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October 7, 2025 65 mins
On today’s episode, we venture to Asia to talk about a battle that determined the course of Chinese history, and that has become such an integral part of Chinese historical mythology that it is sometimes difficult to sort fact from fiction. What might have changed if the battle went a different way?
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to The History Guy podcast Counterfactuals. What is a
counterfactual in the context of studying history. It is a
kind of analysis where we examined what might have happened
had historical events gone differently as a thought experiment. The
goal is to learn and understand history as it is
by talking about what it could have been as a

(00:27):
twist on the historical stories that we tell on the
History Guy YouTube channel. This is a series of podcasts
that dwell on that eternal question what if. I'm Josh,
a writer for the YouTube channel and son of the
History Guy. If you're a fan of the channel, you
already know Lance the History Guy himself. To liven up
our discussions on what might have happened, we have invited

(00:48):
Brad wagnan history officionado and a longtime friend of The
History Guy, to join us. Remember that if you'd like
to support us, you can find us on Patreon, YouTube
and locals dot com. Join us as we discuss what
deserves to be remembered and what might have been. On
today's episode, we venture to Asia to talk about a

(01:08):
battle that determined the course of Chinese history and that
has become such an integral part of Chinese historical mythology
that it is sometimes difficult to sort backt from fiction
what might have changed if the battle went a different way.
Without further ado, let me introduce the history guy.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Under the Han Dynasty, much of what would become modern
China was unified under a single emperor after the short
lived but powerful Chin Dynasty. The Han dynasty is considered
to be something of a golden age that included significant
scientific advancement and economic prosperity, including events that would lead
to the establishment of the Silk Road. But as history
tends to show us, old eras end and new ones arise,

(01:53):
and in the second century AD, the dynasty faced a
series of challenges that threatened to and the empire. Control
of the southern portion of the Empire was decided in
a single legendary battle that is little remembered. Here in
the West, the Battle of Red Cliffs deserves to be remembered.
Much of the history of this period is related to

(02:13):
the fourteenth century novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, considered
one of the four great classical Chinese novels. The romance
is primarily based on the historical records of the Three Kingdoms,
themselves written a relatively short time after the events they describe.
The romance, written so long after, as a mixture of
fictional and historical accounts, portrays the principal characters in a

(02:36):
way that reflected a historical narrative on which characters were
righteous or considered the proper errors. The characters portrayal as
either heroes or villains is not necessarily reflective of the
actual circumstances. The romance has heavily influenced popular conception of
these figures, rightly or wrongly. The Han dynasty came into
power around two two b C. Under Liu Bang, peasant

(02:59):
born minor law enforcement official who invaded the Chin heartland
and enforced the surrender of its ruler. The new dynasty
lasted about four hundred years, separated by a sixteen year
interregnum from nine to twenty three a d between the
Chin and Han. The dynasties established an empire that included
most of the modern Chinese coast and significant lands inland,

(03:20):
extending through much of modern North Korea and south into
the northernmost regions of modern Vietnam. The dynasty also established
a protectorate over a large western tract which extended well
into Central Asia and became part of the basis for
the Silk Road. The empire was run largely by the
use of commanderies territories controlled directly by the central government.

(03:40):
By the year one eighty four, a d imperial authority
was seriously eroding thanks to a number of internal issues.
Peasant revolts, the most important being the Yellow Turban rebellion,
threatened unity and would remain a threat for the next
four decades. The emperor was convinced by advisers to decentralize
power by granting further powers to provincial leaders, who were
given the new title governor, given the authority to levy

(04:02):
taxes and command forces within their borders. Ostensibly, the change
was meant to allow local leaders to better put down rebellions,
but it also provided the foundation for war lords to
establish their own kingdoms. The Emperor's death in one eighty
nine caused a further contraction of power, as an imperial
power struggle broke out. War and the weakness of the
young Emperor xi Yan led a number of warlads to

(04:25):
rule over their territories like kings. Fighting among the governors
continued well into the one nineties, As the Empire disintegrated.
In one ninety six, a Chinese warlord name Sao Sao
convinced Emperor Xiyan to move the imperial capital to Shu
City than under SAO's control. Though he had little power,
Hiyan was still nominally the Han Emperor of all of China.

(04:48):
Siao had been an official within the imperial government since
one seventy five, and in the one nineties had become
governor of Yan Province and secured his control of it.
Though he remained officially beneath the emperor and was appointed
Mini of Works and General in Chief, in practice he
held most of the Empire's power. Still, he refused to
usurp the throne or declare his own dynasty during his

(05:08):
own life. In the Records of the Three Kingdoms, he
refused when his advisers suggested it, saying, if Heaven bestows
such a fate upon me, let me be King Win
of Jo. King Win had centuries before rebelled against the
Shang dynasty, but refused to take the throne for himself
as a matter of honor. Instead, he let his son
destroy the Shang dynasty and proclaim him King Win posthumously.

(05:31):
Tsao seems to have believed it would be dishonorable to
take the throne himself. When he was pledged to the
emperor in the name of the Han dynasty, Sao Sao
began rebuilding the empire in the following years, slowly defeating
other warlords in the northern part of the empire, including
those who had declared their own dynasties. By two seven,
he had secured mussive northern China and turned his sights

(05:52):
on the south. His two primary opponents would be Liu Bei,
a general who had been involved in much fighting during
this period, and soon Un. Lio Bai, was a vassal
of another war lord who was in control of Jing
province to Sausous south and defended the province's frontier. The
death of the war lord led to a succession crisis,
and in September of two eight, Sausau invaded the province. Simultaneously,

(06:16):
Sun Chun, who controlled a province to Jing's east, also attacked.
In the chaos, Leobei was forced to retreat, taking with
him as many as one hundred thousand unarmed civilians. So
his force moved slowly. Sausau sent an elite cavalry force
in pursuit to prevent Liu from finding time to build
an army to oppose him. In October, Soauth Saou's forces
caught up with Liu Bays in the Battle of chang Ban.

(06:39):
Liu Bei offered little resistance, instead offering a rear guard
as he fled. Most of the civilians, his baggage, and
even his daughters were captured by Sausau's forces. In the Romance,
the battle is romanticized and primarily focuses on the bravery
of two of Liu's commanders. In the historical record, Jong
Fei takes a stand alone on a destroyed bridge, bellowing

(07:00):
a challenge. He'd ordered what few many had at his
command to tie tree branches to their horses and create
das by running back and forth in the trees behind
the bridge, which gave the impression that troops were moving
into position and that an ambush was being prepared, buying
Liu Bay time to escape. In the Romance, the bridge
is not destroyed, and his bellow of challenge causes one
of the enemy to drop dead out of shock. Meanwhile,

(07:23):
another of Liu's commanders rescued Liu's wife and infant Son
fleeing north and eventually bringing the pair safely back to
Liu Bai. The sudden capture of Jing Province by Sausau
seems to have unnerved Sun Chun, who likely surmised that
his own territory would follow in Sausao's reunification of the
Han Empire. Liu Bay, flinging disarray, was seeking safety from

(07:44):
an old friend when one of Sun's advisers caught up
with him. The adviser would succeed in connecting Liu Bay
and Sun Chun, which would lead to the formation of
the Leo Sun Alliance against Sao Sao. Prior to capturing
Jing Province, Sausao did not have munch of a navy. However,
our large navy was brought under his command with the
capture of the province. This was important as control over

(08:06):
the Yang Sea was vital if Sausau wanted to continue
south to reunite the empire Southsau sent a letter to Soon,
boasting that he commanded eight hundred thousand men and applying
that Soon would do best to surrender without a fight.
One of Sun's advisers doubted the number and estimated and
said that Sao had around two hundred and thirty thousand men,
and that as many as eighty thousand of them were
recently impressed soldiers of Jing Province whose loyalty was thus uncertain.

