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NoemiChan · 2012-09-04, 21:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Well at the Battle of the Hydaspes Alexander had an army of 11,000 against an Indian Amry that may have been over 55,000 strong with nearly 100 war elephants (or as small as 22,000 with 85 war elepants).

Alexander lost about 1,000 men. The Indians lost with at least 12,000 killed and 9,000 captured.

The another problem was they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand fighting elephants.

Even a genius like Alexander knew when winning is impossible..

Ridwan · 2012-09-04, 23:39

I'd be warry to quote anything from wikipedia if I were you

NoemiChan · 2012-09-05, 02:11

What would happen if Germanicus was allowed by the Emperor of Rome to invade Germania?

DonQuigleone · 2012-09-05, 08:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

But the thick woods and swamps in the north ad it's vastness will tire his troops... besides there aren't many big cities but few small villages... and people might me more adapted in hunting rather than farming so food might be a problem as well....

No more difficult then the terrain in Afghanistan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

Even a genius like Alexander knew when winning is impossible..

I don't know about that... Alexander made a career out of beating impossible odds. He did not know the meaning of the word "Retreat".

Ridwan · 2012-09-06, 00:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

1) No more difficult then the terrain in Afghanistan.

2) I don't know about that... Alexander made a career out of beating impossible odds. He did not know the meaning of the word "Retreat".

1) Which is why India was impossible. Afghanistan was a massive hindrance to Alexander's logistics.

2) Yet he did retreat from India.

And for the next time, please don't argue with anything along the lines of "I don't know about that... [followed by non-academically supported flowery remark]" with so much certainty. Treat every discussion that emerges inside this thread as the chance to cross-check with others.

And for the last time, don't confuse any fictionalized version of a historical figure with the real world's version.

Now, for the next topic :

Quote:

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

AH idea: expand more on the idea that Mongol never happened. Specifically it's effects on the flourishing Arabia, an intact Europe's reaction to that, and how it would affect later developments in the region.

There was this TL in a certain forum themed on this idea.

A pretty antiquated TL. But it's the first real attempt. You can check it out yourself. It's pretty good.

As for my own thoughts on the question : I think it's to be noted that the heydays of Iraq had already passed by this time. Check my reply to Xellos a couple of pages back. Of course, it will still remain a prestigious and populous urban place without Mongol disaster, but it's quite doubtful that Baghdad could've rebuild their former glory. Should they ever rebound politically, at most it will be as a decent empire covering Al-Mashriq, but pretty much nothing more. And yes, lots of books don't get burned and numerous technologies don't get lost. Baghdad will at least remain an cultural intellectual center for quite a while, but it'll be more an Italy of muslim world then a France. By this time, Abbasid domain was already bordering Khwarazm Empire, their most likely next patron.

I wonder how long the Crusader States will last in this scenario contra OTL. I'm inclined to say 'shorter'.

Europe without Mongol devastation would be different indeed. More populated sans Mongol carnage and the accompanying black plague, especially eastern part. I don't know much about medieval Europe, unfortunately, but I at least know that later social evolution from feudalism owed a lot from the Mongols, since the the falling population due to Black Death sapped its foundation. The age of knights will likely last longer ITTL.

Let's not counting out Black Plague. It's still possible that it will still appear, but without Mongols as lightning vector, it'll spread more gradually. And perhaps, the world will be generally better-prepared to face it.

DonQuigleone · 2012-09-06, 05:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aegir

2) Yet he did retreat from India.

And for the next time, please don't argue with anything along the lines of "I don't know about that... [followed by non-academically supported flowery remark]" with so much certainty. Treat every discussion that emerges inside this thread as the chance to cross-check with others.

And for the last time, don't confuse any fictionalized version of a historical figure with the real world's version.

