Basically as the tin says, could the vast Scythian horde have pushed east into China instead of focusing on the northern Black Sea and Central Asia ? What impact might a Scythian invasion/conquest of China have ? What time frame would make the most sense for a Scythian invasion and conquest ? What impact would it have on the other nomadic groups such as the proto Turkic and proto Mongol peoples ? Would an Indo-European language have any staying power in China this early ?
WI: Scythian Invasion / Conquest of China
The Scythians were pretty much as far away from China as it was possible for a nomad empire to be. Which isn't to say that they couldn't push east, although it would take them a long time -- possibly several centuries, depending on what happens in the intervening period -- to get all the way to China. This might lead to the eastern steppes speaking Iranian languages, although I think China itself is probably already populous and culturally advanced enough that the Scythians will be the ones doing the assimilating.
From what I understood, the "Scythians" was an overarching name given to all the nomadic Indo-Iranian tribes of the Steppes and Central Asia from Scythians to Massagetae to Sarmatians to Saka, Sogdians and Bactrians
Scythians came from the Altai region, if anything China is closer to the original population than Ukraine is.
The biggest military interaction with settled socities of the Scythians was with the Persians, and that wa a series of invasions by the Persians, not the other way around. The rest were small scale raids on Greek city states. The Scythians don't seem to have the unity and military power needed for coordinated invasions of states.
This. There's a reason that the Scythians went West instead of attacking China, which was far and away much wealthier than anything lying to the West. They were too hard of a nut to crack. For the Scythians to move East would require a complete and utter collapse of state power in China. And even then, with their technology and organisation, its likely that even regional kingdoms popping up after a collapse would be capable of going toe-to-toe with the Scythians and coming out the victor.
For 20 years from around 650-630 BCE the Scythians were controlling large parts of Medea and even got the Pharoah to pay them large amounts of tribute not to invade Egypt.
You sure about that? I remember that time as the absolute apex of Neo-Assyrian power and control over the Near East. Do you have a link to it? I'm not finding anything right now.
“Around 650–630 BC, Scythians briefly dominated the Medes of the western Iranian Plateau,[17][18] stretching their power to the borders of Egypt.[12] After losing control over Media, they continued intervening in Middle Eastern affairs, playing a leading role in the destruction of the Assyrian Empire in the Sack of Nineveh in 612 BC.”
Scythians - Wikipedia
“Herodotus speaks in some detail of a period of Scythian domination, the so-called Scythian interregnum in Median dynasty history. His dating of this event remains uncertain, but traditionally it is seen as falling between the reigns of Phraortes and Cyaxares and covering the years 653 to 625 BC. Whether such an interregnum ever actually occurred and, if it did, whether it should not be dated later than this are open questions. What is clear is that by the mid 7th century BCthere were a great many Scythians in western Iran, that they—along with the Medes and other groups—posed a serious threat to Assyria, and that their appearance threw previous power alignments quite out of balance.”
Ancient Iran | History, Map, Cities, Religion, Art, Language, & Facts
Ancient Iran, historic region of southwestern Asia that is only roughly coterminous with modern Iran. The term Persia was used for centuries, chiefly in the West, to designate those regions where Persian language and culture predominated, but it more correctly refers to a region of southern Iran
www.britannica.com
“The migration of the Scythians from Asia eventually brought them into the territory of the Cimmerians, who had traditionally controlled the Caucasus and the plains north of the Black Sea. In a war that lasted 30 years, the Scythians destroyed the Cimmerians and set themselves up as rulers of an empire stretching from west Persia through Syria and Judaea to the borders of Egypt. The Medes, who ruled Persia, attacked them and drove them out of Anatolia, leaving them finally in control of lands which stretched from the Persian border north through the Kuban and into southern Russia.”
Scythian | People, History, & Facts
Scythian, member of a nomadic people, originally of Iranian stock, known from as early as the 9th century BCE who migrated westward from Central Asia to southern Russia and Ukraine in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. The Scythians founded a rich, powerful empire centered on what is now Crimea.
www.britannica.com
Would this end up has just another Khitan Or Jurchen Jin? they take over the Northen plans get stopped by the rivers forests and hills of the south. Then over time just assimlate into Chinese culture?
It’s hard to tell since this would be so early in China’s history. Like if the Scythians invaded during the Spring and Autumn period of the erosion of Zhou authority, a lot of things could change.
How so? The Chinese are still more numerous with a more complex culture. I still think the Scythains would just merge into the Sino Tibetian masses.
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Because this would be following the Qiang invasion that already caused the Zhou state to basically become a bunch of small independent fiefdoms prior to their consolidation into the larger warring states. The Scythians would have an easier to dealing with smaller states and I don’t know that they would just reconsolidate everything into one giant Sino-Scythian empire.
