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1984

2022-06-30T06:24:46Z

2001:14BA:A439:1500:2404:3A56:3BEA:C140:

{{Grimdark}}
[[File:Big brother 1984.jpg|center|450px|thumb|[[Kane|BIG BROTHER LIVES IN DEATH! BIG BROTHER LIVES! PEACE THROUGH POWER!]]]]

[[Grimdark]] has always been a concept of humanity living in the worst environment as possible, and there is not even a single joy can be found in an utterly grimdark world. '''''1984''''' is an example of such a world. It is a novel by George Orwell (real name Eric Arthur Blair, but he didn't use it on his books because reasons) published in 1949, primarily about what would happen if the government has complete control over everyone, [[How Imperial Life Is Worse Than You Can Imagine|where everyone who matters will be forced to believe whatever lies the government tell that week, or else they'll be tortured and mind-raped to absolute despair]].

Orwell began work on ''1984'' eight months after reading (and being directly inspired by) ''We'', one of the earliest known dystopian novels and arguably the first thoroughly detailed totalitarian society in science fiction. Written in 1921, the Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin was in turn inspired by his translations of [[H. G. Wells]] (though ''We'' wouldn't be published in his home country until 1988, mostly due to coming down with a serious case of "banned by the Soviet Union publishing committee"). Orwell's work was conceived as a cultural translation of the book, and it (and by extension ''We'') served as the inspiration for many a grimdark totalitarian dictatorship, particularly [[Paranoia]] and [[Warhammer 40k]].

The scariest parts are the fact that the book is merely a chronicle of the evils humanity is capable of: no dangerous aliens or demons, just us, not to mention the fact that Eurasia was inspired by a real-life nation; Soviet Russia (Stalin's regime). In fact, in the books Big Brother is mentioned near the end as having a mustache [http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2013/12/joseph-stalin-AB.jpeg just like said tyrannical dictator]. However, it should be noted the book is a condemnation of tyranny and dictatorships in general, due to how similar all the three nations involved in some eternal war are. This ends up giving the work a lot of applicability, in that you could switch around their names with entities like Nazi Germany and [http://dystopiannightmare.com/the-gas-chamber-horror-of-north-koreas-gulag/#more-989 Kim-Il-Sung's North Korea] (he claimed to be inspired by Stalin) and not be able to tell the difference. This is not all. After his death in 1950, his friend, Tosco Fyve, in a letter to Margaret M. Goalby, stated that he had learned from Orwell that INGSOC had taken up their name (which stood for "English Socialism") for the sake of popular appeal. This was a clear nod to the Nazis, who had done the exact same thing for the exact same reason, whilst going on to do things such as smash the German trade unions in 1939, relentlessly privatize a large amount of industries, murdering the actual socialists in their party during the Night of the Long Knives, etc., etc.

Orwell himself was a notable anti-fascist, having fought in the Spanish Civil War on the communist side; ironically enough, he would in fact sell out friends to the British government by ratting them out if they were gay (which in that era was considered [[Heresy|a crime punishable by death at worst]]). This makes him the [[Inquisition|third]] [[Eldrad|biggest dick]] amongst non-/tg/ related authors on /tg/, just barely beaten by [[Chick Tracts|his]] [[H.P. Lovecraft|competition]].

The influence of 1984 is such that it has given rise to a meme where whenever something comparable to things depicted in the book happen in real life, people tend to say that it was written as a warning, not as an instructions book.

As such an influential work, expect comparisons to and mentions of ''1984'' to be thrown around carelessly and frequently by [[That Guy|someone who probably read it once and think they're instant experts on recognizing totalitarianism]]. One may optionally bring up the irony of Orwell's aforementioned government snitching for added hilarity.

== Plot ==
[[File:Winston smith rat torture.jpg|right|300px|thumb| [[skaven|YES. YES. ME PUNISH FOOLISH-SCARED NO FUR. CRY-TEAR AT ME MAN-THING!!]]]]
In [[Hive|Airstrip One, Oceania]], a middle-aged member of [[Administratum|the Ministry of Truth]], Winston Smith, isn't happy about his life. He's sick of doing the same thing every day; helping the government spread their propaganda, being exhausted at work, his home life dominated by his telescreen (pretty much "IN SOVIET RUSSIA, TV WATCHES YOU!", and woe betide anyone who breaks or turns theirs off), never getting laid (except for a far back encounter with an elderly prostitute; P.S prostitution is illegal here but is a crime that the state does not actually care much about) and not having enough to eat. But his life changes when he meets his co-worker, twenty-something brunette Julia. Despite coming across as a model citizen, even being a member of the [[Sisters of Cleaning|anti-sex league]], Julia gives him a secret message which says "I love you." After meeting her outside their work, they talk and Julia and Winston decide to [[Heresy|give each other what they want]], which is something the party considers [[Blam|unacceptable]]. Winston has a fun time [[Slaanesh|fucking Julia]], [[Tzeentch|learning about the past]], [[Nurgle|eating the real food the upper class gets]] and [[Khorne|writing in his notebook about how much he hates The Party]]. During this time, Winston's co-worker O'Brien introduces himself as a member of the secret anti-government Brotherhood and recruits Winston and Julia.

O'Brien gives them a book on the Brotherhood's ideals and instructions to continue their affairs until called on by them. They do, making the inn where they had their first tryst their secret getaway. After a sex session, they start reading up on the Brotherhood (which can be summed up as idealist English Socialism). During a later tryst, they are arrested by the [[Inquisition|Thought Police]], who had been spying on their room the whole time through a telescreen hidden behind a painting (the innkeeper is revealed to be an undercover Thought Police commander). They are beaten and taken to the Ministry of Love to be brainwashed. There, Winston is reunited with O'Brien, [[Just as Planned|and finds out that O'Brien is actually a top-level government agent; his "recruitment" of Winston and Julia, and maybe even the Brotherhood itself, was a sting operation]]. O'Brien [[Dark Eldar|tortures Winston almost to death]] while also gaslighting him, then when Winston starts to succumb to the brainwashing O'Brien nurses him back to health. Then O'Brien finds out from surveillance of Winston talking in his sleep that he still loves Julia and hates Big Brother. So O'Brien sends him to the dreaded Room 101 to meet his worst fear.

Room 101 is where the party torture their victims with their worst fear, which is figured out through near-constant scrutiny since childhood, meaning the party may have already had Winston as well as everyone in their grip: "He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past". In Winston's case, his greatest fear is rats, because he found his house full of rats after his mother and sister's disappearance and assumed the rats ate them (note that back in the day, London - which is called Airstrip One in the book, had rat problems so bad that civilians would die from either the diseases they spread or just straight up eaten by its swarm if they encountered one and couldn't fight them off). Using this fear, O'Brien put a metal cage-like device with rats inside next to Winston's head (see picture on the right), [[Skaven|threatened to let the rats eat his face]] and ultimately mind broke the poor Winston.

Months after being successfully brainwashed by the party Winston meets Julia again, who is also brainwashed, and both are uncertain about their futures and no longer love each other (it's also implied that Julia was lobotomized). In the end Winston despairs so much he cannot even commit suicide, believes that [[derp|2+2=5]], and loves [[God-Emperor of Mankind|the Party's figurehead leader, Big Brother]].

