The Xia Dynasty | The China History Podcast | Ep. 14

Laszlo kicks off his China Imperial Dynasty Overview with the legendary Xia Dynasty.
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[jeffreysommer]

Magnificent! That was a first-rate lecture.

[undergroundpublishing]

The dates for the XIa match the dates from Sin, the youngest son of Canaan, the youngest son of Ham, and the civilization of Shinar (Sumer). The dating for the three sovereigns and five emperors match the Masoretic dates from the birth of Noah to the birth of Sin (approximately) and the not of Nuwa and Shun at the begining and end of the list is notable. The dating of the Xia matches the dating of Puzer-Suen and Shu-Suen of Shinar to a time not long after Hammurabi's Tower about 150 years before the founding of the Shang Dynasty. The symbols for Xia are suggested by ChatGPT to denote "nobles" and "big step, " suggesting a migration of the nobles of Sumer to China. If this were true, they would have brought the world's greatest iriigation tech with them, would explain the legend of the great Yu.

[Suite_annamite]

@11:00: Luckily, Vietnamese doesn't have that problem at all, where "Sơn Tây" (Shanxi, 山西) and "Thiểm Tây" (Shaanxi, 陝西) both look and sound different.

[mitranimukherjee]

Please write subtitles because it is difficult to take notes of Chinese names!

[Pyro-Moloch]

10:15 "did not even enter his home"
What if he just hated his family?

[Josh-xlrz]

Another great video! I have one question which is how much power did the emperors have during the xia dynasty? You said in the video that it was a collection of states or kingdoms each ruled by a strongman or leader. Were these states part of the Xia or just surrounding kingdoms? Were there other ruling dynastys nearby? And when you say chinas population was 1 to 2 million do you mean just the land of the xia dynasty or the population of all the land of curent day china? What im basically asking is were these warring states part of the xia dynasty or were they outide of their land. Sorry for so many questions im just confused.

[edwardjing]

Chinese province names didn’t come about until early modern periods (Ming & Qing). Using these place names for mythological ages certainly feel anachronistic.

The same goes for the title “Emperor”. As you know, Qin Shihuangdi was the first emperor. Terms like “Yellow Emperor”, “Emperor Yao”, and “Emperor Shun” would give people the feeling that China was more organized than it actually was during this time period.

It was generally accepted that the legends of “Three Sovereigns and Five Monarchs” were created during the Warring States period, when people called for peaceful and unifying figures during an era of violence and division. It could be said that the title of “huang di” or emperor was created as an answer to such expectations.

Were there any historicity to the flood myth, the Yu myth, and the legends of “Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors”? Well, if they were true, their images would be closer to “God-kings” or “alliance leaders” other than a standard Chinese emperor.

[asherdossetter]

The Qin dynasty was the first real or true dynasty of China. The Shang was the first one we know for sure existed.