The Ancient Empire | Animated History of China | Part 1

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The Yellow River Civilisation competes with Egypt and Mesopotamia for one of the oldest river valley civilisations in the world.

Discover the folklore behind the rise of the Imperial Chinese Dynasties and how the Han people came to dominate the region of East Asia.

Chinese culture is a titan on the world stage, fascinating westerners since the days of Marco Polo and Zheng He, bringing tales of the Orient to the rest of the world. Join us now in the first chapter in the History of China!

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[Designed]

China's history in a nutshell
*Collapse*
*Reunite*
*_Repeat_*

[oewyfge]

Mongol: I have fought China the most!
Japan: No, I have!
Korea: Idiots, I have fought China the most!

China: Amateurs.

[HoovyTube]

I've been finding myself interested with ancient history, thanks for a nice introduction <3

[TheBeatlesfan]

I took a Chinese history course in college it was really interesting and I loved it

[unifieddynasty]

"Yu the Engineer"

Well of course Yu is Engineer. Yu must be engineer. Or doctor. Or scientist. Or Yu are disowned!

[kamou]

1:30 Xia Dynasty 夏朝
2:10 Shang Dynasty 商朝
2:29 Chou Dynasty 周朝
3:05 The spring and the autumn 春秋戰國
3:35 Qing Dynasty 秦朝
4:49 Han Dynasty 漢朝
6:00 Xin Dynasty (Xin Mang) 新朝（新莽）
6:23 3 Kingdoms 三國
6:27 YiJin South North Dynasty 魏晉南北朝
6:47 Sui Dynasty 隋朝
6:52 Tang Dynasty 唐朝
7:30 5 Dynasty and 10 Kingdoms 五代十國

[TheArmchairHistorian]

Awesome stuff as usual Suibhne. Your animations are really improving, keep it up!

Griff

[TTTTTTTTT]

As a person knowing Chinese and English, “Doesn’t translate well into English” makes me smile

[安荣-fg]

"Those long divided shall be united;
those long united shall be divided:
such is the way of the world."

“天下大势，分久必合；合久必分。”

[jellyrolls]

"Famous for inventing paper... which is apparently what people used to write things on." XD

[tomkelly]

That is a great book. I read it 10 years ago when my Chinese friend recommended it to me. I had asked him how I could learn more about China. He bought me that book. Very interesting

[frankiehompson]

The level of detail when a lake is shown only in a zoomed in view that lasts about 3 seconds when it’s an animation and isn’t necessary to the video at all is just very impressive

[crosbychang]

Wow, you only mentioned the brief 3 Kingdoms period for only a few seconds. Even though it's a mere small blip in history, it gave rise to one of the great classical literature, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Numerous opera shows, movies, tv serieses, and even video games were inspired by that period of history.

[QuikVidGuy]

I don't know how to say it, but... "Spring and Autumn" makes a lot of sense

[vaultoverseer]

2:20 It should be 鳴條instead of 名盜
2:38 Wangcheng should be 雒邑
3:59 It should be Xianyang instead of Wangcheng again
5:31 It should be 喀什instead of 喀市
The Border between Jin and the sixteen kingdom and Northern and Southern dynasty is not accurate both Chang'an and Luoyang should be included in the north rather than the south
6:55 Thai? You got to be kidding me. It should be 南詔 Nanzhao instead of Thai; And also Goguryeo 高句麗instead of Goryeo 高麗
7:33 宋 instead of 西夏


Please check the Chinese translation before you release part 2. If you need any help, I would be happy to give you some. Your animation is great, but the mistake in translation are too obvious.

[MrLolxu]

Oh no... This is not gonna be easy for one episode...
1) Calling the period after the breakup of Shang "Spring and Autumn" is correct because there's no other way to put it when in Chinese it just means the same with "春秋时代" in Chinese just means "Spring & Autumn Period" in English.
2) Qin Shihuang, China's actual 1st ruler and the emperor of unified China under Qin, was a maniac. The reason on why he ordered books to be burnt was not that he's fearful of books but he saw that books are the weapons of intellectuals and if the state has more intellectuals, his regime would be "corrupted" by these smartasses and his power would wane. So, he ordered books to be burnt and anyone who was caught keeping books to have their entire generation of family members be it close or in-laws to be executed. This led to massive unrest and many past generals that kept war manuals hid their bamboo books underground. He even ordered his own burial ground to be littered with thousands of terracota warriors and chariots to be buried with him when he died so that "These beings can follow him to the netherworld and still protect him" while laying his body around a makeshift river of mercury. In fact even after building his tomb, hundreds of workers were even locked inside and starved to death in order that the location of Qin's tomb won't be leaked. That's how maniacal Qin himself really was.
3) The Great Wall isn't as great at Qin Shihuang's time to what we know today. In fact, the Wall has been just dirt moat all the time with only bits and pieces of the wall being reinforced. It only took almost 5 centuries during the Ming dynasty under a competent general, Qi Jiguang, that completed the wall to how we know it today taking a huge amounts of money and manpower. Due to the ridiculousness of the expenditure and loss of live during the entire construction, Qi himself was nearly executed but thank god his ambitious project came to life.
4) Tang was really the golden age of China. Not only half of what we use in the modern world now were made from the Tang dynasty, they were also known to be the safest period in all of China's history where it is known that people don't even have to lock their doors when they sleep as everyone is rich enough that no one would even steal anything due to the immense wealth everyone had. In fact, when it comes to technologies, many were from the Tang like gunpower (It was popularized and spread by the Ming but it was actually invented by the Tang), compass, cold steel technology, nailless architecture (Japan and Goryeo (Present-day Korea both learnt their architecture skills from the Tang), mass printing and many others.

[theboyuanjcfan]

As a Chinese, I compliment your effort to make this video as accurate as possible, but there are several errors. No mentions of Xiongnu dividing into northern and southern Xiongnu, no mention of the Tartar Confederacy who originally rivaled the Mongols, and why is Song written as 西夏? It is not Thai, but Nan Zhao南昭. It is called Spring and Autumn period because Confucius wrote a chronical book about this period called 'The Chronicles of Spring and Autumn'. No mention of the Han came to power by defeating Western Chu. Xiongnu are not direct ancestors of Mongols, but one of the nomadic tribe subjugated by them is(东胡). No mention of Gokturk being divided into Eastern and Western Gokturk, and no mention of the rivalry and wars between Tang and Umayyad, and Abassid Caliphates, which were pivotal to world history! No mention of other schools of thoughts outside Confucism, such as legalism which helped Qin defeat the other warring states. And most pronounciations are off, sorry to say because I know you are not a, native speaker and your mother tongue is of a non-tonal language.

[Nostogi]

There’s a mistake in the video at 5:15. At the time of the Han dynasty, the Tarim basin was inhabited by Indo European people, not Turkic people. Turkic peoples arrived a millennia later and conquered and displaced the original inhabitants.

[linyang]

Great video! Wang Mang is a man said to be a time traveler :-).
There is just a small error start from 7:32 to the introduction of Mongolian where it is “Song" and 宋 in Chinese, but it is translated as "西夏” on the map while there is "Xixia 西夏“ to the left of the middle of the map.
Going to watch the next part.

[varunkaushik]

History would have been so interesting in my school days if they taught us with videos like these.