(08:30):
With Leobe's force, the alliance had around fifty thousand men
at their disposal. Long discussion ensued within Sun's court, but
finally is said to have chopped off the corner of
his desk in an assembly and declared, anyone who still
dares argue for surrender will be treated the same as
this desk. The combined at Leo Soon force quickly moved
to engage with Southshaus and followed the river to find

(08:51):
the enemy army. Southsau's force was exhausted from the hurried
march and the incredible collapse of the Jing province. Additionally,
his armies were suffering from tropic southern illnesses that they
were unfamiliar with in the more arid north. At least
one of his advisers had advocated for the army to
rest before seeking out another battle, but Sausau disregarded that advice,
apparently counting on his greater numbers to win out. Whatever

(09:14):
the actual size of the armies, the Leu Sun force
was heavily outnumbered, but.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
They did have some advantages.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Southsau's men were largely from the north were not used
to manning ships. Many of his ships were lashed together,
possibly in an attempt to reduce his soldier's seasickness. The
opening move was made by one of Leu Sun's commanders,
who sent out note fending surrender. The commander's capital ships,
at least ten, but the sources are unclear, have been
transformed into fire ships full of kindling, dry reeds and oil.

(09:42):
They broke off from the rest of the body and
approached Southau's fleet, but half way across, the men on
board set the ships alight and escaped on small boats.
The flaming ships collided with Southsau's ships, killing many and
the ensuing blaze. Capitalizing on the chaos, the Southern allowance
followed up with an assault through South Hou's forces into confusion.
Realizing he was losing badly, the northern warlord ordered a retreat,

(10:05):
burning more of his ships before he withdrew. The allies
gave chase, and South Hou's men were retreating across marshland
so overrun with water that the sick and wounded soldiers
had to try to fill the road in so mounted
soldiers could even navigate it. The retreat was serious enough
that many of the men were trampled in the chaos.
Having held the province for so short a time, Sausau
lacked any forward base so that he could retreat to.

(10:28):
He had established his navy by putting his infantry and
cavalry on board ships. In the situation they were not
trained for against them much smaller but imperatively veteran navy.
Once the soldiers had been defeated on the river, they
were unable to regroup and great enough order to take
advantage of their greater numbers. South's house said that it
was only because of the sickness that I burnt my
ships and retreated and brushed aside the southern commander's claims

(10:50):
of brilliant strategy, the romance assigns more valor to Liu
Bay and his commanders than to soon Chune, knowing to
its fourteenth century cultural bias. It also adds several fantastical
and fictional elements, including one of Leu's commanders pretending to
use magic to call forth winds to drive the fire ships,
as well as Sausau's capture and release. During the following retreat,

(11:11):
the Southern Coalition might have been able to destroy the
entire Northern Army. However, they ran into their own problems.
Crossing the river devolved into chaos thanks to the limited
number of ferries, and it took time for the Allies
to establish a bridgehead, which allowed the Allied forces to
bring their full power to bear. The delay allowed Chausau's
forces to perform an effective rear guard, narrowly saving the
Northern Army. Fighting would continue in the ensuing months between

(11:33):
Chausau's generals and the Southern Coalition. By two nine, Sousau's
foothold in the south had been pushed one hundred and
sixty kilometers north, and Liu Bay had effectively carved for
himself a territory for a kingdom. Soon, Schun's forces had
faced more serious casualties and the death of his best commander,
and two ten weakened his position. Sausau never again commanded
a navy large enough to oppose the southern territories, and

(11:56):
the former empire was split along a north south axis
that would drive hostility for centuries. Liu Bei would go
on to establish the state historians called hu Han, while
Chun established the state called sun Win, and Southshau's Sun
established su Wee, chu Wu, and Wei, as they were known,
are the titular three kingdoms of the period. The term

(12:17):
three kingdoms is itself a bit of a misnomer, since
the leaders of each state styled themselves emperor and claimed
rulership over the entire country. The Jin dynasty eventually ruled
over all three states, succeeding the chiou Wi dynasty. Initial
histories generally considered the Way the proper holder of the
mandate of Heaven. In the centuries which followed, that would

(12:37):
shift to several historians instead turned to Liu Bei, ensrunning
him as the idealized Confucian ruler. This pro Shu history
is the one that was enshrined in the highly influential Romance.
The battle has been portrayed in popular video games such
as Dynasty Warriors and Total War Three Kingdoms. In two
thousand and eight, a movie about the battle was released

(12:58):
in China, and it's well known enough in China that
in nineteen ninety eight, a city that's near one of
the possible locations where the battle was fought renamed itself
Chibi City, just to connect itself with the battle. The
Three Kingdoms period is usually said to begin in two
twenty a d. When Imperchion abdicated in favor of South
South Sun, until two eighty when the Jin dynasty secured

(13:20):
control over the entirety of China. Though relatively short, the
Battle of Redcliffe established some significant historical realities, such as
the North South rivalry, which would reoccur over the centuries.
The battle was also a pivotal moment in the creation
of the Three Kingdoms, a legendary period in Chinese history,
and part of an ongoing war that would eventually decrease
the population in China by as much as sixty five percent.

(13:44):
It was a turning point that would influence history for
centuries to come.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Now for the fun part, where I the History Guy
himself and Brad Wagnen, longtime friend of the History Guy,
discussed what might have happened if it all went a
little differently. So there's a famous line at the beginning
of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms about China, and
it says, the Empire, long divided, must unite, long united,

(14:11):
must divide.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
Thus it has ever.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Been Now I read that that line is apparently not
original to the story, was probably added centuries later. And
yet the thing is, it's it's still very true of
kind of the history of China is that it unites
the divides, that unites it divides it, and this episode
is an interesting example of how that happened and how
it could have gone very differently if this battle had

(14:33):
gone differently.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
I mean, this is a harder one to research because
the impact is really Chinese history. I mean, at this time,
it's like the Roman Empire and they barely know that
China exists. There's some long term trade routes, so this
is it's hard to see what it's effect except for
in the extremely long hundreds of years down the road term.
It's hard to see its effect in the West, but

(14:56):
it's hard to understate its effect in China. The Three
Kingdom period is is so central to Chinese history and
literature and culture and cultural identities and faiths and religions.
I mean, it was, it was huge, and it is
interesting to say at one point you have a unified
China and then that that long term dynasty is collapsing,

