How China Almost Industrialized 500 Years Before Europe - Song Dynasty History

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For some, Song dynasty is considered as a weak and pathetic dynasty. But historical reality proved otherwise, as China became a techno-superpower, and raised the living standard of hundred of millions.

🕒[TIMESTAMP]🕒
0:00 Introduction
0:48 Song Dynasty's Situation
1:53 Civil Over Military
3:48 The Arts of Song Dynasty
4:36 Masterworks
5:47 Imperial Exams
6:42 Printing
7:24 Technological Dissemination
8:28 Su Song, Shen Kuo, Su Shi, Sima Guang
9:45 Wang Anshi's New Policy

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Qin Dynasty Origin
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📚SOURCES:
宋史
資治通鑑
Hung Hing Ming, 2014, Ten States, Five Dynasties, One Great Emperor
Ouyang Xiu, (TL: Richard L. Davis), 2004, Historical Records of the Five Dynasties
Victor Cunrui Xiong, 2009, Historical Dictionary of Medieval China
David A. Graff, 2002, Medieval Chinese Warfare 300 –900
Richard W. Bulliet, et al., 2009 The Earth and Its Peoples A Global History
Banister, Judith (1992). "A Brief History of China's Population"
Ronald Egan, 2006, Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song China
Stephen BroadBerry, Hanhui Guan, and David Daokui li, 2018, China, Europe, and the Great Divergence: A Study in Historical National Accounting, 980–1850
Yuejiao Zhang, 2013, Examining Scientific and Technical Writing Strategies in the 11th Century Chinese Science Book Brush Talks from Dream Brook
Tonio Andrade, 2016, The Gunpowder Age - China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History

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[CoolHistoryBros]

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[barbiquearea]

Despite losing most of Northern China to the Jin, the Song to their credit were still able to hold off the Jin and later Mongols for most of their dynasty by investing in strong fortifications at key strategic locations, and of course their advanced gunpowder weapons certainly kept their enemies at bay, even when the Song bureaucracy and its emperors became increasingly feckless and corrupt. One example is their navy. As unlike their northern neighbors the Song could employ riverboats equipped with paddle wheel technology that had better movement and maneuverability compared to traditional sailing ships. These boats equipped were quipped with trebuchets that lobbed gunpowder bombs at enemy fleets were virtually unassailable when taking on the Jin navy on the Yangtze. These ships were so effective that they were even used up until the Opium Wars, much to the surprise of the British who did not expect the Chinese to be this advanced in their nautical technology.

[godzillamothra]

Song dynasty was a golden age empire born in the wrong time when the wolves are at peak of their power. Not only in culture and technology. Compare to other dynasties, Song empire also had relatively benevolent emperors.

[barbiquearea]

The Song Dynasty has been considered the true Renaissance Period, that came a several centuries ahead of the Enlightenment in Europe. Had things continued the way they did, its quite possible China would have experienced an industrial age of sorts. Having already mastered blast furnace technology, and production of silk, paper and ceramics on an industrial scale, as well as an arms producing industry quite advanced for its time. Its likely the Chinese and their East Asian neighbors could have seen an industrial era long before the British did in the 19th century.

[kuroazrem]

This is probably the most interesting period for me in the whole of Chinese history. In fact, I think that, hadn't the Mongols wrecked China at this stage, it could have spearheaded modernity, with it reaching Europea via the Muslim World.

[jtsa]

The Wang Anshi reform itself is one of the most important lessons on economics, policy, and party politics in Chinese history. This deserves an episode on its own.

[MarkMiller]

The mongols ruined everything, the also ended Islam’s golden age. Everywhere the mongols successful invaded went into a dark age, China, Middle East and Eastern Europe became backwards. Western Europe escaped the destruction and benefited from the technology and knowledge brought from the east.

