The Battle of the Fei River & the Former Qin Dynasty (351 - 394)

[@valeriobertoncello1809]

What a beatiful video! It's wonderfully narrated and illustrated, and it's sooo interesting and useful to me for learning the rich history of ancient China (which as a westerner I never studied at school), but also for learning about the origins of all the beatiful 成语. As a Chinese learner, I love when you put the chinese characters together with the romanization, as it makes all the names more memorable and it clears up confusion, and in fact I would like you to do it even more often. Great work, keep it up!!

[@gatesofkilikien]

Thanks for the feedback, and glad you've enjoyed the video! There's so much history and culture to talk about, especially stuff that I can translate from Chinese into English, and with each new video I'm experimenting with more ways to include them in the videos without overwhelming the viewers. It's great to hear that you and others have found them helpful.

[@cosmicpearl5497]

Your videos are always great to watch, thank you for making these!

[@gatesofkilikien]

Thanks, appreciate the support!

[@gwnifer3355]

Legendary channel explained the most chaotic era of China's history ❤❤❤

[@efectovogel8295]

Wow, that was fast! Thank you so much for your work, you’re the only one I’ve seen on YT covering in-depth this exciting time period.

[@gatesofkilikien]

Thanks. Yes this period is nuts in terms of complexity, but so many interesting stories too.

[@tieck4408]

With New Zealand, New York, etc I love the sound of "Former London" or "No Longer Tokyo".

[@shinsenshogun900]

We will in the future have cities and regions named such as Later York, Lesser Charleston and Ten Thousand Mile Ontario

[@LaggingGames]

New Gates of Kilikien just dropped, we ride

[@arielquelme]

How good is he? Im eager to know each youtuber Historians quality of objectiveness and coverage depths

[@shinsenshogun900]

@@arielquelme If anything, he's worth anything better than what Kings & Generals are today, quality wise, as he explains histories, social cultures, and geographies very well, altogether with equitable knowledge of languages and some pronunciations.

[@TheMissDebyluv]

I love watching your videos. They're always detailed and well made

[@gatesofkilikien]

Thank you so much!

[@coltonvazvazquez1161]

After learning a lot about the Han dynasty and the three kingdoms period. It's Kool finding videos like this 1

[@gatesofkilikien]

Glad you’ve found it helpful! The Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms are important periods and great starting points, although there are many other interesting periods too

[@RuthlessTragedy]

HELL YAH! Another Gates video! gonna be nice to watch this one and learn so much!. Props for all your hard work as per usual! ^_^

[@gatesofkilikien]

Thanks, appreciate your support!

[@CSmith-hx2pm]

Incredibly high quality. Thank you so much for producing this stuff.

[@francescofane]

Cant't wait for the next chapter, nice video!

[@gatesofkilikien]

Thanks, I'm working on the next chapter now and there's some quite exciting events to cover!

[@TanatatKnight246]

In hindsight, it's easy to see Wang Meng's frame of Murong Chui as prophetic especially as we know that Murong Chui would eventually betray Fu Jian after Fei River. In a way, "a poor man's Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang" were quite apt of the pair since not only mirroring their actions, and perhaps even failures, but for all their unbreakable bond, they also lack the trust which Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang had with each other.

[@shiddiqhartono]

Somehow had same parallel with the fall of Roman Empire, North china act in a way like Western Rome (Barbarians States competing in western rome lands) , while the South somewhat Byzantines doings with still atempting unite the whole Chinese world and restore the old glory but cracked in internal conflicts between political dynasties, history always give some examples to another histories😂

[@gatesofkilikien]

Yes definitely, the parallels are quite striking. The chaos in northern China is especially reminiscent of Western Europe from the 400s to the rise of the Carolingian Empire. Ultimately the difference between China and the Mediterranean world may have been that the physical distance between northern and southern China was a lot less than that between the western and eastern Mediterranean, so eventually China was able to unify.

[@valeriobertoncello1809]

​​​​@@gatesofkilikienThere's another great difference that breaks the analogy for me, and it's about identity. We always have to remember that, while politically annexed and integrated by Rome, the eastern part of the empire always retained its Greek language and culture (in fact it was Rome that was hellenized after conquering the east). In other words, Rome was not the birthplace of mediterrenean culture like Luoyang or Chang'an have been for China. China is more like if Athens had conquered Rome, instead of the other way around, and had built a fully Greek speaking empire over the Mediterranean. Then the analogy for the five barbarians period would be an invasion from the east (maybe by the Parthians), with the Greek elites fleeing from Athens (=Luoyang) and Sparta towards Rome (=Jiankang) and the less populated western frontiers of the empire (=southern China). Fascinating to think about what a world like this would have looked like... In any case, what I'm saying is that, in some way, the Romans have been the original northern (or western) barbarians all along.

[@d.dante_vergil]

​@@valeriobertoncello1809 Top tier stuff right here

[@Volorai]

The usage of "barbarians" is insanely anachronistic and ahistorical and often outright bigoted, there were no such competing "barbarian states", but migratory groups acting as mercenaries for Roman provincial militaries who "illegally" settled in largely empty land after going unpaid, coinciding with a disintegration due to entirely internal reasons, of the Roman imperial apparatus connecting the provinces. There are not very many similarities at all.

[@Levon_RnD]

​@@VoloraiBasically what you are saying is barbarian chieftains didn't have political power and were only pawns controlled by local leadership of Roman origin in the western provinces. Forgive me my utter lack of tact, but is your opinion based on actual data by any chance?

