#china genghis khan

[luaminesce]

Me: -writes a post talking about fandom misogyny and the sexist hypocrisy of FE fans whilst still noting that Edelgard did some questionable things-

Some rando:

[retrocgads]

USA 1990

[chaosciara]

doing a project with my small human in which he has to say a speech about any leader of his choice and he decided to do genghis khan who he then uwu-ifies by watching multiple youtube videos and going "oh he's not so bad in this one didi" SIR! Genghis Khan was many things but most prominently a feared overpowered conqueror STOP trying to make him cute and gentle oh it starts so young how can i bear it how can i possibly bear it

[ammg-old2]

Mongol armies moved extremely quickly and attempted to outmanoeuvre their opponents using speed and coordination. The aim was to only engage the enemy when absolutely necessary and to commit large numbers only when a specific weak spot had been identified. This strategy was designed to give maximum results for minimal losses. Cavalry units of around 1,000 men (a minghan) were subdivided into units of 100 (a jagun), which was in turn divided into units of 10 (an arban).

A Mongol army in the field was typically divided into wings operating either side of a central force and a vanguard. Indeed, even a Mongol camp was divided according to these groupings. A Mongol cavalry army rarely exceeded 10,000 riders in any one place at one time, even the very largest campaigns such as in Europe probably contained only three such 10,000-men divisions (tumens), the rest of the army, perhaps triple the size of the Mongol cavalry in some cases, was made of allies who conducted warfare according to their own traditions. The Mongols were usually outnumbered by their enemies in field battles but overcame this disadvantage by superior speed and tactics. A disadvantage of fielding relatively small armies was the difficulty in replacing casualties. Often vanquished troops were enlisted but in such campaigns as Eastern Europe, where loyalties were stronger, it did sometimes necessitate a withdrawal until reinforcements could arrive from Mongolia.

A classic Mongol strategy was to attack with a small force and then feign a retreat which only led the enemy back to a larger Mongol force. Another favoured manoeuvre was the tulughma, that is to attack with a central body of cavalry - heavy cavalry in the front lines and lighter units behind, who then moved through gaps in the front lines - and while these moved forward as one, cavalry units moved on the wings to envelop the enemy forces. The tactic was a smaller-scale version of thenerge, the Mongol hunting strategy used over vast areas of steppe to corner wild game. Sometimes these wings were very extended and so allowed the Mongols to entirely surround an opposing army. A reserve of heavy cavalry then moved in for the kill and any escaping enemy troops were ruthlessly pursued, often for days after a battle.

Ambush was another common tactic, as was using smoke from burning grass or dust clouds to mask troop movements, or attacking at the least expected time such as during a blizzard. The Mongols also employed some unusual strategies to out-fox their enemies. For example, they sometimes used felt dummies and set them on horses in amongst cavalry units to make the enemy think they were facing a far larger force than they actually were. Another innovative strategy was to drop leaflets from kites over the besieged Jin city of Kaifeng (1232 CE) which encouraged people to defect for a cash reward.

[googlemapsrandomplaces]

Come visit

In the westernmost banner of Inner Mongolia, in the middle of the Gobi Desert, there once stood a prosperous kingdom. It was a center of religious learning, of art and a trading hub.

According to one of the many Mongolian legends, the first descendants of the gods built Khara-Khoto, a beautiful and rich city, which housed sages, merchants, brave soldiers and skilled craftsmen.

Khara-Khoto means "black city". It was a Medieval Tangut fortress on the Silk Road, built in 1032 near Juyan Lake Basin.

The remains show 9.1 m-high ramparts and 3.7 m-thick outer walls.

It became a centre of Western Xia trade in the 11th century.

In The Travels of Marco Polo, Marco Polo described a visit to a city called Etzina or Edzina, which was identified with Khara-Khoto.

The walled fortress was first taken by Genghis Khan in 1226. It continued to flourish under the Mongols and during Kublai Khan's time it was expanded.

After 1372 it was abandoned.