One of Alexander's problems was that he didn't know the word "retreat". He only retreated from India because he was faced with his entire army mutinying on him. And just afterwards he made the monumentally stupid move of marching through the Makran desert, during which half his army died. Why did he do it? Because he hadn't "conquered" it yet. Furthermore, he had heard Cyrus the Great had failed to march across the Makran, and wanted to upstage him.

Alexander was not a man with a shred of humility, he was a megalomaniac. It's highly probable that by the end of his life he thought of himself as a god. Read any historical account and you'll see that this was his personality.

India was the only time he retreated from a fight, and he didn't retreat because he thought he couldn't win. He retreated because his soldiers mutinied. Alexander was a military genius, but he also had a large dose of Hubris. Early on in his career he might have been willing to retreat, but by India he (a bit like Napoleon) had won so many times, many of which against overwhelming odds and numbers, that he did not think he could lose.

This is not the "fictional" version of Alexander. This is the "factual" version of him. A man increasingly divorced from reality, obsessed with his own godhood. Don't forget, this was a man who thought it was his destiny to conquer the world. You don't conquer the world by retreating.

Ridwan · 2012-09-06, 06:22

I'm admittedly not very attentive of Alexandrian topics and typical mainstream topics in general. I'm willing to be proven wrong with concrete back up evidences and references. That's why I got rather irked with one-liner remarks as if they're self-evident that will never contribute to any discussion.

DonQuigleone · 2012-09-06, 07:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aegir

I'm admittedly not very attentive of Alexandrian topics and typical mainstream topics in general. I'm willing to be proven wrong with concrete back up evidences and references. That's why I got rather irked with one-liner remarks as if they're self-evident that will never contribute to any discussion.

You are perfectly entitled to ask for more justification then that. I made the (perhaps incorrect) assumption that other posters would be as well informed of Alexander's ... eccentric personality as I was, which is of course not a good assumption to make.

There are several historical episodes that point to Alexander's growing god complex, not the least of which is the fact that he had himself made a god, and never objected to the rumours that Zeus was his real father. He also murdered a close companion (Cleitus) when he objected to Alexander's megalomaniacal claims (One account was that Alexander boasted his achievements far surpassed his father's(Philip II), which cleitus objected to this, claiming Alexander's achievements were due to his father. Another version has Cleitus reminding Alexander that he only got to where he was due to the blood and sacrifice of his Macedonian army. Either way, Alexander likely murdered Cleitus due to Cleitus bruising his ego. There are other episodes like this one, but the Cleitus episode really stands out.

Another good episode was that after the Battle of Hydaspes, when his men mutinied and forced him to bring them back home, Alexander sulked for a good 3 days. Some say his march through the Makran was revenge on his own soldiers, though it's impossible to really know for certain.

He also founded over 20 cities named after himself ("Alexandria"). This was not a guy known for his modesty.

Alexander was losing touch with reality, he had the same "winner's syndrome" that Napoleon did when he decided to invade Russia. The difference is that Alexander died before he could have his comeuppance.

Ridwan · 2012-09-06, 08:26

Fair enough then. Certainly wasn't positing his modesty, but perhaps I was overestimating his sensibilities.

But that has further convinced me that he had stretched it too far by the time of Indian campaign. He will not succeed in India, nor that his empire really could've grown any larger then historically IOTL (perhaps Arabia would be doable, but that's about it)

EDIT : This is a TL draft by someone from another forum. It is themed on the Revolt of The Three Feudatories that happened during the early years of Qing Dynasty in China. Warning : It's meant to be a Morbid Rollercoaster reading experience.

Spoiler for Morbid Rollercoaster's Concept:

I'm basically just sharing this, wondering if I can gather some perspectives from you guys. Thoughts ?

