Thank you all for your patience in waiting for this video! As you can tell from the video length I’ve put a lot more information in this video than in any of my previous videos. The main purpose of this video is to set the stage to discuss the Three Kingdoms Period properly in the upcoming videos, so I’ve had to include a number of details that might not be immediately relevant, but will be useful background information for later events. The Three Kingdoms Period is one of the most enduringly popular periods in Chinese history, and for very good reasons - there is a certain richness to the events from this period, even before any dramatizations, that few other periods could match. Up until now I’ve been reluctant to make videos about it because I want to do it justice, especially since I didn’t feel comfortable with my mapmaking skills at the time. I’ve finally gotten better at making the maps, so I feel more comfortable with being able to illustrate the events properly :-) This video is supposed to be the first video in my Medieval Chinese History series. I’ve technically already covered this period in previous videos, however their levels of detail are rather lacking, and so I will have to remake them. My preliminary outline for the remake is as follow: 1) The Eastern Han Dynasty Collapse 159 - 190 2) Cao Cao’s Conquest of Northern China 190 - 208 3) The Formation of the Three Kingdoms 208 - 223 4) The Cao Wei and Shu Han Dynasties 220 - 266 5) The Western Jin Dynasty 266 - 316 The last video would require me to remake the Western Jin Dynasty video, which I’m generally happy with about the detail level, but I still need to reorganize the sequence in which certain events are discussed and also add a lot more details about the Eastern Wu Dynasty. I’ve already started writing the next video about Cao Cao’s conquest of northern China, and I’m hoping to get it done much faster than this one since I’ve already made almost all of the maps I need for it. I’m aiming to release it in the next 1-2 months, knock on wood of course. Once I’m done with these remakes I’ll go back to covering the Northern and Southern Dynasties and then the Sui and Tang Dynasties. I’ve been feeling pretty impatient about getting started on these later time periods but need to finish up on the Three Kingdoms Period first. I also have a number of incomplete drafts on other topics, some on Chinese history and some on non-Chinese history, and will pace myself to finish up some of them too.

This is genuinely the best channel for Chinese history. Made by a Chinese person, who understands and can convey Chinese cultural nuances, speaks English, and has videos in Chronological order so you can enjoy the content like a historical epic.

This is the best content on Chinese history I have ever seen. No books, even written by supposed modern Chinese experts, come close to the clarity you convey. A new upload from you never fails to bring a smile to my face.

Bro dropping this the day before my exam

Learning about Chinese History as a fan of Western History is like finding out a game you've played forever was part of a series, and the other installments are just as good.

"The answer is, in many situations - not very well." 山高皇帝远 is one of my favorite phrases. Thank you as always for an extremely in depth, interesting and thorough video.

Three Kingdoms have entered the chat~ Like the death of Caesar, the moment us Chinese history nerds have all been waiting for!

When you started getting philosophical in the introduction to Emperor Ling's section I knew what was coming. That was a great breakdown.

46:03 The amount of information that survives from ancient China 2000 years ago just amazes me. I'm from Ghana and due to very low levels of literacy in historical times, it's difficult finding even the exact borders of ancient kingdoms that existed here, much more their population estimates. And you're telling me that we not only know the exact population of the Han dynasty but even the populations of specific provinces and commanderies?! This is what makes Chinese history so fascinating to me. Even for the great Roman empire, we could only make educated guesses at the exact populations of specific provinces.

Really looking forward to this series. The Three Kingdoms era usually gets sensationalized by proximity to ROTK, but the real history of it is plenty dramatic and interesting on its own. I was converted to this perspective a while back by somebody who made the argument that Yuan Shao was the greediest, dumbest, most irresponsible lump in an empire of lumps. It really helped put things in perspective! Where the novel likes to add narratives and personas to these people, their real deeds are so much more human. Readers aren't going to buy that a character would suggest something as hare-brained as Yuan Shao's plan for political domination (invite the suspicious rogue general to burn down the capital so you can kill some eunuchs???), but in consideration of some current events, it does everyone good to know that people really do get that short-sighted and desperate.

