who was the great-grandson of the Yellow Emperor (Hunag Di), saw the humans suffering so he decide to help them, he stole the magic clay named Xirang, a piece of clay that grow back every time you split it or capable of creating great masses of land. Yellow Emperor found that Gun, stole his magic clay and he send Zhu Rong God of Fire, to kill Gun. Gun is killed but he refuse to die because he promise to help the humans, and so, from his belly button was born Yu, Gun becoming a yellow dragon after. Yellow Emperor fell bad for what he did, and rise his great grand-nephew, and he become and adult he send him back on earth with the magic clay, aftre many paasages talk about him having magic tools like that U shape showed and many other things as he is help by a merman an old sage etc... His helper the Ying family head was regarded to be half bird also, the story end with him defeating the God of Rain and getting rid of the flood. Of course the most real story is his father Gun was the inventor of damns during the age of floods, he fails and he was exiled or killed, Yu took the mission of his father to clean his family name, so he developed the irrigation system and drainage of the water, so he was elected king, and before Yu the Great, all rulers where elected by deeds not by blood. The son of Yu was elected by the people and court and so begins the first hereditary monarchy.
Confucius is among hundreds of ancient Chinese schools of thought (诸子百家). Han and later Dynasties promoted Confucius because it emphasizes order and authority of the emperors, but you can't say the other schools (诸子百家）are not Chinese.
Correct! All these ancient philosophies influenced China, not just the Confucius. We had Taoism (specialized in human and nature relations), Mo (specialized in engineering designs), Zong Heng (specialized in Diplomacy and political strategies), Sun Zi (The art of war), Fa (specialized in Laws), Yinyang (specialized in the order and trend of universe), These are the 6 out of the 10 mainstream of philosophies dated around 5th Century BC and influenced all the way to modern China.
@@Claire-lv9lc Mo's contribution is not just engineering. You should mention Mo's thoughts like "equivalent love for all" and "non-attack". Zong Heng Jia....I think this sort of like a name for all the great diplomats of different countries at that time? 感谢你的科普，做的很好！😄
Yu the Great is described in historical texts as a hands-on engineer building a drainage system through a mountain that finally resolved the problem of flooding and made the region inhabitable for Chinese people. His technique of diverting flood waters by draining them to the Yellow Sea was more successful than the technique of suppression with dikes used by his predecessors. Yu was known for engaging in hard toil alongside his men, so much so his feet were calloused and his skin became black and leathery from the sun. The myth where he uses a magical battle axe is not canonical but belongs to a fringe text and is a later embellishment that most Chinese people do not know about. The classical understanding of Yu the Great is of a great hydraulic engineer with a great work ethic and who worked alongside his men on the most laborous tasks.
Of course the white man would call him a "myth" because whites don't understand the concept that non-whites can also engineer. Their racism is built into their blood.
This summary is accurate. See Works of Mencius (BCE 372-288) aka Meng-tze, a Confucian scholar for a non-fiction, non-mythical account. Yu, a gifted leader turned his rule over to his trusted minister and beheaded his flood-control engineer for not putting forth real effort while people were drowning in annual floods. Then, Yu took over the flood control project, and refused to go home for family reunions and celebrations until the flood control channel was finished. Because people were dying and silos and granaries, and crops were destroyed in the weather disasters. He had several thousand men at his command, and taught them what they were trying to do. He eased into the mud, dug with his own hand tools, and he wore the hair off his legs from long days in the sands, mud and dirt.
It honestly sounds like communist party propaganda. The description of him as an "engineer" or any other type of modern profession suggests somebody somewhere had an agenda.
@@JoCE2305 The details of the engineering I found in the writings if Mencius or Meng-Tzu (BCE 372-289), translated into English about 1910. These dates are earlier than the formation of the Communist Party. This leader who seemed to know how to plan and design cities had an ancestor, probably a grandfather who had lived in a very advanced civilization. This preceding civilization was more developed than Minos and Knossos, but it disappeared before China began. In brief, the first dynasty of China came from an ancestor who knew more than the Ancient Greeks, and Minoans.
I am from Nepal where we have many different Tibeto- Burman tribes. It is said that my tribe's ancient origins lies in ancient China (possibly mountains of Yunan and Sichuan) from where my ancestors migrated and moved southwards through Tibetan plateau and eventually settling in the present-day Nepal about atleast a millenia ago. There are lots of myths and legends passed down from generations about our migration from there going through many forests and mountains and arriving in our present home. Nepal, Bhutan, North-east India have long been inhabited by Tibeto- Burman speaking populations which trace their ancestry to the Western China and South east Asia (due to intermixing).
@@18890426 If their ancestors migrated thousands of years ago they probably wouldn't. Everyone alive today is a mix of ancestors who came from all over the world.
No culture just springs out of nowhere.....for the shang dynasty to exist, there would be a precursor government polity/culture. Because, hear me out....a fully developed language with writing system doesn't just spring up overnight. Truly, a government like the shang dynasty doesn't just spring up overnight without centuries of consolidation from smaller settlements.
There is one point I want to add. There were 10 mainstream ancient philosophies influenced China, not just the Confucius. We had Taoism (specialized in human and nature relations), Mo (specialized in engineering designs), Zong Heng (specialized in Diplomacy and political strategies), Sun Zi (The art of war), Fa (specialized in Laws), Yin Yang (specialized in the order and trend of universe), These are the 6 out of the 10 mainstream of philosophies dated around 500 BC and influenced all the way to modern China.
Qin just hates Confucianism very much, and Qin's burning action is not extermination. These philosophies were formed in a chaotic era, and eventually the rulers favored Confucianism,but other philosophies were still passed down and learned.
@@mibikchellaimibikchellous2238 No. He did burn a lot of books but these books and philosophies are available today and many have been translated into English. Case in point: Sunzi's Art of War is required reading for officers in the US Marines. During the Qin dynasty, some scholars memorised entire books and rewrote them after his death.
@@mibikchellaimibikchellous2238 The best thing for Qin the first emperor is that he unified China and his dynasty last for merely 19 years. So the scholars at that time rewrote most of the books he burned after his death.
@@mibikchellaimibikchellous2238 Fun fact Qin Shi Huang's kingdom worshipped the Fa philosophy not Confucius, yet Confucius became the dominant philosophy after Qin. Looks like he didn't burn them all
One of the major problems on understanding Chinese civilization before Shang is the writing system. Oracle script during Shang shows a very refined writing system, which means that there should be a more primitive version of it in pre-Shang era. But so far no decrypted piece of such supposed writing have been found, despite several pre-Shang cities with integrated palace, defensive wall system and hydraulic works have been revealed by archeologists. But technically there ARE pre-Shang civilizations in China. It's just so far we don't know for sure what they called themselves, how far and how early they reached, or their definitive relation between Shang and the tribal states of the time.
Zhou Dynasty scripts mention that the Shang Dynasty had books just like them, but we could not find any because the writing material was probably fragile and lost to history. Only the Oracle Bones survived from the Shang Dynasty. There may very well be developed writing during the Shang and proto-writing predating the Shang but we haven't found any, and we might unlikely discover any that survive.
The term "Kings" is used in the western world to address the top leaders . Chinese used 'Emperors"to address top leaders. The narrative history is based on western point of views and interpretations on ancient China. The more accurate account of Chinese history is from Sima Qian.
a lot of ancient civilizations are "lost" or very unknown even in europe during the bronze age. i feel like we forget taht by the time fo the bronze ages, there was a fully developed world and trade relations. It wasn't just the egyptions, sumerians, Hattians, Indians, and Chinese and everyone else were "backwards". Other tribes and states existed that are long forgotten.
@@pfl95there are great civilizations thet left obvious monuments, archeological evidence and even brought great contributions and then there are places like sub saharan Africa that did have people but were stuck in stone age for 100 000 years and left almost no evidence and had zero contribution to the wider world.
The Oracle Bones, of the Shang, which dates back to 2nd Millennium BC. They say the Oracle bone scripts evolve continuously to the modern version of Chinese writing. The Shang script of the Oracle bones was sophisticated enough, that without a doubt, it was passed down from an earlier version. Nothing develops in a vacuum. Even if the evidence of the Xia and Zhou were minimal, the existence of such a Shang kingdom, means something less developed must have existed previously.
Sima Qian was known as the great historian. His account of the Shang is extremely accurate and corroborated with the writing on the oracle bones. This is amazing because Sima Qian lived 1000 years after the fall of the Shang. The accuracy of this works is not in doubt by most Chinese historians. Sima Qian did provide a list of the Xia kings and events that preceded the Shang. The problem is with three sovereign five emperor stuff that preceded the Xia. If Sima Qian account is to be taken literally, than some of these emperors and sovereigns would have live 100+ years plus or more, which is not very likely in ancient time.
Muslims believe early humans lived for far longer than modern humans. We have no problem with the idea of ancient Chinese living for 100+ years. In fact this sounds very fascinating.
In ancient China one year was less than 365 days, so it’s very possible a man can live as long as 100+ years considering that a year in the past is shorter than a year we know now.
Chinese isn't just Han. This is a recurring assumption that many westerners make to this day. Han people just happen to be the majority but what they call 'foreigners' are still considered Chinese of ethnic minority groups. It's been this way for millenia. Even Hans are in fact a collection of different ethnicities depending on how far one wants to go in history.
But Han is definitely the majority, & the underlying culture of "China". All other ethnic minorities, while of Chinese nationality, are not Han. Of course a lot of them have moved to the urban areas & Sinified (taken cultural customs of the Han) over the centuries. & of course, there's no pure Han. Every Chinese person probably has genes from Mongolia/ Manchurian/ Korean/Turk in the north & Viet or Tai/ Hmong down south, just to name some examples.
@@Jumpoable but the way it is often said is as if they are foreigners. That was my point. I would not call a German with Scandinavian blood but born in Germany, a Scandinavian, would I?
@@k.k.c8670 Who says who are foreigners? All the ethnic minorities in China are NOT foreigners. They are non-Han, but they aren't foreigners. The term "Chinese" isn't even an ethnonym used by actual Chinese people. It's just a vague English word non-Chinese use. "China" & "Chinese" are just words Chinese people use when talking to actual foreigners from the west. Us "Chinese" are a LOT more specific ethnocultural (rather than national) identifiers when referring to ourselves (usually self-identifying by city/ province/ ethnocultural macro- or micro-regions).
@@Jumpoable yes I know. When many westerners (whether on social media or in traditional media) refer to 'Chinese', they are usually referring to Han Chinese. If they refer to Chinese ethnic minorities, they would say, for example, a Uyghur or a Hui. So, it is as if those minorities aren't really 'Chinese'. It is a bit like saying a white in America is 'American' but a black is just a black. There is an insinuation that he isn't a 'true American'. I guess that's why they came up with specific terms like African American in recent years.
@@Jumpoable But if you go back to the Han Dynasty, in fact, the Han people also came this way, right? through continuous integration. Nation (or country) is just an identity, but in fact all people are two arms and two legs and one head The division of ethnic groups by blood, religion, etc. is more to distinguish "you" and "us". In fact, it is the same if not by blood, but by the mobile phone brand used or the game you like.
Im just going to correct one thing, Chinese historians or any historic books say that Yu does not have any superhuman or supernatural strength, but rather took 13 contineous years digging and dredging the flood. Not to mention his father is the one that started this digging many years before as a small leader, but got punished and sentenced to death as the river is always flooding out and killing people every year at the high season. IN FACT, the idea and concept about one saving the flood from rivers or ocean appeared everywhere in the world, almost all civilization starts with this kind of myth, but Chinese version is the ONLY, yes the only version that is saved by human power through many years of dedication and hardworking and planning, while other versions around the world are all about a godlike being using super power.
actually we have a ather story about yu. in 13 years working, he totally three times walking through his home but never enter even a once. in the last time he hear the baby cry voie form his house, that mean his son has birth. but he still not enter. until his job done.
@@kakarot2430 Myth is imagination, but Yu's story is told as real history. None of Chinese history book every said that Yu had superpower, we only be told how he smartly dealt with flood and didn’t have time to be with his family. His story is about engineering and sacrificing, no superpower.
Not sure what your sources are, but I've never read any version of Yu's mythology with him being super human. Yu's whole thing is about HUMANS, normal humans from various tribes along the Yellow river, working together for decades to build a grand hydro project to redirect floods away from human settlements. His tools became legendary, but never his person.
Dayu's control of floods is not considered a myth in Chinese history. In fact, the history of Dayu's flood control may be more credible than the Christian Bible. However, Westerners think that the Bible is history, but Dayu’s flood control is not. It’s really ridiculous!
There is nothing new in the argument of this video. It still repeats the same arguments that disparage Chinese civilization. In addition to the Chinese civilization in East Asia, the Eurasian continent, the Middle East, or the so-called North Africa seriously lacks credible historical civilization records or verifiable historical cultural relics. As for Europe itself, there are basically no relics of great civilizations to speak of. However, the West can confidently define the so-called four major civilizations and define the history of the Chinese civilization in East Asia as only 4,000 years old, considering it to be the shortest civilization among the four major civilizations. The main reason for this situation is that 1. In modern times, because of the Industrial Revolution, the West has rapidly risen from a scattered, obscure and backward region, and has gained a global status that Europe has never had in history. Therefore, in order to beautify the history of its own civilization and make itself appear less barbaric, the West has fabricated and exaggerated a large amount of the so-called great history of Europe through its dominance of public opinion in modern times. For example, the so-called Roman Empire, the history of Alexander, etc. At the same time, in order to make their own fabrications more reasonable, the West has also fabricated a large amount of so-called civilization history about the Near East and North Africa near Europe as a foil. The purpose is to create an illusion for the world that Europe and North Africa are concentrated areas of world civilization. , so Europe’s so-called glorious history is also credible. The most ridiculous thing is that regions such as Europe and North Africa don’t even have credible written history, and there are very few cultural relics. Many of them are fake cultural relics made of cement and steel bars in modern times. The history of all these areas is actually a so-called history fabricated based on the fantasies of modern Westerners. 2. Westerners have used their dominant position in public opinion to promote the claim that humans first came out of Africa in the west, hoping to establish a subconscious subconscious that Western humans are more advanced. In order to cooperate with the promotion of this man-made theory, the West needs to prove that the so-called human civilization was first born and developed in the West. Therefore, it vigorously promotes the so-called ancient Egyptian and ancient Babylonian civilizations, even though the texts, cultural relics and archeology of these civilizations are all There was massive fraud, and absolutely no written records of ancient history have survived to this day. These areas only have so-called unrecognizable written symbols recognized by the West, but the authenticity of these symbols is seriously doubtful, and there is no coherent and systematic written historical record from ancient times to the present similar to China's. All of this is done by the West to establish a consciousness in the world that the West is the origin of mankind and civilization in the world! Therefore, in the eyes of Westerners, the Chinese civilization far away from the West is naturally the shortest, least advanced, and later developed civilization. This is actually a lie that artificially fabricates history and creates false historical concepts. It is a tragedy for the development of human civilization!
Xia most likely existed. Shang was also previously thought to be mythical until modern archaeology found oracle bones. Sima Qian was an amazing historiographer for his time
Developed cultures existed in the area and the time; whether one of them called itself Xia, or fits the description provided by the Zhou, however, is another matter. Nowadays, the best contender is the Erlitou culture, but as there are no Erlitou literary sources known (or even early Shang; Wu Ding came much later), currently Xia, as described by the Zhou documents, cannot be safely considered to have existed. There definitelly was "something" there, the Shang didn't pop up into existence out of the blue, and the cultural and societal development in the general China region is much, MUCH older than Shang themselves. We just don't (at least yet) have any written records confirming exactly what predated them (if we can even state that; the Shang may have seemlessly coalesced into a kingdom, or could have been the first empire in the area akin to early Sumer city states led into the early empires in Mesopotamia). There is unfortunatelly only so much we can glimpse from excavating many millenia old cities and graveyards. We can atest that (for example; I am not an expert in the field, I just read too much Wikipedia and edutainment books) "something" was important for said culture at the time; if we find many graves with weapons and armor in them, we can relatively safely say that said culture valued combat prowess; we cannot say that a Battle X happened. Think about this akin to the Trojan War. We know that there was a city in the area, that it was burnt down around the right time, but we do not have direct sources that could tell us if it even is what Homer described in the Illiad (he wrote about the war centuries after it, and there were the Greek Dark Ages in between). Homer basically took what people said about an even to them ancient war and mastefuly wrote it down. We know of Agamemnon, but we have no written sources about him from that era, rendering him into a similar obscurity as Yu the Engineer. In that aspect, Xia as described by the Zhou and the ancient Greece as described in Illiad (and the rest of the Homeric cycle) are similar - we have their descriptions that come from much later times, but nothing from themselves about themselves, and thus their descriptions are, at best, shadows of the actual reality. At least, so far. Hopefully, one day we'll find a large library dating to the Erlitou culture, or a series of books written in Linear A. One can dream, right? x)
China has a civilisational continuity of NO LESS than: 3600 years if you consider the internationally-recognised sophisticated written language; 4300 years if you consider the archaeological formation of a country; 4700 years if you consider the establishment of scientific Chinese calender; 6000 years if you consider the split of languages; 7000-8000 years if you consider the birth of script and record of knowledge; 9000 years if you consider the root of Chinese's totems, astroobservations, Yin-Yang and preference of jade; 12000 years if you consider the archaeological discoveries in argriculture and the legendary 3 sovereigns.