Do you count the Xiongnu and their predecessors as Scythians? There's some evidence that both were related and Iranic tribes, not to mention that the "Scythian" label itself is almost certainly applied way too broadly to a wide range of nomadic peoples and cultures . Also inherent in your question is the assumption that "Scythian" nomads didn't push into China; given the paucity of sources from pre-Qin times it's not impossible to say that they didn't, and new genetic studies are just starting to lift the veil on who was living there and how they relate to modern Chinese. Interestingly, Scythian-related groups seem to have been in Xinjiang in the time period.
www.science.org
www.sciencedirect.com
Anyway, to get back to what seems to be the meat of your question, I think some sort of big nomadic influx into China is plausible at basically any point in its history. Interactions with the steppe are recorded as far back as the Han dynasty, and the last nomadic conquest was by the Qing. On the steppe side you need some sort of push/pull factors to make the nomads conquer or migrate into the region, things like climate change, population pressure, or conquerors, can provide the push, and grazeland and extracting sedentary wealth are typical pulls. It's not hard to imagine some sort of Scythian proto-Ghenghis Khan forming a tribal confederation that conquers the Persian Empire and then goes East into China themselves, or pushes other "Scythian" groups into the Han heartland in processes analogous to the Barbarian invasions of Rome or Turkish invasions of the Middle East.
The farther back you go the bigger the impacts naturally, pre-Qin in particular there's probably much more opportunity to disrupt the nascent Han civilization, and certainly pre-Zhou. Then you start running up into the question of geographic determinism; the Yellow-Yangtze river system do make a nice contiguous region for a unitary state to emerge, but I think there's room for multiple ones to exist in China, particularly more steppe-oriented northern and Western states and Southern states if the Han never really make it South of the Yangtze. Post-Qin however it's far more likely for natives to adopt Han culture and governments; the universal state ideology is already there, and the institutions that it set up are far too attractive for conquerors to use to put themselves on top of the entire region.
It goes without saying that a world without a mostly-united Han China would be very different from OTL. A more politically and culturally fragmented East Asia would likely be less stable and prosperous, significantly changing trade patterns throughout the region to India. Who knows what new ideologies or technologies might emerge from such a ferment, or how they could bounce back to the West. With a weaker, more steppe-focused "chinese civilization(s)" the maritime cultures in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam probably are more geopolitically active and strong, which maybe kicks off some sort of proto-colonialist SE Asian drive into Polynesia and India. Or maybe the main division becomes between the coastal and inland regions of China instead of North and South as OTL. Trite as it may be to say, the possibilities are endless.
Science | AAAS
www.science.org
A Dynamic 6,000-Year Genetic History of Eurasia’s Eastern Steppe
The Eastern Eurasian Steppe was home to historic empires of nomadic pastoralists, including the Xiongnu and the Mongols. However, little is known abou…
www.sciencedirect.com
Anyway, to get back to what seems to be the meat of your question, I think some sort of big nomadic influx into China is plausible at basically any point in its history. Interactions with the steppe are recorded as far back as the Han dynasty, and the last nomadic conquest was by the Qing. On the steppe side you need some sort of push/pull factors to make the nomads conquer or migrate into the region, things like climate change, population pressure, or conquerors, can provide the push, and grazeland and extracting sedentary wealth are typical pulls. It's not hard to imagine some sort of Scythian proto-Ghenghis Khan forming a tribal confederation that conquers the Persian Empire and then goes East into China themselves, or pushes other "Scythian" groups into the Han heartland in processes analogous to the Barbarian invasions of Rome or Turkish invasions of the Middle East.
The farther back you go the bigger the impacts naturally, pre-Qin in particular there's probably much more opportunity to disrupt the nascent Han civilization, and certainly pre-Zhou. Then you start running up into the question of geographic determinism; the Yellow-Yangtze river system do make a nice contiguous region for a unitary state to emerge, but I think there's room for multiple ones to exist in China, particularly more steppe-oriented northern and Western states and Southern states if the Han never really make it South of the Yangtze. Post-Qin however it's far more likely for natives to adopt Han culture and governments; the universal state ideology is already there, and the institutions that it set up are far too attractive for conquerors to use to put themselves on top of the entire region.
It goes without saying that a world without a mostly-united Han China would be very different from OTL. A more politically and culturally fragmented East Asia would likely be less stable and prosperous, significantly changing trade patterns throughout the region to India. Who knows what new ideologies or technologies might emerge from such a ferment, or how they could bounce back to the West. With a weaker, more steppe-focused "chinese civilization(s)" the maritime cultures in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam probably are more geopolitically active and strong, which maybe kicks off some sort of proto-colonialist SE Asian drive into Polynesia and India. Or maybe the main division becomes between the coastal and inland regions of China instead of North and South as OTL. Trite as it may be to say, the possibilities are endless.