(15:17):
and then you get a fairly short period of fighting
wars that totally transforms China before you go back to
the Jin dynasty. So it's it's really an interesting story.
It is it's kind of hard to kind of put
together the two pieces of it then that we're we're
used to telling. This battle is important as canae. I mean,
this battle is is important that China as Cane.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Was to Europe.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
It's impact on you know, say the United States or
the modern world, it's a little harder to see because
it's so far back. You know, imagine if there had
been some huge defeat of the Roman Empire, you know,
earlier on, then you know, we would you know, we
could understand how the world would be different. But I
mean with China care you know, that's kind of that's

(15:59):
kind of where we we are on this one. But
it certainly does appear to be that once you've once
you've had an empire for too long, people got to
get sick of it and you have a bunch of chaos.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, and then you wander back to an empire. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (16:11):
Yeah, I would say this battle honestly, the consequences of
this battle are very similar to that of say the
defense of the Spartan set Thermopylae, followed by the follow
on battles. Because this was a this was a point
where a major power was about to fill in a

(16:33):
more or less kind of power vacuum that had occurred,
but wasn't because it did not develop in that way.
China continued on its path of disunification until, as you've mentioned,
the Jin dynasty, and even that was kind of a
that was not a very deep empire. It had its

(16:55):
fair share of revolutions, intrigue, instability.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
I mean, the Jin dynasty really transforms China partly because
the depopulation which was ridiculous during the Three Kingdoms period,
the warring of the Three Kingdoms period means that they
actually invited in sort of the Northern barbarians to refill
the population. On you you get an entire demographic. It
is literally a racial change in China. That is, that's

(17:24):
how the Jin dynasty is rebuilding after the Three Kingdoms period.
So yeah, it's a very different dynasty than the Han dynasty.
So I mean it's this is this is this is
from a Chinese perspective. They're a different people with totally
different cultures and legends and the idea that you have
three cuisines or you know that the South had power

(17:44):
as well as I mean in the long term, because
during the Jin dynasty, I mean, they're almost of a
run by the what they call them the Five Barbarians, right,
that's there was a number of invasions. It was really
the military forces in the South.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
That end up defeating those.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Now you know, if if Shasha had won at Red Cliffs, uh,
he probably would have eliminated those warrior traditions ended up
being the ones that saved China later. So even if
you roll into the Shan dynasty and on down for
a very long period of time.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Uh. And please forget the pronunciation.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
On that one.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
But even rolling you know, well past the period of
the Three Kingdoms, the period of the Three Kingdoms and
the defeat at this battle impact Chinese history for a
long time. So it's it's it's an incredibly different position.
And the question was really, does does the Han dynasty
continue in some way? Because Sacha was theoretically representing the

(18:43):
Han dynasty though though he doesn't end up keeping its
legacy really after the battle. Uh, So, I mean, you know,
what would the Han dynasty have continued probably under some
sort of puppet emperor, you know, or some sort of figurehead,
or or do they move to this period of the
Three Kingdoms. I mean, that's that's a very significant shift.
So I mean, you know, I don't know how you

(19:05):
what you really.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
Compare it to in the West.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
I mean, we've talked about some really transformational battles in
the West, but.

Speaker 5 (19:10):
I would say there are at least shadows that you
can look at from the Roman Empire, especially during the
late period of the Roman Empire, when they were using
quote barbarian auxiliaries to shore up the Roman legions, and
we saw what happened with that in the long run.

(19:33):
Eventually the barbarians figure out if your empire is weak,
that a you've just become a target. Kind of the
thing that I don't understand are that really kind of
defies the logic of like the Roman Empire and a
lot of empires in history, is that the people of
Han really are scattered.

Speaker 4 (19:55):
Everywhere throughout China.

Speaker 5 (19:58):
I mean, they arrive as refuge geese in southern China,
they flee to the west, over into the areas that
will eventually be controlled by the Turkic Kanate, and to
the north into the areas where the quote barbarians live.
That also, you know, without the defeated Red Cliffs, how
does that look different?

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, it's I mean, because it does dispers it's the population.
If I'm thinking of a battle, it's comfortable. Maybe Tours
in that if if the Caliphate had won a Tour,
then you might have had a unified Muslim Europe if
you had defeated Charles Martel and the Franks, and they didn't,
and so it's say, stay divided and then the reconquista.
So I mean maybe that's something similar. But actually Tours

(20:42):
wasn't nearly as large a battles as Red Cliffs was.
I mean Redcliff was, I mean Tours was that was
essentially a Muslim rating party that happened. You had to
come through that.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
That wasn't we are all throwing everything we got against
each other.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, it is. I mean, I mean it's probably good.
I think we kind of know in the video. But
I mean one of the issues with this is that
it's so highly mythologized. I mean, we're essentially talking about
a battle that and people carry these these people who
have become almost characters, which I mean in some ways
you could look at like, I don't know, say George
Washington or Alexander the Great, where they're you know, who

(21:16):
they were as a person has almost been buried by
kind of who we what we think of them. I mean,
these these characters, well, I mean, gosh, one of the
one of them was literally deified by by late in
a later dynasty. That there, it's it's a really big
deal who these people are. But it does mean that,
you know, from a historical perspective, some of the things

(21:37):
we talk about in terms of like the clever ways
that they fought and stuff like that, it's a little
hard to tell if that was a real thing or
something that has been invented for the literacy.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Same thing two of the numbers, which of course you
have that same problem with all ancient battles in Europe
as well. But yeah, Chaoushaw has come out to be
kind of presented as the villain. And that's interesting because
there's a very relevant question in terms of you know,
talking about counterfactual on this battle, as if he had won,
losing essentially meant that he lost all his designs on
the South. But I mean, winning doesn't necessarily mean he

(22:09):
conquers the South, but I mean it puts him in
a very good position to do so. So I mean
if he had won and reunified China, then you you
know what his role would have been. And that's a
little hard to see when he's been kind of presented
as the as the villain in the in the a
historical story that's really as much folklore as it is
the fact.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, and they're I mean, they're their characters have been
partially defined on that. You get, you get the I mean,
that's that's why that like Leeu Bay is supposed to
be this this paragon of how you rule the kingdom,
whereas they they've kind of judged Sautsau as this guy
who was using like real politic, and he was he
was more of a like a practical guy. And that's

(22:49):
but that that's you know, as a character. That makes
it a lot harder for us to see exactly how
he would have been if things went differently. Certainly, it
would mean that we I mean, they have figures that
are you know, they they point to as like their
their paragons of virtue or or they're you know, their villains,
and that these would not be the same if this
battle in differently because without the Three Kingdoms period, or

(23:12):
with a very different Three Kingdoms period, you know, you
don't have the the romance which so helped define you know,
kind of how this period has been has been seen
in the public eye in China because it is an
interesting one. You know, this is a These are figures
that most people in the West are not going to recognize.
They might know about the Three Kingdoms period, but probably

(23:33):
not going to recognize.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
Most of the recognize always actually everybody through an Asia too,
because these are legends in Korea and Japan and Southeast Asian.