DonQuigleone · 2012-09-06, 11:32

@ Alexander: I think he could have done other campaigns closer to his powerbase in Macedonia. It was already 10 years after he had left, and so a new generation of soldiers would have been available to go west with. Also, he could have raised troops in his newly conquered territories in Persia. Certainly an expedition to Arabia, or west to Carthage or Italy was a distinct possibility. Certainly, Alexander would have gone on another military expedition. It was not his character to relax and enjoy the fruits of his conquests. He would have wanted more. These were the wishes he expressed to his followers on his death (from Wikipedia, these were all mentioned in my readings of Alexander myself, so are authentic):

1. Construction of a monumental tomb for his father Philip, "to match the greatest of the pyramids of Egypt"
2. Erection of great temples in Delos, Delphi, Dodona, Dium, Amphipolis, and a monumental temple to Athena at Troy
3. Conquest of Arabia and the entire Mediterranean Basin
4. Circumnavigation of Africa
5. Development of cities and the "transplant of populations from Asia to Europe and in the opposite direction from Europe to Asia, in order to bring the largest continent to common unity and to friendship by means of intermarriage and family ties."

I can't say whether he would have succeeded in his grand schemes. Point 5 in particular was a real sticking point between Alexander and his generals.

Now as to whether the Empire could have held together after his death... Even if he did have an established heir, I find it highly unlikely. But the influence of Macedonian and Greek culture would have been much more widely spread.

That said, when his Empire fell apart, all the successor states were ruled by Macedonian. The Persians did not rise up against their Macedonian overlords, so it's conceivable that if Alexander could have overcome the divisions within the Macedonian generals, that he could have created an Empire that lasted longer. But we'll never know.

LeoXiao · 2012-09-06, 15:22

Had the Qing not consolidated power as quickly as it had, the protracted chaos in China may have spurred increased technological advancement. When China does get reunited, it may not be until the 1700s, and thus the Qing (or w/e dynasty) would reacht he peak of their power perhaps at a later date and thus be in a better position to face the Western powers.

Xellos-_^ · 2012-09-06, 15:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeoXiao

Had the Qing not consolidated power as quickly as it had, the protracted chaos in China may have spurred increased technological advancement. When China does get reunited, it may not be until the 1700s, and thus the Qing (or w/e dynasty) would reacht he peak of their power perhaps at a later date and thus be in a better position to face the Western powers.

that is only the Qing actually manage to unify China. The longer the Civil War drag on the greater the chance someone (a 2nd Zhu Yuen Zhang) would on the Han side would come out on top and kick the Qing out of Northern China.

LeoXiao · 2012-09-06, 15:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

that is only the Qing actually manage to unify China. The longer the Civil War drag on the greater the chance someone (a 2nd Zhu Yuen Zhang) would on the Han side would come out on top and kick the Qing out of Northern China.

Yes, that is possible. The main point, however, is that a longer civil war era would lead to better weaponry and technology, and the new dynasty would not begin to stagnate (like the Qing did historically) until the world became more globalized.

DonQuigleone · 2012-09-06, 17:38

You might also get a warring states period that lasts several hundred years. Long enough for the Europeans to come along and get involved in some way. Though a warring states period might strengthen China in the long run.

Ridwan · 2012-09-06, 23:46

Civil War doesn't strengthen countries. It does the opposite. Though of course they can then recover, but a united China that will immediately come out of this Three Feudatories Rebellion goes bad scenario will definitely be worse off then OTL Qing Empire, as the quoted author said so himself. Strength depends on many more things then simply military technology, like the often-overlooked boring stuff such as economy, population, infrastructures, all will be devastated by this hypothetical prolonged-civil war.

In a period of total chaos, everything can come out of it. Besides the warlords and the Qing, we have the Kingdom of Tungning based in Taiwan, the Dzungars, and possibly even the Khalka Mongols. IOTL, Tungning had some grip in the coasts of Fujian and Guangdong which was only lost because the Qing was successful in consolidating southern China, a factor absent from this scenario. Besides all those mentioned, let's not count out the frenzy millenarian sects such as White Lotus Society (but that won't be all. Watch for the muslims !!)

