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Thread: Jin Yong's depiction of the Juchen Jin Empire in LOCH

  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by SkineePanda View Post
    In the beginning of ROCH, a storyteller told of a refugee family that was caught up with some Jurchen troops. The Jin officer took a liking to the daughter and tried to take her by force. She resisted and the officer put her family to the knife. And she killed herself. So yeah the Hans' hatred of the Jurchen runs pretty deep.

    All Han Chinese under the Jurchen were second-class or worse. Basically any foreign domination is hell to the Hans. Just remember that China under the Sung dynasty(especially the southern Sung) was a golden age and the Mongols ruined it.
    I agree with that. Intellectual would rather live under corrupted Han rulers rather than decent Mongolian/Jurchen rulers. I wouldn't want to live under Kangxi reign if I had a choice. All the Mongolian/Jurchen rulers were pretty racist. They never treated the Han population as equal to their own when they were in power. I wonder why the Ming didn't go after the Mongolians and Jurchens when they were in power.

  2. #22
    Moderator Ken Cheng's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trien Chieu View Post
    I wonder why the Ming didn't go after the Mongolians and Jurchens when they were in power.
    Actually, the Hongwu Emperor launched a series of preemptive strikes against the Mongols in their homeland during the early years of the Ming Dynasty. The idea was to show the weakened Mongols who was boss (after around eighty years of being ruled by the Mongols) and discourage further Mongol incursions into the Central Plains. Indeed, although the Mongols continued to raid the border even into Qing times, they would never again seriously threaten the heart of the Chinese mainland.

    As for the Jurchen - they hadn't bothered the Han for centuries by the time the Ming Dynasty was established, and the Ming didn't seem to see any point in stirring up trouble with them. Another three hundred years would pass before the Jurchen would pose a problem again.

  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Cheng View Post
    Actually, the Hongwu Emperor launched a series of preemptive strikes against the Mongols in their homeland during the early years of the Ming Dynasty. The idea was to show the weakened Mongols who was boss (after around eighty years of being ruled by the Mongols) and discourage further Mongol incursions into the Central Plains. Indeed, although the Mongols continued to raid the border even into Qing times, they would never again seriously threaten the heart of the Chinese mainland.

    As for the Jurchen - they hadn't bothered the Han for centuries by the time the Ming Dynasty was established, and the Ming didn't seem to see any point in stirring up trouble with them. Another three hundred years would pass before the Jurchen would pose a problem again.
    Preemptive strikes alone wasn't enough. The Ming should be more ruthless/merciless toward the Mongols and Jurchens.
    Last edited by Trien Chieu; 03-06-13 at 01:20 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Cheng View Post
    Actually, the Hongwu Emperor launched a series of preemptive strikes against the Mongols in their homeland during the early years of the Ming Dynasty. The idea was to show the weakened Mongols who was boss (after around eighty years of being ruled by the Mongols) and discourage further Mongol incursions into the Central Plains. Indeed, although the Mongols continued to raid the border even into Qing times, they would never again seriously threaten the heart of the Chinese mainland.

    As for the Jurchen - they hadn't bothered the Han for centuries by the time the Ming Dynasty was established, and the Ming didn't seem to see any point in stirring up trouble with them. Another three hundred years would pass before the Jurchen would pose a problem again.
    In these days and ages, I wonder whether the Mongolians and/or Jurchen will ever have any chance of regaining power again.

  5. #25
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    Jin Yong's depiction of the Juchen Jin Empire in LOC

    Pretty much all Han people hated the Jin during that era. They called them Jin Dog.

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    Quote Originally Posted by owbjhx View Post
    I agree: and not just the depiction of the Jins in She Diao, but how Jinyong depicts 'the foreign' in general (and in particular, how he juxtaposes it with 'the local'). He himself was writing from an outside perspective about an idealised China that never really existed. On top of that, there's a foreignness about most of his main heroes...
    Damn it man, I miss owbjhx. Where the hell are you now...

