Astral Codex Ten

Manchu

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Manchu

Article

Manchu is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between August 19, 2022 and January 10, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “Nurhaci is the founder of the Manchu”; “the coming assault of the Manchu”; “Jurchen, Manchu, etc, conquest of China”. It most often appears alongside China, Egypt, Mongols.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: August 19, 2022
  • Last seen: January 10, 2024

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Your Book Review: 1587, A Year Of No Significance
August 19, 2022 · Original source
The district director favored appeasement, while the governor wanted to crush Nurhaci with military force. Ignored by the central government and working at cross-purposes, their response to Nurhaci's growing dominion over other troublesome tribes in the area was feckless and irresolute. This eventually proved fatal to the Ming dynasty: Nurhaci is the founder of the Manchu, who went on to defeat the Ming forces and establish China’s final dynasty: the Ching (Qing).
Inline links: Nurhaci
The bureaucrats' determination to prevent any chance of a military coup, however, left the imperial defense forces weak and mismanaged, so Ch'i's lonely death in the Year of the Pig - seemingly of no significance - really represented the death of any hope for the Ming dynasty to survive the coming assault of the Manchu.
Another perspective: as dynasties go, the Ming were the final regression to the mean of classical Chinese civilization. Were they merely fighting a doomed rear-guard action, vainly attempting to undo the effects of the previous, catastrophically novel, dynasty of Mongols? Only to be overthrown by the subsequent - and final - dynasty of Manchurian hordes from the outlands of the northeast?
Book Review: Cyropaedia
January 10, 2024 · Original source
Between 0 and 1500 AD, China’s population varied between 50 and 100 million people. The population of Genghis Khan’s Mongolia (before its conquests) was between 500,000 and 1 million (so 1% of the Chinese total). I can’t find population figures for the Jurchens, Manchus, and all the other “barbarian” groups who invaded China, but I think they were probably closer to the Mongol level than the Chinese.
Jurchen, Manchu, etc, conquest of China: Some of these people were steppe warriors, so they also get the Mongol exception. The others lost more often than they won.