Not 3600 years,According to the first dynasty, at least 4100 years It's unfair to say 3600 years China has at least 6-9 large-scale urban ruins that are more than 4,000 years old. Why do these people choose to ignore the factual evidence from these archaeological digs? Not to mention that the dams and city ruins of the Liangzhu Culture have 5,200 years of soil layers
There is nothing new in the argument of this video. It still repeats the same arguments that disparage Chinese civilization. In addition to the Chinese civilization in East Asia, the Eurasian continent, the Middle East, or the so-called North Africa seriously lacks credible historical civilization records or verifiable historical cultural relics. As for Europe itself, there are basically no relics of great civilizations to speak of. However, the West can confidently define the so-called four major civilizations and define the history of the Chinese civilization in East Asia as only 4,000 years old, considering it to be the shortest civilization among the four major civilizations. The main reason for this situation is that 1. In modern times, because of the Industrial Revolution, the West has rapidly risen from a scattered, obscure and backward region, and has gained a global status that Europe has never had in history. Therefore, in order to beautify the history of its own civilization and make itself appear less barbaric, the West has fabricated and exaggerated a large amount of the so-called great history of Europe through its dominance of public opinion in modern times. For example, the so-called Roman Empire, the history of Alexander, etc. At the same time, in order to make their own fabrications more reasonable, the West has also fabricated a large amount of so-called civilization history about the Near East and North Africa near Europe as a foil. The purpose is to create an illusion for the world that Europe and North Africa are concentrated areas of world civilization. , so Europe’s so-called glorious history is also credible. The most ridiculous thing is that regions such as Europe and North Africa don’t even have credible written history, and there are very few cultural relics. Many of them are fake cultural relics made of cement and steel bars in modern times. The history of all these areas is actually a so-called history fabricated based on the fantasies of modern Westerners. 2. Westerners have used their dominant position in public opinion to promote the claim that humans first came out of Africa in the west, hoping to establish a subconscious subconscious that Western humans are more advanced. In order to cooperate with the promotion of this man-made theory, the West needs to prove that the so-called human civilization was first born and developed in the West. Therefore, it vigorously promotes the so-called ancient Egyptian and ancient Babylonian civilizations, even though the texts, cultural relics and archeology of these civilizations are all There was massive fraud, and absolutely no written records of ancient history have survived to this day. These areas only have so-called unrecognizable written symbols recognized by the West, but the authenticity of these symbols is seriously doubtful, and there is no coherent and systematic written historical record from ancient times to the present similar to China's. All of this is done by the West to establish a consciousness in the world that the West is the origin of mankind and civilization in the world! Therefore, in the eyes of Westerners, the Chinese civilization far away from the West is naturally the shortest, least advanced, and later developed civilization. This is actually a lie that artificially fabricates history and creates false historical concepts. It is a tragedy for the development of human civilization!
@@tyq5775 Historians write the history, not the governments. They never said "The West is the origin of mankind." Otherwise, they wouldn't have acknowledged the first human civilization started in Africa and reached to the other continents. You know what historians do, don't you? They don't write a history on demand.
@@jboss119 Do you know what you are talking about ? Xi is serving his people for life; in other words, he was elected as a leader of the People 's Republic of China for life. President Xi of China is more popular ever, period.
Looking at Fu Hao and concluding that Shang society was egalitarian is like taking a look at Empress Wu Zetian and conlcuding that the Tang society was egalitarian, or taking a look at Joan d'Arc and conlcuding that medieval France was egalitarian, or taking a look at Matilda of Tuscanny and concluding that medieval Italy was egalitarian or....you get the point. There are like half a dozen reasons that can explain Fu Hao's position within Shang society before jumping to the conlcusion that the Shang were egalitarian. Off the top of my head, a reasonable explanation could be that Fu Hao would have been part of (or close to) the nobility, which means that she could bend the "rules" better than the average woman could.
@@artisanrocky8496 Could you show me where exactly in my comment did I suggest such a thing? All I did was point out that Fu Hao is nowhere near enough evidence to suggest that Shang society was egalitarian to any degree or by any standard.
LOL very true. But there's definitely a very deep matriarchal tradition in ancient China. It's evident in the written language, with the female radical 女 (the logograph for "woman") in the word "clan/family name" 姓 so it proves that people used to identify matrilineally with their mother's clan/family, not the father's. All the oldest clan names also had the female radical 女 like 姫, 姜, including Fu Hao's 好, which means "good" 好 (logograph is "woman + child = good/ beautiful) 安 (house over a woman = safety/ security/ peace. The words for marriage also has the female radical 婚姻 so it probably was a matrilineal institution in origin as well. Female shamans played a crucial role in the spiritual life of the ancient Chinese, & Fu Hao was probably one as well. Only later when patriarchal Confucianism took over did the female radical' come to be used for some words with negative connotations like 奴 "female slave" (later just used as a generic term for slave), 奸 "evil" 妖 "twisted/demonic" 嫌 "dislike" 妄 "presumptuous". Pretty misogynistic, we know. I wonder when China will have a language reform LOL.
Perhaps the reason for the inequality between men and women is not because the agricultural society needs more male labor of young and middle-aged people, while women, the elderly and children have become the weaker because of their physical disadvantages? Perhaps the inequality between men and women in ancient societies was caused by some more "physical" reasons? The concept of male superiority and female inferiority is more of a ruling tool made in some dynasties to facilitate the notification of the ruler？
Among the Chinese archaeologists they still argue whether Xia existed or not. The older generation tends to question it, the newer generation tends to believe it certainly existed. Before the Shang Capital was excavated, Shang's existense was questioned, too. People were awed by how Sima Qian's accuracy of recording Shang's descent records, he only messed up one of the record (he thought the brother of Shang's first king succeeded the throne, but Oracles suggest it passed directly to the eldest son). This kind of accuracy means Sima Qian must have other literature to support him, cause the founding of Shang was 15 centuries ahead of him. Those records we can never find. But it also make one wonder, would Sima Qian write Xia's descent records without similar support? Oracle characters was a rather sophisticated, and it is unreasonable for Shang people to only use it for argury or fortune-telling, but not to use it for recording, governing and business. However, other than turtle shells, ancient Chinese were mostly wrote on bamboo sheets, which can not withstand the chemical and biological erosion. The curently, the ealiers bamboo sheets found is from the B Tomb of Marquis Zeng (written time around 433 BC). The sheets were preserved only because buried by water with antiseptic solutes. It might be very hard to find wrting characters from Xia time. However, Erlitou is the only place many researcher considered as Xia Capital. In the same period, there are quite a few huge settlements in China that are excavated, like Yangshao in Shanxi Province, Heitao in Shandong Province, Liangzhu in Zhejiang Province (considered foreign of Xia), San Xingdui in Sichuan Province (considered foreign of Xia), ect. Even miles beside the Shang capital there was Longshan culture ruins, which is also around Xia time. In Hubei Province, there was a huge fortress ruin excavated which takes up 0.4 million squre meters with a moat of 30 meters wide, scholars speculate it as the fortress of southern people defending northern armies. When Mongol conquered Song they went near this place, the City of Xiangyang, which hold 8 years before fallen. Could it be the fortress of southern city states (such as earlier mentioned Liangzhu) defending Xia troops? I tend to believe Xia existed, other than the ruins we discussed, there are lots of other ruins around Erlitou, which already form up a ruling center. And apparently they are a power that the southerners feared.
@@lfckaran Actually it has nothing to do with that. We must mention Japan on this topic. See western colonial activities really tored apart the political structure of east Asian (or the world's? lol), along with the academic structure, too. Before Epo period, educated people in Japan just read Chinese history as THE history. Imagine a British priest reads Ceasar's compaigns or Rome's history as their history, it was like that. China was the source of east Asian culture u see, so back then there was nothing werid about it. However, the power of the west really shocked the Japanese and they gradually begun to adopt the "Datsuaron" strategy, which means leaving Asia and joinning Europe. Cultural change was also called upon, they need to denouce traditional culture first. Related scholars like Shiratori Kurakichi and Naitō Konan, wrote literatures that questioned the factity of Chinese history line. Later, the Japanese crushed the Chinese army in Jiawu War (1894-1895), or known as the First Sino-Japanese War. Chinese government and scholars were therefore very interested in the reform done by Japanese, and begun to learn from their measures. There was this one major scholar, 胡适 Hu Shi, who later served as the Headmaster of today's famous Beijing University. He adopted the ideas mentioned above, and proposed "No valid history before Eastern Zhou Dynasty" idea, which means he did not recognise Xia, Shang and even Western Zhou (or former Zhou) as valid. Given that we Chinese were kinda in a self-loathing period, people followed him greatly, and the trend continued. Even to today, the Chinese archaeologist circle is still overly strict about domestic findings.
The earliest record of dynasty recognized by Chinese people are the Hua and Xia. In fact the most recognize identity of Chinese around the world today is ethnic Hua or 華人. Taiwanese or Singaporean maybe not like to be called Chinese, but they sure recognized themself ethnic Hua. You telling me those two period of time didn't exist and Chinese just made it up? Very interesting. Academic standards are very strict and prudent but sometime you need allow rooms for common sense.
I was taught that it takes the Great Yu 大禹 8 years along with a lot of manpower to deal with the flooding yellow river. There is a famous tale, 三过家门而不入, that he passes by his home several times in the years without returning to his house and see his family, indicating the sacrifice he made to achieve the greater good. The tale is recorded in one chapter in《孟子》, a Zhou dynasty classic.
in some schools of thoughts, the emphasis is yu leading the masses of people without the use of violent coercion to believe in his idea to save them from miseries by floods... the very same school of thought who disagreed with qin shi huang using violent coercion to construct the great wall, but the great wall was to avert external tribes attacks, thus avoiding killings between the internal peoples and the external peoples... some militant scholars from other schools of thoughts, supported qin shi huang great wall...
I heard from the most recent findings is that the Xia dynasty actually existed. The problem was that the dynasty wasn't called the "Xia" dynasty. There are a lot of artifacts from that time but not enough literary records to claim that dynasty was "XIa," so it was probably under a different name.
Xia almost certainly existed. In recent years, a town site in Shanxi had been excavated, dated around 4100 before present. It was speculated to be the Capital of Yao, Taotang clan. The truth is still lying in earth somewhere between that site and Funiu Mountain range.
@@GL-iv4rw There are a lot of more Neolithic archeological sites are older than Erlitou, and not that far away. Good example would be Yangshao, Dawenkou, Jiahu (this is an interesting one, look up), all within range of Yellow River tributaries. Erlitou was probably just one of many Xia city states. And of course you have other different civilisations in China as well. Just as Sanxingdui’s ancient Shu kingdoms, arguably more advanced in societal development than its contemporary Chinese neighbours. As we speak, there are still more relics unearthed from there. Judging by what had been discovered within China. I’d say there was a population boom by 7000 years before presence, possibly due to agricultural breakthrough (new crop? understanding of irrigation?), people start to live in the first city states to create farming communities. Only by what we know as Xia, written symbols became complicated enough to record historical events. Though we don’t know if Xia had writing system, theoretically speaking there should be one.
This question is precarious. To compare: I've often considered that an American today could go back in time to The 1930s and, while finding themself inconvenienced and out-of-step, would still be able to relate and get by. However, to go back any earlier than that they would feel completely out-of-place and have a very difficult time. So, does that mean American civilisation is only 90 years old? Go back even farther, to the mid-1800s and it would seem like a completely different country; not just technologically, but culturally. England, 500 years ago, would seem entirely foreign to a modern Briton. Civilisations gradually change over time, and China's timeline is considerably much longer, so the differences over thousands of years are bound to be great.
From an American standpoint, I would take into consideration the place in time you would be immersed in. If you take away modern technology including electricity, them being in a rural place you would be able to relate and get by, even mid 1800s. If you were in a urban setting, you would have a difficult time relating to and interacting with the populace.
@@danielzhang1916 Yeah the question is framed pretty bad. A modern Han chinese wouldn't have much in common with someone who lived during the three kingdoms era. It's like asking how old is the Italian civilization and pointing at Rome? Sure, Italians can claim the Rome as their heritage and say hey we come from the Romans, but modern Italy barely has anything to do with the Romans. I mean they're of Romans, but they're not Romans. There are some ethnic groups that can claim a pretty straightforward and long lineage to the point of actually being genetically bottlenecked and unique, but that's another discussion entirely.
You're correct of course, but this is somewhat funny: Here in rural Missouri our lives have changed little from our ancestors that first colonized the land. The house I'm in is over 120 years old, heated by wood and barely upgraded with modern necessities. Indoor plumbing was installed within my lifetime, and we only got electricity in the 50s. It's just interesting to see how much different life can be not just by time but by, I assume, only a few hundred miles
what you mean American Civilization.The Civilization is not the nation.Its Western Civilization.The Root of Western Civilization came from much older Civilization like Ancient Greek even furthermore.
There is a good view to show how Chinese civ is constant: people's surname nearly never change,most surname can originate from 3000 years ago. As an example, Confucius's descendants are still notable today. While its hard to say where are Plato or Aristotle's descendants, probably they have changed their language or even ethnic.
@@gold-toponym From the many people who claim to be Confucius descendents. Gene tests showed there are two most prominent haplogroups from Confuciu's home town Qufu, one is of Q-M1626 decendents, one is of C-M130. Around all China, there are 8 major families claimed to be Confucius descendents, which share with the C-M130's haplogroup, and has a common mutation cite of C-MF1915 around 500 BC, which was around Confucius' time (born in 551 BC). So those people do have a super ancestor, we don't know if it is 100% Confucius, but seem very likely.
@@gold-toponym Confucius's descendants still live in Taiwan , flee to Taiwan with KMT , i guess .And mainland as well . And many others , I don't know the details, but if you read their genealogy family tree ，it really can track their ancestors, and so do my genealogy family tree.
@Kokobaboko, Gordon Chang wrote a book about the Collapse of China in the 1990's. There will be many more negative news about China as US is doing all she can with the extra "300 million dollars campaign" to smear, stigmatize China. The cynical hypocrisy of the world’s No1 propagandist: *US pledges $300mn to fund massive global anti-China media machine*
@Kokobaboko LOL . Fiction? When there are It is the usa and its pretentiousness and fake "land of the free" that are made up of pure fiction. Sad for the wonderful people of usa to live in such a unself-aware society with extremely flawed and corrupt political system baked into its core.
That's cause most people that use UA-cam harbour either a subconscious distaste for China or a conscious hate for China. Why would someone want to learn about the history of the current big bad superpower? It's only expected, the same kind of ideologies are present on websites localized to China.
Fun fact: After the 1911 revolution, the government debated whether to restore the house of Ming or to install the house of Confucius, or keep the republican government.
That’s because they are rooted in reality fact and evidence rather than current cultural racist ideological fantasies It’s easy tell be honest about truth Not so easy to with concepts which are mythical fantastical and imperialistic and not well recorded No offence to any region the west included but history for most western CIVILISATIONS, is not the thing that drives their dogma and imperial expansions, You can see this in the weakness of the west and the vanity and chest pulling arrogance of most other cultures whose pride must be validated The fact that dynasties were used to define cultural identity which is utterly unbiased in race ethnicity or culture shows this To your point more is better and the more it’s explored the more broadly it is presented in a truthful way the better Then perhaps the lunatic expansionism of China Russia et al might be known to be based in lies
@@anthonysaffioti9048 Okay, so couple of things off the bat. Firstly, 'Truth' in history is almost always subjective. Accounts are recorded-usually long after the events themselves-by people with their own agendas, views and biases. That's just as true for 'Western' Civilization history(Which is in and of itself a debatable term as it's a massively diverse series of composites) so what we have are versions of varying degrees of accuracy. Ideological myths and fantasies from the West are quite common and even accepted as 'fact' dubious as they are, from portrayals in film, popular culture, to aspects of race, ethnicity, religion, culture and heritage. Secondly, there has been a serious bias in study for years due to colonialism, that's undeniable fact. Innumerable historical documents, artifacts, cultures and locations were looted, damaged or outright destroyed through forced Westernization in many parts of the world.(It's not unique to European Colonialism/Expansion but that has been the most far reaching to date) Thirdly, the present states of both China and Russia have roots in Western short sighted pursuits during the 1800s-1900s that have ramifications to the present day. Finally, yes, Western Civilizations are driven by their histories. Those histories can and do affect the thought processes of the peoples that make up those civilizations. Economic, military and influence expansion are just as pervasive and motivated by self interest as military ones. In conclusion, your view is myopic. Regimes are certainly contemptible, just as exploitative and corrupt governments and businesses are. That does not however, mean that people should not learn their own histories, their own regional, cultural, racial, ethnical and religious histories that are indeed important to them. “It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If we take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale.” - Iroh
@@AeneasGemini hmm people seem to want to know about Thailand yet give zero credit to their predecessors whom gave them their literal cultures that they practice at current. That being the Khmer , Mon, and Malay empires. I suggest you give those a study. Influencing them from their demeanor to their cultural practice, as well as "God king devaraja" and as well as old Khmer languages that are still prevalent in the royal Thai language, some food customs, temples and the like. They've only risen in the past 700 years with Ayutthaya and have become dominant since. And known to the west after they laid Angkor to waste. And also carried 90000+ people of the Khmer ROYAL court back to Ayutthaya, with the already Mon Khmer and Malay within the area already. People also barely know about Champa which Vietnam also laid to waste around the same time. And its kingdom had lasted well into the 1800s.
@@AeneasGemini what people mean by the west are these nations once in control of the world in the last 500 years. To which we give our embittered sentiment towards
Seriously. Love to see variety rather than Rome and Europe all the time. Way too little focus from amer-European channels on African and Asian history, etc. Kings and Generals does a great job of variety, tho!
Cultures tend to grow or change. 5,000 years is a long time. As someone who is half Chinese I study my cultures history. I hadn't even touched on a quarter of it yet. My family has family records going back 2500 years. The volumes are thick and heavy. I'm reading the digital versions on my tablet.
@@Jumpoable my first generation ancestors emigrated from northern China down more south. He founded a village which eventually became famous for being the hometown of the founder of the People's Republic. My family still owns that land. The family name is Kwok. That branch of the family clan founded and owns Wing On international. A chain of retail stores. HQ is in Hong Kong. My name is Kop. My great grandparents changed the name when they immigrated to Hawaii. They thought kop would sound more American. So far that's the extent of my knowledge of the family history.
@@JulianPerez-zv6os I don't know. It's felt that I never heard of him there's a lot of members of the clan I have not met there or in the US. I still have yet to even visit Hong Kong yet. Visiting China still on my bucket list
Gotta love the use of Total War: Three Kingdoms’ soundtrack for the video. You guys are some of the historical channels on the platform, and the excellent use of animation and music must be praised each time. Thank you for this!