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trien Chieu View Post
    Intellectual would rather live under corrupted Han rulers rather than decent Mongolian/Jurchen rulers.
    Interesting. Would you rather live under corrupt Han rulers or in North America or Europe (and therefore under foreign rulers)?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Patudo View Post
    Interesting. Would you rather live under corrupt Han rulers or in North America or Europe (and therefore under foreign rulers)?
    North America and Europe are civilized countries. Non-white people enjoy as much freedom as white people and everyone is equal under the law of the land. On the other hand, Mongol and Manchu rulers treat other ethnic people as second/third class citizens. It's no wonder they were considered uncivilized low life barbarians.

  9. #29
    Senior Member Mandred Skavenslayer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trien Chieu View Post
    North America and Europe are civilized countries. Non-white people enjoy as much freedom as white people and everyone is equal under the law of the land. On the other hand, Mongol and Manchu rulers treat other ethnic people as second/third class citizens. It's no wonder they were considered uncivilized low life barbarians.
    I am not sure if you are really this ignorant, but please do a little research. North American & European cultures have a very long history of racial discrimination right into the 20th century. Blacks, Native Americans, Asians etc have long been subjugated to second/third class citizenship in North America. Europe throughout its history has used the Jews as its whipping boy and has shown some of the most atrocious acts of religious intolerance in human 'civilisation'.

    Asia too has its share of 'barbarism', with rigid class systems based on occupation or birth, not to mention their treatment of women as little more than property. To label the nomadic cultures alone as barbaric is the biggest load of BS I've ever heard.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mandred Skavenslayer View Post
    North American & European cultures have a very long history of racial discrimination right into the 20th century. Blacks, Native Americans, Asians etc have long been subjugated to second/third class citizenship in North America. Europe throughout its history has used the Jews as its whipping boy and has shown some of the most atrocious acts of religious intolerance in human 'civilisation'.
    All very true, of course, but ... is there a Black or Asian country you would rather live in North America or Western Europe? Indeed, if you were living in North America or Western Europe, would you rather live there as things are now, or in a situation where other ethnic groups (eg. Hispanics in the US, North Africans in France, South Asians in the United Kingdom etc.) were a majority?

  11. #31
    Senior Member Mandred Skavenslayer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Patudo View Post
    All very true, of course, but ... is there a Black or Asian country you would rather live in North America or Western Europe? Indeed, if you were living in North America or Western Europe, would you rather live there as things are now, or in a situation where other ethnic groups (eg. Hispanics in the US, North Africans in France, South Asians in the United Kingdom etc.) were a majority?
    I am an ethnic Chinese living in the UK and do not see how the South Asians are a majority? Not sure what your point is? I was merely pointing out that all cultures can be considered 'barbaric', if we use Trien Chieu's way of judging them.

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    My point is ... no doubt there is racial discrimination in North America and Europe, but even so - would you rather live there than in Asia or Africa? Would you prefer to live in the UK as things are now (ie. with a "white" majority) or if South Asians and particularly Muslim South Asians became a majority? TC's post above is cartoonishly broad-brush, but ... there are definitely countries and cultures that are "civilized", and others that are a hell of a lot less so.

  13. #33
    Senior Member Mandred Skavenslayer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Patudo View Post
    My point is ... no doubt there is racial discrimination in North America and Europe, but even so - would you rather live there than in Asia or Africa? Would you prefer to live in the UK as things are now (ie. with a "white" majority) or if South Asians and particularly Muslim South Asians became a majority? TC's post above is cartoonishly broad-brush, but ... there are definitely countries and cultures that are "civilized", and others that are a hell of a lot less so.
    Well then let me ask you, if you would rather be a Han Chinese living in 1860's 'civilised' and democratic North America, or a Han Chinese living in 1700 'barbaric' and despotic Qing China. At the present time it is better to live as a minority/subject people in North America/Europe because the standard of living is better in these places, but this was not always so and may also change in the future.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mandred Skavenslayer View Post
    Well then let me ask you, if you would rather be a Han Chinese living in 1860's 'civilised' and democratic North America, or a Han Chinese living in 1700 'barbaric' and despotic Qing China. At the present time it is better to live as a minority/subject people in North America/Europe because the standard of living is better in these places, but this was not always so and may also change in the future.
    If I was Chinese in the 1860s - if one of the educated class China would probably be best; if not a life of back-breaking labour would probably be my lot, whether in China or anywhere that Chinese migrant labour went to (Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Hawaii, California etc.). By the way - 1860s America democratic? You've got to be kidding...

