More than five hundred years passsed between the last sack of rome in the republican period and the first sack during the imperial period.


Chang'an probably got sacked 10 times in a comparable period. But there are definite parallels between most of Chinese history and the late Imperial period in Roman history. Both were large empires that tended to go through emperors very quickly and teeter from one crisis to another and both tended to have many incompetent corrupt generals.


Rome became the power it was because it was very good at fighting people. China has never been all that great at fighting other people. The first impulse of Chinese emperors has traditionally been to buy off the barbarians rather than try to really beat them.

Confucianism is not conducive to military excellence. The Koreans and Ming found that out the hard way during the Imjin wars where battle hardened Japanese armies as good as anything in Europe beat the hell out of the Koreans and Han until Korean naval supremacy forced the Japanese to leave.


That being said, the Han pretty much exterminated, assimilated or colonised all their neighbours, so the Chinese had strong natural frontiers and almost no one capable of fighting them resulting in long periods of military stagnation. The only ones who posed a threat were the nomads, but they could mostly be contained by local forces, and were dealt with using diplomacy designed to keep them fighting each other. Only when they unified could they pose a threat, and this generally happened in periods of military decline. During periods of political disunity when the empire would fragment the successor states could field very powerful armies.

 

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That's not entirely fair. between 800-1000 the Byzantine Empire possessed the world finest military and they still preferred to buy off the bad guys and pay them to fight each other. Its simply cheaper. The Chinese did the same.

 

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What part of "became" is eluding you?

Yes, and one of the reason they 'became' is because they paid the barbarians to fight one another. Keep in mind, the Han didn't expand over such a huge blob of territory by being lousy at fighting. Confucianism discourages military excellence, but they are not necessarily exclusive.

 

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Take a look at where Rome is located, and then Xian. Xian is in the middle of flat plane sandwiched between three or four historical major powers (Mongol, Tungus, Tibetan and Turk - throw in the Qiang if we're talking pre-Mongol). Then, look at which of the two has 9,000,000 square kilometers of modern nation extending from it.





Rome became the power it was because the people it fought were incredibly weak, technologically backwards, incompetent, loosely organized if at all, fighting among themselves. They built upon that by being utterly savage and ruthless to the peoples they conquered, enslaving them wholesale, and backstabbing them constantly on every deal they made. As far as China goes, they were perpetually "buying off" everyone - that is, the tributary system was a net drain on the treasury.

 

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It is kind of funny.

I'm still curious to know why though.


Dae are you of Chinese or Asian descent or something?


Or do you really like being able to purchase cheap electronics manufactured by a system that exploits child labor? Or maybe a Nike stockholder?


(Sorry I couldn't help myself)

Remarkable how a polity crippled by a pacifist ideology, poor leadership and corruption can be Yuki's weak people and simultaneously destroy hundreds if not thousands of aggressor tribes and nations over the long view of history.

 

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I don't defend or apologize for anything. I state the facts. Sometimes that offends.

 

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Don't be stupid.


Rome went from being a bandit stockade to a world empire in a few centuries. They overcame extremely tough competition in what was then the world foremost military shark tank and built a state, that ultimately lasted 1500 years despite being surrounded by enemies and having no real natural frontiers. Yeah..they were tough.

 

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