[atadnerdy]

The Rise and Fall of Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire

The rise and fall of Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire - A complete guide into the Mongol Empire

The Mongol Empire, one of the largest contiguous land empires in history, was established by Genghis Khan in the 13th century. Genghis Khan, born as Temüjin, rose to power through a combination of military prowess, strategic alliances, and innovative tactics. His leadership and the subsequent expansion of the Mongol Empire left a lasting impact on the world. Early Life and Rise to Power Genghis…

[historyoftheworldpodcast]

1206 - 1227 - In 1206, Genghis Khan was accepted as the leader of the Eastern Steppe tribes and all societies in the known world started becoming targets for the Mongols. Genghis Khan was very successful, but why was this?

[jcmarchi]

3 Questions: Wiebke Denecke on a landmark project for Chinese literature

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/3-questions-wiebke-denecke-on-a-landmark-project-for-chinese-literature/

3 Questions: Wiebke Denecke on a landmark project for Chinese literature

Nuns writing fine poetry. Centuries-old joke books. An epic travelogue ending with a visit to Genghis Khan. These are just a few things readers can experience through the new Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature, published by Oxford University Press.

The series is modeled on the Loeb Classical Library, which debuted in 1912 and features about 500 titles of Greek and Roman literature, in their distinctive red and green covers. The Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature series is starting with five titles, under the supervision of founding editor-in-chief Wiebke Denecke, the S. C. Fang Professor of Chinese Language and Culture in MIT’s literature section. The aim is to bring these classic texts, from the first millennium BCE through the early 20th century, to the world, in engaging bilingual editions. There will be four more new titles next year, with dozens lined up after that.

The series benefactors are Oscar Liu-Chien Tang and Agnes Hsin Mei Hsu-Tang, whose family has also been MIT benefactors and has a notable record of philanthropy for institutions and programs in the arts, humanities, and education. MIT News talked with Denecke about the ambitious new book series.

Q: What is the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature?

A: This is a library of classical Chinese literature, covering three millennia, from what is now China and from many other places. Just as Latin was the lingua franca in Europe, classical Chinese was the lingua franca of writers in East Asia, so we include authors from Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. The editions are bilingual, Chinese on one side of the page and English on the other.

It belongs to a certain type of project that you could call endowed bilingual libraries. This started 100 years ago with the Loeb Classical Library of classic Greco-Roman literature. A decade ago, the Murty Classical Library of India was launched, and now here we have a new library of classical Chinese literature. It is a great moment for world literature.

We publish translations that are both solidly scholarly and eminently readable. Our associate editor is Lucas Klein, who has a vision of literary magic that makes words sparkle — it’s something he has really emphasized.

Our donors, Agnes Hsin Mei Hsu-Tang and Oscar Liu-Chien Tang, are particularly interesting. Agnes Hsu-Tang is the descendant of Xu Guangqi, who was co-translator with Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit missionary in the 17th century, of Euclid’s “Elements.” Agnes has another great ancestor, Ji Yun, who compiled one of the greatest encyclopedias of the world, in the 18th century. It’s not just somebody from the Chinese world supporting this, but there’s a family lineage of translating knowledge onto a global stage, a symbol of East-West cultural exchange.

Q: What can we discover, or rediscover, about Chinese-language literature through this library?

A: I think it’s an important moment for the humanities generally. The Loeb Library was established when James Loeb himself said the humanities were being neglected more than at any time since perhaps the Middle Ages. Overall, we have a three-pronged strategy: First, we try to make the canonical new. Then we go beyond what anglophone readers might have heard about Chinese literature. For instance, we have three joke collections, in “The Misadventures of Master Mugwort.” In China, joke collections were very popular, and there’s a lot of political satire in there. But there is a common prejudice that China lacks satirical literature. Third, the series emphasizes that there is more than 2,000 years of common cultural heritage in East Asia. That’s a real message right there.

We publish works that are very surprising, such as “An Anthology of Poetry by Buddhist Nuns of Late Imperial China.” Many of these are first translations. We wanted a voice of the female experience, often in very precarious times. Some nuns were from elite ranks and had lost their husbands. Others were orphaned. It’s a real archaeology of female voices.

