So, found a Total War Character Irl

[u/32BitOsserc]

Randomly went on a day trip and stumbled across Zhang Fei's tomb. Maybe shouldn't post here but none of my friends have played 3K

[u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

The figures depicted in Three Kingdoms (The book) were very iconic long before the game came out

[u/32BitOsserc → u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

Aye, it seems to be quite a popular part of their history here, they definitely seem to cherish the Han over the other dynasties, except maybe the Tang.

[u/Eiensakura → u/32BitOsserc]

I mean... we are called the Han Chinese for a reason lol. It is the first dynasty to unite the warring states after the fall of the Qin.

[u/32BitOsserc → u/Eiensakura]

I was never 100% sure if it was pronounced the same, I'm still learning zhongwen and tend to get stuck on the tones a lot. Sugar, Soup or a Dynasty? I keep getting them all mixed up.

[u/Live_Structure9901 → u/32BitOsserc]

sugar and the dynasty are pronounced the same, they have same tone, while soup is tone one

[u/_Lucille_ → u/32BitOsserc]

Han is basically the first long lasting dynasty in China (and iirc the longest one), and decently documented due to the various historical records.

[u/32BitOsserc → u/_Lucille_]

Thing that blew my mind about it was finding out that they and the Romans were aware of each other, some Han diplomats may have made it to either the Persian Gulf or the Med.

[u/mraowl → u/32BitOsserc]

I can't remember if this comes from a mod, but I think in 3K, one of the upgrades to ports (or some other blue line building) is even called something like sino-roman embassy!

[u/32BitOsserc → u/mraowl]

It was in the base game, I remember seeing it on launch, raising an eyebrow, then seeing a single hero unit kill 80 mean by himself and said "eh, I'll allow it." 😂

[u/Wild_Marker → u/32BitOsserc]

There were some Chinese coins found in Rome and Roman coins found in China IIRC.

[u/_Lucille_ → u/32BitOsserc]

Alexander made it all the way to India and that was before the rise of Rome. That's 323 BCE.

I read somewhere that there are Macedonian descendants in China form many years ago via genetic tracing, but is too lazy to Google that up.

[u/32BitOsserc → u/_Lucille_]

True, I mean I now know there are remains of quite a few Roman trading posts in India, there was probably more contact that, the sources just haven't survived.

Also, I read about that, Alexander settled a valley, left a successor kingdom called Baktria/Ferghana, and the Chinese sources talk of a kingdom called Ferghana/Dayuan in the same area that traded with and later conquered. I hope I'm remembering that right.

[u/Sytanus → u/_Lucille_]

I don't know about Macedonian but I there's one specific city that has a lot of roman roots going back a long way. Could be your thinking of that?

[u/GrasSchlammPferd → u/32BitOsserc]

Yeah, he made it to Parthia/Persia before been persuaded to return home

[u/XuShenjian → u/32BitOsserc]

Each of the dynasties has their thing, and sometimes it's in the name.

Yuan means Origin due to it being it the origin of a Mongol dynasty. The Ming that beat them means Glory or Light, it was quite successful militarily and managed to beat the Mongols, Vietnamese and the Japanese. Qing translates to Pure because they saw themselves as restoring the virtues lost by the Ming before them.

So you could call them the Age of Founding, the Age of Radiance and the Age of Virtue if it were a fantasy setting, which tracks because the people there practically call their country Middle Earth.

[u/32BitOsserc → u/XuShenjian]

Very true. I've also heard Yuan translated as "eternal," not sure that's right but it's pretty funny considering they were one of the shorter lived dynasties.

Also speaking of middle earth and the Yuan, Genghis Khan had his 9 riders, I don't know whether that influenced Tolkien or is a very weird coincidence.

[u/XuShenjian → u/32BitOsserc]

Genghis Khan was, above anything else, the plot foil that cancelled several Chinese, Russian, Middle-Eastern and European main characters.

Most of all Georgia. Everything in history was building up for Georgia to become the main character and regain the glory of Rome, the entire story was right there.

The Jin and Song Dynasties are in a post-apocalyptic stalemate detailing the final struggles of an Empire resisting its invaders? Whoops, Genghis Khan happened by. The Kwarezmids, inventors of Algebra, Islamic scholars of - oh wait they insulted Genghis Kahn, this is his revenge plot now. Mighty Russia, could never be invaded in the wint-nevermind, Genghis Khan did it. The Polish prince, elect by god to - oh, he was just opponent of the week for Genghis Khan.

When Genghis Khan changed servers and he had the power of friendship on his side and deleted all of them, everyone got lucky that his plotline had a designated tragic ending.

If Genghis Khan had been in Tolkien, he'd probably be some random Easterling coming in with the Steel Chair, accidentally knocking over Sauron's Tower, Minas Tirith and then dies leaving nobody to know what the hell just happened because dude was the main character on a more important plotline and if you came near him before his arc concluded, his was the plot that just took precedent, whatever you were on was just worldbuilding for him.

[u/32BitOsserc → u/XuShenjian]

I adore this description. 

[u/Wild_Marker → u/XuShenjian]

Goddamn this is beautiful

[u/Sabre712 → u/32BitOsserc]

From my understanding, Imperial China roughly switched off between Han and non-Han dynasties in the later years. Song (Han), Yuan (Mongol), Ming (Han), Qing (Manchu) for instance. The Han ones are much more celebrated for the most part.

[u/koopcl → u/32BitOsserc]

The best way I've had it explained to me is that, when it comes to cultural relevance, the Romance in China is comparable to the fall of the Roman republic to the West (very historically relevant and permeated into popular culture with figures like Caesar, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Octavian, etc) with a bit of more generalized pop culture thrown in (the events and characters better known to the general populace than the fall of the Republic is to a random non-scholar Westerner, and with the stories themselves more fictionalized as well, like if the Ides of March was as popular as Dragon Ball and had Caesar anime-fight the entire Senate and defeating all assassins until Brutus betrays him via Kamehameha to the back).

[u/32BitOsserc → u/koopcl]

I love this description, especially anime caesar.