Great Empire of China 大張中華帝國 Timeline: Differently | ||||||
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Anthem: 卿雲歌 "The Song to the Auspicious Cloud" |
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Location of China (green)
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Capital | Beijing | |||||
Largest city | Shanghai | |||||
Official languages | Standard Chinese | |||||
Other languages | Cantonese, Wu, Zuang, Yue, and others | |||||
Religion | Confucianism 38.2% Buddhism 26.2% Taoism 15.4% Zoroastrianism 9.3% Christianity 8.5% other 2.4% |
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Government | Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy | |||||
- | Emperor | Longtai | ||||
- | Prime Minister | Tsai Ing-wen | ||||
Establishment | ||||||
- | First pre-imperial dynasty | c. 2070 BCE | ||||
- | First imperial dynasty | 221 BCE | ||||
- | Current dynasty | 12 February 1912 | ||||
Area | ||||||
- | Total | 4,604,384 km2 1,777,763 sq mi |
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Population | ||||||
- | Estimate | 1,483,695,000 (2nd) | ||||
Currency | Wen | |||||
Drives on the | left |
China (Chinese: 中國/中華, Zhōngguó/Zhōnghuá, Middle State/Central Beauty), officially the Great Empire of China (Chinese: 大張中華帝國/大张中华帝国, Dà Zhāng Zhōnghuá Dìguó), and commonly known as the Xian dynasty (Chinese: 西安王朝; wāngcháo) is a country in East Asia. It is the second-most populous country in the world, with over 1.48 billion inhabitants, as well as Asia's second- and the world's fifth-largest nation, with a surface area spanning over 4.6 million square kilometers. It is probably also the oldest monarchy in continuous existence, alongside with Egypt.
China is bounded by the East China Sea on the east and by the South China Sea on the south. It borders Mongolia and Manchuria to the north, Uyghuristan to the northwest, Tibet to the southwest, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Laos, Hong Kong, Macau, and Vietnam to the south.
China is a member of the League of Nations and a founding member of PANTO.
History[]
China emerged as one of the world's earliest civilizations, in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, China's political system has been based on hereditary monarchies, or dynasties, beginning with the semi-legendary Xia dynasty in 21st century BCE. Since then, China has expanded, fractured, and re-unified numerous times. In the 3rd century BCE, the Qin reunited core China and established the first Chinese empire. The succeeding Han dynasty, which ruled from 206 BC until 220 AD, saw some of the most advanced technology at that time, including papermaking and the compass, along with agricultural and medical improvements. The invention of gunpowder and movable type in the Tang dynasty (618–907) and Northern Song (960–1127) completed the Four Great Inventions. Tang culture spread widely in Asia, as the new Silk Route brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and the Horn of Africa.
Ming Dynasty[]
The Ming Dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the primary capital of Peking fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the Shun dynasty, soon replaced by the Manchu-led Qing dynasty), numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family—collectively called the Southern Ming—survived until 1662.
The Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398) attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the navy's dockyards in Nanjing were the largest in the world. He also took great care breaking the power of the court eunuchs and unrelated magnates, enfeoffing his many sons throughout China and attempting to guide these princes through the Huang-Ming Zuxun, a set of published dynastic instructions. This failed when his teenage successor, the Jianwen Emperor, attempted to curtail his uncles' power, prompting the Jingnan Campaign, an uprising that placed the Prince of Yan upon the throne as the Yongle Emperor in 1402. The Yongle Emperor established Yan as a secondary capital and renamed it Peking, constructed the Forbidden City, and restored the Grand Canal and the primacy of the imperial examinations in official appointments. He rewarded his eunuch supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats.
During the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He, a Zoroastrian eunuch led eight enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia the eastern coasts of Africa, and even North America. On his eighth and final voyage, The Yongle Emperor had instructed Zheng He to explore Eastward and to find a landmass "as big as Asia itself" and claim it in the name of the Emperor. The large fleet of Chinese junks were all intrigued when a sailor cried out "土地" (Tǔdì), meaning "Land". After landing in what is now Baja California, he planted a Ming flag and declared the land around it under the rule of the Chinese Empire. Zheng He named the area "明未知土地" (Míng Wèizhī Tǔdì), literally meaning "Ming Unknown Land", although the region is now referred to as "Ming Columbia"
During their stay in Ming Columbia, a city was founded, which they called "新松江" (Xīn sōngjiāng, "New Songjiang"), a name still used today in the region. Although hostile at first, the natives warmed up to the Chinese sailors when they offered to trade different types of food and possessions. Zheng He signed a peace treaty with the Chief, which granted the Chinese authority over the entire Baja Peninsula, in exchange for the Chinese protection.
The rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances; the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade and connected and fortified the Great Wall of China into its modern form. Wide-ranging censuses of the entire empire were conducted decennially, but the desire to avoid labor and taxes and the difficulty of storing and reviewing the enormous archives at Nanjing hampered accurate figures. Estimates for the late-Ming population vary from 160 to 200 million, but necessary revenues were squeezed out of smaller and smaller numbers of farmers as more disappeared from the official records or "donated" their lands to tax-exempt eunuchs or temples. Haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from "Japanese" pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves.
By the 16th century, however, the expansion of European trade – albeit restricted to islands near Guangzhou such as Macau – spread the Columbian Exchange of crops, plants, and animals into China, introducing chili peppers to Sichuan cuisine and highly productive maize and potatoes, which diminished famines and spurred population growth. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced a massive influx of Japanese and American silver. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose paper money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, the heterodoxy introduced by Wang Yangming permitted a more accommodating attitude. Zhang Juzheng's initially successful reforms proved devastating when a slowdown in agriculture produced by the Little Ice Age joined changes in Japanese and Spanish policy that quickly cut off the supply of silver now necessary for farmers to be able to pay their taxes. In the Ming Columbia colony, the Spanish Empire invaded the Aztec Empire, bolstering Spanish expansions in the Americas. Together with native resistance, the weakened Ming colonial army fended off the Spanish armies for almost three whole years before the Spanish forced the Chinese into submission.
