First to come here. As always I get to learn a lot about East Asian history rom this channel. Thanks for your hard work. By the way you should check out OverSimplified, he also makes great historical videos

Any translations?

@@mobeenkhan824 Run it through google/baidu translate.

I'm glad I recently discovered this channel. I'm woefully ignorant of Asian history and culture. These vids are detailed yet concise. Simplified enough so a dummy like me can comprehend. And done with a good sense of humor.

Your pronounciation is spot on. Especially on the Majapahit video.

Neat

How much of those 'evil' came from smear campaigns by henchmen of her usurper son and those who got laid off for incompetence during her administration? Chinese diasporas only got access to Song Dynasty copies of records made hundreds of years after her death, while Mainland scholars got the old ones from Tang Dynasty archives. They do not know the whole story. On top of that, how many of her stories aren't real, but embellished by generations of minstrels just like Three Kingdoms?

@@thanakonpraepanich4284 Exactly! Add to that general prejudice against women in power, and it is not surprising at all that she has been painted as such an 'Evil' leader.

supporting the plebs??? hmmmmm i remember reading a wikipedia article of roman emperor nero en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero who was known for instigating the 64 AD burning of rome and the first persecution of christians. and yet like empress wu, nero was a populist (pro pleb as opposed to the optimates; pro aristrocrats) who spent lots of government funding on public projects, and also he imposed heavy tax on the aristrocrats (guess how they felt about that). so probably nero's legacy was under pro aristrocrat propaganda and/or his 'tyranny' was exaggerated. that and turning back by a century, ahhh yes... julius fukking caesar, a great general of the gallic wars and his civil wars against his former friend pompey (HE WAS A CONSUL OF ROME!!! [and so was caesar before taking over gaul]), a victim of sulla's policy of political purging after winning a civil war for the optimates against gaius marius (who was caesar's uncle and was young at the time), a people lover, and killed surrounded by friends (and enemies; both populist and optimates and sometimes former) for being in absolute power/breaking the laws of republic constitution/being a king (an absolute no no for rome). yeah right, i heard the republican system had been a *dying meme* ever since the murders of the gracchi brothers. yes, caesar was an ass for power hunger, BUT AT LEAST HE DID THE COMMONERS JUSTICE and then at the same time, cleo en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra, what did she do to the commoners??? "At the beginning of her reign, local officials harassed destitute farmers by collecting taxes during a famine and drought. Cleopatra curtailed these predatory measures and introduced relief efforts such as releasing grain from the royal granary." and then after the 27 bc final war of the roman republic, caesar octavian augustus (caesar's grandnephew) waged propaganda against her for being on the side of antony

They just hated her because she’s a woman, that’s all.

Wu Zetian Started a lot of wars though, against Tibetans, Turkic people, Turkic people got kicked to west. She funded the blood civil war in Korea, a lot of people dead of it. She had a harem consisted by 600 most famous men of time, their ages between 13-65. The real most uncomfortable thing happened there, How dare a woman use men as pets in a male dominated world? And her name is super as well, Zetian means "yet, myself is the heaven". while other emperors only dare to declare "I'm the son of heaven" at most. Basically her broke all the rules and values of China. By the fact 2 emperors loved her, her look should be great but why didn't her be counted as one of 4 greatest beauties of Chinese history? The reason, other beauties all accept fate and men's privilege. She never, she is the freaking EMPEROR!

In Triads Hung Mafia. china 900 after Budha dead is rise sect Triads Hung have 200-800 secte type,and in Triads have Prophet SinKun 2 the Prophet Yusup woman call Inu Sancu Tekun Loa'ah/Xia Ci Molly/Wo SamKok have hell,Wayil,her just one have thinker/Brain,and have 13000 type human.the Triads Hung after clash Boxer 1-2 1825-1914/1924 ended ???? But they work is real Beijing Emperor amd Kalifa Islam Ottoman DOOM /CHAOS .

@@lunassr7212 What are you saying? It looks like random words and numbers strung together.

Exist ot no exist The Secret is still there unthoucable with years etc.

@@user-yo1pz2qu2b Oh so Wu Zetain is Nohime plus the scheming brain of Oda Nobunaga.

Of course it was not satire (that must be a weird interpretation or a mishap) but it was not intended for lowly minions of an evil power-mongering organization, but for actual political leaders

@@LuisAldamiz IKR

The Prince is definitely not a satire, and is as real as the Art of War. I think the reason why it is regarded by some as a satire, is to present the Renaissance Italy as a peaceful and cooperative state.

Machiavelli wrote The Prince as a manual for learning how to effectively wield power as a Prince in Renaissance Italy. Notwithstanding that he fell out of favour, and was forced out of politics, his observations and advice were informed by experience and his political values. Machiavelli is a fruitful source of realpolitik.

