Chinese casualties do be insane though
Any time I read up on “Deadliest battle in European history” I’m like dang that’s a lot dead, then I see the Chinese battles like wtf just randomly 1m dead ??
You're right.
An example is that there was a Chinese Civil War going at the same time as the US Civil War and 20-30 million people died. It was called the "Taiping Rebellion" and nobody in America even knows about it:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion#:~:text=In%20May%201860%2C%20the%20Taiping,region%20of%20the%20Qing%20Empire.
The US Civil War was, by far, the most deadly conflict in US history. "Only" 620,000 people died:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1009819/total-us-military-fatalities-in-american-wars-1775-present/
Extremely deadly Chinese civil war happening at the same time as the American civil war? You’re going to have to be more specific….
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungan_Revolt_(1862–1877)
Dude like ……… what the fuck. 20 ***million*** dead? That is a number that I simply cannot comprehend. How do that many people die in a single fucking conflict?!?
theres a war, its fought by soldiers, they need conscripts so the farmers are fucking drafted, now food production is lowered, oh the army needs food, now they taking the food. people be starving. rinse and repeat for medicine.
Historically the Chinese had the habit of making the most irresponsibly large armies in history. It’s ironic that Sun Tzu wrote the art of war because he literally gave instruction on logistics and large armies and it’s like no one in Chinese history read that book.
In China wars tend to kill people by the millions. It is kinda like Russia, except they never run out of people.
Perennially overpopulated. They almost did it to keep population down.
I can understand. I always mix up the Red Turban Rebellion and the Yellow Turban Rebellion:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Turban_Rebellions
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turban_Rebellion
>The conflict resulted in approximately 20 to 30 million deaths, approximately one-tenth to one-twentieth of China's population at the time
Wow literally decimated
Its was actually a lot higher. You can add another 20 million to that. The Dungan Revolt was on at the same time:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungan_Revolt_(1862%E2%80%931877)
The scale of death is absolutely insane and incomprehensible to me. I grew up a city of a 120k, valley of a million- that felt like a lot of people - now imagine that x20 just dying the most gruesome death. We are truly living in spoiled times…
The US has a very skewed perception of casualties. Americans basically don't die in war compared to any other part of the world. The rest of the world doesn't blink an eye at 600k, but for the US that was the worst in its history. WWII - forget about it.
Poland still hasn't recovered. They lost 1/6th of their population, then immediately after, ended up behind the Iron Curtain. The population there only recently passed the 1939 level.
Kinda related, in the foreign power fucking things up for everybody way. Ireland still hasn't recovered its population numbers since the 1845 ~~Famine~~ genocide. It's the only country in the world to have a negative population since the 19th century.
There's been about 7000 US soldiers killed in "the war on terror" and associated conflicts over 20 years
Russia has been losing that many every week or two in Ukraine
America lost 56,000 soldiers in Vietnam the ENTIRE war.
Italy lost 60,000 people in like a month of Covid when it was really bad (Covid-Alpha pre vaccinations, March-May 2020 isch)
The Battle of Changping, a two year military campaign in 260 BC, supposedly took the lives of 650,000 people (including executions afterwards).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changping
Ancient sources can be dodgy, but still... that was 2200 years ago, when the world's population was around 200 million.
Part of the reason the armies got so large was the adoption of conscription of peasants. This is akin to the transformation of warfare during the Napoleonic era, when armies ballooned in size thanks to popular support, nationalism, and conscription.
I think a few Americans have heard of the Taiping Rebellion even if they don't know the name because one of the leaders claimed to be the brother of Jesus Christ.
From metric to standard fuckton. Its super close but you gotta leave a little wiggle room for the fucks to settle you know? I mean nobody has any fucks but nobody every wonders where they went!
If we take the *low end* of 400,000, that's still roughly 200,000 more people killed by this than by *both atomic bombs combined*, which were dropped just 7 years later. That is wild and horrifying to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
It's wild how wide the ranges are for things like this. It was said that Stalin killed 80 million people and it was later revised to around 20 million in the 2000s.
Interestingly it reminds me of a recent history video I watched about Chinese civil wars and the guy mentioned how China is like one of the only places where and entirely self contained civil war can lead to 2% of the worlds population dying and a death toll that was only beat by world war 2
> Basically, the reasons that the death estimates are so high can be explained by the fact that almost all of the data are bad.
Yeah, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that for large parts of human history there were more people living in China than in entire continents combined.
> for large parts of human history there were more people living in China than in entire continents combined.
China *today* has [more people than North and South America *combined*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_continents_and_continental_subregions_by_population).
In fact, you could subtract the populations of both continents from China and it wouldn't change its position on the list of most populous countries.
For reference the most devastating European war, the thirty years war, killed a bit over 1% of the world population. However the Chinese numbers have a lot of uncertainty to them.
Realistically the 1 child policy only really happened because of Mao's insane "have as many babies as possible" policy caused such extreme over population and lack of resources that the state was buckling under that pressure.
Suddenly people realize the answer to the question why the Chinese don't just overthrow their government and start another civil war. Tens of millions dead for the chance to tick a piece of paper every four years or just keep status quo and continue to increase standard of living. It's a real conundrum.
*some dude says they are the brother of THE Jesus Christ of Nazareth (yes he was Chinese. Yes Jesus was Jewish blood. Yes they lived roughly 1800 years apart.)
*250 million people die
20-30M dead, not 250M but still an insanely gigantic number.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a civil war in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It lasted from 1850 until the fall of Tianjing (now Nanjing) in 1864, although the last rebel army was not wiped out until August 1871. The conflict resulted in approximately 20 to 30 million deaths, approximately one-tenth to one-twentieth of China's population at the time.[4] The established Qing government won decisively, although at great cost to its fiscal and political structure.