And ''that's'' when he is finally shot, or not. You see, all that torture the party has done to Winston only killed his "self", meaning he no longer exists as a thinking individual. He exists only as a puppet of the Party, forever selfless, forever loving Big Brother. While the party threatens to murder Winston with a single shot from a gun, they never did.

Winston's self is the part that makes him human and unique — it essentially is Winston. And now that it is dead, he waits only for his [[Necron|soulless shell of a body]] to die as well, drinking gin in a cafe without actually feeling anything.

==The World of 1984==
[[File:Late1984.gif|center|thumb|800px|[[Grimdark|Welcome to the world of 1984. There is no escape, no hope and no peace. Have fun!]]]]
Because of how much the Party of Ingsoc controls the perception of reality, the state of international relations as a whole should be taken with a humongous grain of salt. For all we know, Oceania actually encompass the entire planet and just intentionally bombs their people to keep the hysteria and illusion of war possible. On the other hand, Oceania could just consist of Airstrip One and actually be a third-rate joke of a country pretending to be a superpower like North Korea. Nevertheless, according to the Party, the world of 1984 is split into three spheres of influence, each under the control of the respective super-states.

===Oceania===
The main super-state and the one that 1984 is centered in. Oceania is a supernational entity that was formed after the revolutions in the 1950s and 1960s following the atomic wars during that time period. Basically, it led to the United States absorbing (AKA annexing) the weakened and collapsing British Empire along with its dominions, conquering South America and portions of South Africa. Following this, there was a civil war within the newly formed Oceania fought between the newly established English Socialists against the established Capitalists and other ideological parties. What happened during that period is unknown, as Oceania had already altered the realities of history and thus, the past. What is known is that the English Socialists (now shortened to Ingsoc) won and become the ONLY political entity. It was not known who was formed first, Oceania or Eurasia; either way, such petty differences was of minute importance in 1984.

As one of the three world superpowers, Oceania obviously commands a immense military industrial complex, a large military and a sufficiently strong enough economy to support a never ending war. Whilst Oceania may not be as geographically as large as Eurasia nor as populated as Eastasia, Oceania could rest easily knowing that it is defended by two great oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific. The presence of these oceans means that Oceania has a immense navy and is possibly Oceania's key advantage over the other three super-states. Furthermore, these oceans makes Oceania impenetrable from any potential land invasions, as to cross these vast oceans would meet sufficient resistance from Oceanian floating fortresses.

Oceania's governmental structure is left intentionally vague, although hints and snippets from Goldstien's book (which, might we add, may actually be fabricated by Big Brother himself as a [[trap]] to lure potential dissidents) suggests that Oceania runs on some form of oligarchical aristocracy. But it is not an aristocracy in the traditional sense, for a traditional Aristocracy must have a group of nobles ruling a state and propagated though usual hereditary means; Oceania is not designed to be hereditary, so it could be said that the aristocratic Inner Party is aristocratic only in terms of being 'noble' through loyalty and Party affiliations. In this case, it is also an Oligarchy as only 2-3% of Oceania's population are from the Inner Party. Likewise, Oceania also showcases both examples of capitalism and socialism in its economic framework: capitalistic in the sense of the Party's "need" to overproduce products for the sake of being wastefully consumed through warfare, and socialistic in the sense private property no longer exists and a planned economy seem to be in the works (multiple telescreen announcements proclaim a victory of the battle of production through a three year plan).

Nevertheless, Oceania's foreign policy, like its adversaries, are constantly in a state of flux - they declare war or ally with either Eurasia or Eastasia, whichever suits the national interests of the three governments, thus staying in power through perpetual war.

===Eurasia===
[[File:george-orwell-cartography.jpg|right|thumb|Another view of the map of 1984, showcasing the two primary fronts of perpetual war.]]
The second super-state that is frequently mentioned. Eurasia is constantly seen as the main antagonistic entity that Oceania is fighting against (at the very least in the first half). Like Oceania, Eurasia was formed from the atomic wars in the 1950s. It is not known which super-state was formed first, Oceania or Eurasia. Whilst Oceania formed from the absorption of the British Empire into the United States, Eurasia was formed from the Soviet Union annexing Europe, the Middle-East and Northern Africa above Sub-Sahara at the maximum. Eurasia, being a blatant expy of the USSR, followed an ideology called Neo-Bolshevism which is almost ideologically similiar to the other super-state's ideologies.

As you may already know, Eurasia is possibly the largest of the super-states in terms of geographical size. Unlike Oceania, which is protected by the two large oceans of the Pacific and Atlantic, Eurasia does not have that much access to the waterways. Indeed, Eurasia most likely have very limited presence in the heavily dominated Oceanian Atlantic Ocean, and have some modest presence in the Indian Ocean. The Arctic ice sheets are the primary reason why the Eurasian navy never matured. Nevertheless, Eurasia's sheer land mass makes Eurasia itself unconquerable as the large varied landscapes of Eurasia, not to mention areas such as the Ural Mountains, the Swiss Alps, the Sahara and the Gobi Desert is an absolute logistical nightmare for any Oceanian forces willing to invade the heartland of Eurasia. Furthermore, Eurasia seems advance towards rocket technology as rocket-bombs constantly hit Airstrip One on a daily basis. Eurasia's mechanical divisions seems to be the most powerful of the super-states and its armies are vast and extreme. Near the end of 1984, the Eurasian army was big enough to invade and almost conquer the whole of Africa before Oceanian [[tactical genius]] attacked the Eurasian army from behind through the Horn of Africa and broke apart the invasion force. Likewise, Eurasia's most vulnerable area seems to be its borders with Eastasia, whose territory from Mongolia, Manchuria and Tibet are constantly in flux, although these territorial changes aren't that significant to the two powers.

It is unknown what governmental structure Eurasia has; considering that Eurasia is just an "evolution" of the Soviet Union, one could estimate and guess that Eurasia's governmental structure resembles a socialist oligarchy, in which close Eurasian Party members stay in perpetual power from the larger masses. There would probably be no middle-class unlike in Oceania, where the Outer Party constitutes the middle. Economically, Eurasia's Neo-Bolshevism may imply that it is still largely a communist-run economy with planned economies even stronger than Oceania's.

Like the three super-states, Eurasia's foreign policy is constantly changing, with Eurasia constantly allying and betraying either Oceania or Eastasia in order to keep the illusion of perpetual war and stay in power.

===Eastasia===
The third super-state and the least known of the superpowers. Unlike Oceania and Eurasia, we actually do know when Eastasia was created. Eastasia is the youngest of the super-states as it was formed a decade after Oceania and Eurasia due to a period of [[Derp|'confused fighting']] (So somewhere in the 1960s). Of course Eastasia also posses the oldest continuous civilization of the three super-states. Due to the time period that Orwell had published 1984, the Chinese civil war was still ongoing at that time (The book was published in 1949, a few months before the communists beat the nationalists and proclaimed the PRC) and Orwell speculated that the war would continue longer than he expected. Anyways, Eastasia is overtly referenced to be formed by Mao's China annexing the Korean Peninsula, Japan, Northern India and some countries south of China such as parts of Indochina, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. Mongolia isn't one of the countries absorbed by China because at that time period, China still retained the territories of the former Qing Dynasty and Mongolia was already part of China at that time. The main ideology of Eastasia is loosely translated into Death-Worship, although the full translation is called [[Lulz|Obliteration of the Self]].