Speaker 4 (23:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, and that's I mean that which is also interesting
because this is a fairly brief period really in Chinese history. Yeah,
and yet it is I mean, that's there are Thurian legends.
I mean, they're they're ideas of knights and chivalry that
all come from this. They're you know, they're they're godlike
legends come from the Three Kingdoms period. So much of
their art and their literature and their their idea of

(24:03):
heroes and paragons of virtue and author of stuff come
out of this very brief period. That's I mean, that's
just it's one of the many things effects that the
battle had. But I mean that it's extraordinary how important
this brief period is to the whole understanding of Chinese
culture and people. You know, imagine if this period had
never occurred. I mean, what what would those myths think.

Speaker 5 (24:24):
You have to look at the way in which the
leaders are viewed, especially in the literary lens, with the
backdrop of the fact that the Chinese at that point
are very much following the teachings of Confucius and Confucianism,
and it's it's stressing of things like virtue, virtuous leadership,

(24:46):
rational and rational and well thought out policy is an
ideal to which an extent uh these leaders were held
up to. The of course, is that with all high
sounding and idealistic philosophies about what a leader should be,

(25:07):
oftentimes leaders are incredibly ruthless, ambitious, and in many cases
very egotistical individuals who are going to fight for their
own aggrandizement.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, they're very interested. They're often very interested in their
what their legacy will be that might.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Be necessary in order to take control in a period
of times like that. I mean, if you have if
you have too much empathy, if you're too kind, an emperor.
Do you do you have a chance of success or ruthlessness?

Speaker 3 (25:34):
Absolutely?

Speaker 5 (25:35):
Yeah, I mean if yeah, if you're so kind that
your brother is able to put a knife in your back, well,
we've seen multiple examples throughout history where such things did occur.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
You trust your brother too much, yeah, that's the or.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
The Roman senate in March, it's just yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Or you think that the praetorian guard is on your side,
that's yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
I mean you very rarely find someone who doesn't have
some amount of ruthlessness to them that that becomes an
emperor because they want it to be. Yeah, yeah, I
mean there might be someone shoved into that position that
didn't really want to be.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
I mean that's I mean, that's just so how do
you get a virtuous king?

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Really, because you know, you have to defeat the virtuous
in order to get that position.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Us, and at least part of historiography, right, how we
how we remember that matters and that's I mean, that's
part of what we learned from this is how how
that happens. And it's interesting for us as people from
the West to examine that. I think it's easier for
us to examine it from a culture. We don't recognize
as well because we don't have necessarily the the cultural

(26:41):
bias that you might have. We've got different cultural bias admittedly,
but you know, it's it's sometimes hard for us to
examine figures that have been so pathologized in our own
but we.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
Might we might be more able to be objective.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
You're on, Yeah, it's it seems like probably that the
character of Caschau has been lined with time. Yeah, and
that even though he was known to be kind of
makiabellion or that's how they would kind of describe it today. Though,
I mean that he probably would have been a practical ruler.
I mean, would he have kept the Han dynasty going
on beyond his life span. It's it's kind of hard

(27:14):
to say what he would It have prevented the violence
of the Three Kingdoms period if he had won this battle,
I mean, I mean, what would be the impact if
China unified or reunified much more quickly. That could be
vast and it might mean a stronger Chine, it might
mean a weaker China. And this would have looked at
at least in the in the short term, it would
have been roughly and certainly more roughly than you know,

(27:35):
the Three Kingdoms period was a continuation of the Han government,
it would have been very different. I do wonder most
of the.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
Stuff I read suggested that people people would say that
if he did win that battle, he would have declared
himself emperor, which is interesting because of course he never
did that in his lifetime. He didn't want to, he
avoided doing it.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yeah, and it was his son, a representative of the
of the emperor.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
It was his son who or the you know, the
nominal emperor to actually abdicate. But so I don't know,
I wonder, you know, what his his personal feelings were
about that that maybe he wouldn't have Maybe he would
have left you know, a figure in place, even if
he did have total control.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
But if you leave the figure in place, you still
get the bureaucracy that came on dynasty, which was actually
a fairly efficient bureaucracy. So I mean, I still could
have impacted things. But yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
It's I mean, and would they have been you know,
the right strength at the right times, because you do
you mentioned, you know, these all these people that end
up coming into the northern part of the Jin dynasty
and just leave absolute chaos in the north for I
mean for a long time, you would they have been
able to have the strength up there because we're I mean,
the depopulation is actually hard to hard to even describe.

(28:46):
We're talking like, I mean as much as like a
sixty percent depopulation of China.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
I mean we one of the Estimus I saw that
said they went from about fifty million to about thirteen million.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yeah, I mean absolutely, I just almost everyone you know
is dead and that's mostly I mean from the wars
and the lots of famines, and they were just fighting constantly.
When you if you if you go look at like
the Wikipedia for these people after the Battle of Red Cliffs,
what you see after that is war with this person,
battles with this guy.

Speaker 4 (29:17):
War, war, war, they they it was just.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Constant combat for this whole period, which is I mean eventually,
I guess that's why eventually someone comes in and is
is the last the last one breathing after everybody else
has kind of just worn out when the Jin dynasty
comes together. One of the things I did want to
talk about is it's curious, you know, this was really
the first time since China had been unified, as you know,

(29:40):
under the Chin dynasty that we start really seeing the
split from the North and the South, and to some
extent that that's what did exist absent of the there's
there's there's the rivers and mountains that separate the two.
The South was generally at this in this period, was
less populated, was less developed. Most of the population lived
in the North. But this this political split that kind

(30:04):
of happens here, this essentially remains that that remains a
split for for almost the next thousand years. Is that
whether they're at times of course it's unified, but essentially
you get you get states in the North and states
in the South when they split, and you wonder how
much this battle specifically might have impacted that and if
it would have changed if you know, if these if

(30:26):
the powers hadn't been separated.

Speaker 5 (30:28):
Yeah, I think the I think that there's a pretty
good argument for if the if the North is unified,
that probably a successful warlord who is now potentially claimed
the title of emperor for himself or claimed the imperial mandate,

(30:51):
seeks to further his legacy by attacking into the South.
I think that that's I think that's a fairly likely outcome.
And so the potential of the reunification of China into
a more or less you know, the state that we
look at the current Chinese borders and say, okay, this

(31:13):
resembles it somewhat. I would say that there's a pretty
good chance that it would have been attempted. Now, whether
it could have actually occurred, Uh, there's that. That's that's
crystal ball territory, and my crystal ball isn't that It
isn't that clear?

Speaker 4 (31:31):
Unfortunate.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
I mean that the record was though when you defeated
an enemy, you wiped out their military, you essentially said,
slaughtered their people.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
So I mean it's there.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
There probably would have been an attempt at least to
remove the whole identity of Southern China as an individual identity.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
And yeah, there would have.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
Been some power to do that given given the numbers too,
because you know, by every every measure they thought he
should win this battle.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
I mean, it was going to win this battle. So
I mean he might have.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Had enough power after that battle to essentially to destroy
the identity of Southern China and make it more of
a vassal sort of thing.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
It's hard to imagine memories.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah, Leu Bay absent this battle. It's hard to see
him having enough territory and enough of power base to
have a have a kingdom. The other guy as if
a sun shune. Hopefully that's roughly correct. He maybe had
a slightly better chance, although you know, it was already
the two of them together were expected to lose, and

(32:32):
so it's it's hard to imagine him essentially winning that
except you know, is fighting fighting alone, except that you know,
now he's lost his navy. Probably it's hard to imagine
that coming out well. His his best case seems like.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
The Northern the Northern armies, the land armies were more
or more trained, more prepared, I mean, he would have
he would have been at a huge disadvantage.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
His his best case scenario would have been that had
enough going on that he you know, essentially allows him
to retain some sort of power while being becoming a
vassal or something like that. And it's I don't know
that it's clear that he would have done that, but
certainly he had other I mean, there were other rebellions
and fighting, and there was plenty else for him to do,
which is why this was kind of his his one opportunity.