What an amazing video! Some probable suggestions for the future, oldest recognizable Iranian, Greek, Indian, Mesoamerican Civilizations. Both recognised by their modern inhabitants and the Historians. I think they would be great!
@@knightoffailure1869 You seem to be laboring under the delusion that I am laboring under the delusion that you are Greek. I never said you were Greek, I said you are delusional to claim that "Slavs are partial Greek in origin". And you appear to continue with the same delusion. Just stop, you sound utterly ridiculous.
To put it into perspective, the Shang Kingdom, described as occupying only a small portion of modern China, was bigger than France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Greece, etc. Shang was still a huge country by bronze age standards.
@@shehzadadarashikoh9463 Indus civilization population at its height was around 5 million while the Shang's population was around 13.5 million. Indus civilzation was 1000 years older than Chinese civilzation.
@@lolcatjunior the Nanda empire was equally large like the shang dynasty infact i would say vedic mahajanapadas had a wider area of influence and reach than the chinese shang and xia dynasties
The NANDA empire was an ancient indian empire and direct successors of the magadha empire which in itself was larger than the xia mythological dynasty the NANDA empire reached a similar height comparable or slightly more powefull than the Shang dynasty
Good video, but the video missed three crucial ancient Chinese cultures/civilizations: Liangzhu (5,000 years old), Hongshan (5,000 years old), Shimao (4,500 years old). All built monumental architecture, including impressive citadels and the world's oldest large scale hydro network (Liangzhu), carved beautiful Jade, and were highly stratified, all hallmarks of sophisticated civilizations. That China started with the Xia and Shang dynasties is a traditional, albeit outdated view. China is not monolithic; rather, it's of multi origin, and an amalgamation of several civilizations (the Liangzhu, Hongshan, Shimao, Sinitic or Central Plain kingdoms, Sanxingdui, etc.). This is being revealed gradually by archeological discoveries. The old history books have to catch on
these were in modern day China, but they don't consider them part of the continuous Chinese civilization. They supposedly migrated out of the region before Chinese civilization sprouted up.
There are many Kings and Emperors, thinkers, militarists, yin-yang scholars, poets, philosophers, artists, mathematicians, scientists and Neo-Confucianists in Chinese history.In short, five thousand years of culture is very profound.Love from China🇨🇳
Just two minor errors in this video. 1. The origin of Zhou was not nomadic origin at all, but a core part of Ji clan. In the old Matriarchal of China, different groups carry clan names of their Matriarch to avoid incest in marriage. The major clans that came together forming Chinese civilisations include Ji (姬）, Jiang (姜），Zi (子），Si（姒），Gui（妫），Yao (姚），Ying (嬴）. Notice most of the characters contain the symbol of woman (女）in there. These clan names gradually evolved into other family names, are no longer actively used by many. Part from Jiang and Yao. Ji clan is said have originated from Huangdi, by the time when Zhou replaced Shang, they have been active politically for more than a thousand years. (Shang royals are from Zi clan, later they ruled the State of Song after Zhou established.) 2. Buddhism officially entered China by 68AD, (Interestingly the same year that Saint Peter was crucified) but was long been treated as foreign cult with very a little adherents. Partly because Mahayana concept takes reincarnation seriously, which directly conflicted Ancestral veneration. It was not until ethnic Xianbei (one of proto-Goguryeo people, disputed) established Wei in Northern China by 5th century brought Buddhism into mainstream belief. Still it had some up and down during Tang, only by the peak of Song Dynasty (11th century) Buddhism fully evolved and integrated into a major contributor to Chinese culture. Everything else seems to be good, well done. It’s unfortunate these days, that most of Chinese people have no idea what’s it meant of ‘Chinese traditions’.
@@Red.Star.Over.China. It’s not possible to have definite proof on Zhou royal origin, but since 80%+ Chinese population has family names with Ji origin, what’s the chance. Even my family name goes back to Lords of Taotang feud of Xia’s time. the descendants of Yao, who was said to be a great-great grandson of Huangdi. Not sure about Xianbei being proto-Mongol, the record clearly says Mongol’s origin is at Bailang, which is further North. I will read a bit more on Xianbei and come back to you. From what I remember they are rather close to Goguryeo. Regarding the translation of 姓，probably best to address as ‘Matriarchal Clan name’. Family name as 氏 had most origins rooted by the city states dwellers came from, or social rank, or honourable title, or office held or simply occupation. It wouldn’t be accurate to translate as ‘clan name’.
Fu hao, the female general mentioned in this video should actually be read as "Fu Zi", it meant the wife from Zi Clan, not her daily name. Other than that, I think calling Xianbei as "proto-Korean" is too far wrong. Xianbei is proto-Siberian people, see how Xianbei and Siber resonate?
@@zeflute4586 I did some extra readings today, still can’t decide on Xianbei origin, a lot dispute there but of course most of them have later assimilated into Han civilisations. Partly became Goguryeo confederate in the same area of today’s Liaoning, which was what I meant. But I guess Silla would always be the better representative of Korean civilisation in early Medieval. I will edit the comment to make it closer to what it should be.
@@KiwiImpactSaint Gorguyeo and Xianbei has hardly any relations. Xianbei was still leading pastoral life in the 1st and 2nd century AD, while in the start of CE, there was already a Han dynasty county known as Gao Gou Li, ie Gorguyeo which Wang Mang caused a rebellion by changing the name. If there was a county, meaning the Gorguyeo people were already at most only a partly pastoral, partly farming community. There is no way Gorguyeo and Xianbei could have any relations as the Xianbei community looked way more backward than Gorguyeo community more than 100 years ago.
This is excellent! Ancient Chinese history was probably my first passion, and this is a very balanced, scholarly approach to the question how "Chinese" its earliest periods were. You've taught me many things I didn't even know yet.
Chinese civilization includes things way back before Shang dynasty, even mythical characters like the Yellow Emperor. While lacking archaeological evidences for many things, once they are found, it's a proof of what existed, rather than an issue of whether they should be counted as Chinese civilization. No doubt Chinese civilization is formed by a mixed of culture. Eg. the Qing dynasty formed by the Manchu people is certainly part of Chinese civilization although they have a different culture origin. The argument over Chinese civilization can be confused with another topic from ethnicity perspective, which is the Han's culture, since the majority of Chinese history is about the Han people. Chinese civilization is more about people who lived around that piece of land, which is dominated by the Han people. Additional info, Han people was given the name after the mighty Han dynasty, but it is used to refer to this particular ethnicity till this day. Chinese is the broader term.
The first Chinese father or mother was not the first human being. They had parents, and ancestors. They did not grow up knowing nothing. Can anyone prove that there were not people, and cities more advanced than we are today? There are evidences, if lacking total proof, that we were preceded by scientifically smarter ancestors who lost it all to civil wars. There were people here who belonged to interstellar communities long ago...this is something I've learned from indigenous oral histories in my travels. They reached the stars. For many ancient world cultures, magical events mythical beings represent structured organizations of people with planned projects who accomplished world-changing victories over natural calamities. Dig a little deeper, and don't underestimate their capabilities. Example: Helen of Troy or Penelope of Ithaca: at age 40, after child bearing, noble lords praised Penelope's beauty, and she protested, I'm past 40, my figure is aged, stop talking nonsense. One noble said, Penelope you err, whoever marries you inherits your throne and assets -forests with lumber for warshios, cattle and grain to feed a small army, ports, mines with deposits of tin, zinc and copper to make weapons, and in all, enough strategic materials and golden fleeces (lambskins that sluiced gold dust, amd were rolled up like scrolls as currency) to back up checks and purchase orders.... This kingdom can be well defended and it's dynasty may be a long one. This means your husband and your children will not be conquered and enslaved in your lifetime. We Greeks spend 50% of our time at war, and too few anong us die of old age. This kingdom and its assets are a promise of freedom. This is your dowry and yu have a proven ability to hold on to it 20 years during your husband, Odysseus' absence. These facts makes you the most beautiful among all women. (It's not about your breast line and your face). Myth, from the word "Mythos" means a narrative, often coded or symbolic in presentation. Don't under estimate the ancients' minds.
East Asian deep history is so fascinating, and so inaccessible. We are just now learning how Europe developed. Anatolian farmers interacting with western and eastern hunter gatherers, steppe migrations, etc. I wish we knew more about the Chinese/Indochinese neolithic. I feel like East Asia is like if we knew nothing of Europe before the Bronze Age, and then were restricted to the Eastern Mediterranean. Amazing video as an overview nevertheless. K&G never misses.
That's because the West has always cast doubt on the early period, and Erlitou was first discovered in 1959 so these places weren't explored for a long time until the past few decades or so
seems... the west dont relate their present existence from the efforts of their past ancestors... the present generation ruling class are too arrogant to think that they are what they are ONLY because of their own efforts, forgetting that they live in mansions firstly built by their parents, they say "my country" to a country their ancestors fought and shed rivers of blood and sewed many torn flags... such arrogance of their own present capabilities that they DONT give value to their ancestors who provided the lands and peoples they call, united kingdom of britain or france or germany... if the west ruling class act that way, what is to expect with the west citizenry...?
It’s probably due to cultural distance. I’m sure a person from China, or even Korea or Vietnam, has a far greater grasp on Chinese history than like European or Roman history.
As a Chinese speaking of ancient population, We are mostly sons of the soils, a mix of yellow river farmers and Yangtze rice farmers. Northern Chinese have more yellow river ancestry southern Chinese have more Yangtze ancestry. Interestingly East Asia is the least genetically diverse area in the world probably due to geographic isolation
@@user-qwertyuiopasdfghj Yeah, I guess Geography played a major role in shaping Chinese civilisation. It's still genetically and linguistically more diverse but relative to other major civilisations it's homogenous. Can't say the same for languages tho
I think it's diffcult for the youtuber. Even just doing this relatively simple video, there have been many mistakes. This is mainly because the youtuber do not understand Chinese Language, or there are no Chinese in the team, resulting in some common sense mistakes. The best way to understand China is to learn Chinese, so that many Chinese videos can be seen on bilibili (China's UA-cam); However， it is very difficult to learn Chinese because it's hieroglyphs.
it is because of two words: brains and common sense... conflicts beget all kinds of miseries sparing no one... mainland china, got to pocket whatever arrogance and prejudices and embrace all and seek peaceful co-existence... outside mainland china, got to pocket whatever pride and seek peaceful co-existence... in peaceful co-existence, is sharing of trade and knowledge...
@Dord Dord I'm not denying the influence of Chinese culture just pointing out that many copycat societies don't like to give the Chinese the deserved credit.
Extremely good video. But would like to add that some of the images used of the Shang rulers are overly imperial. But this is not the channel's fault. Most of the imagery of the Shang has been inflated by painters throughout Chinese history to portray an imperial and advanced image different from their neighbours. It is only after the Song and especially from the Ming onwards did Chinese painters emphasised historical accuracy. The Shang would have looked less regal and would probably give you the impression of being a tribal leader than an imperial emperor. They would stay in buildings that we would classify as a mansion than a palace or castles.
@@Jumpoable Yup possible. Architecture and urban planning historians theorize that the functional features of Shang buildings and towns were so associated with power and elite that later imperial palaces and cities continued to follow their style but in a much more extravagant and scaled-up way. Kinda how gothic architecture of the middle ages was a harkening back to the elite and powerful image of Roman architecture. Recent finds using LIDAR show how potential Shang towns where the elite might have lived looked like miniature and simplified versions of imperial palaces and cities.
They should not be too shabby looking. Even the simulated reconstruction of Troy shows the quality looks much better than the slums of backwater developing countries. These ancient buildings look bad now because of thousands of years lack of maintenance and erosion.
@@GL-iv4rw The royal longhouses of Southeast Asia are not shabby, many of them are beautiful and luxurious. While not at the grandeur of a Chinese palace, I would not say they look like slums. Even today, the longhouse's complex architecture and design have inspired many of the features of modern buildings. You are basing your comment on the biased view of Southeast Asia as a backwater and forget that the kingdoms here prior to the industrial revolution were considered peers of Europe.
one thing very true: in their residences, is must have a very wide very long hall with very low height sitting benches built around (no tables) the sides, that in leaders' meetings, they are shouting to be heard... an angered leader can be held down before reaching to punch another leader who angered him... such architecture of elder-leaders' residences still carried on with the last tribes leaderships in east asia... yes, it is erroneous to portray the shang ruling dynasty in a regal way... some videos like timeline is the worst erroneous who portrayed ladies and queens of china as dressed like regal western... even the last dowager of the qing dynasty is dressed to her neck all covered that only her head and hands not covered... hopefully, video makers and historical film makers be more realistic in their portrayals even to the arts/fashion garments ... asians dont mind western style fashion of lesser cover of the human body... kindly respect the style fashion of eastern history covered fully...
Awesome! Given the fact tha us westerners don't get much about China old history in school this could be turned in to a series! From all the historically most influent nations, China is the one we have less information about here in west.
I was there in 2001. At one of the terracotta warrior dig sites there is an adjacent dig of a little village that I remember being ~10000 years old. Had buried dead and all.
Thank you so much, Kings and Generals, for this informative, unbiased, well-documented piece of ancient Chinese history. As a Chinese, I appreciation what you have done>
Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors time aint Civilization that was tribe union. Ancient Chinese civilization not that old Its like Middle age man compare to Many early Civilizations.
@@juanlu3958 Problem is there is very little historical evidence. They probably do have historic origins, but the exact extent is unknown which is why they are considered "mythical".
@@slslbbn4096 There is a difference between palaces being built underground vs demigods existing amongst us. Sima Qians accounts were more of regarded as legend rather than myth. The two are not the same thing in historiography.
@@Red.Star.Over.China. Liangzhu only dates back to almost 3300 BC. Also, it's peoples are more genetically closer to Austronesian and/or Tai peoples and are not precursors of the Han.
@@Red.Star.Over.China. Han is not just a cultural identifier. It refers to a very specific group of people descended from the Han dynasty who speak the Han languages (Chinese) which the Liangzhu people's most likely did not speak. Their descendents are most likely the Tai and Austrolonesian, neither of which were ever categorized as "Han". Just because their artifacts are similar does not mean they share the same language/culture. There is always going to be some sort of trading/interaction between different peoples.
In fact , Chinese characters were standardized by Qin Shihuang after he conquered the 7 warring states, he found that various kingdoms had different ways of writing , he standardized it thru the Qin Seal Script.
In China, there is a saying called "Four Ancient Civilizations", such as: ancient China, ancient India, ancient Babylon, and ancient Egypt. This statement is very simple。This was proposed by Liang Qichao in the Qing Dynasty
@@gradipadia9800 I want to add to your comment. There's also the Tondo/Tundun Kingdom, Namayan Kingdom, Maynila Kingdom, Pailah Kingdom, Binuangan Kingdom, Puliran Kingdom, Cainta Polity, Butuan Kingdom, Rajahnate of Singhapala or Sugbu, Kedatuan of Dapitan, Madja-as Federation, Sultanate of Sulu, Sultanate of Maguindanao, Sultanate of Lanao, Caboloan Huangdom, Ma-I Huangdom, Chiefdom of Taytay and Igorot Society. These were considered different bayans (countries) not regions in pre-colonial times before there was ever a "Philippines".
A western historian (I forgot his name) once said Chinese myths are the history recordings of ancient people putting effort on facing and solving problems caused by natural disasters with human strength and tools, unlike the western myths which emphasizes the effort of gods in solving problems caused by natural disasters with magical power. Each of them has a respective historical event. It's a shame that neither any Chinese dynasty nor CCP compile their myths and legends for understanding of people from other nations. (since the stories are scattered apart in millions of books, murals, relics and tribes) If these myths are filmed, they would greatly motivate people.
The CCP has worked hard to erase China's history and culture. The last thing that the party wants to do is maintain a record of China's culture before the revolution.
In fact, there is a modern day cartoon and animation called "If Chinese History Were a Group of Cats", which goes from the earliest myths, legends, and history to pretty recent. It's one of the most expansive compilations lol Although it's not completely focused on myths and legends, and it's not government sponsored, it can still give you a pretty comprehensive overview of the Chinese founding legends.
Chinese recorded history is very long. Xia(a dynasty appear in some written text, which several archeology being discovered dated to that period but yet to confirm which of them are belong to Xia dynasty.) Then there is Shang dynasty, there are text and archeology finding about it. After that it is Zhou Dynasty, there are pretty much recording and study about it. And how it led to Spring and Autumn period. And from there Qin state conquered all those states and unify them as Qin Dynasty. Many non-Chinese people only know Qin and later dynasty, and they see pre Qin as Myth. But it is not, especially Zhou Dynasty and Spring and Autumn period, it is actually a well recorded, studied history. Shang and Xia is not so well recorded. And there are Chinese Myth, just not the myths others think of(pre Qin). Chinese myths is pre Xia. It is not so well recorded or have solid archaeology evidence, it is pass down like a story/folklore because it is lack of understanding or logical, a bit god-like. Because it is a written text by the ancient to record their history, they are not so well understand/educated.
The best history channel of all time. Back when I was in high school 12 years ago. The teachers usually say videos are not legit sources. you guys strongly override that.
First silk found in China was at least 5000, but might 8000 years ago. The development of writing character does not happen overnight The fragments found by oracle bones already have the standard form of Chinese Liushu ( pictographs, ideographic , compound ideographs, phono-semantic compounds, phonetic loan characters and derivative cognates) Cuneiform spans 2200 years from early simple images to molding 3200bce-1000bce. The current fragment of oracle bone inscriptions is in 1500 bce, and the fragments found already have the standard form of the Chinese Six Books. According to the development process of the characters, and referring to Sumerian characters, the history of oracle bone inscriptions will only be longer, not less. As for ancient China, there were many different ethnic groups, that is true, but in fact, till the Tang and Song Dynasties, (600-1000ad)there were also different ethnic groups in the Central Plains in northern China, (such as the Turks who were driven away by the Tang Dynasty, which are morden day turkish. Further on, the Huns, (200-100 bce, which driven by Han Dynasty)the ancestors of the Attila troop, and may be the present-day Hungarians. Caucasian and even black people skulls have also been found in Shang burial sacrifice pits. (1000 bce) Ran Min slaughtered more than one million ethnic minorities around AD 300. Most of them, like hun, jie, are completely different from Chinese races. Even today, there are differences between the northern Han people and the southern Han people.