Currently, Eastasia is geographically the smallest of the three superpowers, but its small size does not mean that Eastasia is the weakest. If anything, a long war of attrition favors Eastasia above all. Whilst Eurasia is unconquerable due to its landmass and Oceania is protected by two oceans, Eastasia is safeguarded by sheer population size. Indeed, Eastasia is the most populous of the three super-states and their citizens are as industrialized as their Eurasian and Oceanian counterparts. With its large population and relatively smaller geography, Eastasia finds it easier for it to defend its territories from the other two rival super-states and unlike Eurasia which is large but demographically stretched thin, Eastasia does not need to worry of any unpopulated and thus, undefended territories. Eastasia possibly posses the largest standing army out of any of the superpowers due to its population and posses an equally strong navy to contest territorial disputes in the Indian and Pacific Ocean. Furthermore, Eastasia's geography makes it extremely difficult to invade as Eastasia controls the Himalayan Mountain Range, parts of the Gobi Desert and Eurasia acting as a buffer state in the north.

In terms of governmental structure, we have even less information on Eastasia. Of course it wouldn't be surprising if Eastasia shares the same Oligarchical system as Oceania or Eurasia. Eastasia's Death-Worship ideology do suggests or hint that Eastasia follows a form of ancestral worship and immortalization akin to North Korea's eternal president Kim Il-Sung. No information is known on the economic aspects of Eastasia however; but the collectivist culture stemming from Chinese Confucianism and Maoist China do make Eastasia head to a direction in which its government resembles a council of Elders akin to a Gerontocracy, with a heavily centralized economy with some of Mao's schlick of constant revolution to revive the revolutionary spirit.

Eastasia like the other two superpowers, are constantly at war and at peace with either Oceania and Eurasia in order to ensure that its populace stay forever loyal the state from fear of being conquered.

===Everyone Else===
Anyone of anything that is not part of either of the three superpowers are forced to live a life in perpetual misery, suffering and slavery. These poor bastards from the Equatorial Front, which stretches from Sub-Saharan Africa to the Gulf States and into South-East Asia, are constantly at the mercy of being unceremoniously killed by Eurasian, Eastasian or Oceanian forces or enslaved by their masters to work in labor camps. The territories of the Equatorial Front is constantly in flux as the three superpowers continuously gain and lose territory, all in the guise of perpetuating the war and waste resource to ensure a healthy dose of fear, hatred and xenophobia to their enemies.

Another front of endless fighting also occurs in the north called the Polar Front, in which Oceania and primarily Eurasia contest and compete on who holds claim to the Arctic Ice Sheets. Not much known on Antarctica however, as no one seems to lay claim to it. It could be due to Antarctica's status as being [[Death World|permanently terra nihilus]] that no one wants to step foot on it. That or Antarctica is such a miserable and useless place even for the standards of 1984 that none of the superpowers could find any strategic interests in annexing an area with no known resources or mcguffin to fight over until the other two are dealt with and only to have a place to disappear people to.

== Warhammer 40k's grimdark elements inspired from 1984 ==
[[File:1984.jpeg|right|300px|thumb|He is watching you, and waiting for you to do something heretical.]]
* '''The Big Brother''': Big Brother is the omnipotent figurehead created by the ruling Party for those poor bastards to worship (while Big Brother may or may not exist in 1984, the God-Emperor of the Imperium in 40k does exist), and like with real-world religious fundamentalists sex is even considered evil. However, despite the totalitarian fanaticism, the society that inspired 1984 (the Soviet Union) was militantly atheistic regularly partaking in [[Imperial Truth|the execution of clergymen, destroying places of worship and publishing defamatory anti-religious propaganda]] while Oceania is implied to prohibit practicing religion. The veneration of certain figures being a Cult of Personality, and even then it was only for Party members; most of Russia's proles remained Eastern Orthodox but only kept it to themselves for fear of [[Blam]] by the government or government loyalists (again, North Korea under the Kim Dynasty is a better analogy).

* '''Constant Surveillance''': In 1984, two-way televisions have been invented called "telescreens". They only play shitty government propaganda networks because they were created to stalk you and [[lulz|troll]] you every day and you cannot turn them off. If you somehow manage to turn one off (either the propaganda or the recording device), you will be captured by the thought police and have your ass beaten. There are other surveillance devices such as helicopters (for tall apartment buildings), thought police, and even your own children (whom were part of the party's child spies program that keeps an eye on their parents, and they would turn on their parents without a second thought just so they would be labelled as a hero by the public if they do so, the shitty brat). The only people who are free from this nightmare are the underclass Proles, and that's because they're so dumb the Party considers them animals who do not give a fuck about politics, doing nothing but work, drink and wank to porn. Yes, you yourself are one such filthy dumbass Prole, using this Telescreen for hentai instead of [[/tg/ gets shit done|actually doing something]]. In Warhammer 40k, there are the secret police of the Inquisition which have psykers reading people's minds everyday, and Adeptus Arbites who serve [[derp|fair justice]] to common proletarians everyday. Also noted that in the Age of Apostasy, Goge Vandire had [[Servo-skull|Cherubim]] installed everywhere to act as his own telescreens for whatever the fuck he had his minds on.

* '''In The Grim Darkness Of The Far Future There Is only War''': In 1984, eternal war is the best way for Oceania (which is composed of the Americas, the British Isles (called "Airstrip One" in the novel), Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, and southern Africa below the River Congo... [[Skub|according to Oceania]]) to have their lonely [[Ork|excuse for fun]]; they wage unnecessary wars with <s>friendly</s> countries that are almost exactly the same as they are, using the lands of unaligned countries as the battlefield, the inhabitants of those areas being forced to live in constant slavery under whichever power controls them at that time. All of this is so they can justify their brutal totalitarian rule, which is in place to preserve the [[Games Workshop|status quo]]. This involves spending most of their money on building more [[Stormraven|flying metal boxes]] or floating fortress, a massive waste of force labors that locks up people to build useless cargo ships. The party never giving benefits to their own people who are cramped into [[Hive|1000 meters-high city prisons for your grandmother to live in]]. Oceania's neighbors (assuming they even exist) are [[Orks|Eurasia(Europe, Soviet Union and Middle-East)]] and [[Eldar|Eastasia(all of Northern India and East Asia except for Russia)]], who are just as much of a shithole like Oceania and they are constantly changing sides because they know the war is mutually beneficial. Once they are done [[Promotions|buttsecks]] with each others for resources, they would backstab their allies and making their old enemy a new ally. Again, they three countries (assuming they are three separate countries, and not just a world-spanning Oceania faking a war with itself, or even just a tiny rogue state spewing all this BS) let their ex-ally backstab them on purpose, just to make sure the war never ends, just to make sure the benefits are always funneling into the national treasury.

