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Today's Document
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@aggrobot
For my Three Kingdoms friends
Part of Liu Zhen's (劉楨) Lord's Banquet Song (公讌詩)
"After an endless day of wandering,
Our pleasure has yet to end.
Lingering thoughts exist in the dark of night,
Together, we continue to ramble and roam."
Liu Zhen, one of the Seven Masters of Jian'an was a close personal friend of Cao Pi. This poem was a response to one Cao Pi's, presented during a banquet.
A long time coming. So where do I begin?
"A heart that thinks 'there is always tomorrow,' is like a fleeting sakura blossom. Perhaps it may blow away, Within a midnight storm."
-The monk, Shinran (親鸞) upon becoming a monk.
Hello everyone. It has been a long time. I was the semi-amateur historian formerly known as Aggrobot. I don't know what I am now.
I apologize for the long absence. I have neglected you all somewhat, but life caught up with me. After university I became a working person (社畜) and my love for history got away from me somewhat.
I felt inspired to return for a variety of reasons, chief among them re-reading some of @the-archlich and @arosthorn's old posts. Recalling the good times I had in this little community made me happy. So the calligraphy above is dedicated to you, my old history community.
This is not to say that I completely dropped my history studies. I now have a pretty strong understanding of both the Genpei period and the Nanbokucho period of Japanese History and my ability to read Classical Chinese poetry in kanbun kundoku has gotten better. But as of late, I have been itching to return to China, the land of my ancestors, the Land of Mountains and Rivers.
Perhaps there is one thing that should be updated on: I have become a published poet, although admittedly not in my native tongue. I have published a handful of Japanese poems in the local tanka magazine of a city I briefly lived in. In light of this endeavor, I took a poetic sobriquet: The Traveller of an Overflowing Dream (濫夢旅人). The sobriquet was inspired by the Xunzi (荀子) by the author of the same name, as well as the Chinese poet Li Bai (李白) and Japanese poet/author Natsume Soseki (夏目漱石). Perhaps I may share some of my poetry with you in the future. Perhaps I may even commit it to brush. Time will tell.
While I would like to return to studying Chinese history problem is, I don't know where to start anymore. While I still have some of my de Crespigny readings and a complete collection of Cao Pi's known poetry, in addition to some of my Republican era readings from my thesis. But alas, this is incomplete and not nearly up to standard. Moreover, I suspect that great research has been done since then that I am not aware. The world does not stop simply because I get bored haha.
Below I have compiled a list of topics I am interested in returning to study. If any of you have good resources for them, it would be most welcome.
The Three Kingdoms Period (220-279) a. The Gaoping Incident b. The Three Rebellions of Shouchun c. Conquest of Wu by Jin
The War of the Eight Princes
The Yongjia Disaster and the Foundation of Eastern Jin
The Murong clan and the various states of Yan
Republican/Warlord Period (1911-1937) a. Federalism in the Republican/Warlord Period b. Wu Peifu c. Yan Xishan
If you have read this far, I thank you heartfelt. I look forward to reconnecting with some of my old friends.
Honestly, I do not know which ones are still around and which ones have moved on. Regardless, I hope we can speak again.
「海上生明月、 天涯共此時」 -張九齢
Hey @aggrobot, it’s good to see you around again! I’m still kicking around here, and I can sympathise with the difficulties in managing your free time with other commitments (not to mention I get easily distracted with readings and books concerning other areas and subjects). Even though I don’t post often I do check tumblr semi-regularly, so I’m always happy to touch base.
For republican period recommendations, I can think of a really excellent one from 2022 you would like titled ‘Negotiating A Chinese Federation: The Exchange of Ideas and Political Collaborations between China's Men of Guns and Men of Letters, 1919-1923’ by Vivienne Xiangwei Guo. It’s really excellent scholarship that focuses on the productive intellectual exchanges between certain major political figures and intellectuals at the time concerning federalism, with Wu Peifu getting some attention, in addition to other figures like Zhao Hengti, Zhang Taiyan, Chen Jiongming, Zhang Shizhao, Russel and Dewey. The author also shares my own reticence for using the term ‘warlord’ for certain prominent military strongmen and regional politics figures in this period which I appreciate.
For other studies on Federalism, some that come to mind are Chen Jiongming’s biography ‘Chen Jiongming and the Federalist movement’ (the author has a clear bias but the material presented is worth engaging with), ‘Federal frontiers : the constitution of Hunan Province in 1920s republican China’, and ‘Tang Jiyao and Sun Yat-sen: Reform, revolution and the struggle for southern China’ (it has good info on Tang and some of his federalist policies).