Some of the best China content on KZfaq. Great stuff!

Can't say how much I've missed this. You should do a collab with Strategy Stuff, his series about the northern nomads reminded me of you very much so.

holy shit. 1 hour and a half just dedicated for the Fall of eastern han. I need more, i need a 10 hour one. subscribed

Fantastic stuff, love your channel. One tiny tiny critique - at least to me, the greenish color for provinces looks too much like the terrain colors, so makes me think "unconquered", not a separate color for provinces. Extremely minor thing, make it orange or something lol. Keep it up, as an english speaker Chinese history is often hard to get into and your channel is amazing

This bout to be the longest dishwashing session 🔥

Honestly this went back further than I expected and I love it! Though I am very much looking forward to your next video in your northern and southern Dynasty series

It's always a pleasure to see a new upload👍

I know these videos do not make bazinga bucks, but this channel is probably 90% of my learning about China on yt in the last 2 years. Thank you

Wow, what a great video probably the single most comprehensive video on KZfaq about this topic. Can't wait for more videos.

Fantastic video! This is definitely my favourite Chinese history channel!

Very excited!! Was just checking if it was out yesterday :)

Given the repetition, What are the chances all of those emperors were killed by their consorts to gain power as empress regnant?

No wonder Wei won over the other two kingdoms afterwards. Even for Cao Cao, geography is destiny.

It's remarkable how enormous cities like Chang'an and Luoyang were repeatedly razed to the ground, with their populations either killed or deported, yet were rebuilt time and time again to become capitals once more. Imagine if that happens to rome or constantinople.

We Gettin Out of the Nanjing With This One 🔥🔥🗣️🗣️ Killer videos bro, singlehandedly got me into chinese history

Wow, your English accent is excellent. Very clear pronunciation of many sounds that are difficult for non-native speakers. Three Kingdoms is my favorite period of Chinese history so I really appreciate this video.

As usual, a very good video!

HOLY !!! you are back !!!

As a great man once said, I've been waiting for this.

Quality content as usual!

Great content.

1:04:09 1. Qin Shihuang 2. Emperor Wu of Jin 3. Qianlong Emperor 4. Emperor Yingzong of Ming 5. Wanli Emperor 6. Chongzhen Emperor 7. ??? No idea who was “outwardly weak but still enacted good policies” 8. Emperor Gaozong of Song 9. Emperor Huizong of Song 10. Emperor Xuanzong of Tang 11. Emperor Hui of Han

