"Wulin" in Jin Yong's Qing Dynasty-era stories.

[Trien Chieu]

This pertains to all forms of governments, including democratic republics that go bad.

Hopefully, Canada and US are the exception. We are lucky that we live on a big piece of fertile land with vast natural resources and oceans on both east and west. If you compare it to other parts of the world, we are in the best position

[pannonian]

Yes. They did. The problem with dynasty is that they won't last. Eventually, the dynasty will end up with a few useless emperors in a row that will lead it to collapse.

The Qing dynasty is shorter than the Tang dynasty by just 22 years. If the Qing dynasty was a short lived failure, so was the Tang dynasty. Qing began with 150+ years of stability and good governance. Name another dynasty that can match this record.

[PJ]

A Deadly Secret never did feel like a Qing story to me. The feel was very much in the Ming or Song dynasty kind of wulin. Many of us felt that it was a Ming dynasty story despite the art in the storybook, so much that Jin Yong had to clarify and explicitly state that it was set in the Qing. That kind of removed a lot of the romance of the setting for me, but plot-wise it still doesn't feel like the Qing.

Correct. In the 2nd ed, there were only a few brief mentions of government (Ling Tuisi is the only example I can think of), which were just to acknowledge that yes, there was a government. None of the rebel stuff. So yes, it could have very well been Ming dynasty just going by the "feel".

[Trien Chieu]

The Qing dynasty is shorter than the Tang dynasty by just 22 years. If the Qing dynasty was a short lived failure, so was the Tang dynasty. Qing began with 150+ years of stability and good governance. Name another dynasty that can match this record.

The Tang Dynasty was stable from the beginning until the late reign of Emperor Xuanzong (618 to 755) which is about 137 years. If you look at history, pretty much all dynasties failed, not just Chinese dynasties. As usually, the first few emperors of most dynasties are great. They are intelligent and work hard to make the dynasty stronger. However, the later on emperors are into hedonism and immortality which lead the dynasty to collapse. Regarding Qing Dynasty, if the emperor Guangxi was able to reform, the dynasty might not collapse. However, he failed.