@@texajp1946 CCP lies World dies. No one believes your lie anymore. *Millions of Uyghurs & Kazakhs have been locked in Hitler-Style Concentration Camps in Xinjiang, Chinese government under the leadership of Xi-tler have conducted forced sterilizations and abortions on Uyghur women, coerced them to marry Han-Chinese, and separated Uyghur children from their families.... all these crimes against humanity occurred under modern Chinese Law.*
If a culture is not defined by blood, these are not problems, it is more that several ethnic groups and cultures converge and become a brand new ethnic group and culture.
@@gofar5185 The Uighurs were Tang's ally back in 8th century, they defeated the Turks for a good several times. Thousand years past they are still Uighurs. So calm down
This “it depends” applies to every civilisation and ethnicities, most people groups are equally old and their racial components equally diverse, some left behind little information of their ancient history due to late adoption of writing system, others like the Chinese have a long well recorded history which leaves room for detailed analysation of them and even their neighbours of close geography, such as the xiongnu.
Recent findings of a city near 陶寺(TaoSi city/county) where in ancient times was termed as Ping Yang city which had the size of four Forbidden cities was more or less confirmed as 尧都 aka Capital of Yao also showed signs of struggle and warfare approximately 4300 from -14 testings. Another excavation to point out was Yang Cheng/ 阳城, a city slightly bigger then Yao capital was Great Yu's power base and subsequent Xia Kings during the early period of the dynasty. This is also supported by Sima Qian with the same name 阳城.
I feel it is important to learn the history, as it enables one to understand the enduring key values that continue and to appreciate the need for continuation. The order of the society, meritocracy, the veneration of ancestors and gratitude, the rulers caring for the citizenry, ecology, developing the infrastructure, spiritual values etc in Chinese ultu are all worth keeping and admiring. The wars, foriegn forces spying and disrupting the society creating havoc, the disasters that can happen when wrong leaders were in power, the cruelty that can take place during inefficient regimes and during wars and teaching the children the early signs to watch when things are beginning to go wrong is so important. Every single civilisation had interchange of ideas, silent leaders contributing to.the success to things that are rec orded in history and hundreds of years of unrecorded forces contributing to any thing, good or bad. The main purpose of learning the history is to understand these forces, while learning the events.
All the 3 major golden age dynasties of China shared 3 different eras The Han Dynasty - Ancient ages The Tang Dynasty - Medieval period The Ming Dynasty - Early Modern period
My understanding always has been that the Zhou dynasty started the idea of "dao de" to explain why the previous Shang dynasty lost the mandate of heaven, i.e their legitimacy. "Dao de" can be translated as ethical conduct
Chinese civilization deserves credit for: Gunpowder wheel Silk Good cousine Many anatomy concepts, espicially the human circulatory system Many modern medicine and siege engines.
@@sleepyjoe4529 I've written it twice because it definitely is The Best. I've tried every cuisine of the world. But I can say I'd rank 1. Indian cuisine 2. Italian cuisine 3. Middle eastern
That is common no matter where you go, Indus Valley, the Fertile Crescent, the Nile River Valley; all have seen many distinctly different cultures rise and fall there.
More the philosophy and being surrounded by desert, massive mountains, the sea and wastelands to the north. Same reason Japan was stable, nobody came by.
The Shang state was not a multicultural feudal confederacy. It was more like a monarchy with captured foreigners who became slaves and sacrificial offerings.
There were no feudal countries in those days. Considering how European colonists slaughtered and enslaved the aborigines， and the United States only abolished black slavery more than 100 years ago, we know how advanced that China started a feudal state in the Zhou Dynasty and established a centralized power in the Qin Dynasty.
It's a bit of a stretch to assume female field-holding to be a norm in Shang times based on one grave. Is there more evidence than just that one concubine?
I found that hard to believe too. Its completely possible women were kick ass millitary leaders...but it seems more likely we're projecting our modern attitudes on ambiguous evidence.
@@MidAthlete You mean our modern attitude that, historically, women as military leaders could only be an exception? ;) If the evidence suggests that women could often hold military and feudal power, then we should not automatically assume that this was an exception, or in need of a specific explanation. If the evidence suggests it - and it does -, then that's the logical conclusion.
@@varana But the evidence suggests that historically female military leaders were the exception 😂 The desire for that not to be the case is clear though.
I would like to add that the peoples that migrated into the Tarim Basin, who we know as Tocharians, were not Indo-Europeans, according to recent DNA tests.
What is “Chinese civilisation”? It was a galaxy of civilisations coexisting during Shang and Zhou. The idea that it’s one civilisation only formed when Qin/Han built a unitary empire.
yes... evolution of the china civilization "one lands one peoples under one sky"... in later years, koreo, said koreo is not the same "sky" with the mainland... vietnam opposed the ming-mainland to be of the same "sky"... burma king said he, burma, came from a different "sky"... "peaceful co-existence" with the mainland then emerged... well, storytellers also have their own contributions to societies...
While the han Chinese identity evolves, the lineage and historical record can be traced to shang and Zhou. A civilization is not an unchanging being the way you seems to imagine it.
Xia, probably existed in some form cause the shang dynasty has a complex central government, bureaucracy and refined written language. Those things don't just pop up out of nowhere
which is BS longest continous history should go to india simply because you have 3,500 years of written history you cannot call yourself as continous or else sri lanka is the second most continous and longest civilization with 2000 years of written history
Probably just a coincidence but it's interesting how similar some of those ancient Chinese characters on the oracle bones are to elder futhark (the oldest Germanic written language). Makes me wonder if there was some extremely early contact and trade or maybe there are just patterns and symbols all people have a slight tendency towards for one reason or another.
The songs🎵 and sounds on the background gives this video📹 more attractive quality. Kudos to all the team👏🙌👍 who made this historic video📹 possible. Happy New Month and Happy Weekend Everyone. Shalom🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼.
The Chinese had highly detailed almanacs, recording rainfall in averages, crop yields in aggregate, and population changes in the 2k BC era, well over 4000 years ago. A millennium is a century to them lol
Confidently conclude it depends?? I find that absolute hilarious as literally any event in history can be explained as ‘it depends’. I’ve been studying history professionally for close to 10 years now and I say ‘it depends’ almost every day!!!!
Sending a 1960's countryside farmer back 3400 years into the past, he would just do fine, except having a bit difficulties to communicate, but houses, cooking stove and most things did not change at all, maybe the materials ....
That is not the story of Yu the Great that I remember. The stories I remember cast him more as a dedicated engineer that designed the damns to control the floods then tirelessly led workforces to build them. That being said, this may be one of those Romanticization vs Records things that is common in Chinese history. Much like how there is a Romance of the Three Kingdoms vs the Records of the Three Kingdoms. In Chinese Romanticizations, it's common to attribute mystical powers to people who were very smart or skilled. Much like how in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang is often depicted as a sorcerer able to predict the future and control the weather, while in Records of the Three Kingdoms, it attributes his feats to simply being able to read the weather because he was a farmer, or just being clever enough to out smart his opponents with ruses.
Something about the mythical Yu. There is evidence showing that there was flood. There was also evidence showing that the people somehow contained the flood. We do not know anything about Yu. He probably organized a group of engineers to deal with the flood. To the other people at that time, saving them from the flood would seem to be a feat that could only be accomplished with supernatural power. Hence the story of a ruler with mythical power.
Or grinding down fossils to make boner medicine. Yeeea, education over traditional superstition in these kind of cases, I say. Man, it hurts my soul almost as much as remembering the Great Library of Alexandria.
How u got the info of Chinese history? U mentioned that Chinese may be associated with Aliens? I think your notion of Chinese civilization is not totally right. Chinese civilization is more than 6 million years old.
@@LeoWarrior14 King Arthur and Troy are part of ancient Briton history and mythology not England's. The Welsh are the descendents of the Britons. King Arthur held back the Saxon expansion on this island, keeping them at bay for another generation. It was the Saxons who formed England, the enemy of Arthur and his people. And according to most of medieval Welsh literature, the Welsh were Trojans and Britain was founded by King Brutus of Troy, who was the first king in Welsh Royal genealogies. King Arthur was said to be a direct descendant of of King Brutus of Troy. Letters from King Owain Glyndwr, the last Welsh monarch to rule in Wales during the 15th century Welsh War of Independence, left us letters sent to King Robert III of Scotland, appealing for Scotland aide in the Welsh cause for Independence in which he appeals to Robert as being a fellow Trojan, claiming he believes they were kin as he believed Robert to be a descendant of Brutus of Troy like himself. King Robert and the Scots did not share this Trojan origin story however and claimed that Robert and the Gaels of Scotland were descended from an Egyptian princess named Scota and her husband Goedel Glas who was a Scythian from modern day Ukraine.
No. Because during the time of Xia, most of europe was still tribal and we don't even know the names of the peoples living there. We don't even consider them myths, they're absent from history to us. European history begins with writing in crete and greece... the same as chinese history, with the Shang dynasty.
it’s illegal, you cannot claim a title in Scotland. And the company is operating out of the shell company in Hong Kong. And I’m sure they’re not planting a tree on your behalf!
Algorithms recommend what we like to watch, and if we're not actively looking for different points of views, most likely we'll be exposed to views we agree with most of the time. I’ve made many videos teaching Chinese language vividly and in a humorous way. I hope somebody can recommend my videos to those who want to learn Chinese. For beginners, Chinese characters may look complicated. But once you learn about 100 basic radicals, most characters become easy. I hope more people can learn Chinese to get comprehensive firsthand information about China and most likely seek more job opportunities. Know ourselves as well as our partners, competitors, adversaries…..
this documentary is surprisingly accurate, thanks for your hardwork, the existence of XIA is still questioned by many historians, however majority believes that there was a dynasty existed but maybe not in the name of XIA, there is a possiblity that the idea of Nation, Dynasty, Country wasnt developed yet during that time, did they really had a name for their realm? or did they have different perception of a dynasty than we do? we dont know, however, more and more ancient records has been found throughout the years, I believe oneday we will find out
I believe something like the Xia existed, how else would the Shang have gotten so big out of nowhere, there had to be a pre-existing culture in the area already, each dynasty took over from the last and kept the political structures
xia dynasty in its exact name xia did exist... as to every clans-dynasty in ancient times, pestilences and famines forced families to go to fairer places... the shang dynasty in its time is located in fairer lands... something like tibet that has earlier existence but now is inalienable part of china because of able bodied tibetans escaping to the mainland for better situations, then long afterwhich masses of tibet serfs rose up and chose to be part of the mainland until mao-ccp formally annexed tibet...
Please, keep one key concept in mind looking at Chinese Culture: We keep adapting and evolving. It would only be extinction if one culture kept unchanged in the stream of history.
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Related to the Shang oracle bones: did you know that today, in Taiwan, some people use two wooden bars which they toss to the floor? People looking for answers from the spirits, first make questions to the spirits holding these wooden bars and then throw them to the floor, and the way the wooden bars end up on the floor may be a "yes" or a "no" from which people assert their decisions.
There is only one thing I can think of that can be corrected: Yu is not a figure with mythical power that fixed flooding with his power, but an engineer that left his family for decades to plan and build a waterwork project that fixed the flooding problem. The myth was his sacrifice earned him the leadership of his people. Of all myths in Chinese history, this is probably one of the more realistic ones.
@@anypercentdeathless It's literally a myth/folklore. I'm not sure whether there is any archaeological evidence but it's the story of 大禹治水, something all Chinese speakers are familiar with and likely read about since birth. Legend has it the king appointed Yu as the chief engineer to fix the flooding problem as 2 previous engineers to tried to dam the waterway failed to fix the flooding of the yellow river. Yu came up with the idea of using a canal instead of damming the yellow river to decrease the flow of water, a project that took him decades, without going home, to achieve. His achievements led to the king appointing him as his successor. The written record of this was in Records of the Grand Historian aka 史記
Note that this is not the story of the first emperor of China. Instead, the first "emperor" of China should be the mythical 黃帝, or the yellow emperor. This is the guy that all later emperors pray to for legitimacy an action later known to the west as the mandate of heaven.
@@benlex5672 I mean you take any very important historical figure in a state with very poor surviving records and the story will change over time as different cultures add their take. A cultural game of, "telephone" if you will. The story of Diogenes is considered mostly apocryphal even though the greeks had writing and recorded history most of his tales are by word of mouth rather than written in stone.
No, no concrete record nor archeological evidence at all.
There is also a mythological story around him, I made my bachelor degree about Qin Dynasty, and I track the Ying family existence since the time of Yu the Great, well I started a bit early with the creation of the world and all the mythic era. Any way, when I started with Yu the Great and Xia Dynasty, most of the information I found where similar with Greek myths than those who present a real image about him. In those story it begins with Gong Gong the God of Rain, he got anger at mankind and wanted to destroy them, he broke the cloud and bring the great flood that was planed to kill all the humans. The people started to run to the mountain and close to their pecks as the level of the water increase more and more day by day. A good, name Gun who was the great-grandson of the Yellow Emperor (Hunag Di), saw the humans suffering so he decide to help them, he stole the magic clay named Xirang, a piece of clay that grow back every time you split it or capable of creating great masses of land. Yellow Emperor found that Gun, stole his magic clay and he send Zhu Rong God of Fire, to kill Gun. Gun is killed but he refuse to die because he promise to help the humans, and so, from his belly button was born Yu, Gun becoming a yellow dragon after. Yellow Emperor fell bad for what he did, and rise his great grand-nephew, and he become and adult he send him back on earth with the magic clay, aftre many paasages talk about him having magic tools like that U shape showed and many other things as he is help by a merman an old sage etc... His helper the Ying family head was regarded to be half bird also, the story end with him defeating the God of Rain and getting rid of the flood. Of course the most real story is his father Gun was the inventor of damns during the age of floods, he fails and he was exiled or killed, Yu took the mission of his father to clean his family name, so he developed the irrigation system and drainage of the water, so he was elected king, and before Yu the Great, all rulers where elected by deeds not by blood. The son of Yu was elected by the people and court and so begins the first hereditary monarchy.
@@dylanfoster7037 There is a reason I'm taking the records of 孟子 and 史記 as they are the earliest written (and official) records of the story.
Confucius is among hundreds of ancient Chinese schools of thought (诸子百家). Han and later Dynasties promoted Confucius because it emphasizes order and authority of the emperors, but you can't say the other schools (诸子百家）are not Chinese.
Correct! All these ancient philosophies influenced China, not just the Confucius. We had Taoism (specialized in human and nature relations), Mo (specialized in engineering designs), Zong Heng (specialized in Diplomacy and political strategies), Sun Zi (The art of war), Fa (specialized in Laws), Yinyang (specialized in the order and trend of universe), These are the 6 out of the 10 mainstream of philosophies dated around 5th Century BC and influenced all the way to modern China.
有意思的一点是，孔子是商朝王族的后裔，孔子姓“子”，和商朝的国姓是一样的，而且孔子在鲁国也任职，他却要恢复周礼，实在是很神奇。
@@Claire-lv9lc Mo's contribution is not just engineering. You should mention Mo's thoughts like "equivalent love for all" and "non-attack". Zong Heng Jia....I think this sort of like a name for all the great diplomats of different countries at that time?
感谢你的科普，做的很好！😄
不知姓
The real Orthodox heritage of Chinese thinking is Tao from Laozhi, and even Confucius was one of his student.
Yu the Great is described in historical texts as a hands-on engineer building a drainage system through a mountain that finally resolved the problem of flooding and made the region inhabitable for Chinese people. His technique of diverting flood waters by draining them to the Yellow Sea was more successful than the technique of suppression with dikes used by his predecessors. Yu was known for engaging in hard toil alongside his men, so much so his feet were calloused and his skin became black and leathery from the sun. The myth where he uses a magical battle axe is not canonical but belongs to a fringe text and is a later embellishment that most Chinese people do not know about. The classical understanding of Yu the Great is of a great hydraulic engineer with a great work ethic and who worked alongside his men on the most laborous tasks.
Of course the white man would call him a "myth" because whites don't understand the concept that non-whites can also engineer. Their racism is built into their blood.
Thanks for the clarification. 😎👍
It almost sounds like a mythical undertaking for that age! 😳
This summary is accurate. See Works of Mencius (BCE 372-288) aka Meng-tze, a Confucian scholar for a non-fiction, non-mythical account.
Yu, a gifted leader turned his rule over to his trusted minister and beheaded his flood-control engineer for not putting forth real effort while people were drowning in annual floods.
Then, Yu took over the flood control project, and refused to go home for family reunions and celebrations until the flood control channel was finished. Because people were dying and silos and granaries, and crops were destroyed in the weather disasters.
He had several thousand men at his command, and taught them what they were trying to do. He eased into the mud, dug with his own hand tools, and he wore the hair off his legs from long days in the sands, mud and dirt.
It honestly sounds like communist party propaganda. The description of him as an "engineer" or any other type of modern profession suggests somebody somewhere had an agenda.
@@JoCE2305 The details of the engineering I found in the writings if Mencius or Meng-Tzu (BCE 372-289), translated into English about 1910. These dates are earlier than the formation of the Communist Party.
This leader who seemed to know how to plan and design cities had an ancestor, probably a grandfather who had lived in a very advanced civilization. This preceding civilization was more developed than Minos and Knossos, but it disappeared before China began.
In brief, the first dynasty of China came from an ancestor who knew more than the Ancient Greeks, and Minoans.
I am from Nepal where we have many different Tibeto- Burman tribes. It is said that my tribe's ancient origins lies in ancient China (possibly mountains of Yunan and Sichuan) from where my ancestors migrated and moved southwards through Tibetan plateau and eventually settling in the present-day Nepal about atleast a millenia ago. There are lots of myths and legends passed down from generations about our migration from there going through many forests and mountains and arriving in our present home. Nepal, Bhutan, North-east India have long been inhabited by Tibeto- Burman speaking populations which trace their ancestry to the Western China and South east Asia (due to intermixing).