I wonder why he mentioned Japan. By this point Japan had been 60 years under Sakoku. That suggests a possible armed engagement with Tungning. Anyone knows how the things were around that broad area between Taiwan and Korea ?

Xellos-_^ · 2012-09-07, 00:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aegir

Civil War doesn't strengthen countries. It does the opposite.

militarily speaking, China has been the strongest AFTER a civil war. That is usually when China would harass and invade other countries.

NoemiChan · 2012-09-07, 00:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aegir

Civil War doesn't strengthen countries.

It depends.. case to case basis that is... If the winner is competent and a great organizer, he might succeed...

Ridwan · 2012-09-07, 00:17

Never because of the civil war. It depends on how the winner rebuilds the country afterward. And that requires time.

NoemiChan · 2012-09-07, 00:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aegir

Never because of the civil war. It depends on how the winner rebuilds the country afterward. And that requires time.

Oh, its during the civil war? You can't fix a house in a stormy night.

LeoXiao · 2012-09-07, 01:55

I remember reading somewhere that the Qing had quite an advanced military when it took power, but that this technological progress was allowed to stagnate and even regress to a certain degree. Like they used guns at first but went back to swords. Or something.

So a more fractured or civil-war Chinese region would accelerate technological and perhaps also philosophical development. Keep in mind that the great Chinese schools of thought were created during the pre-Qin Warring States era.

2012-09-04, 23:39	Link #142
Ridwan Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: قلوب المؤمنين	I'd be warry to quote anything from wikipedia if I were you __________________

2012-09-06, 06:22	Link #147
Ridwan Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: قلوب المؤمنين	I'm admittedly not very attentive of Alexandrian topics and typical mainstream topics in general. I'm willing to be proven wrong with concrete back up evidences and references. That's why I got rather irked with one-liner remarks as if they're self-evident that will never contribute to any discussion. __________________

