Ok this should be final version:
Also at this point how much of Ming China population would be in Red China? 30%?
AHC: Permanently Balkanized China post Yuan
- Thread starter Gloss
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Also at this point how much of Ming China population would be in Red China? 30%?
scholar
Banned
I'm not thrilled with the Gray one's borders, but yeah, its good enough for a semi-stable China that could last long enough for the West to start picking sides and maintaining a pseudo-balance of power.
You can produce horses everywhere in China except the deepest parts of the South, but the healthy horses that can actually be used in warfare is Red and Timber Green, with Orange and Tan potentially being able to have a modest supplement of useful horses. The Northern non-Chinese, of course, are also good horse producers.
That's actually a hard question to answer, though a safe bet would be at least 25-35%. It depends on the time period though.
The Gray one compared to others is not really a thing a single country or entity. Is more like a mix of non Sinitic peoples that were in any case not going to have stable borders or stand independent. There could be a Dali kingdom and a Zhuang one in a period, and only Dali in another and so.
Religiously how would those kingdoms diverge? I mean by the smaller size of those entities is it not possible that local particularities to be more prevalent? Not necessarily outside religions but also internal Chinese philosophies.
scholar
Banned
That really depends. They are all going to be Buddhist, with exceptionally strong undercurrents of Confucianism which will remain the ruling philosophical paradigm. The Grays are no exception to this, as they are, by now, heavily Sinitic. A good route to go with would be to have the Gray one be a Yuan remnant. Yunnan had strong Mongol loyalties and a decent number of Muslims, and it lasted the longest of all of the Chinese remnants that the Ming conquered. Islam is a loose thread in China at this time, as is Christianity, though it is a far weaker party. The Portuguese had a lot of success converting the South, they even got the Ming court to convert en masse when they were almost defeated, and the priest that accomplished it was furious that Portugal refused to help them out.
But really, for the most part this is your sandbox. OTL can give some ideas, but the PODs and the event chains are what is going to determine the outcome.
Ok this should be final version:
BTW, some talked about the horse producing zone of China? Where exactly is it?
Also at this point how much of Ming China population would be in Red China? 30%?
Love the map, but unless those all have very present Great Power patrons or nuclear arsenals, the situation depicted wouldn't last a generation. Perhaps even those caveats would be insufficient.
The central 5 and blue will go at it with fairly little pause. Black will be annexed or partitioned at some point. It will be decided in a conventional military sense or by popular movement translating to military victory (startlingly common in Chinese history). If the former, red or orange would unify the six Han chunks. If the latter, it could be any of them (the Ming and Guomindang both managed it out of the south).
But it'll happen. Once it happens, the resulting state will at minimum encroach on all the others, if not annexing them outright. The closest to Balkanized you could possibly get would be a unified Han China including Gansu, much of Inner Mongolia, and Liaoning, that for ideological reasons does not annex Guangxi, Yunnan, greater Tibet, Xinjiang, Outer Mongolia, and northern Manchuria. These regions could have been protectorates instead - that much is absolutely doable. You can even imagine how that might be a post-Yuan political choice, for a China-of-the-Han.
There are alternatives to a unified China, definitely, and they are very interesting to explore. But they are not as easy to arrange. They require certain ingredients.
A pre-Qin unification POD is the most effective recourse. Perhaps even pre-Zhou. After the Sui the POD options are extremely few.
After that, you need the states to have outside patrons preventing them from dueling it out to a resolution. Or you need them nuclear armed so war is unthinkable. Of course those are both temporary solutions only - inevitably those little core Chinas would seek to confederate - EU or US or something else.
You simply cannot remove the economic and logistic impetus to unify the Chinese heartland. The only long-term alternative to a unified China is a China that doesn't want to unify, for cultural reasons. And those cultural reasons were systematically eliminated 2000 years ago.
A divided China takes time, or it doesn't last.
scholar
Banned
While I have no doubt that it could collapse in a generation, I wouldn't argue that it has to. Breaking China would require massive demographic losses, and a militarization of what's left. Any sufficiently war torn China with capable leadership that is operating under semi-pragmatic conditions would be able to make this situation last. Black, or Timber Green, is not necessarily destined to lose if it cultivates alliances with the Tan.
Granted, if I had my way, the pieces would be much, much smaller. However, the current circumstances are not necessarily geared towards reunification in the short term.
If they have competent leadership, operating at all pragmatically, the situation will be less likely to last. This isn't their first rodeo; all the participants will assume it's a question of when and who, not whether. The opportunity for sustainable division to solidify was the Warring States. Revisiting the question after a millennium and a half of shared identity and a half dozen unifications isn't going to get you far. This was the era in which "合久必分，分久必合" was written. To the people we're talking about, the longer the division lasts, the smaller the fragments, the more they'll expect unification.
Obviously there exists a level of demographic collapse - a percentage of deaths - that would allow the results you have in mind. It's just not a realistic one. Yuan-era population dropping by half won't do it. It'd need to be closer to the Meso-American crash of the 16th century to change the fundamentals. In which case we need to switch forums, and someone earns a Vlad.
Long-term disunity based on demographic collapse would suggest population declines that would make the pictured states unlikely starting points, agreed.
Assuming a non-apocalyptic population decline was implied by the map, the circumstances are very much geared towards reunification. We're talking post-Yuan; an end to the Yuan means China just liberated itself from its first unambiguous conquest by hated foreigners. There's a natural unifying principle/cause over and above the usual!
scholar
Banned
You misunderstand, I am not talking about breaking China into different nations, but breaking China into different Chinas. It is not a matter of whether or not each of those states wants and pursues unification, but whether or not the others can stop them, creating a stalemate of sorts. The Chinese people may have been united, but they are loyal to their particular Son of Heaven until, and unless, the situation changes rapidly.
