What are you referring to?

@@lewhensilvar3521 Always wondered what the Babylonian paintings looked like, maybe they looked something like the Ming Emperors with their belts and flowing hats.

Camels are not native to the Nanjing area, obviously, they are a associated with the Silk Road. As a result, they quickly became symbols of prosperity in China and were often depicted in art, along with other animals like horses. horses and camels in China : depts.washington.edu/silkroad/exhibit/trade/horcamae.html Bactrian camel tomb figure : www.ashmolean.org/camel-tang-dynasty Bactrian camel in jade : asianreviewofbooks.com/content/ships-of-the-silk-road-the-bactrian-camel-in-chinese-jade-by-angus-forsyth/

Don't forget colonialism. Once they had the means and the power they just wrecked havoc on the rest of the world. Depressing stuff. Like German colonies in South America bought up all the land of the Maya and made them slaves to the farms they tended to for thousands of years. Then they only paid them in their own currency meaning they get the money back anyway when the Maya people purchases goods from their monopolised German shops. Or breaking treaties after treaties against very peaceful indian tribes to very hostile indian tribes. Be a good tribe, still be in the firing range and have your entire villaged razed, raped and butchered. Makes no difference. Even cooperating Christianised tribes with their own lands were forced off their prosperous towns and corralled into reservations. It was all a political farce that gained the Americans near the entirety of North America with Canada right up the seventies still trying to snuff out their Tribal remnants through forced boarding schools where children suffered so many abuses at the hands of their teachers. Great wall wasn't built to extol benevolent virtues. The grand canal (longest artificial river system in the world) wasn't built to extol benevolent egos. The great northern hydraulic ditch of Hebei wasn't built to extol benevolent virtues. The two artificial forrested belts of the northern border wasn't grown to extol benevolent virtues. I think it is not enough to say that the amount of organisation, investment and manpower was simply only to stroke the ego of bureaucrats. Today living standards are almost unprecedented. At least half of the world has enough disposable income to at least afford shelter, education and money set aside for recreational purposes. Human population has exploded going from a relatively flat line to an almost 90 degree angle shoot up. Only very recently in history did the human population even make it into the single digit billion figure. Today there is a far greater gap between the rich and the poor. The rich seem to be getting richer despite the quality of life improving. I am concerned about this. Confucian and Taoist governments preferred to have low taxes to the individual or the family household system. To the point that state monopolies of salt and iron were implemented after much debate in order to ensure the state coffers would not be empty. Taoist and Confucian were at their basic tenants anti-war, anti-expansionism and laissez faire economics. That's not to say they weren't big hypocrites in that regard. Historically buddhist countries should have been the most peaceloving nations on earth. Instead Buddhism as an institute cosied up to the regimes, military dictators and monarchies and acted as a crucial lever of power in Southeast Asia(warring between Buddhism kingdoms), Japan, India, Sri-Lanka and China (Tibet). Religion and politics in China blended with different ideas being copied and co-opted by other groups such as Taoism, Ying-Yang and Buddhism borrowing from each other. Folk religion and Ying-Yang absorbed by Taoism. School of Agriculture being absorbed by Confucians and Legalists. Confucians in-turn taking in Legalist doctrines. One example being the real-politik elements of Legalism never going away even after the fall of pro-legalist regimes such as the Qin dynasty. Deregulation of the empire at times (Qing) also meant that urgent money, cash and military response when required would not be available.