* '''The Ministry of (love, truth, peace, plenty)''': In 1984, the Oceania had their own departments of powers to control their filthy peasants. Despite their organization have names like truth and love, it is actually the opposite. '''The Ministry of Truth''' is basically [[Administratum]], where all the history records and documents were "true" and they are certainly not destroyed or rewritten to provide false propaganda. You dispute this? Ha! Where's your proof? Oh please, memories are faulty things. '''The Ministry of Love''' is where all the heretics are cared with "love" and the staff members will definitely not treat them with unorthodox methods of torture or mind rape, or both. '''The Ministry of Peace''' is the army because only true peace can be found through oppression with [[Autogun|bullets]], [[Chainsword|cold steel]] and [[Flamer|fire]]. An act of war is actually an act of peace, and totally not an excuse to create a "common enemy" scenario or keep the populace in line with fear! '''The Ministry of Plenty''' is the food distribution to provide "plenty" for all and certainly not feed the upper class while keeping everyone else in a famine; also, the chocolate rations have been increased to 10 grams - they have never been 15 grams and were certainly not ''decreased'' to 10 grams. Noted how this 4 ministries is comparable to the four chaos gods. [[Tzeentch]] is truth (deceive people with lies), [[Khorne]] is peace (eternal war), [[Slaanesh]] is love (sadistic fun) and [[Nurgle]] is plenty (health through illness and famine)

==See Also==
*[[Imperium|Imperium Of Man]]
*[[Xeelee Sequence#Interim Coalition of Governance|Interim Coalition of Governance]]
*[[Grimdark]]
*[[Communism]]
*[[Paranoia]]

[[category: Literature]]

China

2022-06-30T06:19:37Z

2001:14BA:A439:1500:2404:3A56:3BEA:C140: /* Modern China */

{{NeedsImages}}

[[File: China map.gif |280px|right|thumb| Noodle land in all its majestic glory]]

'''China''' is probably the oldest semi-continual polity in the world that anyone actually gives a shit about. Over the course of twelve major dynasties, a shitload of smaller ones, a bunch of big civil war punch-ups, one Communist dictatorship, and its current, ongoing, post-Communist oligarchy, this huge blob of East Asian grasslands/steppes/jungle/desert/mountains/everything and its b[[Hive World|az]]illion inhabitants has had a tremendous, outsized effect on the world economy and the culture of surrounding nations.

Naturally, this has made it fertile fodder for tabletop gaming. From the [[Forgotten Realms]] to [[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game|Golarion]], few are the fantasy gaming settings ''without'' a "medieval China"-equivalent somewhere in the world. However, quite often, these Sure-Fine brand not! Chinas are about as well-researched and accurate as, well, [[Medieval Stasis|their European counterparts]], taking the broad cultural outline of a big empire ruled by a centralized bureaucracy and an all-powerful Emperor ([[God-Emperor of Mankind|who may or may not be a god / demigod]]) and a few specific trappings of architecture and dress to make what amounts to a China-based theme park for the adventurers to roam around in, seeing the sites, taking pictures, and fighting their way through that bestiary full of East-Asian monsters you never get to use. There's nothing ''wrong'' with this, really, but there's nothing particularly interesting about it either beyond the novelty of playing a bunch of slack-jawed tourists in your adventuring campaign.

However, the ''other'' major influence China has had on tabletop gaming is through the medium of ''wuxia'', material from a Chinese perspective that spills into the Western market. (Its cousin, ''xianxia'', is popular among sweaty Internet nerds who like ''isekai'' [[anime]], but has not penetrated nearly as deeply into the Western consciousness.)

== [[Wuxia]] ==
{{topquote|'Wu' means martial arts, which signifies action, 'Xia' conveys chivalry. Wuxia. Say it gently... 'whooshah'... and it's like a breath of serenity embracing you. Say it with force, 'WuSHA!', and you can feel its power.|Samuel L. Jackson, "The Art of Action: Martial Arts in the Movies"}}

Thank you, Reverend Jackson.

Wuxia is what China has instead of Tolkien. Just as the Western fantasy setting has got your dwarves and your elves and your dark lords leading armies to conquer the world, China has Jianghu, literally "the Land of Rivers and Lakes", implying a sense of freedom from both normal familial obligations and the tyrannic representatives of the [[Emperor]]. In the settings, corrupt civil authority forces noble wandering heroes to live like outlaws as they fight to restore order, learn secret techniques from old masters, are forced to battle their former best friends, etc. Just like Western fantasy, there's a lot of high-brow, literary stuff, but there's also a lot of entertaining trash pumped out to fill a public appetite for it. For instance, those cheap Shaw Bros. kung fu movies are wuxia, but so are films like ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' and ''Hero''.

And, naturally, this genre has its own tabletop games.

The biggest success is probably ''[[Exalted]]'', [[White Wolf]]'s epic fantasy role-playing game. While there are, obviously, a shitload of other influences, from a corrupt cosmic bureaucracy and physical Realm in need of heroes to fix things to the super-martial arts and flowery naming conventions, Creation would simply not be recognizable without the trappings of wuxia. This is true even in a subtler sense: wuxia often focuses on tragedy and deeply-flawed heroes whose best intentions turn on them. Thanks to the Great Curse, all the exalts are, unless they do their utmost to defy their fates, doomed to destroy all they love.

Other games, like ''[[Legends of the Wulin]]'' and ''[[Feng Shui]]'' draw on the genre more overtly. Even if the latter is more about aping the whole spectrum of Hong Kong cinema than wuxia specifically, even the later "heroic bloodshed" films are basically wuxia pictures set in the modern day with guns instead of swords, cities instead of forests, and cops and triads instead of heroes and bandits. The "69 A.D." Juncture ''is'' pure wuxia though, with an Imperial Court strangled by the machinations of the evil eunuch-sorcerers known as the Eaters of the Lotus and a countryside lousy with their supernatural and mortal henchmen terrorizing the nation. And the text notes that the heroic Dragons are frequently destroyed and remade, heroes born beneath stars of tragedy who often go out fighting the good fight.

Wizards actually tried their own hand at a ''wuxia'' setting, the awesomely-named ''[[Dragon Fist]]''. Running on an early, jury-rigged d20 engine with a lot of leftover AD&D parts, it was barely-functional, but fun as hell, and set in the land of Tlanguo, though it got no support at all after the initial release. (Boooo!)

[[Legend of the Five Rings]] is usually seen as a more "Japanese" setting than a Chinese one, and it's true that there's plenty of ''jidei geki'' DNA in Rokugani society, from its strict, stratified class system and militarism to its overtly-Japanese names and weapons, to subtle things like "void" replacing "metal" as one of the Five Elements. But, there's still plenty of Chinese flavor there. Various periods in Rokugani history were far more friendly to the wuxia mien, with bands of heroic ronin fighting the power against a corrupt shogunate in the hands of the Shadowlands. In particular, the Phoenix Clan endorses a philosophy that has far more similarities to daoism than anything recognizably Japanese, and Rokugan itself, as a land-bound empire that relies on a coastal breadbasket to feed a less-productive inland and a Great Wall along a border with a dangerous and barbaric foreign power to keep the heartland safe, is much more like China than any period in Japanese history.

