SinoDefence Forum

vesicles

Yep, the end of Sui and beginning of Tang. And these people did battle each other, with the exception that most of the people in the Tang camp survived into the Tang dynasty and the people in the Sui camp gone... Actually, most of these people, even those in the Tang camp did not survive to see the establishment of Tang dynasty. And you can't mention people like Qin Qiong without mentioning Yuwen Chengdu... It's like mentioning the Peter Pan without mentioning Captain Hook although the arch enemy of Yuwen Chengdu was actually Li Yuanba (Yeah Yeah Yeah, I know, he didn't exist...).

Yeah, I know Li Yuanba is fictional, but he is one of the most famous character in the novel and legend.

bladerunner

Hmmmm: Start mixing fact with fiction and you end up with something like King Arthur and Camelot, with the Knights of the Round Table. situation.

solarz

And then you have Cheng Yaojing, who survived what, 3 Tang emperors, and well into the reign of the empress Wu Zetian. He's always been my favorite guy in the Sui-Tang Chronicles.

Edit:

Okay, apparently that part was fiction. Oh well.

rhino123

And since we are going into fiction, why don't we look at the Feng Sheng Ban characters - Jiang Zi Ya? He is a good strategist, help to defeat the Shang Dynasty and formed the Zhou Dynasty.

solarz

Is Jiang entirely fictional or rooted in a historical character? I remember seeing a chinese history show where the narrator talked about how Zhou defeated Shang in only 3 months. That's faster than the Americans taking over Iraq.

rhino123

Actually it take quite a number of years for Zhou to completely annihilate the Shang. And the story is quite long with Jiang actually helping the Shang in the beginning.

However the feng shen ban (or Feng Shen Yan Yi) is a story, more like a legend of the beginning of the Taoist gods. It is a collection of how many deities came about.

I do believe that there might really be a person call Jiang Zi Ya, but I do not believe all those magical thingies. It is just not scientific. Actually when you look at it, it was simply a war between two nations - Shang and Zhou, and in the beginning Zhou is a small vessal state of Shang, and they rebel and won the war ultimately.

To make thing more interesting, both the generals from Shang and Zhou are make deities and they live happily ever after, which actually reflected ancient Chinese believes and dreams - to attain immortality.

vesicles

Jiang Shang is the father of all Chinese Gods. He was the one who assigned all the Gods to their proper places, except, of course, the Monkey King!!!

I like this fictional stuff

vesicles

Actually, most of them died. They were made into Gods because of their ultimate sacrifice. the only one who became a God while alive and stayed alive was Yang Jian, the guy with 3 eyes. To me, he's the greatest warrior in the era, with 73 transformations (even one more than the Monkey King) along with kick-a$$ kungfu skills. And he didn't even need to stay in the oven for 49 days to get the ability to see through other people's transformations.

vesicles

Isn't that one of the greatest legends of all time?

bladerunner

Yes he was a legendery hero.I think there was a person that King Arthur was modeled on, though he never achieved the things King Arthur did though and as earler pointed out, these things arent accurately recorded , so how do you separate fact from fiction? in all these battles you are talking about.

vesicles

Most of what I've been saying in the past couple of days have been fake, at least 70% fake 30% fact

We are talking something that happened thousands of years ago. If someone can give you a description down to how the two guys moved in a fight/battle, you know they made it up. this is the case in almost all the Romance novel, like the 3-kingdom, Sui-Tang, Waterford (shuihu), Fengshen Bang and also the Journey to the West. We have to thank the traditional storytellers for all the fake stuff. My dad loved that kind of stuff when he was little. He got all kinds of weird legends/myths about Chinese history. he said he used to spend hours a day listening to these storytellers when he's little. I still remember, when I was little, he used to tell me all kinds of exciting fights between those ancient warriors and the awesome weapons they used. I think it was these legends that got me interested in real history, military and weapons. So don't underestimate these fake stuff. It can fire up a kid's imagination and kindle a life-long passion.

solarz

Well, how much "fact" is there in actual history? Just because something is recorded in texts doesn't mean it was actually true.

Also, don't underestimate legends and fiction. The Manchu made the last Ming Emperor kill his own greatest general using a ruse from the fictional novel of Romance of Three Kingdoms. Here, you have an example of fiction which influence 300 years of history.

vesicles

I just thought of someone else. Zhu Di of the Ming dynasty. Under him, Ming became THE ultimate superpower in the world. I think he actually began to formulate strategies for China in the context of other nations, instead of simply taking China as the center of things, kind of like the idea of "globalization" (please interpret this term loosely). He sent out convoys to survey the world, sent out troops for "power projection" and to increase trade, etc. I think one expert estimated that during Zhu Di's time, China's navy was larger than that of the entire Europe combined. And no one could even remotely match the firepower on those battleships. If only his vision and policies were continued, China would be a much different place than now...

bladerunner

[QUOTE=solarz;110680]Thats exactly my point, How can you decide/,or whats the point in, which was the best general when 70% of your information is fiction.
THe guy you finally unanimously accept as the best General in Chinese History, is there because he was fortunate in having the best embellishers.

vesicles

That's an inherent problem with history anywhere. You can't simply trust whatever is written down. One good example: Ramsey II is possibly the greatest Egyptian Pharaoh of all time. One of his best-known attributes was winning a battle against a very determined enemy (I don't remember the name of his enemy). They put the battle scenes everywhere to glorify the Pharaoh. It turns out he not only did not win the battle, he actually lost the battle. Some experts claim that he fought to a draw and signed a peace treaty, definitely not the kind of win that he claimed to have.

the thing is, winners get to write history however they want. Yes, some of that was embellished, but the embellishment itself tells you how great the guy was. He won and he got the capability to actually change history and made sure the embellishment became history and the only history.

About the 70% thing, most of the stuff on generals/strategists that we have been talking about are relatively accurate history. The 70% fiction thing that I was talking about refer to the "Tang warrior" stuff I was mumbling about, like the stuff about who was the best warrior in Tang dynasty. I got excited since that was the stuff I constantly thought about when I was a kid.

I think you are talking about Li Shimin. He was one of the greatest emperors in ancient China (among the top 3 in 5000 years) and was an extremely talented general and military strategist. there is no fiction about that at all.