Speaker 4 (33:17):
And when he loses this battle. He does fight wars.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
Down there again, but there there, there's they weren't going
to be one in a single battle like this was.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, this was a unique opportunity, and so it's truly
a unique turning point in history. And I don't know
how much we're driving on a great man theory here,
how much that has to do with an individual personality
or that stuff that's just going to occur in the.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
Course of events, but I mean it ends up.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
You know, you could not have maintained a lot of
the things that separate these identities, including cuisine and literature
and all sorts of things, if one person had kept controlling.

Speaker 5 (33:52):
I would say that, assuming that the reunification of China occurs,
I would say that you would have shock waves into
the future because I think that Chinese development would have
been far far different than it is currently. Number One,
you wouldn't have lost sixty ish percent of your population
over the course of the next century, which obviously is

(34:15):
going to create huge opportunities for other things to occur.
I do think that it would be an interesting site
to see in an alternate timeline where the large Chinese
junks that supposedly were trading up and down the coast
of Africa were to roll into the med and creat
their counterparts in the Roman Imperial Navy, or sail up

(34:39):
the Red Sea and meet representatives in Alexandria.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah, it's the most in terms of like the most
extreme counterfactual that we could give. I think that's what
we're talking that enough of the golden age of the
Han dynasty continues to survive that despite the fact that
probably you know, I mean the kingdom would divide again
and unite again. Is that enough people survive, enough wealth

(35:06):
and stuff like that survives this period, that China overall
is on better footing in the you know, in the next.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
So that can go on to impact.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Of course, it could be I mean, there's some argument
that it would have been in worse footing because there
were inventions that came because of the challenges of the
Three Kingdoms period, and they talked of the wheelbarrow was
possibly invented because of the challenges of the depopulation.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
Of the Three Kingdoms period.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
And there is the you know, the barbarian attacks that
come later, which are largely defeated by armies in the
south that might have been wiped out by then. The
Imperial army had become fairly corrupt and weak, and you know,
if that had happened for the whole of China, then possibly,
you know, China is completely overrun and ends up being
essentially a Mongol state. So there are some arguments that
says that maybe China was stronger because of the Three

(35:53):
Kingdoms period, and you know that that's trial by fire.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
I guess from.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
An evolutionary perspective, you've read a stronger breed.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
Yeah, right, all the week winds are dead.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
But it's hard to It's hard to know because I mean,
first of all, we just don't know what those people
would have done. Right, Certainly it feels like you have
you have an extra thirty million, thirty plus million people
that they'll do something.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
But it's hard.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
I mean, you have to think science and art in
literature would have developed based on this much larger population
and population based than rather than the you know that
it all came because of the conflicts, and you know,
in the long run, I mean, if China doesn't have
you know, this period of mythology, I mean, how much
does that really impact China?

Speaker 3 (36:35):
Especially beince modern China's kind of rejected a lot of
that I mean in religion and stuff. There are other impacts.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
One of the impacts on the world was that the
Three Kingdoms period, the chaos of the Three Kingdoms period
allowed Chinese Buddhism to thrive. Buddhism is really on a
worldwide basis, is really.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
Distributed through China.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
I mean, Buddhism predates China, and Chinese Buddhism is nothing
like kind of Buddhism.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
But as a world religion, it.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
Probably does become a world religion and you know, possibly
even dies out as a religion, you know, on the subcontinent.
But the religion of Buddha, which has I don't know,
six percent of the world's adherents or something like that,
and it's a massive religion, you know, half a half
a billion people might not exist as a world religion.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
If it weren't for the Three Kingdoms period.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
Two also of Daoism versus Confucism, which so those are
I mean, those are impacts that come in I mean,
even even to an except the United States is impacted
by you know, our number of Buddhists, right, And it's
hard to say if you had kept it together and
kept those thirty thousand or thirty sorry, thirty million people
or forty million somewhere between thirty and forty million who died.
I mean, would that have solidified you know, the singular

(37:40):
religion of confuciusm or or you know, would that have
allowed more opportunity.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
For more diversity.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
It's kind of hard to imagine on a more unified
China that you end up having a less unified religion.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
So I mean, I mean those those impacts, but.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
I mean whether whether China is stronger because it went
through this period of trials or whether kind of stronger
because it didn't.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
That's that's when you get into counterfactions. That's where it's
very difficult. It's very difficult to say because we don't
know who.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
You know, if you take any population of thirty million people, I've.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
Got to do stuff. It's going to be, Yeah, it's
it's going to be the.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Nations a lot smaller than that that have done a.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
List of pretty impressive folks are going to be hidden
in there somewhere.

Speaker 5 (38:20):
I mean, if a Mozart isn't one in a million
times thirty million, that means you'd have thirty you know,
potentially statistic mozarts or thirty Madam Curiez or take take
your pick of someone who's made a huge difference in society,
you know, whether it's artistic, medical, military.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
But there's a good point too that sometimes that that
adversity is what brings out the ingenuity. And it's so
it's it is. It's difficult, certainly though, I mean, it
would have been very significantly different.

Speaker 4 (38:55):
It's hard to talk about.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
Specifics when we get so far out, but I mean,
I think it's underestimating it, under selling it to say
that it would have been about as big an impact
as we talk about when we were talking about you know,
what might have happened to Rome if they lost Canna. Yeah,
and you know if Rome fell in then then there
was a Carthaginian And I think we're talking about that
big a shift in.

Speaker 4 (39:17):
Terms of it's it's it's just on the other on
the other.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Side of the world, China would be completely different. They
would they would understand things completely different. It would be
a different population because it really was a different population
in the Han dynasty before the Jin dynasty and brought
in a lot of it would it would have different arts,
different culture, different cultural identities, which would probably mean even
things like different cuisines that they had today. That because
because some of the cuisines are coming from you know,

(39:42):
the regional differences that come from the.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
Warring state period.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
It's it's hard to say a number of other things.
I mean, it might be that this just delays collapse,
and the collapse is even worse because he's gotten rid
of these other people that had power. I mean, if
you didn't have the powerful kingdoms in the south and
then the Han dynasty collapse, what does that look like?
And is that worse than the than the than the
three kingdoms. So we really, we honestly can't say, you
know where it goes off.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
The long run.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
But I mean there are certainly, you know, some pieces
that you can see that you know would have would
had to have been different if it changed in that
short run.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
If we're talking about those those initial dominoes on that
the changes are are kind of incredible. But certainly the
changes as you get farther away become foggier but larger too.