==History==

{{topquote|The Empire, long divided, must unite. Long united, it must divide. Thus it has ever been.|Opening lines of Romance of the Three Kingdoms}}
{{topquote|China is whole again...then it broke again.|Bill Wurtz, summarizing Chinese history}}
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_China A brief timeline]

===Ancient China===
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xia_dynasty Pre-History Stuff]'': A confederation of early-agricultural peoples who will later be known as the "Han" settle in the valley of the Yellow River. Confusingly, a dynasty of the same name is also coming up (it's because they named themselves after that particular dynasty). The Han built one of the first civilizations on Earth, with block writing, metalworking, and advanced farming techniques.
* Xia: There is fuckall known about the Xia dynasy for certain, as this period had no permanent writing and exists largely as a folk story told by later generations. The Xia period is held with a sort of Arthurian reverence, with tales of bravery and dragons. Due to how China views history, these are considered historical fact, despite their fantastic elements and lack of corroborating evidence. What few records exists revolve around towns made of dirt and logs, but there is certainly a campaign or two to be had from a time of Gods, Heroes and Dragons.
*''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty Shang]'': Led by the Yin family, the Shang had bronze, which, to use technical military parlance, made them the meanest bitches on the block for a long time. They worshipped a celestial god Huangdi. The Yin lords and ladies were ''obsessed'' with divination, going through huge heaps of bones and turtle shells for fortune-telling purposes whenever anyone did anything. So, yay: literacy, at last! Their nobles also had a habit of honoring ancestors by burying hundreds of slaves in their tombs. All par for the course for Early Bronze Age society - as witness the [[Maya]], [[Gilgamesh]], and the "Iphigenia" legend from Greece. Eventually, the Shang became [[Imperium of Man|engaged in too many wars]], before being overthrown by...

===The Zhou===
The Zhou were a family from out west in the boonies that moved onto Shang land and became vassals to the Shang until they... weren't.

Unlike the Shang, whose culture has to be gathered from myth and scattered nonliterary documents, Linear B style; the Zhou culture actually produced a literature, although that got transmitted through layers of copying and redaction. Still, Chinese culture is [https://razib.substack.com/p/3000-years-of-chinese-history remarkably continuous from the Zhou].

To justify their rebellion, and then their rule, the Zhou introduced the concept of a "Mandate of Heaven" (''tian ming'' in modern Mandarin orthography) issued not by the mercurial gods but by the cosmic forces of rightness, to which even gods must bow. It was brilliant, in its own way: theoretically, each dynasty ruled by the Mandate. When they didn't do so well or justly, Heaven would withdraw the Mandate and give it to someone else who'd overthrown them. And the Zhou stopped their subjects from sacrificing each other, which was a major step forward.

More-cynically, this Mandate meant that a ''successful'' rebellion was "proof" that Heaven had turned its back on the old order, and an ''unsuccessful'' one was "proof" that it wasn't time yet; this system of ''ex post facto'' justification has proven to be much more durable than the western concept of the ''divine right of kings'' and persists to this day (if not in name). It also didn't hurt that the Zhou showed mercy upon the Yin family who'd run the Shang, allowing them to keep a fief in the Song duchy. Confucius himself was of the Yin / Song ex-Shang.

Anyway, the Zhou had a good run, but the state's vassals started pulling apart during [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period Spring and Autumn period], and eventually the whole thing fractured into a mess of warring states fighting for supremacy. This was known as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period Warring States period]. At the same time, constant conflict and the need to innovate culminated in to the "Hundred Schools". The origin of both Confucianism (under the sovereign-again Song/Yin) and Daoism in some of their earliest forms was observed.

===Early Imperial China===
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty Qin]'': Probably the shortest dynasty that people actually remember and care about, but it had the great emperor Qin Shi Huangdi. Yes, this motherfucker had the nads literally to name himself "God". Uniting the nation by military force, the so-called "First Emperor" invented probably the first modern nation-state, standardizing culture, weights, measures, roads, and countless other things to ensure that the Chinese stopped thinking of themselves as being from Lu, Jin, or Wei and started thinking of themselves as Chinese. He's got a bad reputation as a crazed mass-murderer too, but that was mostly because he made enemies with the Confucians and the Confucians wrote the history books for two millenia and some change to come. He also "abolished history" by burning all the books not containing useful technical information (and occasionally their authors as well), keeping only a copy of each one in his private library for the leader's personal use, which was promptly lost after his death - which happened sooner than it should have, because he thought that [[fail|chugging mercury would make him immortal]]. What he built barely survived him, but there's a reason the modern nation still bears his name. (...It's pronounced "chin." Goddamn pinyin.)
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty Han]'': This one's so important it's still what the Chinese call themselves as an ethnic group. Roughly contemporaneous with the Roman Empire, with each being aware of the other without ever quite meeting (partly because the Parthian Empire was really anal about playing middle-man on the Silk Road). They seemed to think of themselves as opposite versions of themselves on opposite ends of the world. The Han was founded by a former Qin Sheriff who lost some of his prisoners during a convoy; realizing that the punishment would be death, he decided that he already had nothing to lose and instigated a successful rebellion against the Qin (this is why there is such a thing as too severe a punishment when it ceases to be a deterrent). Introduced the concept of a centralized bureaucracy offering positions to applicants who were judged by local officials based on the Confucian classics, the latter of which would survive until the Sui initiated reforms and the ''former'' of which didn't go away until the Emperor did. A hugely-prosperous, technologically-skilled, highly-advanced society, with a new coinage standard that, unfortunately, as part of a running theme, began to fall into weakness and decadence. First, the eunuchs, always resentful of their snipping, tried seizing power for themselves, only for military officers to storm the capital and slaughter them all, leading first to a tenuous military dictatorship, and then to, well...
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms Three Kingdoms], and the Romancing Thereoff'': The late Han dynasty and generation shortly thereafter was a great and heroic age. It was a time of larger-than-life personalities, brave generals, brilliant strategists, and masterful politicians. It is worthy of study both for historical/entertainment value and for inspiration in any good tabletop campaign that wants to have a military-political element. And it is the subject of one of the Four Classical Novels, the historical epic usually translated into "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" in English, this being the reason of its fame. Unfortunately, it is also ''bastard complicated'', so let's just say that one of the Three Kingdoms finally usurped the Han after using them as a puppet state for a while, and then conquered the others a generation later, all the while, after successive underage emperors, being a puppet to the founders of the next dynasty. Most gamers in the west know this period due to the Dynasty Warriors series and the [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Total_War#Total_War:_Three_Kingdoms Total War: Three Kingdoms] game.

===[[Age of Strife]]===
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_dynasty_%28265%E2%80%93420%29 Jin]'': Backstabbing, political maneuverings, coups d'état, internal conflict, corruption, political turmoil followed by clashes and war; successful and unsuccesful throne usurpings, military revolts, paranoia among royal family, more revolts and end to Jin rule.
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_and_Southern_dynasties Northern and Southern]'': An age of civil war and political chaos complemented by a time of flourishing arts and culture, advancement in technology, and the spread of Mahayana Buddhism and Daoism. It should be noted that the Northern Dynasties were essentially [[Warriors of Chaos|barbarians]] and most of the Han fled south. Key technological advances occurred during this period, but more important was the spread of agricultural tech to the south, cementing their status as major taxgivers. The invention of the stirrup during the earlier Jin dynasty (265–420) helped to ignite the development of heavy cavalry. Advances in medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and cartography are observed by historians.

