Thread by @XiranJayZhao

Cheat thread to the Chinese dynasties -

XIA: School founder you see on plaques and statues everywhere but you have no idea what they actually did

SHANG: Early principle who appears in black and white photos, but you hear a lot of tea about how he was horrible and problematic

ZHOU: Prim and proper principle who was principle FOREVER, so long that he got too old to command respect and the school turned to chaos

QIN: Emo bullied goth kid who terrorizes the whole school and murders basically everyone with a knife, gets promptly arrested

WESTERN HAN: First commoner student council president after the school turns from private to public because all the rich kids got murdered

XIN: Random kid who gets elected prez after Western Han graduates, but fucks up so badly that he gets impeached like 5 days into his term

EASTERN HAN: Western Han's brother who becomes the next prez. People barely notice the difference.

THREE KINGDOMS: The 3 candidates who pop up when Eastern Han is about to graduate.

Shu Han, cousin of the previous Hans, is the one tired kids want, Wu is the one party kids want, but Eastern Han is coerced into endorsing the ruthless Wei

JIN: Puts laxatives in the Three Kingdoms' drinks the day of the election and shadily steals the whole thing

Jin's stunning upset pisses people off so badly that the school quickly descends into anarchy again.

SUI: The one who finally brings the school back together after months of in-fighting, but very quickly turns out to be downright tyrannical as council prez

TANG: Sui's more chill and open-minded cousin. Casually slips into his position when a group of angry kids ambushes Sui on the way to school and sends him to the hospital. Turns out to be AMAZING at running the student council -

- makes the school so rich and tolerant that it gains respect from all other schools in the region and gains a ton of transfer students.

[WU ZHOU: Tang's girlfriend who fills in for him for a couple of days when he gets sick, is also amazing.]

SONG: Nerd who tries to pull the school together after the brief period of chaos following Tang's graduation, but isn't as commanding because he's too nerdy. Is the official council prez in name, but actually has to share power with tough kids Liao and Jin -

- Song gets stripped naked and shoved into a locker at one point. Is hella rich from selling answer keys though, so just pays them to get off his back.

YUAN: International student who trounces EVERYONE, including ???other schools???, into making him council prez. Straight up beat Song up and then threw him into the lake nearby.

MING: Quiet but beefy kid who chases Yuan out of the school after a few days of tyranny. Runs the student council well because of great council members, but keeps things very conservative and doesn't host any fun events

QING: Kid everyone thinks is an exchange student but is actually just from an underrepresented clique. Wins the election after Ming graduates solely bc the other candidates were too busy smearing each other. Languishes so much later on that the school gets outright demolished.

and that's it. you know chinese history now.

(Zhou is said to have lasted ~800 years, but it was a figurehead at best for 500 of them, which are more known as the Spring and Autumn and Warring states periods.

Qin was an underdog victor famed for its weaponry, but was so tyrannical that it only lasted 15 years)

(Liu Bang, founder of Han, was the first peasant to become ruler of China. I count "graduation" as when a dynasty lasts at least 200 years.

The brief Xin dynasty was established by the usurping official Wang Mang, but he...uh....didn't do well)

(Eastern Han was established by a distant relative of the Western Han emperors, the amazing and highly underrated Liu Xiu, though the Xin dynasty was so short that people usually count the Hans as one big 400 year block.)

(The 3 Kingdoms, inspiration for the Dynasty Warriors. Liu Bei and his Shu Han state was more "sympathetic" because the Liu family have been ruling for 400 years then, but Cao Cao and his Wei state had firm control of the North and the last Han emperor -

- And Sun Jian and his Wu state were just partying in the East, idk.)

Then some asshole named Sima Yi and his descendants stole the whole country from under the famed Three Kingdoms like

(I'm skipping a LONG and VERY COMPLICATED 400-year period of constant warfare. Pic not inclusive.

When Sui finally reunified everything, it was great!! they were great!! then the second Sui emperor forced people to do so many giant construction projects that shit broke again.)

(The founder of the Tang dynasty was legit the last Sui emperor's cousin. He didn't have to take his cousin down, a bunch of rebel troops did it. His dynasty was China's golden age, so racially and religiously tolerant that I honestly believe we peaked back then, lmaooo.)

(Wu Zetian, China's only female emperor, usurped the Tang dynasty for 15 years and then gave the throne back to her son, thus restoring Tang. She was such a good emperor that not even the sexist Confucius officials could slander her on THAT front.)

(Since the disorder at the end of Tang was caused by powerful military officials, Song chose to snub them and respect scholarly officials only. This kept usurpers from popping up, but made them very military weak, so they never managed to take all of China.)

(The Song dynasty is technically broken into Northern and Southern Song because two of its emperors got kidnapped by the Jin during the Humiliation of Jingkang.

Song couldn't fight well, but its economy was BOOMING, so it relied on treaties and payments to keep peace)

(the mongols. they chased the Song dynasty all the way to the Pacific Ocean and had their final battle on the ocean itself. a hopeless official carried the last Song emperor, a 7 year old boy, on his back and jumped from a cliff.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of…)

(Yuan only lasted ~90 years, relatively short for a dynasty that owned all of China. this is because they treated the local Han Chinese people as 3rd and 4th class citizens. this traumatized Chinese people so much that they got VERY conservative and hostile toward foreigners.)

(Qing was established by the minority ethnic group the Manchus. Some Han supremacists consider them to be a "conquest dynasty" as well, but the Manchus are as Chinese as any Han. But they were pretty oppressive toward the Han and made some piss poor decisions toward the end.)

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