For Yan Xishan, I can’t think of any major pieces of English scholarship for him aside from Donald Gillin’s classic 1967 monograph. Wu Peifu has some more work on him, such as Odoric Wou’s biography ‘Militarism in modern China: the career of Wu P'ei-fu, 1916-39’, the thesis by Mengchuan Lin titled ‘Threading On Thin Ice: Resistance and Conciliation in the Jade Marshal's. Nationalism, 1919-1939’, ‘From War to Nationalism’ by Arthur Waldron that covers Wu’s role in the 2nd Zhifeng War, and ‘Peking Politics’ which gets into Wu and Cao Kun’s political manoeuvring. Most of these are pretty well known so I assume you’re already familiar with them, but I figured I’d mentioned them anyway.
For shameless self-promotion, I have a very incomplete list of works concerning the late Qing and the early republican period. Currently it only contains most of the theses/dissertations that I know of and no essays and books, but it might be worth your time.
Hello @arosthorn long time no talk. Glad to see you're still kicking around these parts. It seems so many have left. It brings to mind the poetry of Cui Hu:
人面不知何処去、桃花依舊笑春風
I know not where this face has gone, but the peach blossoms since long ago still blow in the spring wind.
I actually still have many of by Chen Jiongming adjacent material (I suspect some not even on your list haha) was in contact with Vivienne Guo for a number of years. I (virtually) attended her talk on Wu Peifu some years ago, just prior to becoming a wage slave.
The stuff on Hunan and Tang Jiyao is fascinating though. I know you mentioned it (the Hunan stuff) when we last spoke and I just never got around to it. Thank you for the reminder.
I will try to be more active around here in the coming weeks. It was great to reconnect.
A long time coming. So where do I begin?
"A heart that thinks 'there is always tomorrow,' is like a fleeting sakura blossom. Perhaps it may blow away, Within a midnight storm."
-The monk, Shinran (親鸞) upon becoming a monk.
Hello everyone. It has been a long time. I was the semi-amateur historian formerly known as Aggrobot. I don't know what I am now.
I apologize for the long absence. I have neglected you all somewhat, but life caught up with me. After university I became a working person (社畜) and my love for history got away from me somewhat.
I felt inspired to return for a variety of reasons, chief among them re-reading some of @the-archlich and @arosthorn's old posts. Recalling the good times I had in this little community made me happy. So the calligraphy above is dedicated to you, my old history community.
This is not to say that I completely dropped my history studies. I now have a pretty strong understanding of both the Genpei period and the Nanbokucho period of Japanese History and my ability to read Classical Chinese poetry in kanbun kundoku has gotten better. But as of late, I have been itching to return to China, the land of my ancestors, the Land of Mountains and Rivers.
Perhaps there is one thing that should be updated on: I have become a published poet, although admittedly not in my native tongue. I have published a handful of Japanese poems in the local tanka magazine of a city I briefly lived in. In light of this endeavor, I took a poetic sobriquet: The Traveller of an Overflowing Dream (濫夢旅人). The sobriquet was inspired by the Xunzi (荀子) by the author of the same name, as well as the Chinese poet Li Bai (李白) and Japanese poet/author Natsume Soseki (夏目漱石). Perhaps I may share some of my poetry with you in the future. Perhaps I may even commit it to brush. Time will tell.
While I would like to return to studying Chinese history problem is, I don't know where to start anymore. While I still have some of my de Crespigny readings and a complete collection of Cao Pi's known poetry, in addition to some of my Republican era readings from my thesis. But alas, this is incomplete and not nearly up to standard. Moreover, I suspect that great research has been done since then that I am not aware. The world does not stop simply because I get bored haha.
Below I have compiled a list of topics I am interested in returning to study. If any of you have good resources for them, it would be most welcome.
The Three Kingdoms Period (220-279) a. The Gaoping Incident b. The Three Rebellions of Shouchun c. Conquest of Wu by Jin
The War of the Eight Princes
The Yongjia Disaster and the Foundation of Eastern Jin
The Murong clan and the various states of Yan
Republican/Warlord Period (1911-1937) a. Federalism in the Republican/Warlord Period b. Wu Peifu c. Yan Xishan
If you have read this far, I thank you heartfelt. I look forward to reconnecting with some of my old friends.