In the Treaty, the Spanish Empire would annex the entire colony in exchange for the Chinese and Native settlers to live freely and without harm. After the last Ming ship left the American coast, the Ming Colonial period ended. Combined with crop failure, floods, and the Great Plague, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was himself defeated shortly afterward by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty.
Qing Dynasty[]
The Ming Dynasty was conquered by the Qing, a Manchu Dynasty. The Qing conquered most of what is now modern-day China and Mongolia, and would achieve some of China's highs and lows. China went through a period of stagnation during the era of humiliation which had started when the UK waged war against China and gained Hong Kong in the Opium Wars. Japan had defeated the Qing Dynasty and gained control of Manchuria, Taiwan and Korea was turned into a Japanese puppet state. The Qing Dynasty was overthrown in a coup by the Anti-Qing Coalition who replaced the Qing with a new Imperial Dynasty founded by Yuan Shikai known as the Xian Dynasty. The Qing Emperors fled to Manchuria which was then turned into a puppet state of Japan.
Xian Dynasty[]
The Xian Dynasty had liberalized and federalized the Empire after their takeover and all foreigners were booted out of the country. The British were allowed to keep Hong Kong and rule over it and Japan was allowed to keep Taiwan.
During the Cold War, China sided with Western Europe and the First World and its presence was among the decisive factors that led to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1982.
In 2008, China experienced a series of revelry called the Rice Riots.
Politics[]
Administrative divisions[]
The Chinese Empire is divided into 19 provinces (省级/省級), 2 autonomous regions (自治区/自治區) and also directly into 5 municipalities (特别市/特別市), totalizing 26 administrative divisions. It also formerly disputed some islands with Japan, but ultimately the dispute was resolved in June 2022 when it was agreed to split the two islands between the two countries.
Name | Type | Population | Area (km²) | Capital |
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Anhui (安徽) |
Province | 59,500,510 | 139,700 | Hefei |
Fujian (福建) |
Province | 41,673,542 | 121,580.456 | Jincheng |
Guangdong (广东) |
Province | 104,303,132 | 180,000 | Guangzhou |
Gansu (甘肃) |
Province | 25,575,254 | 454,300 | Lanzhou |
Guizhou (贵州) |
Province | 34,746,468 | 176,000 | Guiyang |
Henan (河南) |
Province | 94,023,567 | 167,000 | Zhengzhou |
Hubei (湖北) |
Province | 57,237,740 | 185,900 | Wuhan |
Hebei (河北) |
Province | 71,854,202 | 187,700 | Shijiazhuang |
Hunan (湖南) |
Province | 65,683,722 | 210,000 | Changsha |
Jiangsu (江苏) |
Province | 78,659,903 | 102,600 | Nanjing |
Jiangxi (江西) |
Province | 44,567,475 | 167,000 | Nanchang |
Qinghai (青海) |
Province | 5,626,722 | 721,200 | Xining |
Sichuan (四川) |
Province | 80,418,200 | 485,000 | Chengdu |
Shandong (山东) |
Province | 95,793,065 | 153,800 | Jinan |
Shaanxi (陕西) |
Province | 37,327,378 | 205,600 | Xi'an |
Shanxi (山西) |
Province | 35,712,111 | 156,300 | Taiyuan |
Taiwan (臺灣) |
Province | 19,420,362 | 33,963.974 | Taipei |
Yunnan (云南) |
Province | 45,966,239 | 394,000 | Kunming |
Zhejiang (浙江) |
Province | 54,426,891 | 102,000 | Hangzhou |
Guangxi Zhuang (广西壮族) |
Autonomous region | 46,026,629 | 236,000 | Nanning |
Ningxia Hui (宁夏回族) |
Autonomous region | 6,301,350 | 66,400 | Yinchuan |
Peking (北京) |
Municipality | 19,612,368 | 16,800 | Peking |
Chongqing (重庆) |
Municipality | 28,846,170 | 82,300 | Chongqing |
Shanghai (上海) |
Municipality | 23,019,148 | 6,341 | Shanghai |
Tianjin (天津) |
Municipality | 12,938,224 | 11,305 | Tianjin |
Xinbei (新北) |
Municipality | 4,014,560 | 2,052.57 | New Taipei City |
Armed forces[]
The Chinese Empire Liberation Corps (CELC) consists around 1,980,000 active personnel, which is the 2nd largest military standing, with around 570,000 in the reserve, the Chinese Armed Forces adopt the Type 7 Rifle, which is a licensed version of the M16A4, however it is currently in the process of being replaced by self-made QBZ-03.
The Chinese Empire Naval Service (CENS) is the 4th largest navy standing, with a large portion of the navy being Type 055 destroyers, the Naval Service splits into 3 fleets, the North Sea Fleet, operating in waters above Shanghai; the South Seat Fleet, operating in waters under Shanghai; and the Empire Expedition Fleet, which conducts operations with multiple neighboring countries to maintain dominance.
The Chinese Empire Air Force (CEAF) is the 3rd largest Air Force standing, the air force mainly adapts a wide range of J-10 and J-20 ( A licensed copy of the F-22); there are around 70 imported F-22’s ready to be in active service in the end of 2023. It is being discussed to purchase more F-22’s to be in service in the CEAF.
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