How did they keep doing it?

You're retarded if you think China remained culturally the same over the millennia.

While were on this, how much of the Yellow Dragon Emperor do we know is real or not? Was he a great individual or a mythic figure that they attribute the foundation of the basics of civilization?

>>2216167
Well there are a couple things. First geography made it much easier to bring the while.together like the middle east. Second the people did change especially in the Era of disunity. Third the population became so large at some point it mostly absorbed any of tiny foreign ruling classes.

Why did the Tang Dynasty have such weird borders?

>>2216182
Post-Qin til the fall of Qing, they all ran the All-Under-Heaven, Mandated by Heaven Emperor schtick with Confucian mores. Sure a few bits of this were added and a little bit of that faded but we do have what is called the Sinic civilization.

Not to mention the Dynasties were fucking big on continuity. The realm had a name (the Middle State or simply "Tianxia"- all-under-heaven, i.e. Empire) and everyone who called himself Emperor claimed mandate. In addition to shit like sparing members of the past dynasty and enfeofing them since you dont want to piss off the ancestors of the cunts who ruled the place before you did and visit your rule with disaster.
>>2216227
Huangdi is semilegendary. We really know nothing solid about pre-Shang Chinese history outside archaeological evidence save the shit the folk histories remember of the place and the Zhou Kings memed the fuck out of pre-Shang history.

>roman empire hasn't bounced back yet
Any time now.

>>2216167
Wherever I go, I must sinicize

>>2216250
Tibet was pretty powerful before the Buddhist Lamas became way too powerful than the King and cucked the country.

Which is why the T'ang avoided invading it and simply went after the Turkshits in Xiyu (now Xinjiang) out of the premise that they are protecting their Indo-Iranianfag city states which were T'ang tributaries.

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>>2216167
Technically the Empire is only Qin-to-Qing. Shang China and Zhou China and the Warring States is pretty much collectively called "Ancient Chinese" history, and not considered the same as the Empire. Since the Shang were theocratic Shaman King human-sacrificers, the Zhou a feudal empire with component culturally diverse states, and the Warring States basically China threatening to become something like Medieval Europe: a place where culturally similar yet diverse peoples have their own states.

>>2216182
You're retarded if you think cultural change = loss of all previous culture

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>>2216267
Tang acquired Xinjiang for these Uyghur qts. Well worth the effort I must say.

>>2216258
It's already happening.

Roman Empire -> Holy Roman Empire -> Kaiserreich -> Third Reich -> European Union

>>2216167
>he fell for the 5000 years of history meme

>>2216324
The modern Uyghurs weren't there during the Tang. The original inhabitants of Xinjiang were the Dzungars, who were exterminted by the Qing.

>>2216346
>Holy Roman Empire
Don't make me do it

>>2216324
They weren't there during the Tang my leaf anon.

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>>2216374
>le lele lele mommy look at meme mememsmememms meme

Nowhere did OP claim or imply that.

>>2216374
t. fomenko

>>2216386

>Holy
>Merkel
>Caliphate

>>2216167
Egypt did it a bunch of times in antiquity.

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>>2216382
>The original inhabitants of Xinjiang were the Dzungars, who were exterminted by the Qing.
The original inhabitants of Xinjiang were Indo-Iranian cunts. China fucking wrote this down. During the T'ang they were facing intrusion by Turkic peoples and some of the city states were already ruled by them.

>>2216167
Same reason empire or shahdom never really vanished from Europe and the Middle East despite the rise of kings and sultans. Sometimes a meme is so powerful it can never really vanish.

>>2216167
The Ottomans completely collapsed in the early 1400s and made a rather good comeback.

The Judaeans were conquered numerous times and kept reestablishing kingdoms in the region.

Persians continuously reestablished empires in the region after being conquered.

Poland has notably made a number of comebacks.

>>2216167
You must have slept through European history.
What are, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland.

>>2216255
>Post-Qin til the fall of Qing, they all ran the All-Under-Heaven, Mandated by Heaven Emperor schtick with Confucian mores
And every European monarch with a bit of ambition styled himself the emperor of Rome and adopted Roman titles and iconography that didn't make them the same thing.