@@BigHenFor this is what I meant

I dunno about that... It might be one of those Cdrama thing that got popular. Then again, many powerful women are interested in men they couldn't get. Just like powerful men do with women.

@@CoolHistoryBros Yeah, I got this from a document somewhere awhile ago. Even that one said it was a rumor since she never acted on it or wrote about her feeling

Did wu zetian have many husbands??... I mean... A male emperor can have a harem, so why the female can't do that...

@@arbood26 she did have more than one boy friend at the same time.

@@arbood26 She has 2 emperor husband when she was a concubine then many male-concubines as emperor, 2 of whom(brothers, one of them was her daughter lover) took power when she was old & weak, ironically using the same trick she once did when her husband was sick. But the court has learn from history & kill them before they purge the court, then the court reinstall her useless 3rd son(she kept all her sons stupid as they have more legitimate claim to the throne thus could overthrow her) as the new emperor

What can be more evil than lawfare?

You wanna summon the great old ones？

@@LuisAldamiz I always that being of above the law while prosecuting others for infractions was the most evil.

could be. but at the same time, could all the accusation against her simply be written off just because she face discrimination as a woman? She may be discriminated against, but that does not mean she is innocent.

Being a ruler in the past doesn't guarantee you a"innocence" every ruler had blood on their hands ,i think,being "ruthless" and maintaining that kind of imagery is the way of life for them to send message out to their opponents, being a female ruler at that time period can be hard,it was a male dominated 'organisation' so that's pretty much likely,and they feel threatened by what they perceive as a "weak lowly female" whose only position at that time is seen as a material possession ,a child bearing machine,a decorative iteam, and a pawn. Forgive my english, I'm not a native English speaker.

@@thisnthat7760 Your English is fine, don't worry. One thing about historical figures for me is that are we sure we know everything about them? like Wu Zetian being a woman may gets her biased comments in the history books, so maybe her evil is exaggerated. One the other hand there are people that say it is because of sexual discrimination that all the evil deeds are made up, she is then upheld to a very high model for woman etc. But how do we know it is true or false. On one hand you have man that wants to bash her, one the other hand you have woman that praise her out of their desire to have a figure of empowerment to look up to.

@@gooddreams8495 so far all we know about her is from those historical records ,i don't think anyone can say that "this is a fact" , throughout history kingdom raised up and faded away and so on so forth, various rulers both male and female, history written and rewritten.anybody can either idealise or demonize past or present public figures, and personally i think its amusing to look up at them from both sides.

Hey I might just do it myself lol

Never, destroy that book for the good of the universe

It does sound pretty interesting, if slightly nefarious. I'd be down to read it if it ever is translated.

I would like to read the translation...

There actually is a translated copy offered on Amazon...but it’s admittedly rather poorly edited and translated judging by the preview of it.

I will go into Three Kingdoms before the middle of the year, but the answer to that question is simple. The folk stories, opera and novels' audience are peasants. So that's why they made Liu Bei, the peasant underdog the hero. Also, it was perfomed a lot during the Yuan dynasty when the Han Chinese felt oppressed by their Mongol overlord and the idea of reviving the Han dynasty sounds like an attractive idea.

Liu bei fits the Confucius ideology better. And as you may already have known, in ancient china (and partly even the modern china) whoever wins the favour from the Confucius scholars, wins the ultimate right to rule the country. After a quick wikipedia search, cao cao installed the late han dynasty puppet emperor on the throne in order to gain power. Politically, there is nothing wrong with his methodology, numerous people did the same in history, but the action was probably least approved by Confucius teaching. Liu be had a reputation for being benevolent, and had royal connection to the han dynasty. In Confucius view, the mandate of heaven was not lost if there was still a capable ruler from the ruling family. And the romance of kingdom was written by a Confucius scholar, so it was probably a way to express the injustice the author felt about the real history.

Thanks! We have a similar situation with English history with the depiction of different kings in the Robin Hood stories.

​@@CoolHistoryBros Three Kingdoms has two version : Luo Guanzhong (novel) and Chen Suo (historical). I wish you could share the both version as well like the previous story of Sun Jian who give the seal rather than keep it.

maybe because liu bei is an underdog :3

Keep in mind if she didn't struggle hard, she should had been killed in her young age. the queen had the right and intentions to kill her. Her first husband the emperor pre-ordered to kill her after he was dead (Yet, he has soft heart when dealing women he actually love, he canceled the order, instead send her to a monastery) Her second husband another emperor also had a plan to remove her. If that was you, what could you do? accept the fate others arranged for you?

But don't watch his 3 kingdoms video From what I read in the comments, there is a rock roll, in Mandarin

A harem consisted by 600 pet men, That means something to the historians of a male dominated world.