Honestly, I do not know which ones are still around and which ones have moved on. Regardless, I hope we can speak again.
「海上生明月、 天涯共此時」 -張九齢
I love Wang Ping ruining Wei Yan's rebellion through a call out post. Know any other examples of someone being destroyed through statements?
The most obvious one to me will always remain Jia Chong and the many rebukes of him as a disloyal cretin who murders him Emperor. Perhaps most famous is Sun Hao insinuating that the often bandied about criticism of his regime as overusing face peeling as a punishment, which wasn't true by the way, is saved only for the worst sorts of people who kill their sovereigns. Jia Chong rightfully shat his pants that day.
If you like Japanese History, then I have a manga for you:
The manga is 逃げ上手の若君, translated into English as The Elusive Samurai. It is a history-themed manga set during the Nanboku-cho, following a young Hojo Tokiyuki after his clan is destroyed by the Ashikaga. It is currently running in Weekly Shonen Jump, meaning that it is competing against the big boys like Boku no Hero and Jujutsu Kaisen.
Beyond the actual story being really good, the art is also top-notch. It’s done by Yusei Matsui of Assassination Classroom fame.
As this is a period of Japanese History that I adore, I hope that this manga gets the love it deserves and we get more historical-themed manga.
So if you want, you can go to the e-Shop / PSN store and see all the DLC costumes in the season’s pass for 9E. That’s cool.
But can someone tell me why the White Tiger armour isn’t just a recolour of Sun Jian or Sun Quan’s 9 costumes? This costume looks so bad by comparison
I’ve been pretty quiet in the past couple of months due to being busy with various different things, including changes with my work. Though I still remain quite busy, particularly in the past month, I intend on being a bit more active and doing some posts relating to the Six Dynasties period. In addition, like aggrobot, I also study early modern Chinese history, with particular focus on the late Qing and the early republican period (primarily the period from the Taiping Rebellion to the Northern Expedition), so I intend on making some posts on that period as well
The subject of the post I’m currently working on is Xu Shichang and the Shanghai Peace Conference. Xu was a prominent political figure in the late Qing and the early republic who generally gets ignored or dismissed as an impotent figurehead, but his career his fairly interesting. The most noteworthy episode of his political career was the first several months of his presidency starting in 1918, when he defied expectations that he’d be a figurehead by taking the policy initiative from the powerful northern military establishment to pursue his own policy of peaceful unification with the southern government. The strategies that Xu used and the successes he enjoyed in outmaneuvering his rivals in the powerful military establishment are quite remarkable, particularly when viewed against the major obstacles he faced and the precariousness of his own position as a president from a civilian background. I’m still a fair ways off from finishing this post, so don’t expect it anytime soon.
I’ve also begun constructing a bibliography of historical works relating to the late Qing/early republican period here. The intention of this list is to enable those studying this period to easily discover relevant material in the one place, therefore it seeks to be as inclusive as possible - it is not a list of recommended works (I might make one of those later). I will restrict it only to English language monographs and university dissertations/theses for the time being, though I will eventually have a short list of noteworthy essays. I’ve finished listing most of the university theses/dissertations that I have and will start adding published works at a later date. Be warned that the list is still in its’ very early days, so the formatting is still poor and rough - it isn’t alphabetised yet, for instance.
Glad to hear from you Aros!! Funnily enough, my research has also led me into the warlord era, but with a somewhat different character. Where your research is in the north, my research is in the far south, with a figure whose name “brightly illuminated” the anarcho-federalist movement of China. I also recently attended a guest lecture, where the professor talked about the ideology of a certain “Jade Marshal.”
I should also mention that I submitted my undergraduate thesis last year, which was warmly received by the department (although many of them are Americanists who don’t care about East Asia), which did have a heavy emphasis on the late Qing Period. I would like to make a more formal update such as yours above, so I will save the details for then (haha).
謹賀新年、同士
一日一歩、 切磋琢磨
Heads up
Last scenario in DW9E is 228. Good part of Jin is useless.
10/10
The DLC scenarios are 211 and 264. If we follow the trend for past Empires games, they’ll probably leave the Jin stuff to DLC
Please just give me a Zhuge Dan scenario, so I can win it all for the boi
Heads up
Last scenario in DW9E is 228. Good part of Jin is useless.
10/10
The DLC scenarios are 211 and 264. If we follow the trend for past Empires games, they’ll probably leave the Jin stuff to DLC
...