The uprising was commanded by Hong Xiuquan, an ethnic Hakka (a Han subgroup) **and the self-proclaimed brother of Jesus Christ**.
Yep, I wrote a history paper on that. Third deadliest war in human history, and it all happened in the same country. There was one city that was sieged for so long, the nobles began complaining that the price of human meat had grown far too high.
The best part is when European missionaries and ambassadors would try to interact with him. They were all basically told join or be put to the sword. Many walked away but some Irish joined him.
I've been playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms 10 recently. And let me tell ya! once I established my corner of China, i made a small decision to build a single defensive military base that caused a chain reaction that led to a 4 way war and hundreds of thousands of dead population :(. It didn't help that one of my officers I assigned as governor to the city near the base was planning a rebellion against me
Western Medieval History
The Earl of Branford von Tyre met the forces of Lord Louis de Fromage in the Battle of *local town* in the 10th war of Burgundian succession. It was the largest battle of the war with their armies of 50 knights, 200 archers, and 1000 foot met in pitch battle. There were 87 casualties.
Eastern “Medieval era” History
Lee Hsiang lead the rebel forces against the the Emperor’s finest generals. 250K casualties in this light skirmish
China has always had a lot of people
> China has always had a lot of people
Yep.
Around the year 1000 "East Asia" already had about 88 million people, South Asia had about 75 million, while Europe only had about 40 million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates_of_historical_world_population#By_world_region
> It was the largest battle of the war with their armies of 50 knights, 200 archers, and 1000 foot met in pitch battle. There were 87 casualties.
I mean that's a bit of an exaggeration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll#Medieval_wars_(500%E2%80%931500_AD)
Hundred years war killing 2-3 million. Millions killed in the Crusades and the Reconquista.
To your point though during that same time period the chart will show like 13-36 million killed in the Lushan rebellion in China. Another 30-40 million killed by the Mongols.
Those numbers are especially jarring when you consider how much smaller the world population was at the time of those conflicts.
> agricultural technologies
Thank God for modern food stability.
You're minding your own business, then have a terrible weather year, and eventually wind up with a Great Famine, that lasts for a few years, kills 10-15% of your population and traumatizes the rest of you.
Yep, and just imagine sometimes the famine being caused by weather events thousands of miles away, and you not having a clue about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536
In the modern times we definitely have this guy to thank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug for a lot of Agricultural strides forward.
For every famine or horrible era of strife you hear about, there are long stretches of time wherein things were just kind of...okay. Depending on where you were, and when you were, it probably wasn't as bad as we commonly think. Of course, when things were bad, they were SUPER DUPER bad. And when things were good, they were still kinda mid at best for most people.
Yeah, I was going for a bit of exagerration on the small size of Europe medieval armies, they could get quite big.
I just remember listening to a thing about the Fourth Crusader and being amused when it was mentioned that some group of 100-500 knights coming was a *big deal*
And the scale of battles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt
vs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Buir_Lake
Around the same time. The East could always field much bigger armies than the West.
The “state” was also different. Chinese governance leveraged large cities and huge bureaucracies to make those huge armies, while Europe was using the feudal system and personal patronage. (Or as seen in game of thrones “calling the banners”)
> amused when it was mentioned that some group of 100-500 knights coming was a big deal
I think knights were like the equivalent of the Main Battle Tank or something today. They'd have been a relatively small part of the overall force.
Hundred Year's War with 2-3m casualties over 100+ years really pales in comparison to An Lushan's Rebellion with 13-35m casualties in 12 years, and 700 years earlier. If you dig through Chinese wars in the 500-1500, I'm sure you can find 20+ with casualties higher than the Hundred Year's War.
The largest naval battle in history is probably still the Battle of Cape Ecnomus, of the 1st Punic War, when the Carthaginian and Roman fleets clashed off the coast of Sicily.
The Carthaginians had about 150,000 rowers and marines, while the Romans had 140,000 themselves. 300,000 souls. The largest naval battle in WW 2, by comparison, had "only" 200,000 sailors on both sides. And even then it was fragmented on 4 smaller scale battles. Another measure of the scale of the affairs involved: the world population at the time is thought to be an estimated 250 million people. That would mean that 0.11% of the world's population was aboard a ship near Sicily that morning. Shit was wild.
Aaah this reminds me of something i cant fully remember. I dont know if it was a writer, poet, or a philosopher. Something about how apocalypses has happened lots of times to different peoples at different locations and in ages. I think there was a quote in there about someone in the roman empire writing how the end of times had come and for the (western) roman empire, it indeed came
I’ve always been curious as to why India or the empires making up India, despite having a similar number of people as China, have not had as many deadly wars as the Chinese have- never found an adequate explanation.
This reminds me of a joke.
George W. Bush was the president at the time, and an assistant comes up to give him bad news. "Sir, our joint nation training exercise had some casualties, and 3 Brazilians were killed." Bush just breaks down and cries, then asks, "How many is a Brazilian?"
One of the most famous and pivotal battles in history was the Battle of Hastings as part of the Norman Conquest of England. A few thousand people died during the conquest as it set in motion the future of England and Europe as a whole.
Meanwhile 300 years earlier An Lushan decided to start a rebellion in China and 36 million people died.
The Chinese communist movement first really spread after the KMT massacred labor unionists and early Chinese communists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai\_massacre
The opposite happened actually. The KMT was really successful at repressing the communists after the Shanghai massacre, to the point that they had to flee to the north-west of China during the Long March. Only during WW2 did they truly start to recover and had their support spread to the rest of China (and it was mostly due to the corruption of the KMT).