Speaker 5 (40:28):
Yeah, perhaps I am struck by the continuity from even
you know, the pre On dynasty China, stretching back at
least the kin especially with the way that the Chinese
were structuring their governments, how they would occupy territories, and

(40:52):
the periodic, the periodic rejection of an aristocratic noble class
versus a skilled bureaucratic class defines how China operated two
thousand years ago, all the way up until to an extent,

(41:13):
all the way up until the present, because there are
certainly ways of thinking that come along with a rich
history in which Confucianism and mass population redistribution are forcible
population redistribution, if you want to call it ethnic cleansing,

(41:34):
it's there. Yeah, how many how many peoples from the
Feeta territories were you know, promptly moved to around the
new to around the conqueror's home base because he needed
the population to work the fields, run the smithy, anything
that requiredly.

Speaker 4 (41:55):
Yeah, it's a it is. There's as it's.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Interesting the ways that they that they connect, in the
ways of course that.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
They which is a long term I mean, you have
the Warring States period, before you get you know, before
you get dynasties again, then you get the Three Kingdoms,
and and then you know, even even then you had
the Chinese Civil War before you had the CCP.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
It's an interesting kind of kind of cyclicalness to it.
But also I mean, yeah, there was there are lines
that go all the way through all of it that
that are remarkably similar. And that's I mean, I guess
that's where the part of what we we can look
at with the history and we talked about, you know,
the great Man theory on this is it's certainly true
that there were as the Han dynasty kind of weekends.

Speaker 4 (42:35):
I mean, there were opportunities.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
So the question is, you know, was it was it
something about South South specifically that allowed him to kind
of become the made the most major player in that period,
or would it have been someone you just needed to have,
someone who was willing to grab the grab the reins
because the rains were essentially there. But I also wonder,
I mean, you know, there were a lot of people,
there were a lot of people who were in various

(42:59):
positions of power during you know, the kind of collapse
of the Han As. There were these various warlords and
governors and stuff like that that had had power that
was essentially being run without that without any imperial guidance.
And so it is it was is it an accident
of history that Sautsau and Liu Bay and Sunshune are
the ones to come out of it.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
That's that's hard to say.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
As much legend has been built around them. But I mean,
I mean, yeah, I was supposedly quite a brilliant general,
and you know, if it had been someone who wasn't
such a brilliant general, then I mean, you might never
have gotten to the.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
Point of this battle. I mean, it's true, might not
have had the ambition to be.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Although I mean clearly he ultimately made some mistakes in that,
and a part of it was just that the the
North and the South are different enough, just like ecologically
that they were his. I mean, his soldiers were having
trouble dealing with the illness and this more tropical essentially
climate down there, and that that might be part of

(43:57):
the reason seems to be part of the.

Speaker 4 (43:59):
Reason why he lost that battle.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
As his troops were retired, I say, that's so long
that you've seen it in lots of different places. I mean,
in the American Revolution, the people in the South were
used to play essentially the British or not, and they
had much, you know, higher percentage of their troops that
were disabled by the various illnesses that come just because
there hate hanging out where it's hot, humid.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
So yeah, yeah, it sure seems like that might have
been enough to to tea a.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
Significant chunk of it.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
I mean there, but there were mistakes too, and he
still did by at least the descriptions outnumbered them in
significant ways. I mean, when you listen to ancient Chinese
descriptions about how big their boats are, the you know,
there's people that are, you know, understandably credulous about whether
these numbers were were correct. But I mean there's reasons
to be understandably creduitless about in the number given to
you by Roman historian too.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
I mean, historians always come up with a consensus that's different,
but generally, I think we still agree that the Southern
powers were outnumbered and that generally they were not expected
to win. One of the counterfactuals I thought about was
what if, you know, what if suns And decides not
to fight, he decides to try to sue for peace
or kind of sit underneath him lee obay on his own,

(45:06):
he was in an even worse position to try to
to try to survive if he didn't win this battle,
And that's you know that that might have been a
very different. You know, maybe you preserve some version of
southern China.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Then without out as he would be in the war
in the Three Kingdoms period. That's an interesting question if
he was more what if they had, you know, a
banded against Leboo, because there was a point in the
battle where Whereasha was assuming that Lee Boo was not
going to attack, that they had broken up and he
left a flanking protected. Uh, And that is you know,

(45:40):
theoretically a chunk of you know, why why he.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
Lost the battle.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
So yeah, it was it was that he didn't think
he'd attacked because he thought they weren't they weren't going
to be They weren't on the weren't on the same
team anymore. Which certainly I think there was every chance
that they you know, they all had that competed.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
And that's a good question to say.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
What if one of the two saying, oh, it looks
like we're going to lose, I'm going to you know,
I'm going to back out here and negotiate a separate
peace and you know, not sharing this defeat. There's that's
a very real possibility. And you know, how does that look?
How did they divide up land? How did they divide
up power. You know, what does what's the agreement in
terms of, you know, how much military strength are allowed
to have in et cetera, because their extent to which

(46:18):
that Josh I wouldn't have, you know, wouldn't have made
a deal, right because he wanted to pull the country.
But you have to think, especially being a Machiavelli, and
you would think that if someone came and said, look,
I'll be your vassal, you know, and we can band
against him. It's kind of hard to imagine the way
he's described him saying no to that.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Yeah, yeah, it seems like that would have been opportune
for him. And I think that's why some of the
stuff I was reading from from people, from other people's
thoughts on it was that Southside would have been willing
to say essentially, okay, you can be my vassal. But
he also had many other I mean, he had other issues,
and so you know, if he's able to preserve his
forces to deal with other people, but does he eventually

(46:54):
then decide to come to come back anyway? And that
might be the once he's you know, once he's in
a better position, and he really might. That's that is
certainly a possibility. And it's one of the things when
we were talking about the North South divide there there
was a lot of change demographically because he lost this battle.

(47:17):
He created southsau created like a like a no man's
land around the along the rivers, and then but he
brought whole populations back away from those rivers so that
there wouldn't be there wouldn't be farms. There wouldn't be
and the places where there were farms, they were literally
farmed by the soldiers and so and and the places
that you would have had to go you'd have to
treadle a long way, and then they were heavily, heavily fortified.

(47:39):
And so I mean, he he altered, you know, essentially
the demographics and uh maps of China to to better
defend his territory. And it's it's interesting how that might
have impacted, you know, how how cities grew, how how
it might have it might have helped keep that North
South divide going because you know, because the that's just

(48:00):
how how where people were living for I mean, that
might have impacted how people were living for centuries afterward.
And that that because that split is significant, like you said,
I mean that's that's a cultural divide that we might
not understand all that well in the United States today,
but you know, in China, there's certainly an understanding that
that there there there's cultural differences between the North and

(48:21):
the South, even today.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
I think if anybody can understand that, the US can.

Speaker 4 (48:27):
Yeah, well, I guess that's fair. We've got cultural.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
Difference based on a you know, long ago conflict.

