WI: Industrial revolution takes place in China, century earlier than OTL

[nothri]

Excuse the thread necromancy, but I had a few thoughts on this...

If your looking for a scientific revolution in ancient China, perhaps your best bet is for a divergence point set in the Warring States era. One of innumerable rival schools of thought at the time was Mohism. Among other features the philosophy emphasized innovation to as much or greater degree than other schools emphasized tradition and respect for your elders. The rationale was that every great tradition was at one time an innovation, and therefore innovations were not inherently inferior to traditions.

One possibility might be the death of Qin Shi Huang's sometime after his birth rather than his father, King Zhuangxiang. This would have several effects, most notably preventing Lu Buwei from tempted into an affair with the Queen that ultimately destroys his career as chief chancellor of Qin. More importantly, it preserves and prolongs the life of Qin Shi Huang's father, a man inclined to listen more closely to Buwei's advice. Imagine that Zhuangxiang is the man that leads Qin in conquest, uniting China under a regime that does not seek to execute every school of thought besides Legalism (Lu Buwei was classically friendly towards all schools of thought, Mohism included, and hoped to make Qin a land known for its scholarship and learning as well as its military superiority). So when Qin Shi Huang finally inherits the throne there has already been peace for many years. Mohism preached peace and love between neighbors as key talking points, and for this reason never gained much popularity or sponsorship within the ranks of the nobility. Given an age of relative peace and stability, Mohism could have an opportunity to grow and thrive in the same way Legalism did during an age of war and conquest.

The wider array of scholars and philosophies available to Qin Shi Huangdi could also prevent some of the excessive cruelties of his brief dynasty. He could be more hesitant to imbibe mercury (a compound ancient Taoists believed could b used to prolong life), making his reign all together more sensible, wrought with less paranoia, and ironically prolonging the emperor's own life and career (since mercury and most heavy metals have a negative effect on mental health and can kill you if taken in large enough doses).

I doubt this would completely prevent the emperor's obsession with immortality. But perhaps that can be worked to our advantage. There was a chinese myth that there was an island in the Eastern pacific were immortal sages lived. Huangdi believed they could give him the secret of immortality and ordered several expeditions. Had he lived longer, he might have discovered Japan early while they were still developing their own civilization. Imagine a conquest by China early in the timeline. Then imagine that Mohism leads to an early Scientific revolution as it is embraced with the same passion our timeline's ancient china had for Confucius. Then imagine that such advances spread to China occupied Japan, which experiences an industrial revolution for much the same reasons another island nation once did in our own timeline.

 

[Russian Sailor]

I don't think there'd be an active, government-directed campaign of overseas colonization, but I would think that there'd be expanded Chinese mercantile interests in Indochina and the East Indies. For one thing, an Industrial Revolution would likely require some extensive market reforms to really get that entreprenial spirit going, and if that's established then they're going to quickly expand outside of domestic markets and begin tapping into foreign trade centers for additional revenue.

Joint-stock companies, shares, regulated paper money that doesn't go belly-up like Song and Yuan attempts, etc. would be a good start. The financial structures of the Industrial Revolution are as important as the technological ones in fuelling the whole thing, after all.

There might be some efforts at expanding westward again, like during the Tang dynasty, although this depends entirely on when your proposed Industrial
Revolution takes place exactly.

You do not really need the financial structure, if you have a government that is willing to create institutions as substitute for modern financial institutions. Such as what Russia did in the 19th century to the early 20th century.

 

[Unconsensual]

You do not really need the financial structure, if you have a government that is willing to create institutions as substitute for modern financial institutions. Such as what Russia did in the 19th century to the early 20th century.

Except Russia did it with technologies that western Europe had already perfected. The thing with centralized innovation is that it tends to be misdirected and poorly executed, It's easy to pull off when someone else has already done all the hard work in figuring out what to do but if it's innovation in the context of an relative advanced China then what's really needed was a society acceptive to change with a large enough middle-class for demand&capital , and enough freedom to implement those changes.

 

[Elfwine]

You do not really need the financial structure, if you have a government that is willing to create institutions as substitute for modern financial institutions. Such as what Russia did in the 19th century to the early 20th century.

With all due respect to Russia, Russia in that period is not an example of one of the more successful European powers.