Discussion Is ancient China perilous?

There were many times in Ancient China that a lack of food for the peasantry was caused by the corruption of several officials as they attempted to squeeze as much they could from them.

Furthermore, banditry wasn't as uncommon as you would think, as starvation left the peasantry and other groups with no other options than to commit crimes to survive.

And people did sell their children to live, some even committed cannibalism to survive as a result of those officials actions. If that isn't going overboard, i don't know what is. And what face did the officials have to lose by squeezing the peasantry dry and buying lavish goods for others to see? Dynastic Chinese bureaucracy enabled large scale corruption. And often the eunuchs of the emperor provided protection for corrupt officials.

 

Ancient China is dangerous. But not for the reasons above . Bandits, disease, hunger, the constant threat of war, the need to farm your own food... People can have that life if they want. Me? I would rather have all the modern conveniences

 

It can't be worse than any other ancient civilisation. Monarchy, social stratification, underdeveloped medicine and wars.

 

Speaking of eunuchs, if you unluckily transmigrated into one, you can say goodbye to your next generations

 

I watched Curse of the Golden Flower before, safe to say you don't want to be a peasant in that age of civilization.

 

The outside world is scary.

 

Does the box judge? Does it only hates?

 

Can't wait to eat tasty food in that era

 

BS.
Europe avoided baths only in 16th-17th century, due to epidemics (caused by rise in international trade) that were thought to be caused by water. So it doesn't fall under "ancient" in any way.

 

Yeah and I'm sure the "officials" are so well connected with heaven that they can call a drought or flood on demand. Stop trying to perpetuate webnovel stereotypes, they don't reflect reality any more than Rambo or Superman does. Agrarian life is very much at the mercy of the elements, "officials" or otherwise. Go check up famines in China, you'll see one very, very common word. "Drought". Often followed by the word "Rebellion". It was FOOD that caused people to rebel, not being squeezed of money. 2 totally different objects. Interrelated maybe but different.

 

There's also an important point that amateur history lovers often forget - not everything written down long ago is actually truth. Again, due to for example Chinas messy political history, a load of past events were rewritten. For example new dynasty will work pretty hard to write down how great famines and war losses were caused by previous vile rulers. Or how virtuous emperor N killed (probably alone) 1000 billion trillions of troops of barbarians that threatened the country. In Europe there were similar cases, for example when calculating troop sizes, it was pretty usual that instead of 1 Knight + a dozen servants things were reported as 1+12 knights. Just to make things look more impressive.

 

I wouldn't want to live in any ancient country simply because they lacked medical knowledge. If you aren't starved to death by nature or corrupt politicians, you're dying from small pox, infections, or internal problems that only a surgeon could fix.

I lightly researched corruption in ancient China and all I can say is.... It was pretty bad. Even though corruption is a thing every where you go, the Chinese managed to make it a unspoken tradition. Imagine if you had to bribe the DMV worker to get a new ID? On top of paying the required fee. You couldn't do anything with the government unless you greased someone palms. Justice was essentially non-existent if you were poor, as the person with greater wealth would just give over more money to walk free. That's how officials functioned in ancient China.

At some point an Emperor gave officials an anti-bribe bonus to try and entice them out of the habit. They still accepted bribes AND got the bonus. In fact, the few Emperors that cared about the problem never could figure out how to stop the corruption.

So, yeah, give me modern medicine and modern corruption. At least I don't have to bribe a DMV employee just to renew my license....

 

- Before Qind dynasty, china mainland consist of kingdoms, city states, and tribes region that make frequent skirmish war toward each other. Living as soldier at that time meant to put your life on the line. Food at the of war is varies but mostly it's either gruel or other mixed food so logistic not run out quickly. When campaign logistic has been used up soldiers can ask rice and other staple food from farmers, if farmers refuse soldiers still can raid their barn to gather rices as war provision. I don't about noble or goverment people at kingdoms is frequently doing alot of scheme or not, but laws of ancient times is kind of loosely and will be abused by higher up for their gain, some offical want to get nice ranking, and one of the fast route get that .

-Qin dynasty founder Qin Shi Huang tried to united mainland with war campaign and success. At some point on his reign he commanded to burn the books and burying the scholars.

- There's a lot of dynasties, Tang, Song, Han, Yuan, Ming, etc.
- Yuan dynasty enstablished by mongol people, an outsider people not from china mainland. A lot of citizen didn't like their goverment and so at this time many rebellion might happen until dynasty get destroyed by peasant uprising.