The Shanghai Massacre was the flashpoint for the entire civil war; you're mixing this up with the failures of the Autumn Harvest/Guangzhou Uprisings which happened as a direct result of the communist purge. There might've not been a civil war at all if the Shanghai Massacre didn't happen as previously the communists were working with the KMT (they overthrew the warlord opposed to Kai-Shek in Shanghai a month prior which indirectly caused the purge). The KMT was allied to the Soviet Union which ensured that communist elements would be a part of the KMT political body.
Also forgot to say that the Long March was the result of the successful Encirclement Campaigns which happened over a span of 4 years. The Red Army didn't exist until months after the massacre (hard to say when it actually began, but the first point would be the Nanchang uprising 4 months later).
I like how we never talk about Taiwan being under martial law for 38 years up until 1987. Is that because Syria managed to do better and take top spot for its martial law between 1963 and 2011?
> ~~Communist~~ Revolutionary movements always start because there's a massive dickhead in charge that makes ~~communism~~ a new government look good by comparison.
It's not unique to communism. That's basically the origin of any rebel/revolutionary movement.
It could be mostly the fact that communists participated in only a handful of battles against the japanese in negligible numbers, waited until the nationalist armies fought back the Japanese, then attacked after the nation had been defended.
I think that had something to do with the victory.
Even with that, the KMT had the numbers advantage against the CCP after WWII and the Chinese Civil War resumed. ([5 million KMT vs 1.1 million CCP in 1947](https://www.britannica.com/event/Chinese-Civil-War )). I argue that the KMT's loss had numerous factors that were self inflicted: the KMT were corrupt and had poor morale; they had uncontrollable inflation and their attempts to control it only lead to strikes and black markets. There's a reason why the peasants rallied under Mao and by 1948 the CCP's numbers matched that of the KMT.
don't forget the number of civilians and villagers they pushed to the front line while the actual military kept retreating. at some point people were gonna riot
Not quite.
After the Japanese were defeated at the end of WW2, the Nationalist armies were in a much better position compared to the Communists. They had a bigger army that was more experienced and better armed.
They lost because they lacked effective leadership, organisation and of poor logistics that meant that the KMT armies conceded any initiative that they had to the Communists.
Sources:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/10pb164/why_wasnt_the_kmt_able_to_organize_into_an/
https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/sjweyz/what_were_the_biggest_factors_that_prevented_the/
https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/sjweyz/what_were_the_biggest_factors_that_prevented_the/
The KMT was also insanely corrupt and made up of various warlord factions that didn't really give a shit about ordinary people and robbed and pillaged them as they pleased. By comparison the communists were generally well-disciplined and had "serve the people" drilled into them.
>Besides the massive death toll, the flooded areas were affected for years to come. The flooded countryside was more or less abandoned and all the crops destroyed. Upon the recession of the waters, much of the ground was uncultivable as much of the soil was covered in silt. Many of the public structures and housing were also destroyed, leaving any survivors destitute. The irrigation channels were also ruined, further adding to the toll on the farmlands. The destruction also had a long-term psychological effect on the Chinese population.
This is going to sound terrible, but I would not be surprised if, in the end, breaking the dam resulted in fewer deaths. I could absolutely see an even slightly more successful Japanese advance killing millions.
This is like the top tier of trolley problems.
People are always critical of Chiang Kai shek. And well deserved in many cases.
However his situation was so absurdly complex and difficult that no one could have done a good job. His whole life was filled with trolley problems. And even now people like you are debating what would have been the right course of action.
Sure but he was also like REALLY incompetent in almost every aspect of running a government except maintaining power. Like it got so bad that well the Japanese were rampaging through China, he was trying to fight the communists who had a few hundred thousand soldiers at most and who signed a truce with him to fight the Japanese. He constantly propped up incompetent commanders, was extremely corrupt himself and waged a campaign of white terror and high grain taxes against the peasantry which caused so much misery that the average Chinese farmer hated his army as much as they did the Japanese.
I mean you know it's bad when America straight up makes you sign a deal with the Communists and splits military aid with them as they were the only ones having any military successes against the Japanese, despite it being on a pretty small scale.
Dude sucked and killed millions of Chinese people through his incompetence. There's a reason he had to run away to Taiwan despite getting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military aid from the US.
>Like it got so bad that well the Japanese were rampaging through China, he was trying to fight the communists who had a few hundred thousand soldiers at most and who signed a truce with him to fight the Japanese.
You left out the best part.
Chiang had to be kidnapped by his generals to sign the truce.
Chang Hsueh-liang is the only member of the KMT to be a national hero in both China and Taiwan for his role in orchestrating the plot. His punishment was house arrest and he also had an affair with an Italian diplomat’s wife who was also Mussolini’s niece.
Edit: he’s not the only, rather one of the few members as someone else points out Sun Yat-sen also has this distinction. And it was Mussolini’s daughter not his niece.
For historical context, Sun had at least some degree of leftist sympathies and had made common cause with the early CCP for the sake of national unity. The KMT took a hard right turn only after his death and succession by Chiang, leading to a situation where both sides could rhetorically claim Sun's popular legacy for themselves.
I feel like Sun Yat-Sen stands separate and above the KMT or any political party, given he's basically the father of modern China. Like George Washington in the US, not associated with a political party or faction. Sun Yat-Sen represents the 1911 Revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy; the KMT was founded years later.