[xz]

An important reason for 重文轻武 (more focused on civil than on military) is that the founder himself of Song is by coup to attain power, so he is particularly alert to any remotely potential military guys/activities, thus he had a game play called 杯酒释兵权 (release general's military power by a wine/dine talk). Since the beginning of the Dynasty, Song was bound to be on a path of civil activities. Unfortunately, by Southern Song, that was the time nomads like Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongols started to rise.

[lhan]

It reminds you of the importance of having strong military when a country grows into prosperity. Qing dynasty was also one of the wealthiest countries among the world’s, until it got wrecked and robbed by almost every single strong power of the time.

[lerneanlion]

The defeat of the Song dynasty by the Mongols marked one of the saddest moments I saw in history alongside with the Sack of Baghdad in 1258 and the Sack of Constantiople in 1204. If only the Song and Western Xia willingly become Chingghis Khan's vassals, they may survived longer.

P.S; Despite the imperial court being portrayed as corrupted, the media always make an exception when it comes to Bao Zheng. As fo Pang Ji, his historical self is generally a good guy while his fictionalized version is a big jerk who is always at odds with Bao Zheng.

[deacudaniel]

What I love the most about the Song dynasty are the landscape paintings made in that era.

[ReviveHF]

Also geography also plays an important role in why Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty are slow in developing industrial revolution. Because the coal mines are far away from cities whereas in Britain the mines are located adjacent to cities. Coal is a crucial resources to make high quality steel and as a fuel to power steam engines.
Despite China's geography is not ideal for pioneering the 1st industrial revolution but at least its a lot better than Russia. Russia is huge but its resources are scattered all over the places and there are constant lack of manpower issues in Russia.

[KiwiImpactSaint]

Worth mentioning, Song militaries saved Europe and Egypt by killing Mongke Khan in 1259, possibly with a firearm projectile. Mongol Empire fractured after Mongke died, never managed to invade anywhere with its full force again.

[ChrisL]

Damn! So many biased people in the comment section. The Chinese were very advance civilization and powerful one too before they lost to the Mongols. If it wasn't for them the Chinese would have been the ones to make history and a global impact on the world. Anyone who has study Chinese history would be fully aware of this topic. The Chinese would have industrialized 500 or 700 years ago before any of the Europeans would have. There's already tons of evidence China had the ability to do it. By the late 1, 000's CE the Chinese under the Song period were able to produce up to 120, 000 tons of Iron or more. By that time period the Chinese were already using mostly machines to produce the Iron.

[jeremyahesteban]

It's really mind boggling if not amazing when you realize that China in the ancient times would have been the greatest superpower in the world if their respective dynasties had succeed.

[condorX]

This help me understand China better.

I’m from Malaysia. China has traded with Malaysia for 2000 years. In those years, they had been the world’s biggest powers many times. Never once they sent troops to take our land. Admiral Zheng He came to Malacca five times, in gigantic fleets, and a flagship eight times the size of Christopher Columbus’ flagship, Santa Maria. He could have seized Malacca easily, but he did not. In 1511, the Portuguese came. In 1642, the Dutch came. In the 18th century the British came. We were colonised by each, one after another.

When China wanted spices from India, they traded with the Indians. When they wanted gems, they traded with the Persian. They didn’t take lands. The only time China expanded beyond their current borders was in Yuan Dynasty, when Genghis and his descendants Ogedei Khan, Guyuk Khan & Kublai Khan concurred China, Mid Asia and Eastern Europe. But Yuan Dynasty, although being based in China, was a part of the Mongolian Empire.

Then came the Century of Humiliation. Britain smuggled opium into China to dope the population, a strategy to turn the trade deficit around, after the British could not find enough silver to pay the Qing Dynasty in their tea and porcelain trades. After the opium warehouses were burned down and ports were closed by the Chinese in ordered to curb opium, the British started the Opium War I, which China lost. Hong Kong was forced to be surrendered to the British in a peace talk (Nanjing Treaty). The British owned 90% of the opium market in China, during that time, Queen Victoria was the world’s biggest drug baron. The remaining 10% was owned by American merchants from Boston. Many of Boston’s institutions were built with profit from opium.

