How To Study Chinese History, Part 1

I'm taking an East Asian Civ course right now, and it's by far my favorite class. I'd always heard that China is fascinating, but, well, it really is. So much intrigue. So many grasps for power. So much time spent thinking about how to govern. China's had so much success in ruling vast amounts of land, and yet the failures are fascinating, too.

At any rate, going into my class, I had no frame of reference. I couldn't even get the hang of how to pronounce the names of people and places. And there were so many people to remember. but on the test, I ended up with a 97%. I did it by: watching movies.

The first major player in Chinese history, the dude who changed it all, was Ying Zheng, king of Qin, who conquered all the other territories and became the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di. His dynasty lasted... 15 years. Qin Shi Huang Di is regarded as ruthless, violent, militaristic, bloodthirsty, but brilliant and visionary. He certainly changed the game forever by uniting his people, but he did so in a bloody and catastrophic way that caused a huge amount of suffering. Thus he's dealt with in contradictory ways. There are two great movies to watch to get some background on this guy.

• Hero (the Jet Li movie).
  Qin Shi Huang Di is shown to be highly protected due to all the attempts on his life. And he's shown to be powerful and mighty. But we're never shown all the blood spilled by the First Emperor; we're only told that he's disliked. This movie was directed by a Chinese man whose loyalty to China was questioned by the government; my teacher theorizes that that's why it shows Qin Shi Huang Di in such a moderately-good light.
  
  Why it's a good movie: Jet Li, swords, fighting, cinematography
  Why it's useful for studying: short, easy to remember
  
  
• The Emperor's Assassin.
  We're told a story about Qin Shi Huang Di at the beginning of his rise to power (back when he was just Ying Zheng) and shown how he progresses through the land, gradually encroaching upon every land. As he gains power, he loses his ability to connect to people.
  
  He sends his wife to a neighboring territory to encourage them to send an assassin, so he can have a pretext for invading. She sees how terrible Ying Zheng is becoming, and sends an assassin to kill him for real. There's also a love affair. Also lots of intrigue.
  
  What's great about this movie is that the acting pulls you through all the intrigue. Great acting all around. Another great thing for studying is that it shows you all the places that Ying Cheng conquers, and gives you two more important names to remember: Lü Buwei and Li Si. Don't worry that they try to make the case of Lü Buwei being the Emperor's father--that's ridiculous.
  
  Why it's a great movie: acting, plot, suspense, a little fighting
  Why it's useful for study: you'll never forget Ying Zheng afterwards

Like I said, Qin Shi Huang Di's dynasty lasted for 15 years. That's less than half of the time it took him to wage war and unify his country. He spent most of his life killing people, won the whole shebang in 221 BC, and died in 210 BC. The government was too severe for the populous to support, and none of the warlords in the outlying counties liked the Qin government much for destroying their lands. So then there was a brief period of unrest--a very fascinating time called the Chu-Han Contention.

See, when Ying Zheng/Qin Shi Huang Di died, his eunuch Zhao Gao conspired with Li Si to put the ony one of the Emperor's sons whom they could control on the throne. Bad mistake; the emperor was completely unable to quell rebellion that sprang up all over the land. I'm not sure he even tried. There were many people vying to take down the Qin, and the two prominent people among them were Liu Bang and Xiang Yu. Xiang Yu is portrayed in history like a barbarian, as ruthless as the Qin emperor. Liu Bang is thought to have been more of a diplomat and much more lenient with respect to vanquished foes and the commoners.

I nailed this part of my test, and I lay the credit all at the feet of the Chinese TV drama called "The Story of the Han Dynasty". I don't know how to buy this series here in the US, but, if you search, I'm sure you can find it online somewhere...

"Story" is a bit of a soap opera when it comes to the female roles (but make no mistake, Liu Bang's wife was quite ruthless and became a powerful figure in Chinese history). I suggest watching at least the first 40 episodes to completely understand all that went on. It's not superbly acted, but it's involving enough to get hooked on. I admit some of the episodes suffer from bloat, where some dude laments his fortune for five or ten minutes, but ehh, just fast forward through that. Liu Bang is portrayed as such a buffoon, but he's lovable nonetheless.

I also suggest watching it on your computer with an eye on Wikipedia in another screen. That really helped me; as I watched and thought, That can't possibly be accurate, I'd look it up and, sure enough, what I was seeing matched up with ancient Chinese texts.