People tend to forget that China wasn't always Chinese for all of history (as most younger Chinese would like to think). In this case, the almost three century Qing Dynasty was Manchu, and they ruled over the Han with an iron fist. Stories like these help to flesh out those times for non historians. Obviously with lots of artistic license, but nonetheless a very interesting and captivating story.
China was ruled by 3 barbarians in the past, the closest to our time is the Manchu which established the Qing then it was the Mongolians in the Yuan for a little bit less than a century During the Song, China was split into 3 kingdoms: Liao and Jin, a little bit before Ghenkis Khan invaded China
Maybe because I'm young and lacking enough knowledge but I tend to think Manchurian as Chinese as well. For example "Chinese" for me would be more of a modern classification seeing that during these historical times people classified themselves as Han and such instead. Perhaps it wasn't till more foreign contact existed before we classified ourselves as one "Chinese" nation. Seeing that the current geographic representation of China has years of conflict and inner fighting among "ourselves". Just my 2 cents.
LoL xaznxryux. you must be very Americanize lol( like me) American defined barbarian would consider " Mongolians in the Yuan" "Manchu in the Qing" as barbarian or foreigner But Chinese historian consider Mongolians, Manchu as chinese. So Mongolians, Manchu are just a minor group of Chinese. After all they are Chinese lol
no, the ancient Chinese consider anyone who is not Han-Chinese to be Barbarians, why'd you think we kept building Great Walls lol
You're correct in that Han looked upon others as Barbarians, and never considered themselves to be one people with either the Mongol, Turks, Tibetans, or Manchu. But in the politics of the PRC today, that gets lost in the shrill cry of nationalism. It's a shame when history gets distorted for political expedience. Insofar as the Wall, IIRC, over the course of about two thousand years, they were really a collection of various walls built between nation states or kingdoms that were later amalgamated into one Great Wall. Thus, at various points in time, portions of wall actually separated Han populations from each other.
yes, the Qin built the original great wall to keep the Xiong Nu out, Ming built the great wall you see today to keep the Mongols/Manchu's out. Chinese people usually hate everybody but themselves lol, it still exist today