===Medieval Imperial China===
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_dynasty Sui]'': The good: they reunited a divided China, and 1) successfully undertook such vast internal-improvement projects as the Grand Canal connecting the city of Beijing in the north to the city of Hangzhou in the south, a thousand miles away; 2) initiated the test reforms, which will slowly change China into the model state in Voltaire's eyes in the course of five hundred years. The bad: they were extravagant assholes and control freaks whose projects were built on a foundation of peasant bones mortared with blood. Fell apart after the second emperor's repeated attempts to conquer Korea against dogged resistance and interference from the top broke the back of the army.
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty Tang]'': The Emperor Li Yuan, who seized the capital from the Sui, is his dynasty in microcosm. When he took power, the people thought he would be the greatest emperor in their nation's history; energetic, brilliant, skilled at all manner of government, military, and artistic tasks. He stabilized the shaking nation. Then he turned into a paranoid, murderous asshole as he got older until he finally got deposed. Sounds about right. This is the age in which the Chinese invented gunpowder, and, at its height, it was also the richest, most-advanced, most-cosmopolitan society on Earth, rolfstomping basically every thing that crossed the great houses of the dynasty. Problem is such conquest was completed by governor-generals that can tax their lands, which allowed them to rebel quite easily. The Tang dynasty also had the only officially recognized empress regnant (i.e. a woman who rules as a monarch in her own right, not as the wife of the emperor) in the history of Imperial China, Wu Zetian. Once things started falling apart, a radical sect of Confucianism began attempting to purge China of "outside influences" and restore China to the good old days through teaching and circulating their works, and also encouraging persecution and robbery of said outside influences, including Christianity and Buddhism. Buddhism survived, Christianity (Nestorians) did not.

===Second Age of Strife===
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Dynasties_and_Ten_Kingdoms_period Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms]'': The period of political disunity between the Tang and the Song, known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. During this period, five states quickly succeeded one another in the Chinese Central Plain, while more than a dozen concurrent states were established elsewhere, mainly in south China. During this half-century, China was in all respects a multi-state system.
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Song_dynasty Song]'': Invading barbarians devastated a Tang dynasty that was already eating itself alive from within. After a brief but invigorating series of civil wars and abortive wanna-be dynasts, an opportunistic general seized control of a splinter state that begun uniting China, and would go on to overlap with the Yuan for a while until the Mongols finally finished 'em off. The Song dynasty was, no bones about it, a cultural and economic powerhouse. They invented such modern marvels as paper money, steam and water-powered industry, and mass production. They also created beautiful and marvelous art, like pots depicting ponds on which fish appeared when water was poured in, or rice that smelled like flowers while it was cooking. However, they were ''also'' weak politically and militarily, and their ongoing "sour grapes" stance toward most of their neighbors, combined with Neo-Confucian abhorrence at the thought of allowing ''merchants'' to do the fighting, prevented them from properly leveraging the economic advantages of their hyper-advanced economy to dominate them with "soft power," and their underdeveloped understanding of economics meant many of these advances were eventually abandoned by a society not ready for their consequences. Ultimately gave in to...
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_dynasty Yuan]'': Goddamn Mongolians. Technically "started" by Genghis Khan himself, it only really became a Chinese-style dynasty when his grandson, Kublai Khan, set up his capital in Khanbaliq (later Dadu, modern Beijing). Like the Greeks and the Romans, the "conquering" Mongolians slowly resembled their Chinese subjects. Culturally, this was the beginning of the modern Chinese novel and drama, though always with the wary eye of Imperial censors lurking over the writers' shoulders. (This was nothing new, incidentally, though the volume sure was.) This was also the dynasty that brought China to the West's attention, partly due to the Mongol invasions threatening Eastern Europe, and partly due to Marco Polo's accounts of the reign of Kublai Khan. The Mongols generally imported nobles rather than using locals, so a variety of Middle Easterners were brought in to manage and police the Chinese nation, while Chinese bureaucrats were sent to the Middle East to manage and police it. This is the origin of the Hui people, Muslim descendants of intermarrying foreign officials and soldiers who maintain their faith today and served as some of the most disciplined and feared of all Chinese soldiers in future wars. Eventually, the Yuan proved how "Chinese" they'd become by going out in the traditional Chinese way: collapsing into a mass of squabbling warlords and decadence because of fiscal disaster. Notably, the fleeing Khan took the ancient Imperial Seal dating all the way back to ol' Qin Shi Huangdi himself with him when he went back to Mongolia, and no one's ever found where he stashed it, according to legends anyway.

===Late Imperial China===
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_dynasty Ming]'': Founded by an illiterate peasant-turned-warlord, Zhu Yuanzhang, who stands aside such figures as Oliver Cromwell of England, Jeanne d'Arc of France, Toussaint L'Ouverture of Haiti, and the Prophet Muhammad of Arabia as one of the great completely self-taught military minds of human history, the Ming dominated the remains of the decaying Yuan empire with a mixture of [[Orks|brutal cunning]] and [[Creed|tactical genius]]. He went the way of Li Yuan by the end, but the dynasty he founded was the stablest and most-powerful China ruled by the Chinese in generations. It combined the economic power of the Song with the military might of the Yuan and the cultural sophistication of both into one of the grandest empires in human history. Politically, of course, they were rather repressive and authoritarian, but it was ''also'' a very literate society for its time, with openly-female writers and readers getting lots of cred. This dynasty also saw the absolutely ''epic'' world-journey of the eunuch-admiral Zheng He, that was the closest the real-world ever got to a sea-based ''Dungeons & Dragons'' campaign. Unfortunately, due to the influence of the Neo-Confucians, their own self-sufficiency and comparative sophistication compared to the rest of the world, and good ol' fashioned racist jingoism, Ming China was very isolationist and arrogant. This, combined with long-term peace, led to a decay of military strength, especially as they insisted on inventing their own kinds of [[firearm]] rather than importing cheaper European models, and pervasive corruption and eunuch-influence at the top rotted everything it touched. Humiliatingly, after three centuries, the dynasty came to an end not when the next one stepped up to the plate, but when a ''fucking peasant revolt'' got there first (China's treasury was completely empty after years of excessive spending and corruption, and since the peasant rebellion meant that taxes could no longer be collected, the government was unable to pay or support any armed force to stop the revolt), and the Emperor committed suicide, leaving a gap for the Manchus to back right into.
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty Qing]'': As mentioned above, the semi-nomadic Manchu invaded China from beyond the Great Wall and took over as the Qing dynasty. When you learn about the Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, and Spheres of Influence in middle school, this is the dynasty it all happened in. Under the Manchu emperors, China expanded to the largest size in history, occupying Mongolia, Tibet, and much of central asia that had not been controlled by China since the Tang dynasty. As the last dynasty, the Qing basically reached a point of such decadence and corruption that military budgets were spent on building palaces, and attempts to modernize and "Westernize" China as Meiji Japan did were met with unremitting hostility by entrenched political factions within the Imperial palace. Into this, a series of flooding disasters destroyed harvests and left the common Chinese and the military angry at pretty much everyone. Violent rebellions began appearing, aiming to '''Make China Great Again''' by getting rid of all the foreigners. This provoked a brief invasion by, well, everyone. Literally. Virtually ALL the European powers plus America and Japan sent troops to save their citizens (and more importantly, their colonial holdings). Some weren't so quick about leaving. With China basically becoming a big cake being sliced up by stronger colonial powers, a young American Anglican named Sun Yixian/Sun Yat-Sen decided it was time to get rid of the imperial dynasties and establish a modern, Westernized, democratic republic. In 1912, the 7-year old Emperor abdicated (though he retained part of the Forbidden City and was paid an annual stipend), and the line of dynasties came to an end.

