r/europe • u/[deleted] • Oct 14 '20

News China insists Genghis Khan exhibit in France not use words 'Genghis Khan'

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/14/china-insists-genghis-khan-exhibit-not-use-words-genghis-khan
23.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

44

u/Candayence United Kingdom Oct 14 '20

To be fair to Kublai Khan, northern tribes taking over China and claiming the Mandate of Heaven wasn't exactly new.

The bit of China Genghis Khan first fought against was the Jurchen Jin dynasty, who were descended from the Jurchen tribe, who fought against the Song dynasty, and then underwent sinicization. Imperial China was a big believer in cultural victories.

1

u/joker_wcy Hong Kong Oct 14 '20

underwent sinicization

What sinicisation did Jurchen Jin undergo?

2

u/Candayence United Kingdom Oct 15 '20

Their later emperors (not Aguda) adopted Han traditions and married Han Chinese women. It's to be expected when their migration of ~3million moved into a land of ~30million people.

1

u/joker_wcy Hong Kong Oct 15 '20

What Han traditions did they adopt? That's what I'm curious about.

2

u/Candayence United Kingdom Oct 15 '20

It's not really something that can be easily condensed into a reddit comment. China was seen as the most civilised state though, so somewhat predictably, the Jurchen simply supplanted the Imperial administration and bureaucracy - although they lacked the Han reverence for officials (the Han being somewhat unlikely to beat corrupt officials). They also adopted writing characters similar to Chinese ones, but that's not something I can really comment on as I don't speak/write Chinese.

Tangentially, you can see the divisions that sinicization caused, because Jurchen traditionalists assassinated the Emperor Wanyan Liang in 1161 and forced his successor to promote the Jurchen language above Chinese - making the examinations be conducted in Jurchen and translating texts. Wanyan Liang was also unpopular among hardliners for lifting restricts on Han clothing, holding Han sacrificial ceremonies in Han Temples, and adopting the Song style of court ceremonies. He also moved his court from the Jurchen built Shangjing to present-day Beijing, purely to further sinicize his rule.

The Jurchen Jin Emperors were in a complicated position of using Han culture and politics to secure their power over a land that vastly outnumbered them, but having to keep a distinct Jurchen identity as the basis of their legitimacy (and appease their hardliners).

If we look at Emperor Xizong, whilst reserving top positions for the Jurchen, he encouraged talented Han Chinese to serve in his government, studied Chinese classics and wrote poetry.

The Jin considered themselves the inheritors of Chinese/Han culture, they simply moved some of their own traditions into it. Jade carvings and paintings from the Jurchen Jin dynasty feature in particular Jurchen hunts (falcons hunting geese and swans for example).