No matter the time period war always happened, living as lower class at that times tended not to be on the good side. Most of all, living at anceint time meant I can't get internet or scrolling on NUF

 

Not really. If you go around slapping people's grandpas, then sure, it's a very dangerous place for you. But if you just do your own business, there's no real harm for you. People in ancient China (up to Three Kingdoms period) travelled all the time, most lived simple lives. Supposedly, people of Han lived satisfying lives. They weren't as affluent as we are today, but people could eat and could travel as they liked. It was only the later part of the Han dynasty that the empire declined and bandits could be found everywhere.

Then again, most wushia stories were set in the Song period, when literature flourished and sex mushroomed. The Song period was beset with political instability as new technology allowed formerly barren or mountainous lands to be opened for cultivation, thus allowing large communities to live in hidden mountains and valleys far from the cities of Song. That also allowed these hidden communities to end up becoming bandits and declare war on each other.

So was it dangerous travelling in the Song nation? Not particularly. Some of these hidden communities would put up road blocks and demand some kind of 'tax', sure, but if you can pay them, you'd usually be fine. Just don't go around slapping bandits in the face while saying, "HOW DARE YOU ASK ME FOR TOLL! I, YOUR FATHER WILL TEACH YOU MANNERS!"

 

Actually, IMO, one of the trigger points for the Crusades is probably a culture clash from the exact thing you talked about. To the desert nomads in the Middle East at that time, it was common to collect toll from pilgrims to Jerusalem but to the Europeans who did not have that tradition, it was "Desert bandits preying on pilgrims!!!" though to be fair there always were idiots in any society that didn't get the memo and went too far, wiping out pilgrim caravaans.

 

Σ0.o the doggo changed specie?

 

Did you even read what i wrote you dumb cunt? Money?
When did i write that government officials took in money from the peasantry? The only thing they had that possessed any monetary value was their grain. That was taxed. Not money.
"A taxation system was set up to collect a certain percentage of what the farmers produced.The policies regarding storehouses in local and central facilities were set up in order to keep the collected goods safe." - Food Redistribution during China's Qin and Han Periods: Accordance and discordance among ideologies, policies, and their implementation
During the Qin and Han period those storehouses were used by the emperor to feed the populace. But as "(t)he food redistribution system in early imperial China was ideally designed to benefit all people under heaven “equally” within the framework of the social hierarchy, meanwhile providing extra resources to those of lower status and to people in distress. However, the ideology of the regulations and their actual implementation were frequently out of sync,as laws were applied flexibly and human greed worked every possible step of food redistribution."

To feed the populace, officials, soldiers and etc, the taxing and collecting of grains occurred. But when greed and corruption occurs, disaster relief and etc, becomes difficult. So as corruption grows, the people starve while officials fill their pockets.
So no, agrarian life is not just at the mercy of the elements, but also very much so by the government and their food redistribution policies.

 

And did you EVER go and check your beliefs YOU dumb cunt? Go check up Famine in China. You'll see that it is DROUGHT, especially from the cyclic fluctuations over the Pacific Ocean that caused famine, not "government officials". The "officials" part was added in later by the Communist government to "prove" how their government works better than "Monarchy" after their rebellion and it's part of their government propaganda to legitimise their government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine#Far_East
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Niño–Southern_Oscillation

Go check all the 4 famine links referred to in the article. Drought, drought, drought. There was NOTHING for the "officials" to tax, as you yourself pointed out, they work on an "income tax" system, when the "income" i.e the crops is 0, there is NOTHING to tax. Unless you want to tax tree bark and human meat.

The main reason why Chinese authors write such template stories about "officials" is simply because of two reasons. 1- They were brought up in a time when their government was actively propagating such a view and 2- The Communist officials really DID behave like that. This carried over into their template writing since that was the behaviour they saw all "officials" behave as without the understanding that "Communist" officials and "Qing" and "Song" officials are not alike.

 

no different from any other ancient civilization

but for china it really depends on which reign you are living under

for example, if you lived during the three kingdoms or warring states then GG.

you'll probably be forcefully conscripted and die in war.

if you lived during a more peaceful era like some parts of the tang dynasty or han, you'll be fine.

and then there are the more famous manchu era where officials are corrupt altho there aren't really any wars where you'll still be screwed

just like how romans was so safe at the peak of the roman empire but later in some periods when rome was expanding or getting weaker, gg you're screwed.

 

I don't know much about the real ancient history of many countries aside from what I read in books and in some videos, I know just a bit of China's history like some dynasties, eras and famous characters like the Han dynasty, the era of the three kingdoms and Genghis Khan, etc...
Do I want to live in ancient China? no I don't think I want to unless I am an emperor or a great immortal