Koei, you're making it really hard to defend this laziness
Chinese Internet Slang
Numbers
1314: “For ever”, usually preceded by a phrase such as “I love you” or whatever. 1314 (pinyin: yīsānyīsì) represents 一生一世 “one life, one world” (pinyin: yīshēng yīshì).
233: “laughter" 233 (pinyin:èr sān sān） represents 哈哈哈 （pinyin: hā hā hā).
4242: “Yes” or “It is”, 4242 (pinyin: sìèr sì'èr) represents 是啊是啊 (pinyin: shì’a shì’a).
520: “I love you”. 520 (pinyin: wǔ'èrlíng) represents 我爱你 (pinyin: wǒ ài nǐ).
555: “(crying)”. 555 (pinyin: wǔwǔwǔ) represents 呜呜呜 (pinyin: wūwūwū) the sound of tearful crying.
666: “doing something really well” 666 (pinyin: liùliùliù) represents 溜溜溜 (pinyin:liùliùliù ).
7451 or 7456: “I’m angry”. 7451 (pinyin: qīsìwǔyī) or 7456 (pinyin: qīsìwǔliù) represents 气死我了 (pinyin: qìsǐ wǒle)
748: “Go and die!”, 748 (pinyin: qīsìbā)：represents 去死吧 (pinyin: qùsǐba), the equivalent of “Get lost!”, or “Go to hell!”
88: “Bye bye” (goodbye). 88 (pinyin: bābā) represents “bye bye"
995: “Help”, “Save me!” 995 (pinyin: jiǔjiǔwǔ) represents 救救我 (pinyin: jiùjiù wǒ).
Just played a bit of the DW9 demo, and I really enjoyed it a lot. Hopefully the rest has more going on. Whatever “politics” system they have is hopefully more fleshed out than the trash in every old game
Did u have any major load-in issues and bugs? I was watching PS5 footage and it seemed to have less issues than what I played (PS4)
Quick Thoughts on the DW9E Demo
As of now, I’ve played about five hours of the demo.
I feel like this game is a sand castle built on quicksand. Meaning that there are some really innovative and interesting strategy elements here, but the main problem is that it’s built on top of DW9′s core gameplay.
The character editor is very impressive. To be expected coming off Nioh 2, but I digress.
Coming at this from the viewpoint of preferring DW9 to the others in the series, being built off 9 sounds good to me.
What specifically did you like? I do think 9 had good ideas, but it was an unfocused game with too many bugs on release (the 9E demo does not fare well on the bug front either)
I didn’t have a buggy experience and most of mine was streamed. I know others did but I found my time, outside of the god awful tutorial house, to be working fairly fine compared to most open world games. I liked the music, the atmosphere, the world, most of the designs, combat was less repetitive to me than the previous games, I thought the hunting was a neat addition. A lot of the cities were fun to fight in, while the small forts were a bit eh. But I viewed those as no different than the mediocre forts in the games that existed since 5.
Oh yeah, 9 was the first of the games since the PS2 days that nailed the Ancient China x JRPG feeling that the older games embodied. 9 easily has my favourite character designs in the series, only rivalled by maybe 4. If 9 played as well as 8, 4 or 5 I would definitely call it my favourite in the series.
If you liked the city combat in 9, you’re in good company. The siege battles in 9E are built around that.
I’m still gonna probably wait for the western release though, just so that KT has time to fix and patch the game. The JP release of 8E was pretty infamous
chinese craftsmanship fuzhou wood carving 福州软木画
Quick Thoughts on the DW9E Demo
As of now, I’ve played about five hours of the demo.
I feel like this game is a sand castle built on quicksand. Meaning that there are some really innovative and interesting strategy elements here, but the main problem is that it’s built on top of DW9′s core gameplay.
The character editor is very impressive. To be expected coming off Nioh 2, but I digress.
Coming at this from the viewpoint of preferring DW9 to the others in the series, being built off 9 sounds good to me.
What specifically did you like? I do think 9 had good ideas, but it was an unfocused game with too many bugs on release (the 9E demo does not fare well on the bug front either)
Quick Thoughts on the DW9E Demo
As of now, I’ve played about five hours of the demo.
I feel like this game is a sand castle built on quicksand. Meaning that there are some really innovative and interesting strategy elements here, but the main problem is that it’s built on top of DW9′s core gameplay.
The character editor is very impressive. To be expected coming off Nioh 2, but I digress.