I figured I'd go over some of the less visible and character-driven problems with the Eastern Han since this video is more focused on the sort of "Historical narrative" aspect of things rather than the sort of processes. Which is fine and fun to be clear, and I love this stuff, but I think the processes by which these things worked are also very, very interesting. Most of what I'm writing is from "The Early Chinese Empires Qin and Han" by Mark Edward Lewis. One of the major problems as ever throughout history facing your average chinese peasant was taxes and land ownership. Land ownership during the Han was actually relatively laissez faire, compared to the mythologically idealized(and probably not accurate to history) well-field system of earlier times or the Equal Fields of the Tang. However, this lack of regulation was not good, as we'll see. Taxes during the Han consisted of a harvest tax as you'd expect, being about 1/15th of the harvest during the western Han though it sometimes came to be as low as 1/30th. However another major obligation of han peasantry was work as corvee laborers and military service. However, the state quickly during the Western Han came to have major issues with that. The whole corvee labor and enforced military service thing made a lot of sense for the Qin to conquer their empire and build the massive infrastructure projects needed to unify it and feed the army, but it was a system that required constant fuel in the form of new conquests. It was not built to rule over a period of peace or of necessary stalemate. The qin utterly ruined themselves on vanity projects and pointlessly clinging to massive armies and hosts of laborers that were ruinous to the people. And militarily, the enenmy the Han state needed to face was increasingly very different, especially after the Han had successfully pacified their subject kings and established rule over the east. The primary enemy of the Han thus became the nomads on the frontiers, an enemy whose lands were hard if not impossible to conquer and instead required entirely new ways of dealing with them. Recruiting a conscript army simply was not going to work against them, with the frontline being further from where the people lived having them be peasant conscripts was both infeasible for the lengthy campaigns and garrison duties the state required as well as the training that your average conscript got being simply insufficient for the needs of the military. As such, under Emperor Wu the Han slowly but surely transitioned to a professional army, and this obviously required paying for these troops(and supplying them year round, for their years and years of service). As such, things like corvee labor(though this was often still called up for things like roadwork, water control, and various other government needs) and especially military service came to instead be replaced by a tax that was to be paid in cash. As such, farmers needed to not only give up an(admittedly small) portion of their harvest but also sell enough of it to reach the required tax. And since literally every farmer was putting grain on the market, the price of grain was incredibly low, requiring a larger and larger portion of the harvest to be sold to pay for the tax. The end result was that farmers were forced to take loans to pay the tax since they obviously had to eat before worrying about paying the tax, and obviously since they'd fail to repay the loan in the following years they would eventually have to either offer their land to the loaner, sell themselves/family into slavery, or become a tenant to the rising landlord families(especially prominent in Guandong). As such, people were suffering and the governments control over people and their labour and the ability to extract wealth was becoming poorer and poorer, while individuals and great lineages were becoming wealthier and more prominent. These lineage groups(clans, if you will) could have many patrons and be local leaders as explained in the video like the Yuan clan, and as china militarized when warlords were needed to put down the rebels, these lineage groups could summon forth armies of hundreds or even thousands, composed of their extremely large extended families and families who were tied to them by patronage or as tenants. Having clans that could muster small armies was not conducive to a stable political environment, as you'd expect. Additionally, another major aspect of the period was the composition of the state armies. As said, under Wu the armies increasingly relied on professional troops. The government also wanted to incentivize keeping their tax base as intact as possible as you'd expect, so additionally foreign auxilaries(such as the Wuhuan, who were even used to quell rebellions within China proper, not unlike mercenaries in early modern europe) and convict troops became increasingly large and dominant portions of the armed forces. The Eastern Han outright discentivized recruiting from and stopped mandatory training of native Han forces especially in the east, partly because the landowners wanted people working their farms and also partly because it was the conscript trained troops of the western Han that became the core of the rebellions that lead to the deposing of Wang Mang, which was convenient but also recognized as dangerous if it could be used against them. As such, reliance on professionalsn nomads and convict troops was extremely high. Which is quite insidious if you really think about it. Basically, the average Han peasant in the eastern han was sort of shielded from war because they had convicts and nomads doing most of the fighting for them, wars could be fought without much concern for the exhaustion of the people(It's also likely this definitely incentivized processing of convicts, who were also essential as basically slave labor forces). Ultimately, the types of men which composed the frontier armies were societal rejects. Long-term soldiers, even if they were Han, ultimately had no family to return to. Convicts were rejects as well, and foreign troops were not considered part of chinese society proper. Coinciding with this, during the Eastern Han, unlike the western han who regularly rotated officers and troops out of the frontlines, long term commands became increasingly commonplace. The officers thus became both the glue that kept these social rejects together and the sources of their livelihood. As such, was it any surprise that they would become loyal to their superiors like Dong Zhuo, rather than the cold and distant Imperial court?

Some of the best English content on the Eastern Han I've ever seen. Really clears up mystery around the Han collapse.

the clarity of this video genuinely puts all other chinese history content on youtube to shame, great work please keep it up

i just realized something about your videos. i'm also a scholar that uses mapforfree a lot and i see that the coastline & river path in your videos are not the same as the one on the website. you actually researched, edited, and credited the maps in your vids accordingly! that's very respectable and you deserve a lot more audience for the amount of work you did

I forgot how good this channel is

The way you set Emperor Ling up to have some redeemable trait and then utterly destroy his legacy was peak 😂

Thank you, i love this channel. I hope you continue this trend until the last emperor!