Speaker 5 (48:34):
Actually, yeah, one of the just a random thought that
occurred to me during my research, someone had indicated that, oh,
another element of that North South divilide in China is
that north of the Gang, say, your primary cereal crop
is is wheat, versus to the south, where the climate
is much warmer, it's typically rice.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
So some of that, some of that divide is clearly
not geology climatology stuff like that, is that there's clearly
just differences in how people live in those two regions.
The temperatures are different. That there's generally I mean, there's
snow in the North and that's not generally true in
the South. I guess there's and that's I mean, that's
kind of interesting. I guess I didn't really know that.

(49:14):
Of course, it's an absolutely enormous. China is a really
big place, and and that's and that's ignoring we're talking
really just the more coastal regions here, not talking about
like Tibets and the more central Asian stuff that China,
China now controls, which they didn't so much in this period.

Speaker 5 (49:32):
But no, in fact, they were facing challenges from nomads
at plane and they would periodically come in and do
what barbarians do.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
So just like Rome, that was like that was a
constant issue. Is these groups, especially nomadic groups coming in
from the from the steps, they're just going the other direction,
honestly and in some way, in some sometimes they're they're
very very similar culture culturally the groups that were bugging
the China and Rome and of course eventually the Huns.

(50:01):
I mean, it's the same, it's the same, guys. I
don't think I don't think I've got enough of a
grasp on Chinese culture, popular culture and stuff like that
to really know how this would have impacted modern Chinese
like popular culture. But like even today, the number of
movies and plays and apparently Chinese opera is just absolutely

(50:22):
dominated by this kind of by stories of the of
the three kingdoms. I mean, I think I think you
go back to try to think of how how we've
how in the West, you know, we talked about maybe
Medieval or Roman, How how much of our stuff ends
up focusing on those periods.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (50:38):
I mean, that's kind of what we're talking about with
China here, is that this was a period that was
so has so dominated their cultural history today even that
that it's it's certainly I mean, we'd be talking about
different movies, which is a rather seems like a rather
small thing compared to some of the stuff we've talked
about today.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
But if you think about great names in the West, Caesar, Cleopatra, Charlemagne, Napoleon,
you know, Arthur, I mean, we get a lot of
our legends from certain places, and I mean any of
those could it at a different time, We could be
missing those, you know, Robin Hood, I don't know those
are coming over a much broader period of time, but
I mean it dramatically would shift. You know, what does

(51:17):
that mean? Whatever again in the great man sort of thing?
Does whatever rises in that stead? Is it going to
have really similar things that are derived from Chinese culture?
Or is Chinese culture completely different? Because they they are revered.

Speaker 4 (51:28):
I mean, that's that's the question.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
What did they find figures that that you know, kind
of fit ideas that they already wanted to to you know,
to talk about and to revere or did you know
what these figures were impact you know, what they revered
and probably there's there's something in the middle there some
push and pull on that it did have. I mean,

(51:51):
this also impacted strategy. It showed us how important fighting
in China was along the river, especially the Yang Sea,
the thirty six Gyms, which is like this big, this
kind of big Chinese, I guess to some way. In
some ways you could call it. It's it's kind of
like sun Su, although sun Su is in the same period,
but I think sun Su is much more well known.

(52:11):
But these a lot of those ideas came straight out
of the Three Kingdom period. I mean, these are you know,
that might have had that might have had impacts on
how they thought about strategy and considered war. And certainly
I mean, gosh, they were just just like in so
many other parts of the world. You know, there was
wars there essentially constantly over the next thousand years. And

(52:33):
if you if you change how they think about battles
I mean that might have had really really large impacts
in terms of who came out on top.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
And then those you know, those legends create kind of
a you know, a vision of what it means to
be clever in Chinese culture, which then impacts, you know,
the whole thinking today, you know, even in the even
in the modern China that has moved past many of
those those legends.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
Yeah, that's that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Yeah, I think I think an interesting thing to learn
from this, especially is as people from the West, is
just how big history is, quite honestly, because we're not
just talking big, you know, because the world is a
really big place, but it's a very deep history and
time as well, and.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
Just how far back you can go.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
I mean, this is going because I think most people
in the West are probably unfamiliar with the Battle of
the Red Cliffs unless they played it in the video game.
We're struggling with how to talk about Chinese history. It
doesn't help, but much of Chinese history is written in
a completely different script.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
None of the three.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
I don't think this is any of our specialties.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
This is going on.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
I mean, to them, the Romans were irrelevant, you know,
and so we'll talk about Rome, like Rome, Rome the
whole you know, and to them, like, you know, they
didn't even care about Rome. And so I mean if
you were Chinese history, you might have the same difficulty
talking about Season, right, And that is that is a
measure of how massive, how big history is that you
can have something that so transforms this whole culture and

(53:57):
here on the other side of the world, we don't
even necessarily underst handed and it's in terms of the
counterfactions we've done before. It's a lot harder to say,
like how, you know, what did this battle have to
do with the US? How to impact any of our history?
That's a tougher thing to say, because how much is
China different because of this? You know, a thousand years
down the road, two thousand years down the road, that's
a much that's a much more difficult question to answer.

(54:19):
I mean, maybe it is maybe China, you know, maybe China,
if it didn't depopulate, it becomes much more powerful and
actually dominates a much bigger peace of the world. Or
I mean, or maybe you know, the Chinese aren't his
warlike if they don't have the Three Kingdoms period or
something like that, and you know that might impact things.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
But it's not a hard to measure.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
I don't know how this impacts the Opium Wars or
European colonial efforts in Southeast Asia kind of thing. I mean,
that's that's.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Yeah, because those comes so much after, so it is
it is hard to see.

Speaker 5 (54:47):
And let's face it, the major changes went on from
China being a true superpower in the fifteen and sixteen
hundreds and then in the early nineteen hundred's basically more
or less disintegrating.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
It's an interesting thing.

Speaker 5 (55:05):
To look at through a lens, whether it be an
actual historical lens or counterfactual lens, and say what sorts
of changes were resulted from that disintegration, and how could
they have possibly turned it around? If there is not
the massive depopulation in the Three Kingdoms period, and there

(55:28):
is unified rule with a highly effected bureaucratic system that
we've already seen survives for many hundreds, actually thousands of years.
What if the Chinese decide that they're going to head east,
so the first thing to do is they can conquer Japan, well,

(55:49):
conquer Korea first, then Japan, and then they work up
the Kiile Islands, and then they turn left and smash
into the coompchoct of peninsula, or they do a hard
right and yeah, and then are they do a hard
right and.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
Moving down, moving along a so growth.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Yeah, maybe that's interesting, that's true.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
I mean, there are already arguments to say that Chinese
were the first to visit from the Old World to
visit to the New World.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
There is that argument.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
So I mean, yeah, I guess there's a reasonable chance
there to say that, I mean that you could have
gotten a Chinese Columbus much earlier, and by the time
Europeans are showing up and discovering the New World, that's
already a Chinese new World. That's that's that's that is
an interesting But I mean you're still you're still pushing that,
you know, a Thoy fourteen hundred years in the future.
But I mean it's that's you know, it's not an

(56:43):
inconceivable idea to say that China could have maybe you know,
gotten that direction.