[@syjiang]

Great content. One small thing I noticed in this video and a previous one, your pronunciation of nonchalantly is slightly off. Non·cha·lant·ly, the cha is a SHə sound. This word has its origin in old french so do your best french accent 🤣. Keep up the good work

[@gatesofkilikien]

Glad you've enjoyed the content, and appreciate the heads up!

[@slomo4672]

五胡十六国 what a confusing period. I grew up in China and immigrated to US after I was grown up. I'm over 60 years old now and only until recently became somewhat familiar with this period. But probably not at your level. I'm 3 minutes into your video and will stop to not get a headache. 😅

[@gatesofkilikien]

Yes this period is crazy chaotic, and most books just gloss over it. I'm trying to do a chronological series on Ancient/Medieval Chinese history, so want to make sure I don't skip over any time periods, including this.

[@hegyesipeter5457]

Thanks for educating me. As a hungarian I knew nothing about chinese history.

[@gatesofkilikien]

Thanks, glad you've found the info helpful! It's a huge topic that can be intimidating to learn, so hoping to help make it easier for people.

[@holeeshi9959]

one thing that makes this era exta hard to learn about, Barbarians has zero creativity in naming their kingdoms

[@gatesofkilikien]

Just wait till we get to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms ;)

[@IreneSalmakis]

It's interesting how close Former Qin came to unifying China. I wonder how things would have played out going into the fifth century.

[@dcpotomac20850]

If Former Qin won, Chinese civilization would experience same fate as other three Ancient civilizations

[@IreneSalmakis]

@dcpotomac20850 by the time of Fei River, the Xianbei had been pretty thoroughly sinicized. The Mongol Conquest didn't permanently fragment China, so why would this have done so? I suppose I could see it becoming something similar to the Frankish Empire, a barbarian state restoring political unity and allowing the region to recover before permanently fragmenting into squabbling fiefdoms, but with the Xianbei there's no particular reason Former Qin would have met the same ultimate fate. Iran, for instance, survived the chaos and displacement of the Early Middle Ages and managed to put itself back together under the Safavids.

[@frankyan9596]

@@IreneSalmakisNot really. Xianbei has different branches. Murong clan was highly sinicized before the chaos even began. Tuoba clan was the one who later won out in Northen China though. The others remained outside of China proper later became part of other new barbarians.

[@frankyan9596]

@@dcpotomac20850Pretty bad take. The key to the survival of the Chinese civilization is that Chinese unification and expansion through all the connected part of arable East Asia secured an agricultural advantage which leads to a vast numeric superiority against any possible invaders. The strongest of nomadic tribes formed empires had about 1/10 of numbers of Han Chinese. When they invade they just got assimilated by Chinese no matter who wins

[@frankyan9596]

@@dcpotomac20850Especially Former Qin is formed by Di people with a strength of 300k. Also they weren’t even nomadic and didn’t really have their own language and unique culture. No way they would change China.

[@winglaileung]

東晉時，淝水之戰

[@winglaileung]

This period is when the romantic story of Butterflies go. 梁山伯and 祝英台

[@shinsenshogun900]

The Battle of the Feishui is akin to the Western Roman Battle of the Catalaunian Plains

[@عليياسر-ذ5ب]

No, the Romans lost this battle and the Goths withdrew

[@helloicanseeu2]

tyty

[@yashashgc3488]

Hi, I love your videos on understanding ancient chinese history but could you please speak more slowly and louder. It would definitely improve the videos. Also, as you mention characters, can you highlight them as you narrate? The spelling does not match the voice and it get's hard to know which character you are talking about.

[@gatesofkilikien]

Thanks for the feedback, and I've noticed too that I've been speaking faster and faster in my more recent videos, and I'm planning to start slowing down in future videos.

[@yashashgc3488]

@@gatesofkilikien Thanks! I hope your channel grows a lot. Definitely an underserved topic along with Indian history.

[@gatesofkilikien]

@@yashashgc3488 Thanks, and hopefully as I build on things the channel will grow too. Indian history is fascinating, but it's such a hard topic to delve into. I'm thinking I could start to include some Indian history, especially ancient and medieval Indian history, in future videos

[@AssasiCraftYogUscus]

I want to like this channel it's somewhat nauseating to hear you refer to non Han peoples as barbarians.

[@mzm-z6j]

胡人的部落模式相比汉人的门阀来说确实比较原始

[@AssasiCraftYogUscus]

@@mzm-z6jNot really, the Han just Sinicized and stole other cultures developments for themselves.

[@mzm-z6j]

@@AssasiCraftYogUscus 给你唐完了，没了解清楚就妄下断言，既不学习也不谦虚

[@Marvin-bz5qr]

@@AssasiCraftYogUscus 窃取了谁？

[@snakecalmi5923]

Either you are a barbarian from Asia or you are a barbarian from the West

[@Volorai]

The consistent trend of using the term "barbarian" on this channel is super troubling. I'm not sure what historiographical sources are being used here, but in practically all modern studies of history the term is rightfully so excised from material, and it should be here as well. Theres no excuse for its inclusion without some kind of defining qualifier indicating its use as shorthand, and acknowledging its use as a way of dehumanizing the subjects of imperialist bigotry. It takes about 30 seconds. Or, much better, cultures and ethnicities could be referred to by actual proper nouns and ethonyms.

[@penfield72]

"Barbarian" is a direct translation of the Chinese word “胡”.

[@vanveakrin276]

The Dee people moved East from Gansu.. and the Qian people moved into the Siu Corridor in western north of Sechuan...to form the Second Qin Empire in the North of China.... before the North Wei Dynasty

[@LEEeechoy-er9om]

前秦&東晉

[@vanveakrin276]

Very difficult American English to understand in this video