>>2216312
Carrying over bits of the previous empire =/= a resurgence of the same empire. You are falling for bullshit propaganda designed to make you think China is a single nation that has persisted for thousands of years instead of the clusterfuck of rising and falling states that it really was. When some new tribe moves in and slaughters your rulers and then takes over, how the fuck is that a continuation of the same empire? I guess those barbarians who squatted in Rome all those centuries after the Imperial Regalia were sent to Constantinople must have been Romans after all.

>>2216825
>When some new tribe moves in and slaughters your rulers and then takes over, how the fuck is that a continuation of the same empire?
Because instead of replacing the system of government into their own and imposing their own culture, they employed the same bureaucracy and framework of administration that the displaced former rulers had and effectively acted as stewards preserving the existing culture. Imagine if the Nazis had conquered Britain, but instead of making Britain follow Nazism, Hitler made himself the King of England, replaced the heads of the major political parties and key figures in the Civil Service with his own people, and then just allowed the parliamentary system and the British people to continue on as before.

>>2216312
you're retarded if you think that that has ever happened in europe either.

>>2216825
Chinese dynasty changes are more like different presidential dynasties.

They don't change the government type/people/language/culture/history, but rather the policies change regarding tax/national projects/etc

>>2216907
So much wrong with this post.

>>2216167
>>2216312
Because for all intents and purposes the stuff that "bounced back" was a different country each time, just in the same basic geographic area.
You might as well argue that the UK is just the current phase of the pre-celtic peoples who were there several millennia ago, since there are still cultural threads from those civilizations that persist to this day there, especially where they were linked to stuff like barrows and earthworks that still physically exist.
Jump back a similar length of time in China or anywhere else for that matter and you find the same sort of thing.

>>2216907
So like pretty much every takeover anywhere, ever? The only way you could change the people, language and thus their culture and shared history is if you literally exterminated the entire population and replaced them, and the reason the governments stay mostly the same is because finding "collaborators" is always way, way easier than trying to replace all the machinery of governance.

>>2216835
>Imagine if the Nazis had conquered Britain, but instead of making Britain follow Nazism, Hitler made himself the King of England, replaced the heads of the major political parties and key figures in the Civil Service with his own people, and then just allowed the parliamentary system and the British people to continue on as before.
That is literally what he would have done. Vichy France is an example of the initial stages of that sort of approach while the initial unrest is still high. Plus putting himself as the guy in charge and replacing key civil servants with "his own people" (i.e. Nazi Party officials) essentially would be making Britain follow Nazism. In a lighter, moderated sort of way, but that's because you always use a transitional strategy. Again, like the Vichy government with its oversight from Nazi officials.

>>2217300
In this scenario however, imagine he takes not just Britain but the whole Empire, which is lightyears ahead in cultural and technological achievement, and Hitler turns into a tea drinking top hat wearing corgi petting Angloboo who sits in Windsor Castle all the time, forgetting all about a Nazi World Empire, while British politicians continue on in the Palace of Westminster alongside German colleagues not as a transitionary government but as the intended status quo.

I mean look at Kublai Khan after he took over China.

>declared the Great Yuan in the dynastic tradition, making himself a actual Chinese Emperor instead of just a Mongol Khan who controls territory belonging to China, consulting a Chinese scholar to help him choose the name Yuan
>appointed Chinese advisors to help him with Chinese court rituals and culture
>adopted the Chinese administrative system
>built palaces according to Chinese traditions
>built a temple to Confucius
>translated Chinese classics in Mongolian
>made sure his sons had a Chinese education
>tried to introduce Chinese culture into the Mongolian elite
>Mongolian elite had to ask him to please stop promoting the Chinese culture so much
>Ruled China instead of trying to absorb it into a Mongol World Empire which really didn't exist anymore

>>2216167
Based Sui

>>2217300
Not pretty much every takeover. Takeover can happen in certain ways, by wiping out native population and transplanting your own, by claiming yourself to the native rule and adopting native culture/history/goverenance/etc, by forcing natives to conform to your language/governance/history/culture, by slowly integrating both cultures together, etc.

If Rome successfully invaded Persia and dressed as Persian, eat as Persian, speak/read/write as Persian, govern as previous Persian did, then there would still be a Persian empire. If Rome successfully invaded Persia and forced the inhabitants to learn/speak/read/write Latin, follow Roman culture, dress Roman ways, be governed like Romans, think as Romans, then there would be no Persian empire any more.