It’s a very good antidote to the idea that nuns were confined. Quite to the contrary, they made relationships they never could have in a household. They were writing poetry and painting, and it’s very empowering. One such example is Shangjian Huizong’s 17th-century poem, “Village Life.” Her husband died in prison, and she wrote three volumes of poetry, including these lines:

“Living here impoverished / I’ve lost all taste for ornaments … / The face of the woman in my mirror / is a flower that knows emptiness”

So what is amazing here? Obviously as a nun she was impoverished. The ornaments are hair ornaments, and it goes with a literary tradition in China to write about women in a boudoir — usually written by males, but here the boudoir implies self-reflectivity. The flower is a natural ornament; it also knows that emptiness accompanies the idea of enlightenment, in the Buddhist sense. So, she turns around boudoir imagery, saying she realizes in the symbolic mirror that she has gained enlightenment. These lines have incredible literary value.

Q: Another one of the first five volumes is “Daoist Master Changchun’s Journey to the West,” a firsthand account of a visit to Genghis Khan by a Chinese traveling party on a long diplomatic trip. Surely there are not many texts like this. What is it about?

A: This is written by a disciple of a Daoist patriarch who was summoned by Genghis Khan in the 1220s, when the Mongols were rushing through the continent. They basically emerged from nowhere, didn’t have a lot of history or writing behind them, and shaped world history. There are so few eyewitness sources, it’s amazing to have a travelogue with so much detail. It’s also made special by all the poetry in it, which in the Chinese tradition was always the main medium of experiencing reality and expressing it.

In this text, poetry becomes a way to cope with this travel experience: You start in China, go to Central Asia, like to the city of Samarkind, and encounter different people, different plants, Islam, sweet melons, and people drinking from glass vessels never seen in China. It’s a way to familiarize and exoticize at the same time. And the writer observes a person — we know today it’s a muezzin — lead in “petitioning heaven” for the Muslim prayer. This is an encounter with Islam, though he doesn’t have a real concept of that.

On the other hand, Genghis Khan is intensely interested in the Dao — or at least that’s how it’s depicted. The first three times they meet, the conversation is always about the Dao. The Chinese want to believe the other side is interested in them. Finally, this is also hagiographic text, a sacred eulogy of this patriarch, and it’s a process of getting political capital out of the connections with Genghis Khan.

Through all of this, we are really trying to develop what we call the Hsu-Tang Library style: smartly scholarly, where you feel there’s something gained in translation.

[porterdavis]

This 'red mirage' is scaring the shit out of me.

America, if you vote him in, you deserve every inch of what he's going to do to you.

Mass deportations, gutting government regulation and oversight; graft, corruption on a systemic level, abandoning our allies to Russia and China (Ukraine, Taiwan, sayonara!) or Netanyahu (good-bye Gaza, Lebanon, Syria), women dying in hospital parking lots or back alleys....just an overall disintegration of societal norms and the ties that bind.

I hope and pray I am wetting my pants unnecessarily and the 'blue wave' will arrive overnight and we wake up to Madame President-elect Harris. Else...another society will descend into the darkness that has swallowed every dynasty before. The British Empire, Roman Empire, Genghis Khan and the Mongol horde, the Persians, the Portuguese, the French...they all collapsed from within when the centre could not hold.

Gilead and darkness or Kamala and restoration. The choice could not have been clearer. Which path has America chosen?

[quitealotofsodapop]

Do you know if there's any initiation process for people to become sworn siblings?

Or do they just say, "You're my sworn sibling now." to each other?

I think it is comparable to the historical practice of "blood brothers" in which close companions would symbolically "mix blood" by pressing opened wounds against one another or drinking one another's blood. In some cultures with a more "eww. blood" attitude, a sacrifice was made in each other's honour to seal the deal instead.

In folklore; the only reason the gods in the Norse pantheon don't get rid of Loki despite their mischief, is because Loki and Odin are blood brothers.

Noted examples in East Asia mainly come from Mongolian and tribal Chinese accounts - in which it was common practice amongst dear friends and their children. One famous example is Temüjin aka Genghis Khan and his childhood friend Jamukha - the latter's betrayal and attempted usurping considered one of the Khan's greatest emotional losses.

For particularly Chinese sources I found this article about traditional Chinese Kinship, though most of the sources come from Taiwan.

The standard ritual was for each sworn sibling to add their names and dates to a contract and ritualistically burn it - as to add it to the infernal and celestial archives. "Can't return me without the receipt" - at it's finest.

Another familiar practice was for each sibling in the pact to add their blood to wine, and pass it around to drink.