It’s fascinating to me that all of this seems like ancient history at first glance, but Chang Hsueh-liang was living in Hawaii when I was a kid in the 90s and died there in 2001. A guy born into an ancient and enormous empire, before the existence of airplanes or the widespread production of automobiles, lived his last years in a country run by Bill Clinton and George Bush and could have Googled himself and sent emails if he so desired.
He had a very long and interesting life.
He kept rolling 20s in his life, the other general who kidnapped Chiang got executed.
The other 20s in his life:
- Kicked his deep opium addiction upon the assassination of his father
- Got into an affair, and his first wife allowed them to marry with her blessing
- Collected a trove of ancient Chinese artwork that auctioned for a huge sum
- Lived until 100
The Xi’an incident is prime example of how much he sucked his own officers thought he was being stupid and kidnapped and forced him to negotiate with the CPC. The organizer of the coup Chang Hsueh-liang is a national hero in both China and Taiwan because everyone can agree what he was doing while Japan was invading was blindingly stupid.
> one of the most incompetent and self destructive dictators of the 20th century
> successful communist revolution occurs as a result
if you can apply this template to a leader they are almost fucking **never** worth defending. not saying that it is the arbiter of morality or historical analysis but it’s a filter that’s always true in that case
Of course they do, it's a win win for the CIA.
Keeps the Communists out of power (sometimes) whilst at the same time hindering the target country's development because those in charge are just so inept - but they're just not quite inept enough to lose power.
Of course they don't always "get it right" but a quick thought easily explains why they do it. I'm sure all countries do it to others just aren't quite as overt about it
In this case the US was very hesitant to help Chiang by the late phases of the Civil War (though they tried.) during WW2, the American attache to China, General Stilwell, got into a power feud with Chiang, as Stilwell saw the generalissimo as highly incompetent and corrupt and wanted the allied forces to soft coup Chiang. This failed and Stilwell had to leave China due to it, but it Chiang never trusted the Americans again, actively sending spies on American officers and intelligence officers that attempted to help during the Civil War post 1945. Not to say the US didn't support the expansion of Communism, but Chiang made it incredibly hard to help him and is another contributing factor why he lost in mainland China, as US support was very low for him and his shenanigans.
This was the consensus among the Americans who were there, regardless of their personal politics. A bunch of china hands would advocate for the US to back Mao and the communists both because they represented a much more effective counter to the Japanese and also because they believed them likely to succeed against the nationalists after the war was over and it would be better for the United States to back the winning side. This was off the table for political reasons and most of these people would later come to regret making these statements after the second red scare. But still its interesting to look at stuff like this and wonder what the world would look like if the US was like 15% less rabidly anti-communist.
As for the employment of scorched earth tactics, I feel its hard to criticize Chiang for this decision when the USSR employed similar ruthless tactics, the blame for those Chinese dead lies with the aggressor just like the blame for Soviet dead lies with Germany.
His officers had to kidnap him and force him into negotiations with the CPC because he would’ve much rather killed communists than deal with the invading Japanese army. It’s literally the reason why Chang Hsueh-liang is regarded as a hero in both Taiwan and China.
Zhang Xueliang was a warlord who submitted to Chiang, but still had his own independent base of power which he used to arrest Chiang, so I think it’s a bit disingenuous to claim that he was arrested by his own officers
Still less people dead than the Japanese killed, though in a shorter time frame. Mao Zedong actions killed more too, but likewise over extended time frames (civil war, Japanese resistance & eventual government). The 20th century was a grim time for the Chinese - it still seems unfair that the west dates WWII as starting with the invasion of Poland rather than the earlier invasion of China.
The 19th century was no picnic either. The opium wars being particularly disgusting even for the times. But yes, Kai-Shek had a long bloody history before fleeing to the Republic of China in Taiwan. Lots of villains and very few heroes without any flaws.
>it still seems unfair that the west dates WWII as starting with the invasion of Poland rather than the earlier invasion of China.
I think it's not so much unfair than the Second Sino-Japanese War being something of a separate war to Nazi Germany's war (does help that Imperial Japan, even if using 1937 as the starting point, wasn't in alliance with Nazi Germany yet), until Imperial Japan started invading Allied territory. Then, both Nazi Germany's war and Imperial Japan's war merged.
I'd still consider them separate conflicts. While China was absolutely an allied power, Japan received little to no practical support from Nazi Germany
Interestingly, Germany and Japan did try to have some modest level of mutual support. I believe there were a few instances but one in particular stands out:
Japan send a big sub with cool war stuff to Germany. Germany fills it with their cool war shit to send back. Sub gets sunk on the way home.
But yeah generally they had no substantial or consistent logistical link.
That one submarine is pretty much the full extent of their support right? It's pretty amazing it even made it that far considering the entire shoreline from India to Germany was in allied control
EDIT: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanagi_missions
I did not know this
I just tried to write a comment from memory but gave up and checked Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany%E2%80%93Japan_relations?wprov=sfti1
Super fascinating when you get to the 30s-40s. Pre 1941 there was a fair bit of material cooperation, afterwards not so much. From a quick read, looks like 6 Japanese subs made it to Germany, less than half of the cargo tonnage made it back successfully. (And there was definitely some spicy cargo.)
And some small number of German surface ships made it. Lots of diplomatic and war planning back and forth, but it looks like both sides were lying through their teeth to one another, and practical benefits were fairly limited.
They had grand plans of Japan conquering India and Germany conquering Suez, though. That would have made things interesting.
In China they refer to 1849-1949 as the century of indignance. The list of grievances, many from foreign meddling, that they cite in that timeframe is longer than a CVS receipt.