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Do you count the Xiongnu and their predecessors as Scythians? There's some evidence that both were related and Iranic tribes, not to mention that the "Scythian" label itself is almost certainly applied way too broadly to a wide range of nomadic peoples and cultures . Also inherent in your question is the assumption that "Scythian" nomads didn't push into China; given the paucity of sources from pre-Qin times it's not impossible to say that they didn't, and new genetic studies are just starting to lift the veil on who was living there and how they relate to modern Chinese. Interestingly, Scythian-related groups seem to have been in Xinjiang in the time period.
Science | AAAS
A Dynamic 6,000-Year Genetic History of Eurasia’s Eastern Steppe
The Eastern Eurasian Steppe was home to historic empires of nomadic pastoralists, including the Xiongnu and the Mongols. However, little is known abou…
Anyway, to get back to what seems to be the meat of your question, I think some sort of big nomadic influx into China is plausible at basically any point in its history. Interactions with the steppe are recorded as far back as the Han dynasty, and the last nomadic conquest was by the Qing. On the steppe side you need some sort of push/pull factors to make the nomads conquer or migrate into the region, things like climate change, population pressure, or conquerors, can provide the push, and grazeland and extracting sedentary wealth are typical pulls. It's not hard to imagine some sort of Scythian proto-Ghenghis Khan forming a tribal confederation that conquers the Persian Empire and then goes East into China themselves, or pushes other "Scythian" groups into the Han heartland in processes analogous to the Barbarian invasions of Rome or Turkish invasions of the Middle East.
The farther back you go the bigger the impacts naturally, pre-Qin in particular there's probably much more opportunity to disrupt the nascent Han civilization, and certainly pre-Zhou. Then you start running up into the question of geographic determinism; the Yellow-Yangtze river system do make a nice contiguous region for a unitary state to emerge, but I think there's room for multiple ones to exist in China, particularly more steppe-oriented northern and Western states and Southern states if the Han never really make it South of the Yangtze. Post-Qin however it's far more likely for natives to adopt Han culture and governments; the universal state ideology is already there, and the institutions that it set up are far too attractive for conquerors to use to put themselves on top of the entire region.
It goes without saying that a world without a mostly-united Han China would be very different from OTL. A more politically and culturally fragmented East Asia would likely be less stable and prosperous, significantly changing trade patterns throughout the region to India. Who knows what new ideologies or technologies might emerge from such a ferment, or how they could bounce back to the West. With a weaker, more steppe-focused "chinese civilization(s)" the maritime cultures in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam probably are more geopolitically active and strong, which maybe kicks off some sort of proto-colonialist SE Asian drive into Polynesia and India. Or maybe the main division becomes between the coastal and inland regions of China instead of North and South as OTL. Trite as it may be to say, the possibilities are endless.
The problem is that Ancient Chinese historical sources made a clear distinction between their northern neighbours, the Xiongnu and the others Beidi barbarians and western steppe people as the Ordos, the Yuezhi and the Wusun who are clearly caucasian in appearance if you read the description.
Yuezhi are also described as peaceful merchants while Xiongnu are barbarians commiting human sacrifices.
Others western bararians are the Rong, a chariot steppe people, probably proto tibetans who destroyed the Western Zhou capital.
Interesting, I was not aware that we had much of anything from pre-Qin sources on steppe peoples. The Yuehzhi sound like some sort of proto-Sogdian peoples to me. I'm mainly trying to ask how much the OP wants to focus on the classical Scythians of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe in particular or just steppe nomads from 1000BC-200CE invading China in general.
I guess Indo-Iranian / Indo-European nomads in general but most of them fell under the catchall Scythian phrase from what I’ve seen
that's the Turkic and other Altaic People who care from the Altai Reigion, Scythians are Indo-Europeans so they came from Caucasus Region.
Actually working on a series about Steppe cultures so this is on my mind. The problem is as mentioned that the Scythians were based around present day Ukraine, basically the western steppe region. Some people will use Scythian as a generic term for early steppe nomads, but there is a distinct Scythian identity as well that focused on interactions with Europe because, well thats what was closer.
To get a Scythian invasion of China you need to give them a reason to migrate so far east. Like a reverse Barbarian invasion in the late Roman empire. And I dont see any group being able to force such a large and disunited group to migrate so far.
To get a Scythian invasion of China you need to give them a reason to migrate so far east. Like a reverse Barbarian invasion in the late Roman empire. And I dont see any group being able to force such a large and disunited group to migrate so far.
I am reminded of these
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