===THIRD Age of Strife===
*'''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_(1912%E2%80%9349) Republic of China (1912-1915)]'': Sun Yat-Sen only became president with the help of Yuan Shikai, a Qing general who forced the Republicans to name him president if he made the Qing Emperor step down, with the support of most of the modernized Qing armies stationed in northern China and around the capital of Beijing. As promised, Yuan Shikai was made the new President of the Republic. A year later, having won national elections and taken control of parliament, Yuan further increased his power, such as making him able to name a successor ''by law''. Sun Yat-Sen's chosen successor was assassinated by "persons unknown", and the same fate would befall those suspected by investigators of having some role in the assassination. All things pointed to Yuan Shikai being responsible, but no charges could be filed as all potential suspects and witnesses were dead. With an abortive revolt crushed in Southern China, and the mechanisms of government in his hands, nothing much could be done when Yuan declared himself the Hongxian Emperor.
* ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_Era Warlord Era]'': Yuan Shikai's short-lived dynasty was defeated by a coalition of anti-monarchist armies from the south, and Yuan died shortly thereafter. However, rather than re-establishing the Republic, Yuan's defeat and death simply saw many of his followers take their own portions of the army and establish warlord states throughout northern China. One of these factions became known as the Beiyang Government and claimed itself the legitimate government of the Republic of China. Sun Yat-Sen's Nationalists retreated to the south and became warlords themselves, calling for war against the autocratic Beiyang. Dozens of lesser warlords proliferated throughout China's provinces, and the Beiyang government joined the Allies in World War I in the hopes of recovering territories taken by Germany and Austria-Hungary during the Qing Dynasty, mainly Shandong.
*''Nanking Government of the Republic of China'': Starting in 1927, over the course of one year, the Nationalist army broke the back of three major warlords of the north, nominally unifying China under one government. The remaining warlords resisted Nanjing/Nanking's concentration of power, causing even more bloodshed. Making things more complicated, the Japanese controlled Shandong, having taken it from the Germans after WW1, and nobody in China liked that.

===Modern China===
''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China People's Republic (aka Communist China)]'': This is the era of history that, for better or worse, most Westerners are familiar with. To make a long, winding, and rather complicated story short, nearly everything in China nowadays can be traced to the efforts of one man; Mao Zedong, the leader of the then-outlawed Communist Party of China. Beginning in 1927, he warred against the nationalist government under Jiang Jieshi/Chiang Kai-Shek. Although they put their war on hold to kick the Japanese out of their country during the Second World War, by 1949, the nationalist government was pushed back to Taiwan (where they still rule today and claim to be the true government of China), and mainland China was unified under the communist red flag. For the next 50 or so years, the Chinese would play an interesting role in the Cold War between the USA and USSR; first as allies to the Russians until the Sino-Soviet split in '69, then as sort of-friends to the US after Nixon negotiated an agreement with them. As for Mao, historians are notably [[Skub|divided on his record as a politician]]. While it is agreed the man was a brilliant general, literally writing the book ''On Guerrilla Warfare'', the mixed reaction comes from his rather disastrous socio-economic policies. (and by that, we mean left around 72 million Chinese dead, from a mixture of starvation, political purges, and a ten-year period of anarchy that made the Reign of Terror look like a birthday party because it was legal for people to tell armies to hand over their weapons). His detractors will claim utopian stupidity, malicious tyranny, or a mix of both, while his supporters usually will make the claim that he just made honest mistakes. Nevertheless, his successors felt that the country was going to implode if they pursued any of Mao's hard left policies any further, so now we're in a weird state of limbo where a country that's still being ruled by the authoritarian Communist Party is more capitalist than it had ever been in any previous part of its history.

But don't suggest China will become a democracy anytime soon. The last time they tried that in AD 1989, things [[Baneblade|went badly]] for everyone involved, especially at Tiananmen Square (which also provided an iconic meme of the little guy standing up the big guy with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man Tank Man]). Since then, the Chinese [[1984|Ministry of Truth]] is trying to make sure that no one knows that anything happened back then. Additionally, the current president, Xi Jinping, is easily the strongest of China's leaders since Mao and has taken the country to a notably more authoritarian direction, to the point that presidential term limits were removed and he was allowed to write his political thoughts into the constitution, which are now being studied just like Mao's Little Red Book was back in the day. Even worse, he's even taken a leaf from [[Nazi|certain]] [[Imperial Truth|other]] dictators with the treatment of China's Uyghur Muslims under his regime (complete with forcing them, at gunpoint, onto trains bound for prison camps). When COVID-19 was first discovered in the city of Wuhan, several scientists studying the virus realized it had the potential to become a pandemic and warned the government, [[Noblebright|some even suggesting they also warn other countries of the potential risk]]. The government responded by imprisoning several of them (some of who have never been seen since) and covering up COVID-19... until it became a global pandemic and intrepid truth-seekers revealed the point of origin and the cover-up.

On a lighter note, in recent history, Xi has gone full grouchy old man and decided that kids these days spend too much time playing video games, defining ''too much'' as three hours '''a week'''. AKA, Operation Touch Grass by some.

[[image:Game_Store_in_Taiwan.jpeg|thumb|150px|right|♫Some times you wanna go, where everybody knows your game...♫]]
*As a quick side note, that island Chiang Kai-Shek took over, Taiwan, or the Republic of China as it's officially called by the local government, is actually doing fine. It's a liberal democracy which is very much capable of [[Team Yankee|defending its position]]. If you like Chinese food, crowded cities, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and winding rural mountain roads its a perfectly nice place to visit; they even play ''Warhammer'' (apparently mostly ''40k''). Taiwan is also notable for being the place where majority of the entire world's semiconductors are produced, which gives them major global influence as all countries both big and small are dependent on them. The majority of Taiwanese view Chiang Kai-Shek sort of like the Americans who wrote the majority of this article think about George Washington, or even the Puritans at Massachusetts Bay, as a [[Creed|hardcore leader]] who did some dubious, hypocritical things but was historically significant nonetheless and ultimately was the father of their country even if he killed a lot of people to get there and believed shit they find repulsive. However, opinion on Taiwan in China is [[Skub|heavily controversial and, if non-critical, can get you blacklisted from certain places (mere mention of Taiwan can be enough to do so)]], so be careful who you talk to about it. It's become a running gag that American celebrities are often forced by their corporate masters to publicly apologize, sometimes in badly-pronounced Chinese, whenever they mention Taiwan existing, or outright support the Chinese government's more infamous actions (shit like the conquest and puppeteering of Hong Kong or even the massacre at Tiananmen Square that they still deny happened and if it did they deserved it) to avoid losing access to the mass-est mass market in the world.