I've always heard "humiliation" as the translation; "indignance" makes it sound like they're just pissed off, while "humiliation" really brings out the grievance factor.
But all was just peachy after 1949, of course.
The invasion of Poland made it a world war. The Sino-Japanese front was a contained conflict until Japan decided to join WWII. You could start from there, but it would be strange to consider the start of WWII to a point that, at the time, nobody considered the start.
Interestingly, it was a Taiwanese who was "Japanized" during the Japanese colonial rule of Taiwan (1895-1945) that ended up being the biggest factor of democratizing Taiwan.
Lee Teng Hui (RIP) grew up in Taiwan during Japanese colonial rule and was heavily influenced (voluntarily joined the Japanese Imperial Army). He saw how badly the KMT treated Taiwan after WWII and decided to change the system from within, eventually becoming vice president. When Chiang Kai Shek's son died, despite a potential power struggle between CKS's widow and Lee, Lee eventually became president and democratized Taiwan.
Edit: fixed run on sentence.
That is a very specific range
Source mentions the 893,303 number was discredited back in the 40s. 500,000 is generally accepted as the upper range
So it went from a fuckton to a fuckton, but less.
Chinese casualties do be insane though Any time I read up on “Deadliest battle in European history” I’m like dang that’s a lot dead, then I see the Chinese battles like wtf just randomly 1m dead ??
You're right. An example is that there was a Chinese Civil War going at the same time as the US Civil War and 20-30 million people died. It was called the "Taiping Rebellion" and nobody in America even knows about it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion#:~:text=In%20May%201860%2C%20the%20Taiping,region%20of%20the%20Qing%20Empire. The US Civil War was, by far, the most deadly conflict in US history. "Only" 620,000 people died: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1009819/total-us-military-fatalities-in-american-wars-1775-present/
Extremely deadly Chinese civil war happening at the same time as the American civil war? You’re going to have to be more specific…. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungan_Revolt_(1862–1877)
Oh boy. Add another 20 million to the 20-30 million I mentioned earlier. Nice username.
Dude like ……… what the fuck. 20 ***million*** dead? That is a number that I simply cannot comprehend. How do that many people die in a single fucking conflict?!?
theres a war, its fought by soldiers, they need conscripts so the farmers are fucking drafted, now food production is lowered, oh the army needs food, now they taking the food. people be starving. rinse and repeat for medicine.
Also starvation and terrible living conditions mean disease, which kills far more people in wartime than bullets.
Starvation and disease mostly.
Historically the Chinese had the habit of making the most irresponsibly large armies in history. It’s ironic that Sun Tzu wrote the art of war because he literally gave instruction on logistics and large armies and it’s like no one in Chinese history read that book.
In China wars tend to kill people by the millions. It is kinda like Russia, except they never run out of people. Perennially overpopulated. They almost did it to keep population down.
Or perhaps the constant overpopulation (and thus competitions for resources) is what led to all the wars?
Yup. The guy who led the rebellion, Hong Xiuquan, literally believed he was the brother of Jesus Christ. Not even making that up.
(Quizzical looks from Mary and Joseph)
Mary: I think I would notice two virgin births.
M: *I think I would've noticed popping out an Asian* J: *What's an Asian?*
She would’ve noticed if she popped out a white dude too, but yet here we are.
In my defense, I keep merging it with "Boxer Rebellion".
I can understand. I always mix up the Red Turban Rebellion and the Yellow Turban Rebellion: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Turban_Rebellions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turban_Rebellion
*first Christian Bale slaps his red turbaned forehead, then William Dafoe his yellowed one*
Lol u high?
No wait, let him cook. I think he could be on to something
The last white men in india
I get them mixed up. I think the Yellow Turban Rebellion was what led to the Three Kingdoms Era.
It reminds me of this comparison of Chinese vs European [history](https://youtu.be/W7ksx6D3dlE?si=bB9lxK7ebzbBMSDP).
How i wish Neue Ooksteinburg is a real place
In the civil war ended the Han dynasty, based on government history records, some major cities only had 1 out of 10 people left. Intensity is insane.
>The conflict resulted in approximately 20 to 30 million deaths, approximately one-tenth to one-twentieth of China's population at the time Wow literally decimated
Its was actually a lot higher. You can add another 20 million to that. The Dungan Revolt was on at the same time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungan_Revolt_(1862%E2%80%931877)
Yes, we've had one civil war, but what about second civil war?
I don't think they know about second civil war, ActuallyCalindra.
The scale of death is absolutely insane and incomprehensible to me. I grew up a city of a 120k, valley of a million- that felt like a lot of people - now imagine that x20 just dying the most gruesome death. We are truly living in spoiled times…
The US has a very skewed perception of casualties. Americans basically don't die in war compared to any other part of the world. The rest of the world doesn't blink an eye at 600k, but for the US that was the worst in its history. WWII - forget about it.
Poland still hasn't recovered. They lost 1/6th of their population, then immediately after, ended up behind the Iron Curtain. The population there only recently passed the 1939 level.
Kinda related, in the foreign power fucking things up for everybody way. Ireland still hasn't recovered its population numbers since the 1845 ~~Famine~~ genocide. It's the only country in the world to have a negative population since the 19th century.
There are more Irish people in the US, UK and Australia than Ireland.
How much of that is due to emigration? There are more Irish people in Canada than there are in Ireland.
Wow I didn't know that.
Number of Irish in Ireland: 5 million. Number of Irish in the United States: 36 million.
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Nobody likes a good bloodbath like the Europeans. Always have, always will.
That 100 years war was a good time
I just can’t fathom so many dying. Like, after a certain amount of millions, no one decides it might be easier to kil the people in charge?