Do you look like a East Asian??
You better say that Nepal was part of China, you will be paid enough with 50 cnts.
@@18890426 If their ancestors migrated thousands of years ago they probably wouldn't. Everyone alive today is a mix of ancestors who came from all over the world.
Yes we have the same origin about 7000years before
@@18890426 Native Nepalese do.
No culture just springs out of nowhere.....for the shang dynasty to exist, there would be a precursor government polity/culture. Because, hear me out....a fully developed language with writing system doesn't just spring up overnight. Truly, a government like the shang dynasty doesn't just spring up overnight without centuries of consolidation from smaller settlements.
Great emphasis. Great point.
You said the same thing 3 different times
@@Blastdaddy69 lol Thx for confirming I wasn’t sure lol
@@Blastdaddy69 coz...
1: it's important
2: it is very important
3: did i mention it's important
4:...
5: profit.
Chinese civilization comes from the west.
It’s obvious
There is one point I want to add. There were 10 mainstream ancient philosophies influenced China, not just the Confucius. We had Taoism (specialized in human and nature relations), Mo (specialized in engineering designs), Zong Heng (specialized in Diplomacy and political strategies), Sun Zi (The art of war), Fa (specialized in Laws), Yin Yang (specialized in the order and trend of universe), These are the 6 out of the 10 mainstream of philosophies dated around 500 BC and influenced all the way to modern China.
but all were burnt by qin shi huang I remember
Qin just hates Confucianism very much, and Qin's burning action is not extermination. These philosophies were formed in a chaotic era, and eventually the rulers favored Confucianism,but other philosophies were still passed down and learned.
@@mibikchellaimibikchellous2238 No. He did burn a lot of books but these books and philosophies are available today and many have been translated into English. Case in point: Sunzi's Art of War is required reading for officers in the US Marines. During the Qin dynasty, some scholars memorised entire books and rewrote them after his death.
@@mibikchellaimibikchellous2238 The best thing for Qin the first emperor is that he unified China and his dynasty last for merely 19 years. So the scholars at that time rewrote most of the books he burned after his death.
@@mibikchellaimibikchellous2238 Fun fact Qin Shi Huang's kingdom worshipped the Fa philosophy not Confucius, yet Confucius became the dominant philosophy after Qin. Looks like he didn't burn them all
One of the major problems on understanding Chinese civilization before Shang is the writing system. Oracle script during Shang shows a very refined writing system, which means that there should be a more primitive version of it in pre-Shang era. But so far no decrypted piece of such supposed writing have been found, despite several pre-Shang cities with integrated palace, defensive wall system and hydraulic works have been revealed by archeologists.
But technically there ARE pre-Shang civilizations in China. It's just so far we don't know for sure what they called themselves, how far and how early they reached, or their definitive relation between Shang and the tribal states of the time.
Zhou Dynasty scripts mention that the Shang Dynasty had books just like them, but we could not find any because the writing material was probably fragile and lost to history. Only the Oracle Bones survived from the Shang Dynasty. There may very well be developed writing during the Shang and proto-writing predating the Shang but we haven't found any, and we might unlikely discover any that survive.
The term "Kings" is used in the western world to address the top leaders . Chinese used 'Emperors"to address top leaders. The narrative history is based on western point of views and interpretations on ancient China. The more accurate account of Chinese history is from Sima Qian.
a lot of ancient civilizations are "lost" or very unknown even in europe during the bronze age.
i feel like we forget taht by the time fo the bronze ages, there was a fully developed world and trade relations. It wasn't just the egyptions, sumerians, Hattians, Indians, and Chinese and everyone else were "backwards". Other tribes and states existed that are long forgotten.
@@kwchew3302king is lover than emperor in both west and east. This is why the first Chinese emperor is Qin Shi Huang
@@pfl95there are great civilizations thet left obvious monuments, archeological evidence and even brought great contributions and then there are places like sub saharan Africa that did have people but were stuck in stone age for 100 000 years and left almost no evidence and had zero contribution to the wider world.
The Oracle Bones, of the Shang, which dates back to 2nd Millennium BC. They say the Oracle bone scripts evolve continuously to the modern version of Chinese writing. The Shang script of the Oracle bones was sophisticated enough, that without a doubt, it was passed down from an earlier version. Nothing develops in a vacuum. Even if the evidence of the Xia and Zhou were minimal, the existence of such a Shang kingdom, means something less developed must have existed previously.
Sima Qian was known as the great historian. His account of the Shang is extremely accurate and corroborated with the writing on the oracle bones. This is amazing because Sima Qian lived 1000 years after the fall of the Shang. The accuracy of this works is not in doubt by most Chinese historians. Sima Qian did provide a list of the Xia kings and events that preceded the Shang. The problem is with three sovereign five emperor stuff that preceded the Xia. If Sima Qian account is to be taken literally, than some of these emperors and sovereigns would have live 100+ years plus or more, which is not very likely in ancient time.
Muslims believe early humans lived for far longer than modern humans. We have no problem with the idea of ancient Chinese living for 100+ years. In fact this sounds very fascinating.
In ancient China one year was less than 365 days, so it’s very possible a man can live as long as 100+ years considering that a year in the past is shorter than a year we know now.
@@julioduan7130It is 5 days shorter per year though.
@@qiushiliang4844 the ancient calendar might be different.
@@julioduan7130 "might be different" = "trust me bro"
Plus after your first guess. Make it very unconvincing
Chinese isn't just Han. This is a recurring assumption that many westerners make to this day. Han people just happen to be the majority but what they call 'foreigners' are still considered Chinese of ethnic minority groups. It's been this way for millenia. Even Hans are in fact a collection of different ethnicities depending on how far one wants to go in history.
But Han is definitely the majority, & the underlying culture of "China". All other ethnic minorities, while of Chinese nationality, are not Han. Of course a lot of them have moved to the urban areas & Sinified (taken cultural customs of the Han) over the centuries.
& of course, there's no pure Han. Every Chinese person probably has genes from Mongolia/ Manchurian/ Korean/Turk in the north & Viet or Tai/ Hmong down south, just to name some examples.
@@Jumpoable but the way it is often said is as if they are foreigners. That was my point. I would not call a German with Scandinavian blood but born in Germany, a Scandinavian, would I?
@@k.k.c8670 Who says who are foreigners? All the ethnic minorities in China are NOT foreigners. They are non-Han, but they aren't foreigners.
The term "Chinese" isn't even an ethnonym used by actual Chinese people. It's just a vague English word non-Chinese use. "China" & "Chinese" are just words Chinese people use when talking to actual foreigners from the west.
Us "Chinese" are a LOT more specific ethnocultural (rather than national) identifiers when referring to ourselves (usually self-identifying by city/ province/ ethnocultural macro- or micro-regions).
@@Jumpoable yes I know. When many westerners (whether on social media or in traditional media) refer to 'Chinese', they are usually referring to Han Chinese. If they refer to Chinese ethnic minorities, they would say, for example, a Uyghur or a Hui. So, it is as if those minorities aren't really 'Chinese'. It is a bit like saying a white in America is 'American' but a black is just a black. There is an insinuation that he isn't a 'true American'. I guess that's why they came up with specific terms like African American in recent years.
@@Jumpoable But if you go back to the Han Dynasty, in fact, the Han people also came this way, right? through continuous integration. Nation (or country) is just an identity, but in fact all people are two arms and two legs and one head
The division of ethnic groups by blood, religion, etc. is more to distinguish "you" and "us". In fact, it is the same if not by blood, but by the mobile phone brand used or the game you like.
Im just going to correct one thing, Chinese historians or any historic books say that Yu does not have any superhuman or supernatural strength, but rather took 13 contineous years digging and dredging the flood. Not to mention his father is the one that started this digging many years before as a small leader, but got punished and sentenced to death as the river is always flooding out and killing people every year at the high season. IN FACT, the idea and concept about one saving the flood from rivers or ocean appeared everywhere in the world, almost all civilization starts with this kind of myth, but Chinese version is the ONLY, yes the only version that is saved by human power through many years of dedication and hardworking and planning, while other versions around the world are all about a godlike being using super power.
I mean Noah/Utnapishtim built a giant ship. That should count.
actually we have a ather story about yu.
in 13 years working, he totally three times walking through his home but never enter even a once. in the last time he hear the baby cry voie form his house, that mean his son has birth. but he still not enter. until his job done.
@@竞博贾 Definitely a legitimate offspring then. 🙃
No offence; I just find that funny.
why not both, Asian is famous for their supernatural beliefs from time to time, up until now.
@@kakarot2430 Myth is imagination, but Yu's story is told as real history. None of Chinese history book every said that Yu had superpower, we only be told how he smartly dealt with flood and didn’t have time to be with his family. His story is about engineering and sacrificing, no superpower.
Not sure what your sources are, but I've never read any version of Yu's mythology with him being super human. Yu's whole thing is about HUMANS, normal humans from various tribes along the Yellow river, working together for decades to build a grand hydro project to redirect floods away from human settlements. His tools became legendary, but never his person.
Dayu's control of floods is not considered a myth in Chinese history.
In fact, the history of Dayu's flood control may be more credible than the Christian Bible.
However, Westerners think that the Bible is history, but Dayu’s flood control is not. It’s really ridiculous!
There is nothing new in the argument of this video. It still repeats the same arguments that disparage Chinese civilization.
In addition to the Chinese civilization in East Asia, the Eurasian continent, the Middle East, or the so-called North Africa seriously lacks credible historical civilization records or verifiable historical cultural relics. As for Europe itself, there are basically no relics of great civilizations to speak of.
However, the West can confidently define the so-called four major civilizations and define the history of the Chinese civilization in East Asia as only 4,000 years old, considering it to be the shortest civilization among the four major civilizations.
The main reason for this situation is that
1. In modern times, because of the Industrial Revolution, the West has rapidly risen from a scattered, obscure and backward region, and has gained a global status that Europe has never had in history.
Therefore, in order to beautify the history of its own civilization and make itself appear less barbaric, the West has fabricated and exaggerated a large amount of the so-called great history of Europe through its dominance of public opinion in modern times. For example, the so-called Roman Empire, the history of Alexander, etc.
At the same time, in order to make their own fabrications more reasonable, the West has also fabricated a large amount of so-called civilization history about the Near East and North Africa near Europe as a foil. The purpose is to create an illusion for the world that Europe and North Africa are concentrated areas of world civilization. , so Europe’s so-called glorious history is also credible.
The most ridiculous thing is that regions such as Europe and North Africa don’t even have credible written history, and there are very few cultural relics. Many of them are fake cultural relics made of cement and steel bars in modern times. The history of all these areas is actually a so-called history fabricated based on the fantasies of modern Westerners.
2. Westerners have used their dominant position in public opinion to promote the claim that humans first came out of Africa in the west, hoping to establish a subconscious subconscious that Western humans are more advanced.
In order to cooperate with the promotion of this man-made theory, the West needs to prove that the so-called human civilization was first born and developed in the West. Therefore, it vigorously promotes the so-called ancient Egyptian and ancient Babylonian civilizations, even though the texts, cultural relics and archeology of these civilizations are all There was massive fraud, and absolutely no written records of ancient history have survived to this day. These areas only have so-called unrecognizable written symbols recognized by the West, but the authenticity of these symbols is seriously doubtful, and there is no coherent and systematic written historical record from ancient times to the present similar to China's.
All of this is done by the West to establish a consciousness in the world that the West is the origin of mankind and civilization in the world!
Therefore, in the eyes of Westerners, the Chinese civilization far away from the West is naturally the shortest, least advanced, and later developed civilization.
This is actually a lie that artificially fabricates history and creates false historical concepts. It is a tragedy for the development of human civilization!
Thanks for posting on one of my favorite civs and cultures guys, brightened my day a lot so thank you and please keep doing these :)
Xia most likely existed. Shang was also previously thought to be mythical until modern archaeology found oracle bones. Sima Qian was an amazing historiographer for his time
xia did exist just that it was an inward kind of society-dynasty...
There are several archeology founding dated back to Xia period. The problem is, they are still debatable which of those belongs to Xia.
Developed cultures existed in the area and the time; whether one of them called itself Xia, or fits the description provided by the Zhou, however, is another matter. Nowadays, the best contender is the Erlitou culture, but as there are no Erlitou literary sources known (or even early Shang; Wu Ding came much later), currently Xia, as described by the Zhou documents, cannot be safely considered to have existed. There definitelly was "something" there, the Shang didn't pop up into existence out of the blue, and the cultural and societal development in the general China region is much, MUCH older than Shang themselves.
We just don't (at least yet) have any written records confirming exactly what predated them (if we can even state that; the Shang may have seemlessly coalesced into a kingdom, or could have been the first empire in the area akin to early Sumer city states led into the early empires in Mesopotamia). There is unfortunatelly only so much we can glimpse from excavating many millenia old cities and graveyards. We can atest that (for example; I am not an expert in the field, I just read too much Wikipedia and edutainment books) "something" was important for said culture at the time; if we find many graves with weapons and armor in them, we can relatively safely say that said culture valued combat prowess; we cannot say that a Battle X happened. Think about this akin to the Trojan War. We know that there was a city in the area, that it was burnt down around the right time, but we do not have direct sources that could tell us if it even is what Homer described in the Illiad (he wrote about the war centuries after it, and there were the Greek Dark Ages in between). Homer basically took what people said about an even to them ancient war and mastefuly wrote it down. We know of Agamemnon, but we have no written sources about him from that era, rendering him into a similar obscurity as Yu the Engineer. In that aspect, Xia as described by the Zhou and the ancient Greece as described in Illiad (and the rest of the Homeric cycle) are similar - we have their descriptions that come from much later times, but nothing from themselves about themselves, and thus their descriptions are, at best, shadows of the actual reality.
At least, so far. Hopefully, one day we'll find a large library dating to the Erlitou culture, or a series of books written in Linear A. One can dream, right? x)
夏一定存在
@@filipprochazka4961The Myceneans wrote in Linear B. Linear A is the Minoan script. Still, would be psyched if the latter was deciphered.
China has a civilisational continuity of NO LESS than:
3600 years if you consider the internationally-recognised sophisticated written language;
4300 years if you consider the archaeological formation of a country;
4700 years if you consider the establishment of scientific Chinese calender;
6000 years if you consider the split of languages;
7000-8000 years if you consider the birth of script and record of knowledge;
9000 years if you consider the root of Chinese's totems, astroobservations, Yin-Yang and preference of jade;
12000 years if you consider the archaeological discoveries in argriculture and the legendary 3 sovereigns.
Yeah I agree, Yijing is at least 6000+years old, and it literally shaped Chinese culture as it is.
Not 3600 years,According to the first dynasty, at least 4100 years
It's unfair to say 3600 years
China has at least 6-9 large-scale urban ruins that are more than 4,000 years old.
Why do these people choose to ignore the factual evidence from these archaeological digs?
Not to mention that the dams and city ruins of the Liangzhu Culture have 5,200 years of soil layers
There is nothing new in the argument of this video. It still repeats the same arguments that disparage Chinese civilization.
In addition to the Chinese civilization in East Asia, the Eurasian continent, the Middle East, or the so-called North Africa seriously lacks credible historical civilization records or verifiable historical cultural relics. As for Europe itself, there are basically no relics of great civilizations to speak of.
However, the West can confidently define the so-called four major civilizations and define the history of the Chinese civilization in East Asia as only 4,000 years old, considering it to be the shortest civilization among the four major civilizations.
The main reason for this situation is that
1. In modern times, because of the Industrial Revolution, the West has rapidly risen from a scattered, obscure and backward region, and has gained a global status that Europe has never had in history.
Therefore, in order to beautify the history of its own civilization and make itself appear less barbaric, the West has fabricated and exaggerated a large amount of the so-called great history of Europe through its dominance of public opinion in modern times. For example, the so-called Roman Empire, the history of Alexander, etc.
At the same time, in order to make their own fabrications more reasonable, the West has also fabricated a large amount of so-called civilization history about the Near East and North Africa near Europe as a foil. The purpose is to create an illusion for the world that Europe and North Africa are concentrated areas of world civilization. , so Europe’s so-called glorious history is also credible.
The most ridiculous thing is that regions such as Europe and North Africa don’t even have credible written history, and there are very few cultural relics. Many of them are fake cultural relics made of cement and steel bars in modern times. The history of all these areas is actually a so-called history fabricated based on the fantasies of modern Westerners.
2. Westerners have used their dominant position in public opinion to promote the claim that humans first came out of Africa in the west, hoping to establish a subconscious subconscious that Western humans are more advanced.
In order to cooperate with the promotion of this man-made theory, the West needs to prove that the so-called human civilization was first born and developed in the West. Therefore, it vigorously promotes the so-called ancient Egyptian and ancient Babylonian civilizations, even though the texts, cultural relics and archeology of these civilizations are all There was massive fraud, and absolutely no written records of ancient history have survived to this day. These areas only have so-called unrecognizable written symbols recognized by the West, but the authenticity of these symbols is seriously doubtful, and there is no coherent and systematic written historical record from ancient times to the present similar to China's.
All of this is done by the West to establish a consciousness in the world that the West is the origin of mankind and civilization in the world!
Therefore, in the eyes of Westerners, the Chinese civilization far away from the West is naturally the shortest, least advanced, and later developed civilization.
This is actually a lie that artificially fabricates history and creates false historical concepts. It is a tragedy for the development of human civilization!
akha
@@tyq5775 Historians write the history, not the governments. They never said "The West is the origin of mankind." Otherwise, they wouldn't have acknowledged the first human civilization started in Africa and reached to the other continents. You know what historians do, don't you? They don't write a history on demand.
As a history teacher you've helped me grow so much Kings and Generals! My area of speciality is Modern China and you've strengthened my Ancient!
so will xi be removed? he seems to be slowly losing his power base.
So K&G are history enlargement videos?