The best channel on chinese history

This is absolutely sensational. Thank you for you care in presenting such a fascinating and thorough program on a part of history that can often be so impenetrable for Western audiences.

I was just checking ur channel today and was happy to see a new upload.

Worth the wait, as always

If there's one thing that keeps me subscribed it's the fact he still uses BC and AD, the objectively superior notation.

what a great channel, 非常感谢!

Gotta love more deep insight into Eastern Han period

As always, one of the best sources of Chinese history in English on KZfaq! I really, really appreciate what you are doing.

This is beastly. Can't wait for three kingdoms

Long united the Empire must divide Long divided the Empire must unite Thus it has ever been

Thank you so much for the subtitles man.

1:04:00 bro got cooked 💀

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH. THE MAPS!

Awesome video. Thank you for your hard work and clear presentation. An easy subscription for me. Can't wait to see what other content there is on this channel :)

Babe wake up, new Gates of Kilikien video just dropped

Great video! Can you do a vid on the structure of the Han dynasty government? Specifically how it was inspired by the Zhou and Qin dynasties? What were the functions of the Three Excellencies and Nine Ministers? Was Legalism really dead?

Best channel, good luck my friend

this channel is pure gold.first I thought this is the best english speaking chinese history channel on youtube.now I think this could be the best chinese history channel on youtube.the author explains chinese history with great depth and insights that most english speaking chinese history channels lacks and does not pollute by common chinese bullsh*ting and bluffing.hats off to you sir for spreading some true knowledge.

very good video! i do think it would be improved by introducing general geography earlier and maybe including a brief explanation of a timeline of events near the beginning. amazing and interesting video though!

Another great video. Keep up the good work

Amazingly well presented. Concise and exciting. I really look forward to the next part! The three kingdoms era is very interesting.

This is terrific. Thank you.

Impressive work as always, I won't necessarily be able to retain all the information in these videos in one sitting but I'm glad you try to be thorough.

OMG! Now how am I supposed to study for my test on Monday 😭?

I was just going through your entire catalogue 😂

Great stuff as usual.

Yay!!! I have been watching and waiting and hoping for a new video... This makes me very happy!!! Thank you for this in depth presentation of one of the time periods in Chinese history that I find challenging to synthesize on my own!!!!

Absolutely loving your videos, this kind of long content on history is everything I could want.

Simply amazing!

I love your channel and your videos dude! Keep it up!

Arguably, the Eastern Han was kind of doomed from the start to descend into political squabbling. The nature of the Guangzhong-Guangdong divide was fairly beneficial to the internal stability of the empire, both because it essentially allowed for a semi-artificial "Imperial" culture to flourish around Chang'an and its nearby tomb cities which provided a counterweight to the traditional core of China in the floodplains of the yellow river. Additionally, it was of course well postured to defend against the nomads, while also being placed well to defend against its own people to the east. The Eastern Han meanwhile, essentially was always surrendered to the landowning families. Its supporters who first raised it up were from among said families, and the capital had no distance from them to provide safety and a more controlling perpsective instead being enmeshed amongst the east, and ultimately floundering.

Thanks very much for this video, it was very thorough. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms period is somewhat well known, but also rather fantastical, so hearing about the hard fact of how it came about was very interesting!

Babe wake up! New GatesOfKilikien video just dropped 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥

listening and learning, thank you gatesofkilikien

*FUN FACT:* The print ad for the NES game, _Destiny of an Emperor,_ claimed that these events took place over 18,000 years ago. Eighteen _THOUSAND_ Years ago. (That was one heck of a typo! XÞ Although it'd explain the ability to ride mammoths in some _Dynasty Warriors_ games!)

Love your vids, made my day you uploaded

One for the algorithm

Another great video! Thanks

Wait a minute... isn't this a remake of a vid you already did? Well... better a remake than total inactivity. We missed you, man!

