Editing China (section)

===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, hence ''[[Flash_Gordon|Flash! AHOWWW]]''. 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; yet somehow managed to trade a lot because most of the silver Spain dug up in the Americas ended up there, meaning the rich were even more rich.  This era of 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]'': [[File:Eight-Nation-Alliance.jpg |300px|right|thumb|And in 15 years they'll all be at war.]]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. One of the revolts was the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Rebellion] caused by a man who thought he was the brother of Jesus and that the Manchu were demons, resulting in somewhere between twenty to thirty million deaths. 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 Chinese-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.