Speaker 3 (56:47):
That's a fair point.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
And one of the results of the Three Kingdoms period
really is to identify of a Korean the unification of
the peninsula and the idea of a whole Korean identity, yeah,
which you know might not occurred if if you had
had that warrant period, Yeah, I think we can't say.
We can probably assume this is true, that if if
Chashia had had really conscripted the year and the Chinese
bigfoot uh populations, that might have shifted this battle. So clearly,

(57:13):
you know, there is that other counterfactual, and that is
if if you, if you had made the proper use
of sasquatch again, it could have altered history because they
mostly the Chinese legends of sasquatch, which go back well
before this period of their of their sasquatch, but by
some of their wild men. As a matter of fact,
some of them say that these are these are people
that were conscripted to build the Great Wall that escaped.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
But maybe it's a wild drive.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
By some other descriptions, they are very much like like
a bigfoot. So obviously, you know, bigfoot can shift any battle.
We've talked about that before, and that's obvious here too,
that it was a mistake.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
On his part to leave them out of his of
his army.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
But then again, if they had, say, taken control afterwards,
it could be a very different China if if if
their military might had won this battle.

Speaker 3 (57:59):
You know, they might become essentially the ruling class. And
then you have the you have the Yaran dynasty, and
that could be quite different.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
That could be very different. How how would they have
battled the you know, the later Mongol invasions? Would there
have been a Mongol China? If the Mongols came in
and had to face it.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
And then nothing else.

Speaker 5 (58:17):
Big Foot is extraordinarily tall, meaning that the Great Wall
of China would have become proportionally even taller.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
So yes, that's that's right.

Speaker 4 (58:25):
It would have to be.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
They were Okay, I'm trying to read about them here.
They were apparently there.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
There's at least one story of them climbing a wall,
a defensive wall, so there. I mean, they might have
been a mighty military forest. It's too bad they were
somehow left out of the whole fight.

Speaker 4 (58:43):
Disappeared it was.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
It was a water battle too, So if you had
been able to enlist NeSSI, Oh yeah, also could easily
have shifted.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
Yeah, that's the gets some of the we we just
did an episode on.

Speaker 3 (58:53):
We just did an episode one.

Speaker 5 (58:57):
Yes, I think that NeSSI surfacing in between the change
of ships of shaw Shao would have been a disaster.
But if she had if she had somehow knocked the
fire ship soft course, then.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
Because save the day could have changed all about You know,
there are pretty powerful legends in China about dragons and
sea monster and sea serpents and that sort of thing,
maybe more so even than in Europe.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
So it's kind of interesting.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
And all these legends those didn't work there their way
into it. I guess, like everything else, I don't know
enough quite about Chinese culture to truly understand the role
of the Even the Bigfoots, I can't quite figure out
how they fit.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
These are foreign bigfoots, foreign bigfoots who I'm just not sure.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
Are they as tall as our big foot I don't know,
And I'm not really quite clear on exactly you know,
whether it says they climbed the wall, so I mean
that that would seem to me that they would they
would be useful, I.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Don't They might not be very good marritors.

Speaker 5 (59:55):
I mean, they might be prone to seasickness and that, yeah,
they might be.

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
I can't imagine.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
And if they're fer any, who knows how they would
have dealt with the southern climate.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
So I mean, maybe maybe it wouldn't have made a difference.

Speaker 5 (01:00:08):
Yes, yes, I I don't deal with a warm climate
and I'm not covered from head to toe with a thick,
matted fur so and I can guarantee you that as
someone said, hey, Brad, let's go invade uh, you know,
Georgia or Tennessee during the summer, I'd be like, can
we wait till November?

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
You know that's you know, yeah, that's not too bad.
So this is interesting. I think we got agree. I
think anybody could agree that this had a massive.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Impact on China, and one that's very difficult to understand
from a Western perspective because we're really talking about undermining
their so much of what how it defines China, that's
hard for us to even see something that would have
been that radical impact. But in terms of a turning point,
this is far enough back that it's really kind of
hard to see how it impacts the modern world, and

(01:00:58):
that that's it's becomes more and more speculative as we.

Speaker 5 (01:01:01):
Go looking at again, what do we have that we
can kind of compare it to, and that is, imagine
imagine Western civilization without the Middle Ages where Rome just continued,
or imagine a Western civilization without actually this is from
one of our previous episodes, Alexander the Great. If you

(01:01:23):
do not have that ideal icon that paragog of glory
and personal achievement, do you get more people or less
people who try to live up to that ideal? So,
as part of the great Man theory, I would say

(01:01:46):
that there's certain individuals are just at a place in
time and have good enough press or make good enough
press for themselves that they are able to leave a legacy.
And I think that it's probably equally fair to say

(01:02:07):
that there are plenty of nameless figures who just as
just as importantly are they shifted a critical thing at
a critical time in just as important a way that
we'll never hear of.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
And who knows how many of those might have been
among the thirty million in the document. You know they
might have too, So I mean the person that doesn't shift,
it's also just as important as history.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
We just don't necessarily know that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
So I mean I have trouble looking at it and
saying that it was just because of a matter of
circumstance that China was going to break into you know,
the Three Kingdoms period, that was going to have to
go into civil war because it does feel like, you know,
after the extent of the Han dynasty, that there was
some way to continue, you know, to continue the empire.
But the Han dynasty had decayed enough that it was

(01:02:54):
going to go to some period of chaos.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
And to that extent you know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
Where we started this, which was the quotation that says
that you you sweat and then you unified, and you
sweat and then you unify. That that cycle suggests that
maybe this, you know, you can throw out the great
man theory that essentially what happened was going to happen
in some way in that ish period anyway, regardless of
these three guys in this particular pattern.

Speaker 5 (01:03:17):
Yeah, and obviously whenever you say, okay, well what's the counterfactual, Well,
what if the last han Imbert actually been competent, or
what if there had been or if or if if
his eldest son was had been born of prodigy, then
we're getting to the hypothetical great man. And that's uh,

(01:03:37):
that's now we're ready. Now we're really headed into speculative territory.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
Yeah, but you still come to at some point that
dynasty was going to end, because they do and that
was probably going to end in some sort of chaos,
because they do. And we saw that happen again and
again and again in China. So it might have changed
how it might have changed when, but I mean still
you would have ended up with, you know, something that
it's roughly the same. I mean, that's essentially the argument there.

(01:04:02):
And I mean I think there's reason to see that here.
There's reasons, I mean, there's reasons to say that this
dynasty was going to end, it was going to lead
to a period of chaos that was going to lead
itself into another dynasty, and that that probably is something
that's just kind of set in. You know, the length
of Chinese history hard to even deny. But that doesn't
even if that's true, and you know, I don't know,
it's awfully mechanistic to see it that way.

Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
Even if that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
If this happened at a different time or in a
significantly different way, you still end up with a significantly
different China.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
Thank you for listening to this episode of The History
Guy podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode of counterfactual history,
and if you did, you can find lots more history
if you follow the History Guy on YouTube. You can
also find us at the historyguy dot com, Facebook, Patreon,
and locals. If you want to hear more counterfactuals, stay tuned.
We release podcasts every two weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Don't become instating badly in
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