FreeEastTurkistan
FreeSouthMongolia
FreeTaiwan
FreeCantonia
FreeHookkien
Imagine showing up to history class and your teacher has a K&G Playlist lined up 😅
@@jboss119 Do you know what you are talking about ? Xi is serving his people for life; in other words, he was elected as a leader of the People 's Republic of China for life. President Xi of China is more popular ever, period.
Looking at Fu Hao and concluding that Shang society was egalitarian is like taking a look at Empress Wu Zetian and conlcuding that the Tang society was egalitarian, or taking a look at Joan d'Arc and conlcuding that medieval France was egalitarian, or taking a look at Matilda of Tuscanny and concluding that medieval Italy was egalitarian or....you get the point. There are like half a dozen reasons that can explain Fu Hao's position within Shang society before jumping to the conlcusion that the Shang were egalitarian. Off the top of my head, a reasonable explanation could be that Fu Hao would have been part of (or close to) the nobility, which means that she could bend the "rules" better than the average woman could.
The society doesn’t need to be fully egalitarian by modern standards to qualify as relatively egalitarian for the time.
...we get the point: You don't know what egalitarian means.
@@artisanrocky8496 Could you show me where exactly in my comment did I suggest such a thing? All I did was point out that Fu Hao is nowhere near enough evidence to suggest that Shang society was egalitarian to any degree or by any standard.
LOL very true. But there's definitely a very deep matriarchal tradition in ancient China. It's evident in the written language, with the female radical 女 (the logograph for "woman") in the word "clan/family name" 姓 so it proves that people used to identify matrilineally with their mother's clan/family, not the father's.
All the oldest clan names also had the female radical 女 like 姫, 姜, including Fu Hao's 好, which means "good" 好 (logograph is "woman + child = good/ beautiful)
安 (house over a woman = safety/ security/ peace.
The words for marriage also has the female radical 婚姻 so it probably was a matrilineal institution in origin as well.
Female shamans played a crucial role in the spiritual life of the ancient Chinese, & Fu Hao was probably one as well.
Only later when patriarchal Confucianism took over did the female radical' come to be used for some words with negative connotations like 奴 "female slave" (later just used as a generic term for slave), 奸 "evil" 妖 "twisted/demonic" 嫌 "dislike" 妄 "presumptuous". Pretty misogynistic, we know.
I wonder when China will have a language reform LOL.
Perhaps the reason for the inequality between men and women is not because the agricultural society needs more male labor of young and middle-aged people, while women, the elderly and children have become the weaker because of their physical disadvantages? Perhaps the inequality between men and women in ancient societies was caused by some more "physical" reasons?
The concept of male superiority and female inferiority is more of a ruling tool made in some dynasties to facilitate the notification of the ruler？
Among the Chinese archaeologists they still argue whether Xia existed or not. The older generation tends to question it, the newer generation tends to believe it certainly existed. Before the Shang Capital was excavated, Shang's existense was questioned, too.
People were awed by how Sima Qian's accuracy of recording Shang's descent records, he only messed up one of the record (he thought the brother of Shang's first king succeeded the throne, but Oracles suggest it passed directly to the eldest son). This kind of accuracy means Sima Qian must have other literature to support him, cause the founding of Shang was 15 centuries ahead of him. Those records we can never find. But it also make one wonder, would Sima Qian write Xia's descent records without similar support?
Oracle characters was a rather sophisticated, and it is unreasonable for Shang people to only use it for argury or fortune-telling, but not to use it for recording, governing and business. However, other than turtle shells, ancient Chinese were mostly wrote on bamboo sheets, which can not withstand the chemical and biological erosion. The curently, the ealiers bamboo sheets found is from the B Tomb of Marquis Zeng (written time around 433 BC). The sheets were preserved only because buried by water with antiseptic solutes.
It might be very hard to find wrting characters from Xia time. However, Erlitou is the only place many researcher considered as Xia Capital. In the same period, there are quite a few huge settlements in China that are excavated, like Yangshao in Shanxi Province, Heitao in Shandong Province, Liangzhu in Zhejiang Province (considered foreign of Xia), San Xingdui in Sichuan Province (considered foreign of Xia), ect. Even miles beside the Shang capital there was Longshan culture ruins, which is also around Xia time.
In Hubei Province, there was a huge fortress ruin excavated which takes up 0.4 million squre meters with a moat of 30 meters wide, scholars speculate it as the fortress of southern people defending northern armies. When Mongol conquered Song they went near this place, the City of Xiangyang, which hold 8 years before fallen. Could it be the fortress of southern city states (such as earlier mentioned Liangzhu) defending Xia troops? I tend to believe Xia existed, other than the ruins we discussed, there are lots of other ruins around Erlitou, which already form up a ruling center. And apparently they are a power that the southerners feared.
That’s really interesting. I think the older generation question it because of the suppression of classical chinese culture under Mao
@@lfckaran Actually it has nothing to do with that. We must mention Japan on this topic.
See western colonial activities really tored apart the political structure of east Asian (or the world's? lol), along with the academic structure, too. Before Epo period, educated people in Japan just read Chinese history as THE history. Imagine a British priest reads Ceasar's compaigns or Rome's history as their history, it was like that. China was the source of east Asian culture u see, so back then there was nothing werid about it.
However, the power of the west really shocked the Japanese and they gradually begun to adopt the "Datsuaron" strategy, which means leaving Asia and joinning Europe. Cultural change was also called upon, they need to denouce traditional culture first. Related scholars like Shiratori Kurakichi and Naitō Konan, wrote literatures that questioned the factity of Chinese history line.
Later, the Japanese crushed the Chinese army in Jiawu War (1894-1895), or known as the First Sino-Japanese War. Chinese government and scholars were therefore very interested in the reform done by Japanese, and begun to learn from their measures.
There was this one major scholar, 胡适 Hu Shi, who later served as the Headmaster of today's famous Beijing University. He adopted the ideas mentioned above, and proposed "No valid history before Eastern Zhou Dynasty" idea, which means he did not recognise Xia, Shang and even Western Zhou (or former Zhou) as valid. Given that we Chinese were kinda in a self-loathing period, people followed him greatly, and the trend continued. Even to today, the Chinese archaeologist circle is still overly strict about domestic findings.
You sound very well informed
The earliest record of dynasty recognized by Chinese people are the Hua and Xia. In fact the most recognize identity of Chinese around the world today is ethnic Hua or 華人. Taiwanese or Singaporean maybe not like to be called Chinese, but they sure recognized themself ethnic Hua. You telling me those two period of time didn't exist and Chinese just made it up? Very interesting. Academic standards are very strict and prudent but sometime you need allow rooms for common sense.
The younger generations claim its existence cuz the nationalism gets over their head
I was taught that it takes the Great Yu 大禹 8 years along with a lot of manpower to deal with the flooding yellow river. There is a famous tale, 三过家门而不入, that he passes by his home several times in the years without returning to his house and see his family, indicating the sacrifice he made to achieve the greater good. The tale is recorded in one chapter in《孟子》, a Zhou dynasty classic.
I thought it was in 史記 as part of canonical history. but 史記 was written during the Han dynasty, so 孟子 would probably be the first written "record"
Zhou dynasty classics have gotten me acting unwise.
how collectivism in china is main value
@@hf_61 That is what ancient people need to survive the nature.
in some schools of thoughts, the emphasis is yu leading the masses of people without the use of violent coercion to believe in his idea to save them from miseries by floods... the very same school of thought who disagreed with qin shi huang using violent coercion to construct the great wall, but the great wall was to avert external tribes attacks, thus avoiding killings between the internal peoples and the external peoples... some militant scholars from other schools of thoughts, supported qin shi huang great wall...
I heard from the most recent findings is that the Xia dynasty actually existed. The problem was that the dynasty wasn't called the "Xia" dynasty. There are a lot of artifacts from that time but not enough literary records to claim that dynasty was "XIa," so it was probably under a different name.
The Shang had other names such as Yin too (due to capital changes) , so its possible Xia had other names
Xia almost certainly existed. In recent years, a town site in Shanxi had been excavated, dated around 4100 before present. It was speculated to be the Capital of Yao, Taotang clan.
The truth is still lying in earth somewhere between that site and Funiu Mountain range.
Xia is most likely Erlitou culture, the cradle of civilization in East Asia
@@GL-iv4rw There are a lot of more Neolithic archeological sites are older than Erlitou, and not that far away. Good example would be Yangshao, Dawenkou, Jiahu (this is an interesting one, look up), all within range of Yellow River tributaries. Erlitou was probably just one of many Xia city states.
And of course you have other different civilisations in China as well. Just as Sanxingdui’s ancient Shu kingdoms, arguably more advanced in societal development than its contemporary Chinese neighbours. As we speak, there are still more relics unearthed from there.
Judging by what had been discovered within China. I’d say there was a population boom by 7000 years before presence, possibly due to agricultural breakthrough (new crop? understanding of irrigation?), people start to live in the first city states to create farming communities. Only by what we know as Xia, written symbols became complicated enough to record historical events. Though we don’t know if Xia had writing system, theoretically speaking there should be one.
It was a people who worshipped one God
always a breath of fresh air listening to this channel
He's got a voice that's both soothing and energizing
This question is precarious. To compare: I've often considered that an American today could go back in time to The 1930s and, while finding themself inconvenienced and out-of-step, would still be able to relate and get by. However, to go back any earlier than that they would feel completely out-of-place and have a very difficult time. So, does that mean American civilisation is only 90 years old? Go back even farther, to the mid-1800s and it would seem like a completely different country; not just technologically, but culturally. England, 500 years ago, would seem entirely foreign to a modern Briton. Civilisations gradually change over time, and China's timeline is considerably much longer, so the differences over thousands of years are bound to be great.
Yeah I agree with what you said, not the right approach
From an American standpoint, I would take into consideration the place in time you would be immersed in. If you take away modern technology including electricity, them being in a rural place you would be able to relate and get by, even mid 1800s. If you were in a urban setting, you would have a difficult time relating to and interacting with the populace.
@@danielzhang1916 Yeah the question is framed pretty bad. A modern Han chinese wouldn't have much in common with someone who lived during the three kingdoms era. It's like asking how old is the Italian civilization and pointing at Rome? Sure, Italians can claim the Rome as their heritage and say hey we come from the Romans, but modern Italy barely has anything to do with the Romans. I mean they're of Romans, but they're not Romans.
There are some ethnic groups that can claim a pretty straightforward and long lineage to the point of actually being genetically bottlenecked and unique, but that's another discussion entirely.
You're correct of course, but this is somewhat funny: Here in rural Missouri our lives have changed little from our ancestors that first colonized the land. The house I'm in is over 120 years old, heated by wood and barely upgraded with modern necessities. Indoor plumbing was installed within my lifetime, and we only got electricity in the 50s. It's just interesting to see how much different life can be not just by time but by, I assume, only a few hundred miles
what you mean American Civilization.The Civilization is not the nation.Its Western Civilization.The Root of Western Civilization came from much older Civilization like Ancient Greek even furthermore.
There is a good view to show how Chinese civ is constant: people's surname nearly never change,most surname can originate from 3000 years ago.
As an example, Confucius's descendants are still notable today. While its hard to say where are Plato or Aristotle's descendants, probably they have changed their language or even ethnic.
Are there any living descendants from him? That is phenomenal if so
@@gold-toponym From the many people who claim to be Confucius descendents. Gene tests showed there are two most prominent haplogroups from Confuciu's home town Qufu, one is of Q-M1626 decendents, one is of C-M130. Around all China, there are 8 major families claimed to be Confucius descendents, which share with the C-M130's haplogroup, and has a common mutation cite of C-MF1915 around 500 BC, which was around Confucius' time (born in 551 BC).
So those people do have a super ancestor, we don't know if it is 100% Confucius, but seem very likely.
@@zeflute4586 interesting. Thank you
@@gold-toponym Of course there are. They're most vocal about it LOL. & they hold the annual rites to their esteemed ancestor every year.
@@gold-toponym Confucius's descendants still live in Taiwan , flee to Taiwan with KMT , i guess .And mainland as well . And many others , I don't know the details, but if you read their genealogy family tree ，it really can track their ancestors, and so do my genealogy family tree.
Love my motherland and 5000-year-old culture💖💖🥰🥰
Mao destroyed it in the cultural revolution
@Kokobaboko Like the UK and the US?
@Kokobaboko, Gordon Chang wrote a book about the Collapse of China in the 1990's.
There will be many more negative news about China as US is doing all she can with the extra "300 million dollars campaign" to smear, stigmatize China. The cynical hypocrisy of the world’s No1 propagandist: *US pledges $300mn to fund massive global anti-China media machine*
@Kokobaboko Yes, like the US and UK
@Kokobaboko LOL . Fiction? When there are
It is the usa and its pretentiousness and fake "land of the free" that are made up of pure fiction. Sad for the wonderful people of usa to live in such a unself-aware society with extremely flawed and corrupt political system baked into its core.
You say the Shang is the first Dynasty because they left written records. Those same written records say they conquered the Xia
china has such a rich and interesting history. it's a shame there isn't much content about it on youtube. hats off to you guys.
There is a bit but it's ignored by the algorithm.
go back and watch all the KG videos on China and Asia, worth watching
@@danielzhang1916 thanks for the recommendation, i will do that.
That's cause most people that use UA-cam harbour either a subconscious distaste for China or a conscious hate for China. Why would someone want to learn about the history of the current big bad superpower? It's only expected, the same kind of ideologies are present on websites localized to China.
There's a lot, but just in Chinese.
:P
Fun fact: After the 1911 revolution, the government debated whether to restore the house of Ming or to install the house of Confucius, or keep the republican government.
Do you mean Confucius?
Do they? I know Yuan Shikai proclaim emperor in 1916 just like what you did, however did not went well!
That would’ve been kinda cool.
I would kept the Qing under a much more restrained constitutional monarchy and yes I think there were attempts to do so
I think a constitutional monarchy under the house of Ming or Confucius would have helped stabilizing China.
CJ Lung from Cool history bros just dropped a bomb and educated Kings and Generals in Chinese history. I am with CJ!!!
True but it was in a very respectful manner. And I agree with CJ btw. Kings and Generals got a bunch wrong in this one.
What did he say?
@@davidmartinez9804 See for yourself.
I will check if that is correct.
Always good to see more focus on Asian history for a change. Rome and the West have been done to death.
That’s because they are rooted in reality fact and evidence rather than current cultural racist ideological fantasies
It’s easy tell be honest about truth
Not so easy to with concepts which are mythical fantastical and imperialistic and not well recorded
No offence to any region the west included but history for most western CIVILISATIONS, is not the thing that drives their dogma and imperial expansions,
You can see this in the weakness of the west and the vanity and chest pulling arrogance of most other cultures whose pride must be validated
The fact that dynasties were used to define cultural identity which is utterly unbiased in race ethnicity or culture shows this
To your point more is better and the more it’s explored the more broadly it is presented in a truthful way the better
Then perhaps the lunatic expansionism of China Russia et al might be known to be based in lies
@@anthonysaffioti9048 Okay, so couple of things off the bat.
Firstly, 'Truth' in history is almost always subjective. Accounts are recorded-usually long after the events themselves-by people with their own agendas, views and biases. That's just as true for 'Western' Civilization history(Which is in and of itself a debatable term as it's a massively diverse series of composites) so what we have are versions of varying degrees of accuracy. Ideological myths and fantasies from the West are quite common and even accepted as 'fact' dubious as they are, from portrayals in film, popular culture, to aspects of race, ethnicity, religion, culture and heritage.
Secondly, there has been a serious bias in study for years due to colonialism, that's undeniable fact. Innumerable historical documents, artifacts, cultures and locations were looted, damaged or outright destroyed through forced Westernization in many parts of the world.(It's not unique to European Colonialism/Expansion but that has been the most far reaching to date)
Thirdly, the present states of both China and Russia have roots in Western short sighted pursuits during the 1800s-1900s that have ramifications to the present day.
Finally, yes, Western Civilizations are driven by their histories. Those histories can and do affect the thought processes of the peoples that make up those civilizations. Economic, military and influence expansion are just as pervasive and motivated by self interest as military ones.
In conclusion, your view is myopic. Regimes are certainly contemptible, just as exploitative and corrupt governments and businesses are. That does not however, mean that people should not learn their own histories, their own regional, cultural, racial, ethnical and religious histories that are indeed important to them.
“It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If we take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale.” - Iroh
@@AeneasGemini hmm people seem to want to know about Thailand yet give zero credit to their predecessors whom gave them their literal cultures that they practice at current. That being the Khmer , Mon, and Malay empires. I suggest you give those a study.
Influencing them from their demeanor to their cultural practice, as well as "God king devaraja" and as well as old Khmer languages that are still prevalent in the royal Thai language, some food customs, temples and the like.
They've only risen in the past 700 years with Ayutthaya and have become dominant since. And known to the west after they laid Angkor to waste. And also carried 90000+ people of the Khmer ROYAL court back to Ayutthaya, with the already Mon Khmer and Malay within the area already.
People also barely know about Champa which Vietnam also laid to waste around the same time. And its kingdom had lasted well into the 1800s.
@@AeneasGemini what people mean by the west are these nations once in control of the world in the last 500 years. To which we give our embittered sentiment towards
Seriously. Love to see variety rather than Rome and Europe all the time. Way too little focus from amer-European channels on African and Asian history, etc. Kings and Generals does a great job of variety, tho!
Cultures tend to grow or change. 5,000 years is a long time. As someone who is half Chinese I study my cultures history. I hadn't even touched on a quarter of it yet. My family has family records going back 2500 years. The volumes are thick and heavy. I'm reading the digital versions on my tablet.
That's pretty cool they have them intact for 2500. That's like pre-Han. Where did they move around in China over the centuries?
@@Jumpoable my first generation ancestors emigrated from northern China down more south. He founded a village which eventually became famous for being the hometown of the founder of the People's Republic. My family still owns that land. The family name is Kwok. That branch of the family clan founded and owns Wing On international. A chain of retail stores. HQ is in Hong Kong. My name is Kop. My great grandparents changed the name when they immigrated to Hawaii. They thought kop would sound more American. So far that's the extent of my knowledge of the family history.