2012-09-06, 08:26	Link #149
Ridwan Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: قلوب المؤمنين	Fair enough then. Certainly wasn't positing his modesty, but perhaps I was overestimating his sensibilities. But that has further convinced me that he had stretched it too far by the time of Indian campaign. He will not succeed in India, nor that his empire really could've grown any larger then historically IOTL (perhaps Arabia would be doable, but that's about it) EDIT : This is a TL draft by someone from another forum. It is themed on the Revolt of The Three Feudatories that happened during the early years of Qing Dynasty in China. Warning : It's meant to be a Morbid Rollercoaster reading experience. Spoiler for Morbid Rollercoaster's Concept: This timeline will deal with an alternate Rebellion of the Three Feudatories (三藩之亂, san fan zhi luan). This period is not very well-studied or chronicled: there is exactly one full-length English work on the rebellion. So in this post and the next one I’ll basically just introduce the setting, characters, context, and the point of divergence before getting into the meat of the timeline. I am interested. Tell me more. OK. In the mid-17th century, the Manchus overthrew the Ming Dynasty. They were able to do this in part because a lot of key generals and bureaucrats defected to their side. Now it is 1673. The Ming Dynasty is dead. The Manchu Qing Dynasty controls all of China. But not really. Three military leaders who had previously defected have, over time, come to exert total control over four southern provinces. They have absolute civil and military authority in their fiefs, and the cost of maintaining their armies is almost half the yearly national revenue. The Qing have heretofore tolerated this state of affairs because the south was the last stronghold of the Ming Dynasty. But by 1673, the Ming Dynasty is clearly dead, and the Qing court can’t really live with the fact that they have no control over south China. There are a bunch of boring shenanigans involving insincere promises to retire by the three feudatories which I won’t bother explaining, and at the end of the year war breaks out. There are too many words. I want a picture. OK. Here’s a map. The solid black line represents the territory controlled by the three feudatories at the beginning of the war. The dotted line shows the territory controlled by the rebels at the height of their success. It is half of China, more or less. For the first two and a half years of the war, the rebels enjoyed a more or less uninterrupted run of success. They won battles, secured defections from important generals, and pushed the Qing near their breaking point. Two things that the map doesn’t show but that deserve explanation: 1) Tibet is not really shown on the map, but the Dalai Lama vaguely supported the rebels. This is not terribly important. 2) Taiwan is shown on the map, and it was controlled by Ming restorationists, to the extent that there was any functioning government on the island at all. This is very important. Anyway, though the rebels were very successful in the initial part of the war, they lost. The tide started to turn against them in 1676, and the rebellion was totally defeated by 1681. Spoiler for Map: Why? Good question. There are a bunch of reasons. The most important is disunity - several of the rebel armies spent about as much time fighting each other as they did fighting the Qing. Another reason why they failed was their lack of decisiveness. In the early portion of the war, the rebels experienced almost uninterrupted success, yet were reluctant to really push their advantage. Further, while a bunch of people defected to the three feudatories, there was never the kind of mass change of allegiance among rank-and-file members of the gentry that they needed. I can explain this in greater detail if you’d like it. What will be different in this timeline? The three feudatories will experience greater success, but there won’t be a straightforward dynastic transition. That would be both boring and not terribly realistic. Instead, the better performance of the rebels relative to real life will lead to a more exciting outcome, that being total fucking chaos and a generation of civil war. There will be lots of warlords. There will also be lots of Dzungars. There will be some sort of Manchu-Korean thing and the Zheng family will retain control of Taiwan in the short and medium-term. There will be millenarian religious lunacy in some form. There will be European intervention in some very limited form. We will also discuss Japan. I think there’s a lot of room to mess around here. China will ultimately be re-united, but not before experiencing a generation of internal conflict. Whatever polity emerges will be poorer, less populated, and much more miserable than the Qing Dynasty was at the same time in real life. I would like to know more about this fascinating period in Chinese history. OK. The Great Enterprise, by Frederic Wakeman, can be read in its entirety for free on Google Books. Go to page 1099, where the section on the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories starts. Volume 9 of The Cambridge History of China has a good chapter on the rebellion as well. If you have JSTOR access, Kai-Fu Tsao’s article “Kang-Hsi and the San-Fan 三藩 War” is great (if you don’t have JSTOR access, ask nicely and I will send you a copy). If you search for “three feudatories” on Google Books, you can find some nice short synopses of the conflict as it occurred in real life. What will happen next? I’m going to post the next part tomorrow evening. This post has been really broad and hopefully I’ve adequately explained the cause of the war and what basically happened. The next post will introduce the actual people who you need to know about (Wu Sangui, the Kangxi Emperor, Zheng Jing, Wang Fuchen, and so on). It will also describe the beginning part of the war as it occurred in real life and in this timeline up until the point of divergence, which will be revealed. If you have any questions or comments or whatever just post them and I will try not to be condescending and obnoxious even though you probably deserve it. Also, let’s talk about the Euros. The English had a factory on Taiwan! The Portuguese are right there on Macau and the Dutch and Spanish are kicking around too. What will they do? Probably not much. I'm basically just sharing this, wondering if I can gather some perspectives from you guys. Thoughts ? __________________ Last edited by Ridwan; 2012-09-06 at 09:35.