It most certainly would not have to be that extensive. I'm usually the one arguing for China eventually pulling itself together, but this is too much. 95% of Chinese do not need to die in order for the political structures of China to remain disunited.
I do take your meaning. My argument is that the case being made isn't a recipe for stalemate without averting or damaging the idea of China. As such the states depicted couldn't help but experience rapid change in the foreseeable future.
Certainly 95% of Chinese people do not need to die in order for the political structures of China to remain disunited. But by the OTL Ming era, with the caveats I mentioned previously, it would need to be closer to that than to the historic depopulation events associated with the Three Kingdoms or Five-Dynasties-Ten-Kingdoms periods.
What strikes me is that the Yangtze is divided between like four different states; to me, it would make more sense for the Sichuan basin state to steamroll downriver, then duke it out with the red state in Jiangnan, and by then they'll have critical mass to conquer all under heaven.
What do you think could be a long term, stable Dahan/Wu border?
That is, Chen Youliang does not lose Battle of Poyanghu, dies of natural causes in advanced age, as does Zhu Yuanzhang in 1398 as per OTL, and by that time the Dahan/Wu border is Status Quo.
That is, Chen Youliang does not lose Battle of Poyanghu, dies of natural causes in advanced age, as does Zhu Yuanzhang in 1398 as per OTL, and by that time the Dahan/Wu border is Status Quo.
scholar
Banned
Not necessarily, prior fragmentation periods never seriously threatened the idea of China with the exception of the Wu Hu rebellions, but after a century the idea of China was irremovable. Fragmentation periods will not damage the idea of China, and instead the people will long for the day that China is united and one of the Empires has Heaven's Mandate to do so.
A depopulation akin to both of those subdivisions was recommended for this scenario. A few pages back I listed a page showing that fragmentation was usually accompanied by significant depopulations. Even in cases where a good argument can be made that they are just referring to taxable people under their governance, the horror is still unmistakable.
Is there a way to change the "idea of China" to include the possibility of nonunificiation?
Maybe make everyone consider themselves both Chinese and another, less expansive/broad identity. Have the those trying to exert even loose political power over them all get a significant set of bad luck/performance over the centuries.
Ideology and nuclear deterrence seem to have done pretty well in separating Chinese identities/states in modern times, even if there's still linger hopea of unification and things are a little complicated e
Can you conceive of a timeline that has semisuccessful warlords appeal to differeing ideologies with outside nuclear guarantees?
How about a *fascist China, a *monarchist China, a *communist China, and an ossified, revolutionary/"egalitarian" *democratic China split the country, each with their own backing nuclear superpower in a multipolar 1950s--> world? Certainly that would take a pre 1900 PoD.
Alernate history has such possibility: how frustringly boring can you be to say "nope, sorry, and this is why!" Without considering alrernatives (as unlikely as they might be) or ways to get around historical patterns?
Maybe make everyone consider themselves both Chinese and another, less expansive/broad identity. Have the those trying to exert even loose political power over them all get a significant set of bad luck/performance over the centuries.
Ideology and nuclear deterrence seem to have done pretty well in separating Chinese identities/states in modern times, even if there's still linger hopea of unification and things are a little complicated e
Can you conceive of a timeline that has semisuccessful warlords appeal to differeing ideologies with outside nuclear guarantees?
How about a *fascist China, a *monarchist China, a *communist China, and an ossified, revolutionary/"egalitarian" *democratic China split the country, each with their own backing nuclear superpower in a multipolar 1950s--> world? Certainly that would take a pre 1900 PoD.
Alernate history has such possibility: how frustringly boring can you be to say "nope, sorry, and this is why!" Without considering alrernatives (as unlikely as they might be) or ways to get around historical patterns?
scholar
Banned
Only if you fundamentally rewrite the loaded concepts married to it.
So an early Republican period is probably a good way to do it.
PhilippeO
Banned
If you can build TL to avoid historical pattern it might work. But to just creating 'divided china' without explanation is not alt-history, it's Fantasy.
United China had already have Han, Tang, and Song precedent, to explain why China become divided will need very good reason. In OTL, for example, USA Superpower status, nuclear weapon and support for Taiwan explain it. Any divided China TL must make its own reason why it stay divided.
Thanks. A generation? Not even 2?
Tan China and Canton have the worst defensive terrain between them but the fact that Tan has to also defend the North and East it would not go full on Blue.
Wait, not only is Balkanization impossible but China WILL always and derministically conquer all of PRC territory and more? And only if they don´t want to they would not? That´s quite a big claim given Ming China never took all this territory.
Given big political and sociological changes we have seen happen in less time(Islam first century for example) to say that it is impossible to change a political and religious ideology even in a local sense (so that the unification of China is a one sided objective) is a bit harsh, I acknowledge you need extraordinary stuff to happen.
Maybe have them fortify their borders and make them run across defensive places to a point where it would be like an internal wall of China. I don´t recall the specific Dynasty but there was this Emperor that after he unified China he destroyed most internal fortification to prevent local rebellions, something in reverse should happen over some decades or generations.
Chinese heartland(the Northern plain) is unified under Red China. Maybe you are referring at something else.
There were and are always difference at local levels, if I have to change religious and cultural mindset I will. I don´t need to change it for both sides though, if one or more sides don´t want unification they could ally themselves to prevent that or to reach a balance of power situation.