It's a bit flexible depending on the individuals. Whether for personal or political reasons. But the "ideal" scenario is people who are so close, that they feel that they might as well by legally recognised as siblings. Sworn brethren could, for example, contribute to the dowry of a sworn sibling's daughter, preform mourning rituals for the others bio family, or becoming legal guardians of your sworn-sibling's kid in case of their death.

Or in the case of Confucian-era China outlawing homosexuality, it was a clever way to facilitate a same-sex marriage. Can't fault two guys for living together and raising their kids when it's a legally recognised practice! A bunch of friends could come together and make a brotherhood pact as a way to cheekily help others in the group be married in spirit when the state wouldn't recognise it.

Some folks even did it so that members in their bio family who were interested in eachother could have "a reason" to be interacting. Imperial gender norms be wildin' so hard that you can't talk to your crush without your dads being legally best bros.

This is why in chinese slang; "sworn brothers" is used as slang for "gay relationship". Aka "oh my god, they were roommates."-vine.

In JTTW: Sun Wukong and the Brotherhood/Seven Sages declare themselves sworn kin at the same time Wukong elects his Marshals and Generals. In this case, they are all close friends who officiate their sworn kinship through partying hard, and making sacrifices to both Heaven and Hell. They even have separate days out together.

(Source: Anthony C Yu translation)

Who knows, maybe a wedding was thrown in the mix? With all the drinking I wouldn't be shocked if there was some confusion with the ritual contract! XD

Wukong, re-reading the contract years later: "HA! Flood Dragon and Tamarin put themselves down as the other kind of sworn brother! Wonder if they even noticed that?" Bull King, there to check: "I doubt it. I'm just glad I'm not legally married to anyone. Don't want any loose ends before me and Iron Fan get hitched."

Erlang and the Six Lads of Plum Hill/Meishan Brothers are all sworn brothers too - in a more frat-boy/brothers-in-arms sense. They've all likely know each other for decades, and legit see each other equal to siblings. Notably, Erlang shares the bounty he received from capturing Sun Wukong fairly across his brothers (and presumably the remaining odd bit for the dog). Four of the brothers are Marshals while Two are Generals, giving more credence to the headcanon of Wukong's Stalwarts being his sworn family as well. In an odd bit of hilarity amongst the tense fight of Flower Fruit Mountain, the bros even rib Erlang for thinking too hard about Wukong.

Erlang, trying to be cool and edgy: "What a foul being to dare call himself equal to heaven. I ought to-" Plum Hill Lad: "Aww! Elder Bro has a crush!" Erlang, flustered: "I DO NOT!!" Plum Hill Lads, all cracking up and making kissy faces: "Then why are you thinking about him so much?" "Major sus bro!" "If you wanna fight him so much why don't you just marry him?" (*Invasion is paused as all six Plum Hill lads start rough-housing with their elder bro. Many head-noogies are inflicted.*) Wukong, on the ground: "You know what those guys are talking about Macaque?" Macaque, teasing: "Why, are you interested in him or something?" Wukong, blushing like a schoolgirl: "Oh my gawds! Stahp!"

Curiously, Wukong describes himself and Erlang as "sworn brothers" later in the book; suggesting that they had a close relationship at some point. One of my fave pieces of art (can't find it rn) is Erlang asking Wukong to be his "sworn brother", and Wukong assumes he means "spouse" and gets confused when Erlang mentions having six more. XD

A "lesser" case would be; The Tang Emperor declaring Xuanzang/Tripitaka his oath/sworn brother because the monk is doing him a solid. The Emperor shows his immense gratitude, and Tripitaka gains some political clout that he can throw around if he needs to (the Empress of the Kingdom of Women even sees this as a marriage bonus). Tripitaka def doesn't do the "blood" or sacrificial part of what these rituals imply, as per his Buddhist upbringing, but it's still seen as a binding oath. Rather, they bow to one another and declare their status are sworn bros before an image of the Buddha in the monastery.

In Tripitaka's case, it's more of Emperor Taizong being like; "Look, this pilgrimage is so important to me that I'm gonna legally and spirtually count you as my little brother so that you understand how much I trust you." Meanwhile the monk is like; "What?Thats a bit much don't you think?"

Later on, the promise of becoming one's sworn brother is passed between characters akin to "If you pull this off for me, I would straight up be your best bro."