China still survives mainly because dynastic changes meant they're still being Chinese.

Here's another example. Lets say during the European colonialism, everyone who left Europe tookover native land's culture/language/religion/governance/identity instead of European style. Not only that, the countries that colonized fully adopted the native colony's identity/language/culture/clothing/buildings/etc. This would mean the native country still survived even as they were "colonized".

>>2216907
>Chinese dynasty changes are more like different presidential dynasties.
Chinese dynasty changes are not at all like presidential dynasties and I'm not even sure how you could make that comparison.

>>2216346

>European Union is the new Roman empire


HAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHA

>>2216182
You're retarded.

>>2217404
It may have helped the China was so much bigger with a population far greater than the tribal peoples of inner Asia that conquered them, that the new rulers would have found it much easier to simply keep making use of the existing bureaucratic systems rather than try to replace them with their own forms of governance less suited to running such vast territories.

Also >>2217370

>>2217436
It makes sense if you think about it.

>>2216749
>>2216803
>any of these
>2400 years of similar culture

>>2216825
>>2217300
>>2216844
All of these posts are factually wrong. Great job /his/

>>2216844
Ahhh yes because the Celtic culture and language is all over Germany, Spain, and Turkey.

>>2217300
>since there are still cultural threads from those civilizations that persist to this day there,
Ancient Chinese and modern Chinese are extremely similar. Many educated Chinese can still read Han era documents in 2017.
Pre-Celtic languages and indoeuropean languages have literally nothing in common. For example, Basque.

>>2217370

If i remember right some later Yuan emperors got killed by mongols for being too friendly to chinese.

>>2216167

Rice.

>>2216259


KEK

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>>2216258
literally when

Qin Shi Huang Di, the emperor who unified the warring states, have a lot to do with the evolution of China

> First great wall of China
> Large canal and irrigation projects
> Once emperor, he demanded all writing to be uniform, all scales of weight to be uniform, meaning a kilo of grain was the same from north to south to east to west, grain was spelled in the same way as well, before there had been several ways of writing and scales of weight were not uniform.

The language and measuring system did a whole lot to bring the Chinese together

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>>2216386

>>2221118
But the Han created the bureaucracy and Confucian memes that kept together for the next few millennia.

>>2221118
Don't forget how he standardized the length of wheel axles so roads could all be the same width.

>>2221118
You mean 20+ different languages?

>>2221113
Why are yo so keen on incorporating 300 million Muslims into your empire?

>>2216825
Each successive dynasty(s) of China has claimed its legitimacy by being a successor of the previous state, while retaining a "Chinese" identity. For instance, the Yuan (Mongols) adopted Chinese institutions and ideas in order to legitimize their rule over China. The "Mandate of Heaven" was what an emperor claimed after deposing the previous dynasty. The idea behind the Mandate was that if a ruler became incompetent or failed his duties, the people should revolt and overthrow him. A ruler that managed to repacify China would then clearly have the mandate of Heaven(or God) to rule, thus becoming the legitimate successor to the rule of China. It was first used by the Zhou dynasty as a way to claim legitimacy from destroying the Shang dynasty-namely, "Because China was fracturing under the previous emperor, and now we are united and at peace again, this is Heaven's way of approving my rule. Do you dare to disagree with Heaven?" Similarly, Qin Shi Huang claimed this as well after subjugating the other warring states. I would contrast this to the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire. Although the Ottomans claimed to be the successors of the Byzantine Empire (by occupying their former territory), they did not adopt Byzantine institutions or Greek ideas, nor had outright conquest ever been a legitimate method of becoming emperor (or Basileus) of the Byzantines/Rome.

>>2216167
Geographic isolation.

>>2222203
China borders the most other countries in the world...

>>2216167
Byzantines restored themselves like three times before they were finally destroyed.

>>2222391
>Macedonian renaissance
>Komnenian restoration
>Palaiologian reconquest of Constantinople
yeah you're right

>>2222391
The time scales aren't even close to compare. China dynasty existed more than a millennium before Byzantines and still continue trekking today.

>>2222345
From which it is blocked off by mountains, desert, jungle, etc.

it's no different that western and middle eastern civilization is sumerian civilization falling apart and bouncing back repetitively for millennia, except it's largely stuck to one geographical location in china's case.