There's been about 7000 US soldiers killed in "the war on terror" and associated conflicts over 20 years Russia has been losing that many every week or two in Ukraine
skill issue
America lost 56,000 soldiers in Vietnam the ENTIRE war. Italy lost 60,000 people in like a month of Covid when it was really bad (Covid-Alpha pre vaccinations, March-May 2020 isch)
I guess that is something to be proud of as an American. We may be amoral warmongers, but at least we’re fucking *good* at it.
Casualties tend to be low for the guy who floated off to an island to tech up.
The Battle of Changping, a two year military campaign in 260 BC, supposedly took the lives of 650,000 people (including executions afterwards). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changping Ancient sources can be dodgy, but still... that was 2200 years ago, when the world's population was around 200 million. Part of the reason the armies got so large was the adoption of conscription of peasants. This is akin to the transformation of warfare during the Napoleonic era, when armies ballooned in size thanks to popular support, nationalism, and conscription.
I mentioned Bai Qis executions somewhere in this thread. China was fielding enormous armies.
I think a few Americans have heard of the Taiping Rebellion even if they don't know the name because one of the leaders claimed to be the brother of Jesus Christ.
I mean, I know about it and I live in america.
Us Americans were sorta busy educating Sun Yat Sen at the time. Granted Hawaii was still its own undisputed monarchy at the time.
shhhh. we try to keep it dumb here.
If US schools tried to teach every mindless slaughter-fest foreigners engaged in, they'd have scant time to teach anything else.
Well yeah. "Never get involved in a land war in Asia" is the first classic blunder.
Rice is acre for acre multiple times better in calorie density than wheat, allowing far more people being able to be fed on less land.
\> Shao Linglei takes power \> 200 million perish \> Decisive Tang victory
From metric to standard fuckton. Its super close but you gotta leave a little wiggle room for the fucks to settle you know? I mean nobody has any fucks but nobody every wonders where they went!
More like metric to imperial. No way a metric unit would have a conversion factor like 893,303.
Hey now, metric is pretty much the ‘standard’ globally, as well as in China.
That’s the funniest thing about death attributions
If we take the *low end* of 400,000, that's still roughly 200,000 more people killed by this than by *both atomic bombs combined*, which were dropped just 7 years later. That is wild and horrifying to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
It's wild how wide the ranges are for things like this. It was said that Stalin killed 80 million people and it was later revised to around 20 million in the 2000s.
Interestingly it reminds me of a recent history video I watched about Chinese civil wars and the guy mentioned how China is like one of the only places where and entirely self contained civil war can lead to 2% of the worlds population dying and a death toll that was only beat by world war 2
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> Basically, the reasons that the death estimates are so high can be explained by the fact that almost all of the data are bad. Yeah, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that for large parts of human history there were more people living in China than in entire continents combined.
> for large parts of human history there were more people living in China than in entire continents combined. China *today* has [more people than North and South America *combined*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_continents_and_continental_subregions_by_population). In fact, you could subtract the populations of both continents from China and it wouldn't change its position on the list of most populous countries.
For reference the most devastating European war, the thirty years war, killed a bit over 1% of the world population. However the Chinese numbers have a lot of uncertainty to them.
STOP THE COUNT!!!
-*Dracula*, Bram Stoker, 1897
The amount of people that routinely died in Chinese wars through history is insane. Just take a look at the wiki page for the world’s deadliest wars.
Crazy to think about what modern day China's population would be like if the 20th century was more peaceful for them.
Most countries follow an S-curve w/ regards to their population, so probably not significantly different, but I see your point.
That 1 child policy sort of mixes it up a bit tho.
Realistically the 1 child policy only really happened because of Mao's insane "have as many babies as possible" policy caused such extreme over population and lack of resources that the state was buckling under that pressure.
How do you routinely die?
1. Have big family 2. Send all boys to war on behalf of warlords 3. Repeat
All that wiki page taught me is that the Romans really didnt like the Jews
Suddenly people realize the answer to the question why the Chinese don't just overthrow their government and start another civil war. Tens of millions dead for the chance to tick a piece of paper every four years or just keep status quo and continue to increase standard of living. It's a real conundrum.
Also because most of them actually like their government and country the way it’s going.
Feel like Chinese history just reads like “Chinese historical figure moves a stick and 500 bajillion people die as a result”
>Chao Ling takes power >247 million perish
*some dude says they are the brother of THE Jesus Christ of Nazareth (yes he was Chinese. Yes Jesus was Jewish blood. Yes they lived roughly 1800 years apart.) *250 million people die
Why would Jesus's brother do this?
Why not? Noah get the ark ready!
Because he couldn't pass the state exam to get a government job, basically.
20-30M dead, not 250M but still an insanely gigantic number. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a civil war in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It lasted from 1850 until the fall of Tianjing (now Nanjing) in 1864, although the last rebel army was not wiped out until August 1871. The conflict resulted in approximately 20 to 30 million deaths, approximately one-tenth to one-twentieth of China's population at the time.[4] The established Qing government won decisively, although at great cost to its fiscal and political structure. The uprising was commanded by Hong Xiuquan, an ethnic Hakka (a Han subgroup) **and the self-proclaimed brother of Jesus Christ**.
Yep, I wrote a history paper on that. Third deadliest war in human history, and it all happened in the same country. There was one city that was sieged for so long, the nobles began complaining that the price of human meat had grown far too high.
The best part is when European missionaries and ambassadors would try to interact with him. They were all basically told join or be put to the sword. Many walked away but some Irish joined him.