And ofc the Pilgrims consider eachother sworn kin/brothers at the end of the story, even if they didn't do a ritual to seal it.

So yeah in summary:

Rituals can be performed but are not 100% required. Even a mutual declaration before an idol/holy image is enough. Whilst the Brotherhood of Sages celebrate their new pact through booze and partying and blood sacrifices - Tripitaka and the Tang Emperor just declared it while in a monastery.

People did it for money and political reasons too.

They also did it cus "It ain't gay if it's brotherhood."

Sworn kinship can be forged overtime.

The celestial and infernal archives have the reciepts.

Btw you can do a "sworn divorce" if you and your bro have a falling out.

Whilst the practice isn't really a thing in modern China, I imagine it's still common amongst yaoguai and/or celestials.

[retrocgads]

USA 1990

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Stone Turtle of Karakorum, Mongolia, c. 1235-1260 CE: this statue is one of the only surviving features of Karakorum, which was once the capital city of the Mongol Empire

The statue is decorated with a ceremonial scarf known as a khadag (or khata), which is part of a Buddhist custom that is also found in Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan. The scarves are often left atop shrines and sacred artifacts as a way to express respect and/or reverence. In Mongolia, this tradition also contains elements of Tengrism/shamanism.

The city of Karakorum was originally established by Genghis Khan in 1220 CE, when it was used as a base for the Mongol invasion of China. It then became the capital of the Mongol Empire in 1235 CE, and quickly developed into a thriving center for trade/cultural exchange between the Eastern and Western worlds.

The city attracted merchants of many different nationalities and faiths, and Medieval sources note that the city displayed an unusual degree of diversity and religious tolerance. It contained 12 different temples devoted to pagan and/or shamanistic traditions, two mosques, one church, and at least one Buddhist temple.

As this article explains:

The city might have been compact, but it was cosmopolitan, with residents including Mongols, Steppe tribes, Han Chinese, Persians, Armenians, and captives from Europe who included a master goldsmith from Paris named William Buchier, a woman from Metz, one Paquette, and an Englishman known only as Basil. There were, too, scribes and translators from diverse Asian nations to work in the bureaucracy, and official representatives from various foreign courts such as the Sultanates of Rum and India.

This diversity was reflected in the various religions practised there and, in time, the construction of many fine stone buildings by followers of Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity.

The prosperous days of Karakorum were very short-lived, however. The Mongol capital was moved to Xanadu in 1263, and then to Khanbaliq (modern-day Beijing) in 1267, under the leadership of Kublai Khan; Karakorum lost most of its power, authority, and leadership in the process. Without the resources and support that it had previously received from the leaders of the Mongol Empire, the city was left in a very vulnerable position. The residents of Karakorum began leaving the site in large numbers, until the city had eventually become almost entirely abandoned.

There were a few scattered attempts to revive the city in the years that followed, but any hope of restoring Karakorum to its former glory was then finally shattered in 1380, when the entire city was razed to the ground by Ming Dynasty troops.

The Erdene Zuu Monastery was later built near the site where Karakorum once stood, and pieces of the ruins were taken to be used as building materials during the construction of the monastery. The Erdene Zuu Monastery is also believed to be the oldest surviving Buddhist monastery in Mongolia.

There is very little left of the ruined city today, and this statue is one of the few remaining features that can still be seen at the site. It originally formed the base of an inscribed stele, but the pillar section was somehow lost/destroyed, leaving nothing but the base (which may be a depiction of the mythological dragon-turtle, Bixi, from Chinese mythology).

This statue and the site in general always kinda remind me of the Ozymandias poem (the version by Horace Smith, not the one by Percy Bysshe Shelley):

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,

stands a gigantic leg

which far off throws the only shadow

that the desert knows.

"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,

"the King of Kings; this mighty city shows

the wonders of my hand."

The city's gone —

naught but the leg remaining

to disclose the site

of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder —

and some Hunter may express wonder like ours,

when thro' the wilderness where London stood,

holding the wolf in chace,

he meets some fragment huge

and stops to guess

what powerful but unrecorded race

once dwelt in that annihilated place

Sources & More Info:

University of Washington: Karakorum, Capital of the Mongol Empire

Encyclopedia Britannica: Entry for Karakorum

World History: Karakorum

[barbucomedie]

Khalkha Headdress from Outer Mongolia dated to the 19th Century on display at the McManuc Art Gallery and Museum in Dundee, Scotland

This headdress would have been commissioned from a silversmith for a Khalkha woman when she was to be married. It was presented to her on her wedding day and she was expected to wear it throughout her married life.