>>2222203
>>2224795
Geographic isolation, seriously? Do you not know the slightest thing about Chinese history? China is constantly invaded and conquered by external threats. See Yuan and Qing dynasty.

>>2224829
Except that the new civilizations that sprang up didn't adopt the ancient Sumerian institutions and ideas, whereas each successive Chinese dynasty retained the Chinese identity and claimed legitimacy within the existing system through the concept of the Mandate of Heaven. It's an interesting system that conquest is considered a legitimate method of becoming emperor within the system itself.

>>2221802
Even if you consider the Qin through to the Qing to be a continuous Civilization through shared identity and institutions, surely the Republic and the People's Republic wouldn't qualify thanks to the dismantling of the Confucian systems and Mao's efforts to stamp out the old culture through dumb shit like the Cultural Revolution?

>>2225750
Do you seriously believe that government can "stamp out" culture with an edict and some destroyed temples?
Political change doesn't determine the culture of the inhabitants, unless they are exterminated.

Stop being intellectually dishonest.

If anything, the fact that China today is far less diverse and more homogenous than the Chinese empire in 1 AD is what makes the claim of cultural continuity questionable.
But no intellectually honest historian claims that China today isn't culturally related to the Han empire.

>>2224829
Sumerian civilization != Arab Islamic civilization

The Sumerians compared to modern Iraqis for example
1. Spoke a different language
2. Wrote in a completely different language
3. Worshipped a different religion
4. Had far less Arab/Semitic admixture.
5. Lived in totalitarian kingdom/empires where the hereditary ruler created the laws.

>>2221118
>>2221632
>You mean 20+ different languages?
Close, but not quite. See, he standardized the -writing- system, but not he language itself. Grain was spelled the same way all over the country, but was pronounced in 50 different ways. This allowed different regions to engage in trade and to coordinate with the central authority.

>Overstated though these considerations may be, they represent a great fact emerging from Chinese archaeology—that by the beginning of the era of written history, the Chinese people had already achieved a degree of cultural homogeneity and isolated continuity hard to match elsewhere in the world. They had begun to create a society dominated by state power. To it all other activities—agricultural, technological, commercial, military, literary, religious, artistic—would make their contributions as subordinate parts of the whole.
>Yet it would be an error for us today, so long accustomed to the modern sentiment of nationalism, to imagine ancient China as an embryonic nation-state. We would do better to apply the idea of culturalism and see ancient China as a complete civilization comparable to Western Christendom, within which nation-states like France and England became political subunits that shared their common European culture.
>Again, because we are so aware of the all-encompassing power of the totalitarian states of the twentieth century, we would do well to avoid an anachronistic leap to judgment that the Shang and Zhou kings’ prerogatives led inevitably to a sort of totalitarianism. We might better follow Etienne Balazs (1964), who called it a government by “officialism.” As summarized by Stuart Schram (1987), “The state was the central power in Chinese society from the start, and exemplary behavior, rites, morality and indoctrinations have always been considered in China as means of government.” We need only add that in addition to these liturgical functions the ruler monopolized the use of military violence.

Short answer is Confucius, Legalism, and the Mandate of Heaven.

It's as if the people worshiped a religion to buttress the state. But in all honesty, there wasn't a massive migration of people INTO China unlike Europe (from the East), Africa (from Europe), America (from Europe), India (from the West), etc.

>>2217436
Multi ethnic empire that is based on Republican values and incorporates all of the cultural successors of rome into on union.

It's the closest thing we have.

>>2216167
>CE

>>2222222

Egypt was the China of the West but islamization pushed them onto a fundamentally divergent course.

>>2226350
There was a mass migration, why do you think the Eastern Jin period happened?

>>2216167
>why hasn't any other tribe remade itself into several different entities with different names and different cultures?

get eaten by an escalator chink

>>2217436
it kinda is

>>2228056
Its not.

There I said it. Lets not bring it up again. There's no validity to that statement in either culture, history, language, customs, legitimacy, governance, etc.

>>2227572
>tribe
China was a lot more than a tribe.

>>2216167
It was assimilated a couple of times by external powers like the Mongols and the Manchus, these powers simply became Sinicized.

>>2216167
Russia? They've been breaking up, getting conquered, and then coming back since Kievan Rus.