That's amazing
@@jmk0512 Any relation to Hong Kong's actor, Philip Kwok?
@@JulianPerez-zv6os I don't know. It's felt that I never heard of him there's a lot of members of the clan I have not met there or in the US. I still have yet to even visit Hong Kong yet. Visiting China still on my bucket list
Gotta love the use of Total War: Three Kingdoms’ soundtrack for the video. You guys are some of the historical channels on the platform, and the excellent use of animation and music must be praised each time.
Thank you for this!
They use the soundtrack from Civilization VI as well
What an amazing video!
Some probable suggestions for the future, oldest recognizable
Iranian, Greek, Indian, Mesoamerican
Civilizations. Both recognised by their modern inhabitants and the Historians. I think they would be great!
@@knightoffailure1869 "Slavic people partial Greek in origin"??? WTF No!
@@knightoffailure1869 That's a delusional statement.
@@knightoffailure1869 If you consider La Fontaine's fables as history, whatever makes you sleep at night
@@knightoffailure1869 You seem to be laboring under the delusion that I am laboring under the delusion that you are Greek. I never said you were Greek, I said you are delusional to claim that "Slavs are partial Greek in origin". And you appear to continue with the same delusion. Just stop, you sound utterly ridiculous.
To put it into perspective, the Shang Kingdom, described as occupying only a small portion of modern China, was bigger than France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Greece, etc. Shang was still a huge country by bronze age standards.
More big was Indus valley civilization which had highest population in world more than Mesopotamia or Egypt combined
Greece was than china
@@shehzadadarashikoh9463 Indus civilization population at its height was around 5 million while the Shang's population was around 13.5 million. Indus civilzation was 1000 years older than Chinese civilzation.
@@lolcatjunior the Nanda empire was equally large like the shang dynasty infact i would say vedic mahajanapadas had a wider area of influence and reach than the chinese shang and xia dynasties
The NANDA empire was an ancient indian empire and direct successors of the magadha empire which in itself was larger than the xia mythological dynasty
the NANDA empire reached a similar height comparable or slightly more powefull than the Shang dynasty
Good video, but the video missed three crucial ancient Chinese cultures/civilizations: Liangzhu (5,000 years old), Hongshan (5,000 years old), Shimao (4,500 years old). All built monumental architecture, including impressive citadels and the world's oldest large scale hydro network (Liangzhu), carved beautiful Jade, and were highly stratified, all hallmarks of sophisticated civilizations. That China started with the Xia and Shang dynasties is a traditional, albeit outdated view. China is not monolithic; rather, it's of multi origin, and an amalgamation of several civilizations (the Liangzhu, Hongshan, Shimao, Sinitic or Central Plain kingdoms, Sanxingdui, etc.). This is being revealed gradually by archeological discoveries. The old history books have to catch on
Cultures and civilizations aren't the same thing.
@@wisdomleader85 agreed
these were in modern day China, but they don't consider them part of the continuous Chinese civilization. They supposedly migrated out of the region before Chinese civilization sprouted up.
they were astronesians?
@@Haijwsyz51846 More like the other way around.
This reminded me why I love Chinese history so much! Thank you to the members of Kings and Generals for this wonderful gift!
What Uyghurs, whose getting slaughtered by Han chinese ? concentration camps? separating kids from their family?
There are many Kings and Emperors, thinkers, militarists, yin-yang scholars, poets, philosophers, artists, mathematicians, scientists and Neo-Confucianists in Chinese history.In short, five thousand years of culture is very profound.Love from China🇨🇳
Just two minor errors in this video.
1. The origin of Zhou was not nomadic origin at all, but a core part of Ji clan. In the old Matriarchal of China, different groups carry clan names of their Matriarch to avoid incest in marriage. The major clans that came together forming Chinese civilisations include Ji (姬）, Jiang (姜），Zi (子），Si（姒），Gui（妫），Yao (姚），Ying (嬴）. Notice most of the characters contain the symbol of woman (女）in there. These clan names gradually evolved into other family names, are no longer actively used by many. Part from Jiang and Yao. Ji clan is said have originated from Huangdi, by the time when Zhou replaced Shang, they have been active politically for more than a thousand years. (Shang royals are from Zi clan, later they ruled the State of Song after Zhou established.)
2. Buddhism officially entered China by 68AD, (Interestingly the same year that Saint Peter was crucified) but was long been treated as foreign cult with very a little adherents. Partly because Mahayana concept takes reincarnation seriously, which directly conflicted Ancestral veneration. It was not until ethnic Xianbei (one of proto-Goguryeo people, disputed) established Wei in Northern China by 5th century brought Buddhism into mainstream belief. Still it had some up and down during Tang, only by the peak of Song Dynasty (11th century) Buddhism fully evolved and integrated into a major contributor to Chinese culture.
Everything else seems to be good, well done.
It’s unfortunate these days, that most of Chinese people have no idea what’s it meant of ‘Chinese traditions’.
@@Red.Star.Over.China.
It’s not possible to have definite proof on Zhou royal origin, but since 80%+ Chinese population has family names with Ji origin, what’s the chance. Even my family name goes back to Lords of Taotang feud of Xia’s time. the descendants of Yao, who was said to be a great-great grandson of Huangdi.
Not sure about Xianbei being proto-Mongol, the record clearly says Mongol’s origin is at Bailang, which is further North. I will read a bit more on Xianbei and come back to you. From what I remember they are rather close to Goguryeo.
Regarding the translation of 姓，probably best to address as ‘Matriarchal Clan name’. Family name as 氏 had most origins rooted by the city states dwellers came from, or social rank, or honourable title, or office held or simply occupation. It wouldn’t be accurate to translate as ‘clan name’.
@@anypercentdeathless Sir, bother to write some more?
Fu hao, the female general mentioned in this video should actually be read as "Fu Zi", it meant the wife from Zi Clan, not her daily name.
Other than that, I think calling Xianbei as "proto-Korean" is too far wrong. Xianbei is proto-Siberian people, see how Xianbei and Siber resonate?
@@zeflute4586 I did some extra readings today, still can’t decide on Xianbei origin, a lot dispute there but of course most of them have later assimilated into Han civilisations. Partly became Goguryeo confederate in the same area of today’s Liaoning, which was what I meant. But I guess Silla would always be the better representative of Korean civilisation in early Medieval. I will edit the comment to make it closer to what it should be.
@@KiwiImpactSaint Gorguyeo and Xianbei has hardly any relations. Xianbei was still leading pastoral life in the 1st and 2nd century AD, while in the start of CE, there was already a Han dynasty county known as Gao Gou Li, ie Gorguyeo which Wang Mang caused a rebellion by changing the name. If there was a county, meaning the Gorguyeo people were already at most only a partly pastoral, partly farming community. There is no way Gorguyeo and Xianbei could have any relations as the Xianbei community looked way more backward than Gorguyeo community more than 100 years ago.
This is excellent! Ancient Chinese history was probably my first passion, and this is a very balanced, scholarly approach to the question how "Chinese" its earliest periods were. You've taught me many things I didn't even know yet.
this is video have ungodly amount of errors. cool history bro have a great respond to this is video.
Chinese civilization includes things way back before Shang dynasty, even mythical characters like the Yellow Emperor. While lacking archaeological evidences for many things, once they are found, it's a proof of what existed, rather than an issue of whether they should be counted as Chinese civilization.
No doubt Chinese civilization is formed by a mixed of culture. Eg. the Qing dynasty formed by the Manchu people is certainly part of Chinese civilization although they have a different culture origin.
The argument over Chinese civilization can be confused with another topic from ethnicity perspective, which is the Han's culture, since the majority of Chinese history is about the Han people. Chinese civilization is more about people who lived around that piece of land, which is dominated by the Han people.
Additional info, Han people was given the name after the mighty Han dynasty, but it is used to refer to this particular ethnicity till this day. Chinese is the broader term.
@@NoContext440 Agree. Not accurate, missing much.
The first Chinese father or mother was not the first human being. They had parents, and ancestors.
They did not grow up knowing nothing.
Can anyone prove that there were not people, and cities more advanced than we are today?
There are evidences, if lacking total proof, that we were preceded by scientifically smarter ancestors who lost it all to civil wars. There were people here who belonged to interstellar communities long ago...this is something I've learned from indigenous oral histories in my travels. They reached the stars.
For many ancient world cultures, magical events mythical beings represent structured organizations of people with planned projects who accomplished world-changing victories over natural calamities.
Dig a little deeper, and don't underestimate their capabilities. Example: Helen of Troy or Penelope of Ithaca: at age 40, after child bearing, noble lords praised Penelope's beauty, and she protested, I'm past 40, my figure is aged, stop talking nonsense.
One noble said, Penelope you err, whoever marries you inherits your throne and assets -forests with lumber for warshios, cattle and grain to feed a small army, ports, mines with deposits of tin, zinc and copper to make weapons, and in all, enough strategic materials and golden fleeces (lambskins that sluiced gold dust, amd were rolled up like scrolls as currency) to back up checks and purchase orders.... This kingdom can be well defended and it's dynasty may be a long one. This means your husband and your children will not be conquered and enslaved in your lifetime. We Greeks spend 50% of our time at war, and too few anong us die of old age. This kingdom and its assets are a promise of freedom. This is your dowry and yu have a proven ability to hold on to it 20 years during your husband, Odysseus' absence. These facts makes you the most beautiful among all women. (It's not about your breast line and your face).
Myth, from the word "Mythos" means a narrative, often coded or symbolic in presentation.
Don't under estimate the ancients' minds.
East Asian deep history is so fascinating, and so inaccessible. We are just now learning how Europe developed. Anatolian farmers interacting with western and eastern hunter gatherers, steppe migrations, etc. I wish we knew more about the Chinese/Indochinese neolithic. I feel like East Asia is like if we knew nothing of Europe before the Bronze Age, and then were restricted to the Eastern Mediterranean. Amazing video as an overview nevertheless. K&G never misses.
That's because the West has always cast doubt on the early period, and Erlitou was first discovered in 1959 so these places weren't explored for a long time until the past few decades or so
seems... the west dont relate their present existence from the efforts of their past ancestors... the present generation ruling class are too arrogant to think that they are what they are ONLY because of their own efforts, forgetting that they live in mansions firstly built by their parents, they say "my country" to a country their ancestors fought and shed rivers of blood and sewed many torn flags... such arrogance of their own present capabilities that they DONT give value to their ancestors who provided the lands and peoples they call, united kingdom of britain or france or germany... if the west ruling class act that way, what is to expect with the west citizenry...?
It’s probably due to cultural distance. I’m sure a person from China, or even Korea or Vietnam, has a far greater grasp on Chinese history than like European or Roman history.
As a Chinese speaking of ancient population, We are mostly sons of the soils, a mix of yellow river farmers and Yangtze rice farmers. Northern Chinese have more yellow river ancestry southern Chinese have more Yangtze ancestry. Interestingly East Asia is the least genetically diverse area in the world probably due to geographic isolation
@@user-qwertyuiopasdfghj
Yeah, I guess Geography played a major role in shaping Chinese civilisation. It's still genetically and linguistically more diverse but relative to other major civilisations it's homogenous.
Can't say the same for languages tho
This was really beautiful. Can you do a video series for China much like you did for the expansion of Rome from Kingdom, Republic and then Empire?
there are some videos on China and Asia, worth watching
I think it's diffcult for the youtuber. Even just doing this relatively simple video, there have been many mistakes. This is mainly because the youtuber do not understand Chinese Language, or there are no Chinese in the team, resulting in some common sense mistakes. The best way to understand China is to learn Chinese, so that many Chinese videos can be seen on bilibili (China's UA-cam); However， it is very difficult to learn Chinese because it's hieroglyphs.
"it depends" is the answer to almost every historiographical question
To be fair, that answer can apply to more then just historical.
Exactly. Most claims are based on the position of claimers. Absolute neutral claims are barely seen.
Its amazing how most Asian civilizations, Japan, Korea, and even Vietnam can derive their inspirations to Imperial China.
it is because of two words: brains and common sense... conflicts beget all kinds of miseries sparing no one... mainland china, got to pocket whatever arrogance and prejudices and embrace all and seek peaceful co-existence... outside mainland china, got to pocket whatever pride and seek peaceful co-existence... in peaceful co-existence, is sharing of trade and knowledge...
@Dord Dord a lot of Vietnamese due to their own bigotry don't like to give the Chinese credit for anything.
@Dord Dord I'm not denying the influence of Chinese culture just pointing out that many copycat societies don't like to give the Chinese the deserved credit.
@@theawesomeman9821 a good meme in Chinese Internet:Korean empire rule the north China,Vietnamese empire rule the south China
@@theawesomeman9821 especially south Koreans recently
Extremely good video. But would like to add that some of the images used of the Shang rulers are overly imperial. But this is not the channel's fault. Most of the imagery of the Shang has been inflated by painters throughout Chinese history to portray an imperial and advanced image different from their neighbours.
It is only after the Song and especially from the Ming onwards did Chinese painters emphasised historical accuracy. The Shang would have looked less regal and would probably give you the impression of being a tribal leader than an imperial emperor. They would stay in buildings that we would classify as a mansion than a palace or castles.
Or just a large wooden hut or those longhouses like the tribes in Southeast Asia.
@@Jumpoable Yup possible.
Architecture and urban planning historians theorize that the functional features of Shang buildings and towns were so associated with power and elite that later imperial palaces and cities continued to follow their style but in a much more extravagant and scaled-up way. Kinda how gothic architecture of the middle ages was a harkening back to the elite and powerful image of Roman architecture.
Recent finds using LIDAR show how potential Shang towns where the elite might have lived looked like miniature and simplified versions of imperial palaces and cities.
They should not be too shabby looking. Even the simulated reconstruction of Troy shows the quality looks much better than the slums of backwater developing countries. These ancient buildings look bad now because of thousands of years lack of maintenance and erosion.
@@GL-iv4rw The royal longhouses of Southeast Asia are not shabby, many of them are beautiful and luxurious. While not at the grandeur of a Chinese palace, I would not say they look like slums. Even today, the longhouse's complex architecture and design have inspired many of the features of modern buildings.
You are basing your comment on the biased view of Southeast Asia as a backwater and forget that the kingdoms here prior to the industrial revolution were considered peers of Europe.
one thing very true: in their residences, is must have a very wide very long hall with very low height sitting benches built around (no tables) the sides, that in leaders' meetings, they are shouting to be heard... an angered leader can be held down before reaching to punch another leader who angered him... such architecture of elder-leaders' residences still carried on with the last tribes leaderships in east asia... yes, it is erroneous to portray the shang ruling dynasty in a regal way... some videos like timeline is the worst erroneous who portrayed ladies and queens of china as dressed like regal western... even the last dowager of the qing dynasty is dressed to her neck all covered that only her head and hands not covered... hopefully, video makers and historical film makers be more realistic in their portrayals even to the arts/fashion garments ... asians dont mind western style fashion of lesser cover of the human body... kindly respect the style fashion of eastern history covered fully...
Awesome!
Given the fact tha us westerners don't get much about China old history in school this could be turned in to a series!
From all the historically most influent nations, China is the one we have less information about here in west.
Not only westerns, everyone in the world get enough about China, since last two years specially.
go back and watch the KG videos on China and Asia, worth watching
@@Tay-gm2mp wuhan virus,xd
I was there in 2001. At one of the terracotta warrior dig sites there is an adjacent dig of a little village that I remember being ~10000 years old. Had buried dead and all.
Thank you so much, Kings and Generals, for this informative, unbiased, well-documented piece of ancient Chinese history. As a Chinese, I appreciation what you have done>
Love China From Khazaria
I Am Khazar Turkic Jewish
And we have big history like china ✡❤🇨🇳
Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors (Mythical)
Xia (Maybe historical but we can't really tell)
Shang (Definitely Historical)
Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors time aint Civilization that was tribe union.
Ancient Chinese civilization not that old Its like Middle age man compare to Many early Civilizations.
@@juanlu3958 Problem is there is very little historical evidence. They probably do have historic origins, but the exact extent is unknown which is why they are considered "mythical".
@@slslbbn4096 There is a difference between palaces being built underground vs demigods existing amongst us. Sima Qians accounts were more of regarded as legend rather than myth. The two are not the same thing in historiography.
@@Red.Star.Over.China. Liangzhu only dates back to almost 3300 BC. Also, it's peoples are more genetically closer to Austronesian and/or Tai peoples and are not precursors of the Han.
@@Red.Star.Over.China. Han is not just a cultural identifier. It refers to a very specific group of people descended from the Han dynasty who speak the Han languages (Chinese) which the Liangzhu people's most likely did not speak. Their descendents are most likely the Tai and Austrolonesian, neither of which were ever categorized as "Han".
Just because their artifacts are similar does not mean they share the same language/culture. There is always going to be some sort of trading/interaction between different peoples.
Nice choice of soundtrack. Civ6 theme rules
Another quality video on a complicated subject!
In fact , Chinese characters were standardized by Qin Shihuang after he conquered the 7 warring states, he found that various kingdoms had different ways of writing , he standardized it thru the Qin Seal Script.
In China, there is a saying called "Four Ancient Civilizations", such as: ancient China, ancient India, ancient Babylon, and ancient Egypt. This statement is very simple。This was proposed by Liang Qichao in the Qing Dynasty
It's Not ancient India but Indus valley civilization, an Extinct civiliazation. Present Indian culture is a new phenomena.
China doesn't need the word "ancient" except you want do a research of ancient history.
Please do the Malay kingdoms next or even deep history on the Austronesian peoples. Keep up the great content brother!
Sri Vijaya Empire, Majapahit Empire, Champa Kingdom, Tu'i Tonga Empire and the Hawaiian Kingdom to name a few.
@@gradipadia9800 I want to add to your comment. There's also the Tondo/Tundun Kingdom, Namayan Kingdom, Maynila Kingdom, Pailah Kingdom, Binuangan Kingdom, Puliran Kingdom, Cainta Polity, Butuan Kingdom, Rajahnate of Singhapala or Sugbu, Kedatuan of Dapitan, Madja-as Federation, Sultanate of Sulu, Sultanate of Maguindanao, Sultanate of Lanao, Caboloan Huangdom, Ma-I Huangdom, Chiefdom of Taytay and Igorot Society. These were considered different bayans (countries) not regions in pre-colonial times before there was ever a "Philippines".