The Khalkha people were a diaspora group in Mongolia and in the early 20th century became one of the leading groups of the Mongolian Independence Movement. They campaigned for independence from the People's Republic of China. The Khalkha also found their lands taken by Imperial Russia and later the Soviet Union. Khalkha author Byambyn Rinchen translated and published Khalkha legal codes and folklore during the 1940's. He was a direct descendent of Genghis Khan through his mothers family.

Headpieces such as this from Mongolia were collected by European travellers and ambassadors and then donated to museums. Such fashion would go onto to inspire costume designers on Star Wars for Queen Amidala.

Photographs taken by myself 2024

[vintagegeekculture]

there was Chinese interest in the Out Of Asia theory, in both the Republic, Chiang Republic and People’s Republic periods before the Out Of Africa theory became commonly accepted. Was the 1954 Yeti expedition done just from the Nepalese-Indian side or were the American agents and “anthropologists” given access on the Sino-Tibetan side of the Himalayan border?

During the early part of this century, it was absolutely believed for a long time that the deserts of Western China were the most likely place of human origins, as seen in this migration map from 1944, made from the best available knowledge of the time:

Remember, the oldest fossil remains at this point were in China, where Homo erectus was discovered (originally known by his initial place of discovery in Chungkotien Cave, nicknamed "Peking Man"). The discovery of Australopithecus and Homo habilis in Olduvai Gorge and South Africa, which place human origins in Africa, were not until the 50s and 60s, so it seemed entirely reasonable that Homo sapiens evolved in Western China.

The idea that China's desert regions were the origin of modern humans and culture is seen a lot in pop culture from 1900-1950, mainly because there were tremendous explorations in the region, especially Aurel Stein's expedition of 1908, who ventured into the Taklamakan Desert to find the Dunhuang Caves and Khara-Khoto, a city destroyed completely by Genghis Khan and vanished in the desert.

If you've ever heard of Roy Chapman Andrews and his famous expeditions in the 1920s, it's worth noting that he ventured into the Gobi Desert looking for human remains....not dinosaurs, and the discovery of dinosaur eggs was an unexpected surprise.

For that reason, there was a short lived Silk Road Mania that seemed to be a smaller scale predecessor to the pop culture dominating Egyptomania of the 1920s. It's bizarre to read adventure and fantasy fiction of the 1910s-1920s that features mentions of Silk Road peoples like the Kyrgyz, Sogdians, Tajik, Uigurians, and Tuvans. The best example I can think of would be the Khlit the Kossack stories of Harold Lamb (who also wrote a biography of Tamerlane), which together with Tarzan and Tros of Samothrace, formed the core inspiration for Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian.

The most interesting example of this would be A. Merritt's Dwellers in the Mirage, which featured a lost city in Xinjiang that was the home of the Nordic race, who worshipped their original religion, the kraken-like squid devil god Khalkru. It was widely believed in this era that Nordics emerged from Central Asia originally, and while it's easy to write this off as turn of the century racialist claptrap pseudohistory (along with Hyperborea legends), in this case, it is actually true: a branch of the Indo-European family lived in West China, and 5,000 year old redheaded mummies have been found in the region. As usual, A. Merritt was right on the money with his archeology, more so than other 1920s authors. After all, his "Moon Pool" was set around the just discovered ruins of Nan Madol, the Venice of Micronesia.

Jack Williamson's still chilling Darker Than You Think in 1948 was also set in the Silk Road/Central Asian region, as the place the race of shapeshifters emerged from, Homo magi, who await the coming of their evil messiah, the Night King, who will give them power over the human race.

H. Rider Haggard set "Ayesha: the Return of She" (1905) in Xinjiang, among a lost Greek colony in Central Asia (no doubt based on Alexandria on the Indus, a Greek colony in modern Pakistan that was the furthest bastion of Greek Culture). This was also two years after the Younghusband Thibetan Expedition of 1903, where the British invaded Tibet. At the time, the Qing Dynasty was completely declining and lost control of the frontier regions, and the power vacuum was filled by religious authority by default (this is something you also saw in Xinjiang, where for example, the leader of the city was the Imam of Kashgar).