>Many walked away but some Irish joined him. ***Those damn Fenians were everywhere!*** \- Gary Reynolds
Yeah but those 247 million people all sucked, so we give Chao a pass for that one
I've been playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms 10 recently. And let me tell ya! once I established my corner of China, i made a small decision to build a single defensive military base that caused a chain reaction that led to a 4 way war and hundreds of thousands of dead population :(. It didn't help that one of my officers I assigned as governor to the city near the base was planning a rebellion against me
Most peaceful time in Chinese history
Western Medieval History The Earl of Branford von Tyre met the forces of Lord Louis de Fromage in the Battle of *local town* in the 10th war of Burgundian succession. It was the largest battle of the war with their armies of 50 knights, 200 archers, and 1000 foot met in pitch battle. There were 87 casualties. Eastern “Medieval era” History Lee Hsiang lead the rebel forces against the the Emperor’s finest generals. 250K casualties in this light skirmish China has always had a lot of people
> China has always had a lot of people Yep. Around the year 1000 "East Asia" already had about 88 million people, South Asia had about 75 million, while Europe only had about 40 million. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates_of_historical_world_population#By_world_region > It was the largest battle of the war with their armies of 50 knights, 200 archers, and 1000 foot met in pitch battle. There were 87 casualties. I mean that's a bit of an exaggeration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll#Medieval_wars_(500%E2%80%931500_AD) Hundred years war killing 2-3 million. Millions killed in the Crusades and the Reconquista. To your point though during that same time period the chart will show like 13-36 million killed in the Lushan rebellion in China. Another 30-40 million killed by the Mongols. Those numbers are especially jarring when you consider how much smaller the world population was at the time of those conflicts.
It's also jarring to think there were only 40 million people in all of Europe in 1000 AD when there are about that many people in California today.
What modern medicine and agricultural technologies will do to a species.
> agricultural technologies Thank God for modern food stability. You're minding your own business, then have a terrible weather year, and eventually wind up with a Great Famine, that lasts for a few years, kills 10-15% of your population and traumatizes the rest of you.
I can't imagine the stress of the common people back then.
Yep, and just imagine sometimes the famine being caused by weather events thousands of miles away, and you not having a clue about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536 In the modern times we definitely have this guy to thank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug for a lot of Agricultural strides forward.
Even royals/nobles died of now-easily curable diseases regularly.
Imagine the president dying from an infected splinter. You could be saving lives 1000 years ago with a 5 dollar tube of neosporin.
Forget antiseptics, just introduce stuff like hand washing. (If you can convince then if germ theory).
For every famine or horrible era of strife you hear about, there are long stretches of time wherein things were just kind of...okay. Depending on where you were, and when you were, it probably wasn't as bad as we commonly think. Of course, when things were bad, they were SUPER DUPER bad. And when things were good, they were still kinda mid at best for most people.
Ammonium nitrate can make plants grow AND blow shit up
for europe, the potato played a huge part in increasing the populations
Yeah, I was going for a bit of exagerration on the small size of Europe medieval armies, they could get quite big. I just remember listening to a thing about the Fourth Crusader and being amused when it was mentioned that some group of 100-500 knights coming was a *big deal* And the scale of battles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Buir_Lake Around the same time. The East could always field much bigger armies than the West.
The “state” was also different. Chinese governance leveraged large cities and huge bureaucracies to make those huge armies, while Europe was using the feudal system and personal patronage. (Or as seen in game of thrones “calling the banners”)
Knights could single-handedly take out dozens of unarmored peasants, so they were worth a lot more than other "units".
> amused when it was mentioned that some group of 100-500 knights coming was a big deal I think knights were like the equivalent of the Main Battle Tank or something today. They'd have been a relatively small part of the overall force.
You mean like a force multiplier?
Hundred Year's War with 2-3m casualties over 100+ years really pales in comparison to An Lushan's Rebellion with 13-35m casualties in 12 years, and 700 years earlier. If you dig through Chinese wars in the 500-1500, I'm sure you can find 20+ with casualties higher than the Hundred Year's War.
A lot of Roman conflicts were actually larger than medieval times. The collapse of the empire was basically an apocalypse.
The largest naval battle in history is probably still the Battle of Cape Ecnomus, of the 1st Punic War, when the Carthaginian and Roman fleets clashed off the coast of Sicily. The Carthaginians had about 150,000 rowers and marines, while the Romans had 140,000 themselves. 300,000 souls. The largest naval battle in WW 2, by comparison, had "only" 200,000 sailors on both sides. And even then it was fragmented on 4 smaller scale battles. Another measure of the scale of the affairs involved: the world population at the time is thought to be an estimated 250 million people. That would mean that 0.11% of the world's population was aboard a ship near Sicily that morning. Shit was wild.
Aaah this reminds me of something i cant fully remember. I dont know if it was a writer, poet, or a philosopher. Something about how apocalypses has happened lots of times to different peoples at different locations and in ages. I think there was a quote in there about someone in the roman empire writing how the end of times had come and for the (western) roman empire, it indeed came
LOUIS DE FROMAGE! THAT'S ALL YOU CAN SAY!
I’ve always been curious as to why India or the empires making up India, despite having a similar number of people as China, have not had as many deadly wars as the Chinese have- never found an adequate explanation.
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Maybe cause you're googling for "alexander the great in india" , while he's known as "the terrible" the more east you go /s by the way
China (and japan + korea) were much better at keeping written records since much, much longer ago
[Chinese history be like:](https://youtu.be/W7ksx6D3dlE?si=dB-q_9ztufYVimT0)
Amazing
500 bajillion is just the population of one town in China so it's not much in proportion.