"The Queen has an upset tummy, you should murder 3,000 prisoners of war about it." ~Inscription on Shang Oracle Bone, probably
It do be like that tho
Lmao
It is ture,lol
A western historian (I forgot his name) once said Chinese myths are the history recordings of ancient people putting effort on facing and solving problems caused by natural disasters with human strength and tools, unlike the western myths which emphasizes the effort of gods in solving problems caused by natural disasters with magical power. Each of them has a respective historical event.
It's a shame that neither any Chinese dynasty nor CCP compile their myths and legends for understanding of people from other nations. (since the stories are scattered apart in millions of books, murals, relics and tribes)
If these myths are filmed, they would greatly motivate people.
Confucius said A decent man would never talk about supernatural and superstitious things 子不语怪力乱神，and respect Gods and demons from a distance 敬鬼神而远之。
The CCP has worked hard to erase China's history and culture. The last thing that the party wants to do is maintain a record of China's culture before the revolution.
@@野猪绅士 separate the seen to the unseen...
In fact, there is a modern day cartoon and animation called "If Chinese History Were a Group of Cats", which goes from the earliest myths, legends, and history to pretty recent.
It's one of the most expansive compilations lol
Although it's not completely focused on myths and legends, and it's not government sponsored, it can still give you a pretty comprehensive overview of the Chinese founding legends.
Chinese recorded history is very long. Xia(a dynasty appear in some written text, which several archeology being discovered dated to that period but yet to confirm which of them are belong to Xia dynasty.) Then there is Shang dynasty, there are text and archeology finding about it.
After that it is Zhou Dynasty, there are pretty much recording and study about it. And how it led to Spring and Autumn period. And from there Qin state conquered all those states and unify them as Qin Dynasty.
Many non-Chinese people only know Qin and later dynasty, and they see pre Qin as Myth.
But it is not, especially Zhou Dynasty and Spring and Autumn period, it is actually a well recorded, studied history. Shang and Xia is not so well recorded.
And there are Chinese Myth, just not the myths others think of(pre Qin). Chinese myths is pre Xia. It is not so well recorded or have solid archaeology evidence, it is pass down like a story/folklore because it is lack of understanding or logical, a bit god-like. Because it is a written text by the ancient to record their history, they are not so well understand/educated.
The best history channel of all time. Back when I was in high school 12 years ago. The teachers usually say videos are not legit sources. you guys strongly override that.
They don't mind if you use an encyclopedia printed in 2004 though. Roflmao
First silk found in China was at least 5000, but might 8000 years ago.
The development of writing character does not happen overnight
The fragments found by oracle bones already have the standard form of Chinese Liushu
( pictographs, ideographic , compound ideographs, phono-semantic compounds, phonetic loan characters and derivative cognates)
Cuneiform spans 2200 years from early simple images to molding 3200bce-1000bce.
The current fragment of oracle bone inscriptions is in 1500 bce, and the fragments found already have the standard form of the Chinese Six Books. According to the development process of the characters, and referring to Sumerian characters, the history of oracle bone inscriptions will only be longer, not less.
As for ancient China, there were many different ethnic groups, that is true, but in fact, till the Tang and Song Dynasties, (600-1000ad)there were also different ethnic groups in the Central Plains in northern China, (such as the Turks who were driven away by the Tang Dynasty, which are morden day turkish. Further on, the Huns, (200-100 bce, which driven by Han Dynasty)the ancestors of the Attila troop, and may be the present-day Hungarians.
Caucasian and even black people skulls have also been found in Shang burial sacrifice pits. (1000 bce)
Ran Min slaughtered more than one million ethnic minorities around AD 300. Most of them, like hun, jie, are completely different from Chinese races.
Even today, there are differences between the northern Han people and the southern Han people.
@@texajp1946
CCP lies World dies.
No one believes your lie anymore.
*Millions of Uyghurs & Kazakhs have been locked in Hitler-Style Concentration Camps in Xinjiang, Chinese government under the leadership of Xi-tler have conducted forced sterilizations and abortions on Uyghur women, coerced them to marry Han-Chinese, and separated Uyghur children from their families.... all these crimes against humanity occurred under modern Chinese Law.*
If a culture is not defined by blood, these are not problems, it is more that several ethnic groups and cultures converge and become a brand new ethnic group and culture.
500years later, someone like you would say, people in western china(xinjiang) has differences to people in eastern china...
You're so right, I think you could push Chinese history back even further
@@gofar5185 The Uighurs were Tang's ally back in 8th century, they defeated the Turks for a good several times. Thousand years past they are still Uighurs.
So calm down
This video is written by a person who eats panda express once a week
This “it depends” applies to every civilisation and ethnicities, most people groups are equally old and their racial components equally diverse, some left behind little information of their ancient history due to late adoption of writing system, others like the Chinese have a long well recorded history which leaves room for detailed analysation of them and even their neighbours of close geography, such as the xiongnu.
Recent findings of a city near 陶寺(TaoSi city/county) where in ancient times was termed as Ping Yang city which had the size of four Forbidden cities was more or less confirmed as 尧都 aka Capital of Yao also showed signs of struggle and warfare approximately 4300 from -14 testings. Another excavation to point out was Yang Cheng/ 阳城, a city slightly bigger then Yao capital was Great Yu's power base and subsequent Xia Kings during the early period of the dynasty. This is also supported by Sima Qian with the same name 阳城.
I feel it is important to learn the history, as it enables one to understand the enduring key values that continue and to appreciate the need for continuation.
The order of the society, meritocracy, the veneration of ancestors and gratitude, the rulers caring for the citizenry, ecology, developing the infrastructure, spiritual values etc in Chinese ultu are all worth keeping and admiring.
The wars, foriegn forces spying and disrupting the society creating havoc, the disasters that can happen when wrong leaders were in power, the cruelty that can take place during inefficient regimes and during wars and teaching the children the early signs to watch when things are beginning to go wrong is so important.
Every single civilisation had interchange of ideas, silent leaders contributing to.the success to things that are rec orded in history and hundreds of years of unrecorded forces contributing to any thing, good or bad. The main purpose of learning the history is to understand these forces, while learning the events.
All the 3 major golden age dynasties of China shared 3 different eras
The Han Dynasty - Ancient ages
The Tang Dynasty - Medieval period
The Ming Dynasty - Early Modern period
But Song had the highest GDP… I guess they are not as warmongering, whatever.
@@KiwiImpactSaint I mean, they did spend their time, having to fend off Mongol attacks in the later half of the Song dynasty.
Also where dem Tang at.
@@KiwiImpactSaint No, the Song had the largest GDP as a percentage of the world GDP, the Ming had a much larger GDP.
古代怎么算出的gdp
Ming was not a golden age
This the shit I wanna see on this channel. Incredible
I literally watched the whole video just to hear "it depends" lmao. Awesome video by the way
My understanding always has been that the Zhou dynasty started the idea of "dao de" to explain why the previous Shang dynasty lost the mandate of heaven, i.e their legitimacy. "Dao de" can be translated as ethical conduct
De dao, not dao de.
Chinese civilization deserves credit for:
Gunpowder
wheel
Silk
Good cousine
Many anatomy concepts, espicially the human circulatory system
Many modern medicine
and siege engines.
And Indian civilization deserves credit for :
Shampoo
Yoga
Best cuisine
Zero(0)
Chess
Eye surgery
Best cuisine
Originator of Buddhism
Kamasutra
@@universalsoldier811 best? LOL said nobody ever
@@sleepyjoe4529 I've written it twice because it definitely is The Best. I've tried every cuisine of the world. But I can say I'd rank 1. Indian cuisine 2. Italian cuisine 3. Middle eastern
I dont think we invented Wheel, did we???
not the wheel and what modern medicine? and siege engines were used all over Eurasia
Fantastic video 🤝
As an Indian wanna say india is blessed to have a nieghbour like china just hate today's gov. Views towards india
I remember ancient times when India and China used to be best friends
I like India too, just give our territories back🙂
you should happy your neighbor is China,if your neighbor is Russia,India may not exist.😂
You have intelligence. Loving all animals, and innocent people is the right way.
That is common no matter where you go, Indus Valley, the Fertile Crescent, the Nile River Valley; all have seen many distinctly different cultures rise and fall there.
River based systems
@@zakariamattu8613 civilizations all take root near rivers or water sources
The soundtrack behind this video is amazing!
Chinese statehood is so old because it was evolving, because it was able to adapt.
True!
More the philosophy and being surrounded by desert, massive mountains, the sea and wastelands to the north. Same reason Japan was stable, nobody came by.
@@夜明-i4h Korea used to have a Jurchen minority.
The Shang state was not a multicultural feudal confederacy. It was more like a monarchy with captured foreigners who became slaves and sacrificial offerings.
There were no feudal countries in those days. Considering how European colonists slaughtered and enslaved the aborigines， and the United States only abolished black slavery more than 100 years ago, we know how advanced that China started a feudal state in the Zhou Dynasty and established a centralized power in the Qin Dynasty.
@@runengineer1830 highly agree...
It's a bit of a stretch to assume female field-holding to be a norm in Shang times based on one grave. Is there more evidence than just that one concubine?
I don't have specifics, but we know the Shang were remarkably egalitarian, allowing women to hold equal power with men in most parts of society.
I found that hard to believe too. Its completely possible women were kick ass millitary leaders...but it seems more likely we're projecting our modern attitudes on ambiguous evidence.
@@MidAthlete You mean our modern attitude that, historically, women as military leaders could only be an exception? ;)
If the evidence suggests that women could often hold military and feudal power, then we should not automatically assume that this was an exception, or in need of a specific explanation. If the evidence suggests it - and it does -, then that's the logical conclusion.
@@varana But the evidence suggests that historically female military leaders were the exception 😂 The desire for that not to be the case is clear though.
I would like to add that the peoples that migrated into the Tarim Basin, who we know as Tocharians, were not Indo-Europeans, according to recent DNA tests.
What is “Chinese civilisation”? It was a galaxy of civilisations coexisting during Shang and Zhou. The idea that it’s one civilisation only formed when Qin/Han built a unitary empire.
yes... evolution of the china civilization "one lands one peoples under one sky"... in later years, koreo, said koreo is not the same "sky" with the mainland... vietnam opposed the ming-mainland to be of the same "sky"... burma king said he, burma, came from a different "sky"... "peaceful co-existence" with the mainland then emerged... well, storytellers also have their own contributions to societies...
While the han Chinese identity evolves, the lineage and historical record can be traced to shang and Zhou.
A civilization is not an unchanging being the way you seems to imagine it.
I'm deeply engrossed in reading on roman history at the momemt. This gives a much needed break. Thank you. 🙏
Xia, probably existed in some form cause the shang dynasty has a complex central government, bureaucracy and refined written language. Those things don't just pop up out of nowhere
Ah there is the Civ 6 soundtrack.
I may die happy now 😄
"China has the longest continuous history of any country in the world-3,500 years of written history".
So says the American Historical Association.
which is BS longest continous history should go to india simply because you have 3,500 years of written history you cannot call yourself as continous or else sri lanka is the second most continous and longest civilization with 2000 years of written history
@@santhoshkrishna463
Why don't you contact the American Historical Association and complain to them?
@@RUHappyATM i don't believe in the american association.
Probably just a coincidence but it's interesting how similar some of those ancient Chinese characters on the oracle bones are to elder futhark (the oldest Germanic written language). Makes me wonder if there was some extremely early contact and trade or maybe there are just patterns and symbols all people have a slight tendency towards for one reason or another.
because they are pantings🤣
The songs🎵 and sounds on the background gives this video📹 more attractive quality. Kudos to all the team👏🙌👍 who made this historic video📹 possible. Happy New Month and Happy Weekend Everyone. Shalom🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼.
Please do one about the Indus Valley Civilization!
The Chinese had highly detailed almanacs, recording rainfall in averages, crop yields in aggregate, and population changes in the 2k BC era, well over 4000 years ago. A millennium is a century to them lol
China is old, but the Chinese people acting like they were 18 yesterday.
Confidently conclude it depends?? I find that absolute hilarious as literally any event in history can be explained as ‘it depends’. I’ve been studying history professionally for close to 10 years now and I say ‘it depends’ almost every day!!!!
YES! you are correct...it depends on who won the war and who wrote the history in their favor. The USA taught kids columbus found america... really?
Sending a 1960's countryside farmer back 3400 years into the past, he would just do fine, except having a bit difficulties to communicate, but houses, cooking stove and most things did not change at all, maybe the materials ....
Good history rational telling from available sources on wide range of subjects from around the 🌎
That is not the story of Yu the Great that I remember. The stories I remember cast him more as a dedicated engineer that designed the damns to control the floods then tirelessly led workforces to build them.
That being said, this may be one of those Romanticization vs Records things that is common in Chinese history. Much like how there is a Romance of the Three Kingdoms vs the Records of the Three Kingdoms. In Chinese Romanticizations, it's common to attribute mystical powers to people who were very smart or skilled. Much like how in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang is often depicted as a sorcerer able to predict the future and control the weather, while in Records of the Three Kingdoms, it attributes his feats to simply being able to read the weather because he was a farmer, or just being clever enough to out smart his opponents with ruses.
You have made a good point.
Something about the mythical Yu. There is evidence showing that there was flood. There was also evidence showing that the people somehow contained the flood. We do not know anything about Yu. He probably organized a group of engineers to deal with the flood. To the other people at that time, saving them from the flood would seem to be a feat that could only be accomplished with supernatural power. Hence the story of a ruler with mythical power.
Imagine finding an archeological treasure trove, only to sand off the runes
Or grinding down fossils to make boner medicine. Yeeea, education over traditional superstition in these kind of cases, I say. Man, it hurts my soul almost as much as remembering the Great Library of Alexandria.
I like how you give Fu Hao an axe at 11:35, since axe was considered a symbol of military authority at that time.
How u got the info of Chinese history? U mentioned that Chinese may be associated with Aliens? I think your notion of Chinese civilization is not totally right. Chinese civilization is more than 6 million years old.
Thanks for the video 👍🏻 I always like learning new things
If you review European history with the same standards, most would become myth like Xia dynasty.
A lot of it already is? King Arthur in England, the Trojan War & the Iliad in Greece and so on.
@@LeoWarrior14 Trojan war, although likely quite different than the myth version, did happen.
@@LeoWarrior14 King Arthur and Troy are part of ancient Briton history and mythology not England's. The Welsh are the descendents of the Britons. King Arthur held back the Saxon expansion on this island, keeping them at bay for another generation. It was the Saxons who formed England, the enemy of Arthur and his people. And according to most of medieval Welsh literature, the Welsh were Trojans and Britain was founded by King Brutus of Troy, who was the first king in Welsh Royal genealogies. King Arthur was said to be a direct descendant of of King Brutus of Troy. Letters from King Owain Glyndwr, the last Welsh monarch to rule in Wales during the 15th century Welsh War of Independence, left us letters sent to King Robert III of Scotland, appealing for Scotland aide in the Welsh cause for Independence in which he appeals to Robert as being a fellow Trojan, claiming he believes they were kin as he believed Robert to be a descendant of Brutus of Troy like himself. King Robert and the Scots did not share this Trojan origin story however and claimed that Robert and the Gaels of Scotland were descended from an Egyptian princess named Scota and her husband Goedel Glas who was a Scythian from modern day Ukraine.
No. Because during the time of Xia, most of europe was still tribal and we don't even know the names of the peoples living there. We don't even consider them myths, they're absent from history to us.
European history begins with writing in crete and greece... the same as chinese history, with the Shang dynasty.
@@LeoWarrior14 that is the beginning of their history that they dont like to recognize and acknowledge...
I remember reading somewhere, Shang people and Zhou people are cousins just like different Germanic tribes.
Their founding kings are brothers of same father, but different mother.
it’s illegal, you cannot claim a title in Scotland. And the company is operating out of the shell company in Hong Kong. And I’m sure they’re not planting a tree on your behalf!
Extraordinary video. Thanks for the great knowledge.
Algorithms recommend what we like to watch, and if we're not actively looking for different points of views, most likely we'll be exposed to views we agree with most of the time.
I’ve made many videos teaching Chinese language vividly and in a humorous way. I hope somebody can recommend my videos to those who want to learn Chinese. For beginners, Chinese characters may look complicated. But once you learn about 100 basic radicals, most characters become easy.
I hope more people can learn Chinese to get comprehensive firsthand information about China and most likely seek more job opportunities.
Know ourselves as well as our partners, competitors, adversaries…..
this documentary is surprisingly accurate, thanks for your hardwork, the existence of XIA is still questioned by many historians, however majority believes that there was a dynasty existed but maybe not in the name of XIA, there is a possiblity that the idea of Nation, Dynasty, Country wasnt developed yet during that time, did they really had a name for their realm? or did they have different perception of a dynasty than we do? we dont know, however, more and more ancient records has been found throughout the years, I believe oneday we will find out
I believe something like the Xia existed, how else would the Shang have gotten so big out of nowhere, there had to be a pre-existing culture in the area already, each dynasty took over from the last and kept the political structures
xia dynasty in its exact name xia did exist... as to every clans-dynasty in ancient times, pestilences and famines forced families to go to fairer places... the shang dynasty in its time is located in fairer lands... something like tibet that has earlier existence but now is inalienable part of china because of able bodied tibetans escaping to the mainland for better situations, then long afterwhich masses of tibet serfs rose up and chose to be part of the mainland until mao-ccp formally annexed tibet...
@@gofar5185 yoo troll
Please, keep one key concept in mind looking at Chinese Culture: We keep adapting and evolving. It would only be extinction if one culture kept unchanged in the stream of history.
I dont know where you get the story of Yu pinning the flood because the story i know is that he is the one who dig a canal for the flood to follow.
His father Gun built dams to stop the flood but ultimately failed, but Da Yu succeeded with the way you mentioned.
I like the imagery
Keep up the good work