One section that the book, Ways of the World, doesn't really dive into, in the Ming Dynasty reading, is how early China was affected by the Mongols. From the reading, we get a sense of hatred from China towards the Mongols, as it briefly says that,
"The early decades of that dynasty witnessed an effort to eliminate all signs of foreign rule."What exactly did the Mongols do to create this hostile environment? Eager to figure out this big question, I decided to do some research on the topic, and I found an answer.
This Mongol invasion on China consisted of four main invasions, the conquering of Jin, Western Xia, Yunnan, and Song China. These invasions were not peaceful, and all of them involved a lot of violence. The Mongols were seen as,
"barbarians interested primarily in maiming, plundering, destroying, and killing."The Mongols not only killed a lot of the chinese people, but they also destroyed part of China' geography by damaging chinese forest. The chinese then had to plant millions of tree's only to reforest all of this damage caused by the Mongols. Mongols also took away some of the Chinese rights, such as the right to have a raking government.
All of this really angered the Chinese, and I believe that most people would agree that what the mongols did to the chinese was both unfair, and unethical. So that is why the Chinese had this hatred toward the Mongol way of life.
The mongols seem like a bloodthirsty group of people. it appears that the Mongols and Chinese have hated each other for thousands of years. Depending on the source of where the information is produced, you will get different ideas about the Chinese views as well as the Mongol views. Apparently here the source of information was pro Chinese, so the Mongols are portrayed as "barbarians interested primarily in maiming plundering, destroying, and killing."
ReplyDeleteThey say history is written by the winners, and I think that this saying definitely applies to what you are talking about, Mark. Because a lot of East Asian history was written by the Chinese, it makes sense that they would describe their opponents as barbaric savages (in order to make themselves look better). Also, this stereotype has been reinforced by the media, from the days of the Qing and Ming dynasty, to the present. For example, the Disney movie Mulan portrays the Huns of the north as bloodthirsty killers. In reality, both sides did their share of good and bad. It would be a foolish mistake to buy into the false demonizations of the Huns created by the Chinese.
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