@@user-yo1pz2qu2b did she really? Or was it to make her look bad?

Why did she changed the name of the dynasty?

@@Samperor Some said those are not 100% real because historians hate her, they may lied a lot, but using males as pets wasn't lie according to many serious history records. It is impossible that all the historians of her time lied.

Why male?

Nothing. Her Zhou dynasty with the last name Wu, she made her kids changing their last names from Li to Wu.

Zhou dynasty, A Vassal/Foreign state that crushed Real China "shang dynasty", leading the nation to a better future. Zhou people didn't have the right to replace shang, yet people still accepted Zhou and count it as a Chinese dynasty. Wu's situation is kinda similar, She didn't have the right to replace Tang dynasty, Yet she took the ruling right, Using the name of Zhou means she promised people that they will have great future just like what Zhou dynasty had done to people.

A harem consisted by 600 pet men!

@@user-yo1pz2qu2b If an Emperor is normally / usually have thousands of concubine, why can't an Empress have the similar? XD XD

@@ecrush5080 She is not a empress though, A empress still submissive to someone. She is a female emperor.

@@user-yo1pz2qu2b Yes u are right! XD

@@user-yo1pz2qu2b there is the term empress regent and empress regnant An regent is a ruler who reigns on behalf of someone (usually one not old enough to rule like a son or nephew or whatever) A regnant is a ruler who reigns by their own right. And that is exactly what Empress Wu was, an empress regnant

I'a I'a.Cthulhu Fhatgn!

@@williamwan3712 FTR I consider Cthulhu books utterly boring. So much that I can't even recall the (quite famous) author's name right now.

​@@LuisAldamiz You mean H.P. Lovecraft? Love + Craft isn't that simple?

@@williamwan3712 - Sure, that guy. How did he become so popular when his stories are so boring and poorly written? And nope, my mind can't associate him with neither love nor craftiness, sorry.

@@williamwan3712 - Also I thought the Necronomicon was a Hollywood invention, my bad.

The "Zhou" for Zhou dynasty is not pronounced the same way as Dong Zhuo's "Zhuo".

@@CoolHistoryBros I see thanks

Varies by dialect of Mandarin as well. For example, Sichuanese people tend to pronounce Zhou as Zou, while closer to Beijing and Manchuria the J pronunciation is more a thing.

@@scottyork1504 Indeed, in all my lessons I am endlessly taught that Zh has a slight vibrating feel to it, which separates it from Ch which has a harsher feel to it that isn't vibrated. While Z is the same Z sound as in Western languages, Zoo, Zach, Zane, etc. But I am aware of regional dialects that change certain initials. For instance, I live in Nanchang as a teacher right now so instead of Sh- as in Laoshi, or Si-shi-si (that's a fun one) it seems to be a more enunciated Si- sound, so Laoshi becomes LaoSi and si-shi-si becomes si-Si-si. I imagine in this case it is a slightly different dialect than we may be taught in our classes.

In fact the pronunciation of 周 Zhou sounds more like "Joe". 東周East Zhou= Dong Joe, a guy with "big gun" lol

It is possible! Think of Zhou dynasty, A Vassal/Foreign state that crushed Real China "shang dynasty", leading the nation to a better future. Zhou people didn't have the right to replace shang, yet people still accepted Zhou and count it as a Chinese dynasty. Wu's situation is kinda similar, She didn't have the right to replace Tang dynasty, Yet she took the ruling right, Using the name of Zhou means she promised people that they will have great future just like what Zhou dynasty had done to it people. If Japanese in WW2 took China, likely they also will do some promises and try to fulfill it, to declare their ruling right.

@@user-yo1pz2qu2b if the Japanese took China it is more than likely that the Chinese would eventually rebel, Japan at the time was extremely cruel and would do anything to enforce its rule. I doubt Japan would do even the smallest things to keep China's people happy, since they viewed the Han Chinese and Manchus as inferior people

@@Gojifann Sure thing, Chinese rebeled to Chin Dynasty (The first actual united China), To north Jin dynasty, To mongol and Manchu's fake China, And to Communist China too. Surely the Japanese ruled China won't be different, However that will cost a lot of time, Because in real life the Japanese weren't as cruel as the world formerly believed to be. There are 2 examples, Japanese built Taiwan well, And North east China under Japanese rule keep remain as some of the richest area in Asia of that era. If Japanese didn't made big mistakes, they prabably would rule quite a long time just like what the Manchus had done

@@Gojifann Mongols and Manchus also viewed Chinese people as inferior people, Communists also viewed Chinese people as inferior people judged by how they treated foreigners and how they treated Chinese people. They all ruled China quite a long time. Mongol empire ruled China for 83 years, Manchu empire ruled China for 291 years, Communists ruled China for almost 100 years. If Japanese didn't lost the world war2, They can rule China too, not sure how long but should be longer than mongols.