After 12 years of Nanjing Treaty, the West started getting really really greedy. The British wanted the Qing government:
1. To open the borders of China to allow goods coming in and out freely, and tax free.
2. Make opium legal in China.
Insane requests, Qing government said no. The British and French, with supports from the US and Russia from behind, started Opium War II with China, which again, China lost. The Anglo-French military raided the Summer Palace, and threatened to burn down the Imperial Palace, the Qing government was forced to pay with ports, free business zones, 300, 000 kilograms of silver and Kowloon was taken. Since then, China’s resources flew out freely through these business zones and ports. In the subsequent amendment to the treaties, Chinese people were sold overseas to serve as labor.

In 1900, China suffered attacks by the 8-National Alliance(Japan, Russia, Britain, France, USA, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary). Innocent Chinese civilians in Peking (Beijing now) were murdered, buildings were destroyed & women were raped. The Imperial Palace was raided, and treasures ended up in museums like the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris.

In late 1930s China was occupied by the Japanese in WWII. Millions of Chinese died during the occupancy. 300, 000 Chinese died in Nanjing Massacre alone.

Mao brought China together again from the shambles. There were peace and unity for some time. But Mao’s later reign saw sufferings and deaths from famine and power struggles.

Then came Deng Xiao Ping and his infamous “black-cat and white-cat” story. His preference in pragmatism than ideologies has transformed China. This thinking allowed China to evolve all the time to adapt to the actual needs in the country, instead of rigidly bounded to ideologies. It also signified the death of Communism in actually practice in China. The current Socialism+Meritocracy+Market Economy model fits the Chinese like gloves, and it propels the uprise of China. Singapore has a similar model, and has been arguably more successful than Hong Kong, because Hong Kong being gateway to China, was riding on the economic boom in China, while Singapore had no one to gain from.

In just 30 years, the CPC have moved 800 millions of people out from poverty. The rate of growth is unprecedented in human history. They have built the biggest mobile network, by far the biggest high speed rail network in the world, and they have become a behemoth in infrastructure. They made a fishing village called Shenzhen into the world’s second largest technological centre after the Silicon Valley. They are growing into a technological power house. It has the most elaborate e-commerce and cashless payment system in the world. They have launched exploration to Mars. The Chinese are living a good life and China has become one of the safest countries in the world. The level of patriotism in the country has reached an unprecedented height.

For all of the achievements, the West has nothing good to say about it. China suffers from intense anti-China propagandas from the West. Western Media used the keyword “Communist” to instil fear and hatred towards China.
Everything China does is negatively reported.

They claimed China used slave labor in making iPhones. The truth was, Apple was the most profitable company in the world, it took most of the profit, leave some to Foxconn (a Taiwanese company) and little to the labor.

They claimed China was inhuman with one-child policy. At the same time, they accused China of polluting the earth with its huge population. The fact is the Chinese consume just 30% of energy per capita compared to the US.

They claimed China underwent ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang. The fact is China has a policy which priorities ethnic minorities. For a long time, the ethnic minorities were allowed to have two children and the majority Han only allowed one. The minorities are allowed a lower score for university intakes. There are 39, 000 mosque in China, and 2100 in the US. China has about 3 times more mosque per muslim than the US.
When terrorist attacks happened in Xinjiang, China had two choices:
1. Re-educate the Uighur extremists before they turned terrorists.
2. Let them be, after they launch attacks and killed innocent people, bomb their homes.
China chose 1 to solve problem from the root and not to do killing. How the US solve terrorism? Fire missiles from battleships, drop bombs from the sky.

During the pandemic,
When China took extreme measures to lockdown the people, they were accused of being inhuman.
When China recovered swiftly because of the extreme measures, they were accused of lying about the actual numbers.
When China’s cases became so low that they could provide medical support to other countries, they were accused of politically motivated.
Western Media always have reasons to bash China.