China is truly fascinating. Billions of people living in what amounts to an enclosed space, with desert in the north, sea in the east, and mountains to the west and south. Its like a separate universe, and yet it developed so similarly to europe in so many ways

yay the best person made another video! 😍

Im curious if there is a most trusted source for reconstruction of middle / old chinese pronounciation? Id love to see all the names of people / locations / polities pronounced in the original

holyyyyy shit I'm grabbing snacks for sure

Thank you bro never stoo

I was always curious about this stuff when playing Dynasty Warriors and ROTK back in the day. Made me want to know about the latter Han and the eras preceding and following the three kingdoms. Same thing with the Song after I read the Water Margin. Glad to find videos explaining them so well.

FYI: We pronounce 19 as "nineteen," not "one-nine."

Fantastic video

Great video

Hyped for the Three Kingdoms

1:22:38 it's so interesting to see Tian Kai 田楷 as a warlord in Qing province since some 500 years earlier, the ruling dynasty of the state of Qi 齊 in the same area also had the surname Tian 田. I wonder if they were related?

Chinese history is so fascinating yet difficult to access for westerners, I love the proper pronunciation in this videos it gives me a much better appreciation for the sounds of Chinese.

Fantastic video. I am very interested in Chinese history

I edge to this! Cleanup on isle: my pants!

When will be the fall of Han Empire?

Man what a fucking blast

I like the bias of Educated Intelligentsia class existed even thousands of year ago. In ancient Greece too,scholars believed only they should be listened to regarding running a society

will you be making a comprehensive video/series on the tang dynasty?

1:12:00 Is it possible that Dong Zhuo wanted to make the Prince of Chenliu emperor because he was 5 years younger and thus Dong Zhuo would have more time to consolidate his power while the emperor was a helpless child?

Rejoice!!!!! 🎉

Tbh Western Han can be preserved under both Liu Bei and Yuan Shao but it was Yuan Shao that did a major misstep by being indecisive in battle AND also in politics. After the whole fiasco of Dong Zhuo and the inner fightings between Li Jue and Guo Si saw the emperor finally having a window of escape towards the east and he sent blood letters to warlords closer to the now ruined Luoyang and only 3 came to mind which was Cao Cao, Yuan Shao and Liu Bei but Liu Bei had unbeknownst to emperor Xian to have lost Xuzhou to both Cao Cao and Lu Bu thus it's only up to Cao Cao and Yuan Shao to take the mantle of hosting the now desperate emperor. Yuan Shao initially wanted to host the emperor and was supported by Ju Shou but conniving ministers in Yuan's court, Guo Tu managed to convince Chunyu Qiong that asking their lord who at that point had strong autonomy to take the emperor in was a serious mistake that if the emperor is in Jizhou, Yuan Shao's autonomy would end which would mean that he'll have to listen to the emperor's will, failing to realize that Yuan Shao would effectively be the premier of the nation thus becoming Dong Zhuo no.2 by just using the emperor as a puppet for his grand ambitions to either revive the Han or building his own empire. Yuan Shao somehow stupidly accepted Guo Tu's nonsense and decided not to meet the emperor or even bothered to escort him to Jizhou which turned out to be the biggest blunder of his life cuz the emperor instead went to the biggest "snake" in the entire world at that point of time, Cao Cao. Cao Cao took the advantage as he, a cunning fox, realized what the position can do as the emperor was just useless in governing everything and with him being the regent, he would just issue edicts in the emperor's name and get to work with it which was something Ju Shou and Tian Kai both saw ages ago. It was just a huge ass mistake that Yuan Shao missed which caused him his life, his whole legacy, the whole empire and his family to boot.

Han Dynasties had farther continued in the Northern Indochinese Peninsula and found the cornerstones of Modern 5 sovereignties in continuation of LIU Mok of the Southern Dynasty, NAN Zou along Yanze river.