There is also the situation with last King of Shang Dynasty and Daji who is documented in Sima Qian's work, and later figures in the Ming Dynasty novel Fengshen Bang. Confucius' family is a cadet branch of the Shang so reading up on that last King gives some context to how he thought. See also the meeting with Lady Nanzi. It is also feasible that Women had relatively higher status than say in the later dynasties(Lady Fuhao for example), so Confucianism could have been a way to counter Women led Rebellions too(Southern China has had this more often in later centuries with one of the most recent being Ching Shih's fleet).

She also killed her own son, the crown prince who was against the way she governed and reported to his father.

The story of her murdering her own baby is questionable at best. Considering that story only pops up in any historical documents long after her death and she was vilified. But you never know, she was pretty ruthless. I could definitely see her using her baby's naturally occurred death and claiming it was a murder by the empress.

The fact that she killed her other son let's us know she had no problem killing her own children for political advantage.

“She murdered her own baby ” thing is basically fake

@@ffn8917 I do think there's a big difference in exhiling her adult son and then killing him on claims of treason and strangling a baby to frame a rival. Like, who knows? History is very muddled considering that we only get Wu Zeitans enemies saying these things and her enemies had every reason to discredit her to start a new dynasty. History is full of examples of famous rulers being written about post death having done unspeakable things (bathing in bathtubs full of blood of virgins, inserting babies into their mothers impailed bodies so they could die together), even when there's no evidence for these things beyond the people who have every reason to hate them. Now usually, this doesn't occur out of nowhere. I have no doubt Wu was ruthless and she killed many people to get her way, including her own heirs who were a threat to her throne. But actually, killing family members in Chinese emperor's history certainly isn't something limited to Wu Zeitan. There were plenty of emperor's that killed their brothers, and their own rebellious children, sometimes on nothing more than information from their advisors, just like Wu. So let's not pretend that this is something out of the norm for emperors. Wu is unique in the way the aristocracy was set up for males only she could not keep her power once a viable male came into existence. And her power was so tentative that she played a very vicious game to keep it and killed many people. Obviously, she was vicious to keep her power but the question is did she strangle her own baby or was it propaganda after her death? Since it was written by those she had made enemies of we'll never know. All I'm saying is we shouldn't pretend that we have definitive proof because we don't. History is written by the victors and considering the history Wu had her scribes write during her reign was completely scrapped after her death and rewritten by her enemies, in the long run Wu Zeitan definitely lost.

The true heir of the great emperor who yank the command away from the incompetent son, save the legacy of her husband from destruction and usher its second golden age?

@@thanakonpraepanich4284 yep, definitely

Naa she is more similar to Kosem Sultana of Ottoman Empire.

Why is The Prince "misunderstood"? I've read it several times and it's quite straightforward.

@@LuisAldamiz The issue is more people who HAVEN'T read it, yet parrot the misquote of "It is better to be feared than loved" out of context.

@@kimarous that was posed as a question, not a statement I thought.

@@kimarous - Misquoting is absolutely normal. A lot of people do it out pure propaganda impulses: they write something that they like, they paste the face of Einstein by its side and voilá... "alternative truth". The most misquoted person ever, after Einstein, is probably Gandhi. Nobody (but me) ever quotes his: "the real difference is not between those who fight with weapons and those who fight with nonviolence, the real difference is between those who fight and those who do not". It's not a reason not to translate a book. People should be able to read it in full and make their own opinions even if wrong. As for the specific misquote: Machiavello did wrote it. It has a context, which is that of "when in danger" (in a crisis), as you underline but do not reveal, but it's much more dangerous to go around "burning books" than misquoting them. The context is also of promoting both love and fear in balance, which is not contrary to the "missquote" but rather a nuance to it and good startpoing in an open debate to unveil the psycho before you. I'm pretty sure people can missquote in Chinese as well anyhow. And considering that in 100 or so it will replace English as world language, your attitude is only delying the unavoidable.

@@LuisAldamiz in whom do you refer, "psycho"? You make quite the prophecy that Chinese will overtake English as the world's dominant language, can you impart some of your reason as to why?

Her son and her sister's son

@@williamwan3712 Yes...

By that definition Cu Xi was an Empress Regent, dunno about the translation in Chinese tho

@@shanedoesyoutube8001 Yes, Someone like Cao Cao in ancient China who had more power than the emperor himself....

Not that smart

MAGA!!!!!

@@williamwan3712 Wu clan and Trump clan probably cut from the same cloth; they have to be sharp or be wiped out.