Just like any country, there are irresponsible individuals from China which do bad and dirty things, but the China government overall has done very well. But I hear this comment over and over by people from the West: I like Chinese people, but the CPC is evil. What they really want is the Chinese to change the government, because the current one is too good.

Fortunately China is not a multi-party democratic country, otherwise the opposition party in China will be supported by notorious NGOs (Non-Government Organization) of the USA, like the NED (National Endowment for Democracy), to topple the ruling party. The US and the British couldn’t crack Mainland China, so they work on Hong Kong. Of all the ex-British colonial countries, only the Hong Kongers were offered BNOs by the British. Because the UK would like the Hong Kongers to think they are British citizens, not Chinese. A divide-and-conquer strategy, which they often used in Color Revolutions around the world.

They resort to low dirty tricks like detaining Huawei’s CFO & banning Huawei. They raised a silly trade war which benefits no one. Trade deficit always exist between a developing and a developed country. USA is like a luxury car seller who ask a farmer: why am I always buying your vegetables and you haven’t bought any of my cars?

When the Chinese were making socks for the world 30 years ago, the world let it be. But when Chinese started to make high technology products, like Huawei and DJI, it caused red-alert. Because when Western and Japanese products are equal to Chinese in technologies, they could never match the Chinese in prices. First world countries want China to continue in making socks. Instead of stepping up themselves, they want to pull China down.

The recent movement by the US against China has a very important background. When Libya, Iran, and China decided to ditch the US dollar in oil trades, Gaddafi’s was killed by the US, Iran was being sanctioned by the US, and now it’s China’s turn. The US has been printing money out of nothing. The only reason why the US Dollar is still widely accepted, is because it’s the only currency which oil is allowed to be traded with. The US has an agreement with Saudi that oil must be traded in US dollar ONLY. Without the petrol-dollar status, the US dollars will sink, and America will fall. Therefore anyone trying to disobey this order will be eliminated. China will soon use a gold-backed crypto-currency, the alarms in the White House go off like mad.

China’s achievement has been by hard work. Not buy looting the world.

I have deep sympathy for China for all the suffering, but now I feel happy for them. China is not rising, they are going back to where they belong. Good luck China.
-C L

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-Tasia Grzenia

The weird part is he actually didn’t land in what we considered the United States of America he landed in Haiti and the Dominican Republic
--The Shöcker Pit

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[john-xiong-]

I think the Chinese would have definitely gone Industrialized had it not been for the Mongols. China during the Song Dynasty 宋朝 was pretty advance due to inheriting some levels of science and technology from the past Chinese Dynasty the Tang 唐朝. It's population was already at a height of 80 million people. Meanwhile the total population of all of Europe during the 1000s CE combined was only at 56.4 million people only. Also like you said in this video their GDP was pretty high about $997 million. Plus Europe wasn't even unified and was mostly their own small independent Kingdoms or nations, while China was unified as one and large as one. China was also the first to build the clock tower long before the British did it in the 1800s CE. China even had lots and lots of machines similar to the British Industrial Revolution in the 1800s CE. China also produce the largest amount of Iron and were able to make at least 120, 000 tons or more of Iron each year. Meanwhile the British were only able to make only 12, 000 tons of Iron before their Industrial Revolution. Let's not forget the Chinese were already the first to use coal before anyone else. China during the Song Dynasty had not only lots of lots of machines they also had advance science and technologies of their time. But sadly we will never know or see Song Dynasty's 宋朝 lost and advance science and technology because of the Mongols.

[ranaumer]

Great people of China 🇨🇳
Love From Pakistan 🇵🇰

[mottscottison]

It was said that if not for Mongol invasion the Industrial revolution could have happened 500 years earlier in China.

[deacudaniel]

Also, it would be cool if you guys made a special video about traditional Chinese arts such as painting, sculpture, architecture etc, the main styles, the philosophy behind them and their cultural significance.