2012-09-06, 11:32	Link #150
DonQuigleone Knight Errant Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Dublin, Ireland Age: 35	@ Alexander: I think he could have done other campaigns closer to his powerbase in Macedonia. It was already 10 years after he had left, and so a new generation of soldiers would have been available to go west with. Also, he could have raised troops in his newly conquered territories in Persia. Certainly an expedition to Arabia, or west to Carthage or Italy was a distinct possibility. Certainly, Alexander would have gone on another military expedition. It was not his character to relax and enjoy the fruits of his conquests. He would have wanted more. These were the wishes he expressed to his followers on his death (from Wikipedia, these were all mentioned in my readings of Alexander myself, so are authentic): 1. Construction of a monumental tomb for his father Philip, "to match the greatest of the pyramids of Egypt" 2. Erection of great temples in Delos, Delphi, Dodona, Dium, Amphipolis, and a monumental temple to Athena at Troy 3. Conquest of Arabia and the entire Mediterranean Basin 4. Circumnavigation of Africa 5. Development of cities and the "transplant of populations from Asia to Europe and in the opposite direction from Europe to Asia, in order to bring the largest continent to common unity and to friendship by means of intermarriage and family ties." I can't say whether he would have succeeded in his grand schemes. Point 5 in particular was a real sticking point between Alexander and his generals. Now as to whether the Empire could have held together after his death... Even if he did have an established heir, I find it highly unlikely. But the influence of Macedonian and Greek culture would have been much more widely spread. That said, when his Empire fell apart, all the successor states were ruled by Macedonian. The Persians did not rise up against their Macedonian overlords, so it's conceivable that if Alexander could have overcome the divisions within the Macedonian generals, that he could have created an Empire that lasted longer. But we'll never know. Last edited by DonQuigleone; 2012-09-06 at 11:52.

2012-09-06, 23:46	Link #155
Ridwan Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: قلوب المؤمنين	Civil War doesn't strengthen countries. It does the opposite. Though of course they can then recover, but a united China that will immediately come out of this Three Feudatories Rebellion goes bad scenario will definitely be worse off then OTL Qing Empire, as the quoted author said so himself. Strength depends on many more things then simply military technology, like the often-overlooked boring stuff such as economy, population, infrastructures, all will be devastated by this hypothetical prolonged-civil war. In a period of total chaos, everything can come out of it. Besides the warlords and the Qing, we have the Kingdom of Tungning based in Taiwan, the Dzungars, and possibly even the Khalka Mongols. IOTL, Tungning had some grip in the coasts of Fujian and Guangdong which was only lost because the Qing was successful in consolidating southern China, a factor absent from this scenario. Besides all those mentioned, let's not count out the frenzy millenarian sects such as White Lotus Society (but that won't be all. Watch for the muslims !!) I wonder why he mentioned Japan. By this point Japan had been 60 years under Sakoku. That suggests a possible armed engagement with Tungning. Anyone knows how the things were around that broad area between Taiwan and Korea ? __________________

2012-09-05, 02:11	Link #143
NoemiChan Banned Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Philippines Age: 36	*What would happen if Germanicus was allowed by the Emperor of Rome to invade Germania?*

2012-09-06, 15:22	Link #151
LeoXiao 思想工作 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Vereinigte Staaten Age: 31	Had the Qing not consolidated power as quickly as it had, the protracted chaos in China may have spurred increased technological advancement. When China does get reunited, it may not be until the 1700s, and thus the Qing (or w/e dynasty) would reacht he peak of their power perhaps at a later date and thus be in a better position to face the Western powers.

2012-09-06, 17:38	Link #154
DonQuigleone Knight Errant Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Dublin, Ireland Age: 35	You might also get a warring states period that lasts several hundred years. Long enough for the Europeans to come along and get involved in some way. Though a warring states period might strengthen China in the long run.

2012-09-07, 00:17	Link #158
Ridwan Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: قلوب المؤمنين	Never because of the civil war. It depends on how the winner rebuilds the country afterward. And that requires time. __________________

2012-09-07, 01:55	Link #160
LeoXiao 思想工作 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Vereinigte Staaten Age: 31	I remember reading somewhere that the Qing had quite an advanced military when it took power, but that this technological progress was allowed to stagnate and even regress to a certain degree. Like they used guns at first but went back to swords. Or something. So a more fractured or civil-war Chinese region would accelerate technological and perhaps also philosophical development. Keep in mind that the great Chinese schools of thought were created during the pre-Qin Warring States era.