==Military Stuff before the 20th century==
As a general rule China has not been big on the idea on the idea of warriors as a class unto themselves. There were charioteers back during the Warring States Period and Manchu bannermen a long, long time after that, but otherwise there was nothing equivalent to the sort of warrior society that you saw in feudal Europe or pre-modern Japan. To give you an idea of the standing of warriors in Ancient China, let it be said that the world was made up of Four Categories of People (analogous to the Three Orders of feudal Europe): Scholars, Farmers, Artisans, and Merchants. The Scholars, known as ''shi'', replaced the warrior-charioteers around the time Rome invented the pyrrhic victory, and resembled the Roman prefects in terms of their duties and authority. In later eras, soldiers and warriors were considered beneath these four categories and ranked alongside [[Bard|entertainers]], [[Sharess|prostitutes]], [[Maid RPG|domestic servants]], and [[Commorragh Slaves|slaves]]. Basically, they were fightier eunuchs.

Owing to the low status of the profession, if you wanted to raise an army in China you didn't have a hereditary caste of men trained in the arts of war from childhood, like knights or samurai. Trust us, many rulers tried and failed to establish such a caste. Instead, you'd get a whole bunch of peasants together, equip them, and send them out to do your fighting for you under the command of a noble trained and educated to be a general. Armies would thus vary in quality, from solidly professional soldiers to badly-trained and ill-equipped conscripts, depending on region and era.

In general Chinese armies were more missile oriented than their medieval or classical European contemporaries with a mix of close quarters soldiers and missile troops. Beginning with the Warring States period, crossbows were a big deal because it meant that your conscripted peasants could easily be trained to saturate the enemy with projectiles.

A few words on weaponry...

Ancient China recognized four major melee weapons: staff, spear (although their concept of spear includes a wide variety of polearms), single edged swords (dao), and double edged swords (jian); and of the two swords the jian was held in much higher regard than the dao. Infantry, cavalry, and pirates use the dao because it's [[choppa|an unsophisticated choppy thing for hacking your enemies to bits]] (and more importantly, as a tool for chopping bamboo). Anybody who's anybody fights with the jian because it's stabby, and stabby is the gentlemanly way to fight. If you have a curved sword in a Chinese setting you are a walk-on nobody or a filthy barbarian (either japanese or mongol) and you exist to get slapped around.

==Culture==
There's a lot of it, and it's surprisingly relevant.

In Western antiquity, there were supposedly four "classical elements," namely air, fire, water, and earth (The Greeks also included aether, but because was an ethereal material that existed beyond earth it was usually left out). You know this. Don't pretend you don't, it's in ''fucking everything''. But, in classical China, there were ''five'': fire, water, earth, ''wood'', and ''metal''. And, just as all of Europe copied the Greeks, all of Asia copied China, with varying degrees of fidelity. Japan, for instance, had void instead of metal and air instead of wood. This more-or-less introduced the idea of "opposing" elements and elemental weaknesses, [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/FiveElementsCycleBalanceImbalance_02_plain.svg via a complex web of interactions]. Think how boring and tactically-flat so many games would be if certain kinds of damage didn't work better on certain enemies!

Many games play with this alternate elemental system. Aside from ''Legend of the Five Rings'', ''Pathfinder'' and the ''[[Dresden Files RPG]]'' both offer variant rules using it instead of the classics. It certainly makes for an interesting change.

==Religion==

Meanwhile, let's talk about religion. While Christianity has its own traditions of warrior-monks, usually represented as [[cleric|clerics]] or [[paladin|paladins]], the Chinese tradition is arguably the most distinctive. Two of the three major Chinese religions/philosophies, taoism and buddhism, emphasize meditation and discipline, which is strenuous to both the body and mind. Thus, they invented systems of exercises to strengthen both, called "kung fu," or, literally, "hard work."

Then, when they needed to act as local militias defending against marauding bandits, it turned out having intense mental focus and physical stamina made them damn good fighters, and the rest is history. And that, ladies and gentlemen is where the modern ''D&D'' [[monk]] came from.

In particular, taoist practices emphasize the existence of a kind of underlying substance of which everything is made, called ''qi''. ''Qi'' is a kind of... energy field, created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds [[Star Wars|you get where this joke is going, right]]? Anyway, in ''Exalted'', qi and essence are almost literally the same thing, and the monk and its various similar classes in ''D&D'' have "ki pools" that offer fancy new abilities.

Anyway, the Chinese ''also'' envisioned Heaven as containing a system, a Celestial Bureaucracy mirroring the one on Earth, that kept the world running according to various agreements and contracts between the gods, and even with mortal rulers via the "mandate of heaven" (a very complex concept that essentially boils down to "success and failure are self justifying"). Most tabletop settings have similar rules, regulations, and restrictions on the gods to explain why they subcontract out to adventurers, and though most of the gods and personalities of, say, the average ''D&D'' campaign setting have more to do with Western paganism than anything recognizably Chinese, the ''system'' of how they operate is more Chinese than Western simply because they ''can't'' just do as they please.

In more general terms, Chinese religion is a pretty mixed bag that leaves most outsiders confused. Yes, there are the three "main" religions of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, but they're all considered inclusive of one another, so it's possible to be a practitioner of all three. At a very high level, Taoism is concerned with the nature of existence (and is by far the most vague of the three), while Buddhism is more concerned with the reasoning individual and the trajectory of the soul, and Confucianism focuses on the proper ordering of society (and of the three is the most prescriptive). Traditionally, Chinese society has seen the three as complementary rather than mutually-exclusive, like many Pagan societies, though this has not stopped fundamentalist versions of one (in particular) of the three from trying to wipe out the other two whenever it becomes ascendant (''*cough* the CCP are Confuscians *cough*'').

Furthermore, you've got the myriad traditions of the ancient folk religion, largely assimilated into Taoism and Confucianism to varying degrees, centered around heaven and ancestor worship. Even after the communist purges, ancient folklore and superstition still has a strong influence among the common people, a fixation on luck being one such example, as you can see from the various lucky charms and statues in your local mom and pop American Chinese restaurant. Another such superstition lead to the creation of "[[Jiangshi|hopping vampires]]"... which are exactly what they sound like. Okay, they're more like zombies with extreme rigor mortis, but you get the idea. Anyways, if you want something that deviates from Western mythological values and religious struggles, the Chinese have an interesting set of ideas.

There are several other religious established in China of both native and foreign origins. Since the Seventh Century there have been enclaves of Christians in regions in China (and was bolstered during the age of sail) and Islam had become well established in the western regions of the Empire by the Ming Dynasty. Hinduism is established in China, but has been on the decline. There was even a Jewish enclave in the city of Kaifeng.

==See also==
[[Cathay]]

[[Category: History]]