This is one of the many British invasions they have attempted to cram down the memory hole, but if you ever see a Himalayan art piece that was "obtained in 1903-1904" ....well, you know where it came from.

Incidentally, there's one really funny recent conspiracy theory about paleontology, fossils, and China that I find incredibly interesting: the idea that dinosaurs having feathers is a lie and a sinister plot spread by the Communist Chinese (who else?) to make American youth into sissy fancylads, like Jessie "the Body" Ventura. How? By lying to us and making up that the manly and vigorous Tyrannosaurus, a beast with off the charts heterosexuality and a model for boys everywhere, might have been feathered like a debutante's dress. What next - lipstick on a Great White Shark? The long term goal is to make Americans effeminate C. Nelson Reilly types unable to defend against invasion. This is a theory that is getting steam among the kind of people who used to read Soldier of Fortune magazine, and among abusive stepfathers the world over.

...okay, are you done laughing? Yeah, this is obvious crackpottery and transparent sexual pathology, on the level of the John Birch Society in the 60s saying the Beatles were a Communist mind control plot. Mostly because animals just look how they look, and if it turned out that the ferocious Tyrannosaurus had feathers and looked like a fancylad Jessie Ventura to you, well, that's your problem and mental baggage, really.

I was left scratching my head over this one. But there is (kind of) something to this, and that is that a huge chunk of recent dinosaur discoveries have been in China. I don't think it has anything to do with a Communist plot to turn American boys into fancylads, but more to do with a major push in internal public investment in sciences in that country, and an explosion of Chinese dinosaur discoveries. If you want to see a great undervisited dinosaur museum, go to the Zigong Dinosaur Museum in Sichuan.

Pop quiz: what living scientist has named more dinosaur discoveries? It's not Bakker or Horner. The greatest living paleontologist, Xu Xing, which is why a lot of recently found dinosaurs are named things like Shangtungasaurus.

[queen-kassiopeia-the-5th]

With the return of House of the Dragon, there is something that always bothered me about the main idea of the show vs the book.

In the show, there is this dilemma of who has the right to become king – the firstborn daughter, when women were always denied the right to rule, or the eldest son, who is male and thus following tradition. There is the mix-up with Viserys talking to Alicent before on his deathbed in the show, and the plain fact of power hungry relatives pushing their chosen monarch in the intended direction, but fundamentally, the question boils down to – woman vs man, who should rule. Rhaenyra's side doubles down onto proving this female equality side, which is great, and I'm glad we get to see some badass women riding to war on dragons, and plotting, but it was never the main idea of the Dance of Dragons.

The reason for the Dance, in the book, is a pattern we see in throught the entire story. A strong monarch leaves behind a weaker monarch, who is unable to maintain peace, and war breaks out. We see it in Aegon the Conquer, with Aenys being a weak king and Maegor being a tyrant, partially in order to combat the unrest that Aenys created, and partially because he is trying to emanate or even exceed his father, unsuccessfully. Then we have the Jaehaerys, who in my opinion was one of the best, if not the best king of Westeros. He created a long time of peace and was a strong monarch. Then came Viserys, a weaker king – this is not to say completely incapable – who left behind a festering conflict that lasted years. The green and black camps were decided long before his death, and he didn't do much to combat this, or try and resolve the situation. We see a similar pattern in real life history, that we all know GRRM draws inspiration from. The Diadochi generals that inherited Alexander the Great's empire quickly began fighting among themselves in the Wars of the Diadochi, vying for control over the empire he created, ultimately to lose it; the Carolingian empire was divided a few years after the death of Charlemagne; Genghis Khan's children attempted to expand his empire, but it fragmented into several khanates and to China.

Ultimately, you can say that the show is a separate entity from the book, and I agree with that. I do think how the characters are written and developed in the show in some cases is much better than the book – see Viserys – and there are differences between them plot wise. I'm not saying I expect a word for word interpretation of the book. It's just an interesting angle that I got from the book, and that in my opinion the show has not touched on, and took into a completely different direction, which is still interesting. I think it would have been nice to have both, though.