    Do you consider minorities in North America/Europe to be "subject peoples"?

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    Quote Originally Posted by deccan View Post
    This is an interesting topic in my opinion. I mentioned pretty much the same point to my wife who is a Chinese studies scholar and she said that Lu Xun had done an essay on the point: the contradictions of Chinese nationalism; an example: it's ironic that an emperor like Kangxi is now considered a "good" emperor because, surprise, surprise, he was a "good" ruler and China enjoyed relative peace and prosperity under his rule. Yet, the only reason he could become emperor in his first place was because his ancestors conquered the Han.


    I guess at least by the time of "The Deer and the Cauldron", Jin Yong had come to realize the same point as well: patriotism / national pride / nationalism doesn't mean much, the only thing that really matters is whether or not the rule of a particular government is good for its citizens.


    And another parallel point: in LOCH, Guo Jing was raised amongst the Mongols and came to admire their honorable ways, their discipline and the fair way that they treated enemies. By contrast, Guo Jing felt that the Jin were corrupt, and as their campaign to conquer the Song had stalled, become more and more complacent and luxury-loving, much like the Song themselves. It would have been good for all the Han that the Mongols overthrow both the Jin and the Song to establish an honorable government that rewarded merit and discipline!



    Modern adaptations of JY, and perhaps his edited revisions as well though I haven't checked, avoid the use of "Han" for describing the Song, Ming, etc. people, and in most respects I agree with this, since using "Han" causes confusion. Historically, the Jurchens DID use the term "Han" to name Chinese under their rule; so did the Khitans; and so did the Mongols. In all these contexts, though, "Han" stood for people in northern China - that is, in territory ruled by the Khitans and Jurchens. People in southern China were either called "Song" people or "Nan" - that is, southern - people. So, it would be historically accurate for the Jurchens to call Yang Tiexin and Guo Xiaotian - both of whom were from Shandong - "Han," even though they themselves would've probably preferred "Song" since they were refugees from Northern Song.


    As you can see, identity was complicated during this period. The best compromise is probably just to use "Song" to avoid confusion since it makes explicit that we're not talking about modern Han Chinese nationalism. So Yang Tiexin and Guo Xiaotian can be reliably cast as Song loyalists who hated the Jurchens' guts for driving them from their ancestral homes. This aspect of JY's story telling always struck me, because it's obvious that he could've chosen natives of Southern Song as his main characters and still told the same story, but felt that it was more compelling to have Yang Tiexin and Guo Xiaotian be northern refugees. At the same time, however, this would caution against a simple interpretation of ROCH's Song vs. Jin narrative as "Chinese against barbarians." Both the main characters' families have deep reasons for hating the Jurchens; it wasn't just a matter of patriotism.


    In any case, I think the portrayal of the Jurchens in JY's novels have been consistently negative, which contrasts a lot with that of the Mongols, who shift from positive to negative depending on story. Jurchens are just about always bad, even when they themselves were victims of the Mongol conquest. This is eventually resolved, as you say, in DAC, and to a lesser degree in BXJ, where the invading Qing are portrayed relatively positively in comparison to the collapsing Ming. But JY definitely found the 12th century Jin extremely villainous, and that might have to do with him sympathizing so much with the Song, which is the setting for much of his stories.
    Last edited by Riverlake; 03-13-19 at 06:20 PM.

  16. #36
    Senior Member Mandred Skavenslayer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Patudo View Post
    If I was Chinese in the 1860s - if one of the educated class China would probably be best; if not a life of back-breaking labour would probably be my lot, whether in China or anywhere that Chinese migrant labour went to (Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Hawaii, California etc.). By the way - 1860s America democratic? You've got to be kidding...

    Do you consider minorities in North America/Europe to be "subject peoples"?
    Technically North America was a democracy where universal suffrage was practised, it was just a rather selective interpretation of what 'universal' meant. Do I consider minorities in North America/Europe subject people? Now generally no, they at least in theory have equal legal status to caucasian. However, there are still many obstacles they face that caucasian generally don't.

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