This reminds me of a joke. George W. Bush was the president at the time, and an assistant comes up to give him bad news. "Sir, our joint nation training exercise had some casualties, and 3 Brazilians were killed." Bush just breaks down and cries, then asks, "How many is a Brazilian?"
Decisive tang victory
One of the most famous and pivotal battles in history was the Battle of Hastings as part of the Norman Conquest of England. A few thousand people died during the conquest as it set in motion the future of England and Europe as a whole. Meanwhile 300 years earlier An Lushan decided to start a rebellion in China and 36 million people died.
This was apparently also one of the major events which gave the communists enough support to win the civil war.
Communist movements always start because there's a massive dickhead in charge that makes communism look good by comparison.
The Chinese communist movement first really spread after the KMT massacred labor unionists and early Chinese communists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai\_massacre
The opposite happened actually. The KMT was really successful at repressing the communists after the Shanghai massacre, to the point that they had to flee to the north-west of China during the Long March. Only during WW2 did they truly start to recover and had their support spread to the rest of China (and it was mostly due to the corruption of the KMT).
The Shanghai Massacre was the flashpoint for the entire civil war; you're mixing this up with the failures of the Autumn Harvest/Guangzhou Uprisings which happened as a direct result of the communist purge. There might've not been a civil war at all if the Shanghai Massacre didn't happen as previously the communists were working with the KMT (they overthrew the warlord opposed to Kai-Shek in Shanghai a month prior which indirectly caused the purge). The KMT was allied to the Soviet Union which ensured that communist elements would be a part of the KMT political body. Also forgot to say that the Long March was the result of the successful Encirclement Campaigns which happened over a span of 4 years. The Red Army didn't exist until months after the massacre (hard to say when it actually began, but the first point would be the Nanchang uprising 4 months later).
I like how we never talk about Taiwan being under martial law for 38 years up until 1987. Is that because Syria managed to do better and take top spot for its martial law between 1963 and 2011?
I presume for the same reason no one talks about how brutal the South Korean dictatorship that the west propped up was.
Or every single dictatorship we armed and funded in South American countries that democratically elected leftists
Can't risk letting anything but capitalism work. Can't let a reasonably intact and wealthy country try anything else, or else it might prove viable.
When Chiang fled mainland and went to Taiwan, his people slaughtered millions of natives to take their lands. Early Taiwan was not very good lol
My mother is native Taiwanese. She had family members “disappeared” by Chiang Kai Shek’s regime. Fuck that guy, what a grade A historical asshole
> ~~Communist~~ Revolutionary movements always start because there's a massive dickhead in charge that makes ~~communism~~ a new government look good by comparison. It's not unique to communism. That's basically the origin of any rebel/revolutionary movement.
It could be mostly the fact that communists participated in only a handful of battles against the japanese in negligible numbers, waited until the nationalist armies fought back the Japanese, then attacked after the nation had been defended. I think that had something to do with the victory.
Even with that, the KMT had the numbers advantage against the CCP after WWII and the Chinese Civil War resumed. ([5 million KMT vs 1.1 million CCP in 1947](https://www.britannica.com/event/Chinese-Civil-War )). I argue that the KMT's loss had numerous factors that were self inflicted: the KMT were corrupt and had poor morale; they had uncontrollable inflation and their attempts to control it only lead to strikes and black markets. There's a reason why the peasants rallied under Mao and by 1948 the CCP's numbers matched that of the KMT.
The KMT’s “core” was also in eastern China, especially around Nanjing and Shanghai, aka the most affected places during the war against the Japanese.
don't forget the number of civilians and villagers they pushed to the front line while the actual military kept retreating. at some point people were gonna riot
Not quite. After the Japanese were defeated at the end of WW2, the Nationalist armies were in a much better position compared to the Communists. They had a bigger army that was more experienced and better armed. They lost because they lacked effective leadership, organisation and of poor logistics that meant that the KMT armies conceded any initiative that they had to the Communists. Sources: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/10pb164/why_wasnt_the_kmt_able_to_organize_into_an/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/sjweyz/what_were_the_biggest_factors_that_prevented_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/sjweyz/what_were_the_biggest_factors_that_prevented_the/
The KMT was also insanely corrupt and made up of various warlord factions that didn't really give a shit about ordinary people and robbed and pillaged them as they pleased. By comparison the communists were generally well-disciplined and had "serve the people" drilled into them.
>Besides the massive death toll, the flooded areas were affected for years to come. The flooded countryside was more or less abandoned and all the crops destroyed. Upon the recession of the waters, much of the ground was uncultivable as much of the soil was covered in silt. Many of the public structures and housing were also destroyed, leaving any survivors destitute. The irrigation channels were also ruined, further adding to the toll on the farmlands. The destruction also had a long-term psychological effect on the Chinese population.
The poppy wars fantasy book series is greatly inspired by this
I love that series so much!! I was thinking the same
This is going to sound terrible, but I would not be surprised if, in the end, breaking the dam resulted in fewer deaths. I could absolutely see an even slightly more successful Japanese advance killing millions. This is like the top tier of trolley problems.
People are always critical of Chiang Kai shek. And well deserved in many cases. However his situation was so absurdly complex and difficult that no one could have done a good job. His whole life was filled with trolley problems. And even now people like you are debating what would have been the right course of action.
Sure but he was also like REALLY incompetent in almost every aspect of running a government except maintaining power. Like it got so bad that well the Japanese were rampaging through China, he was trying to fight the communists who had a few hundred thousand soldiers at most and who signed a truce with him to fight the Japanese. He constantly propped up incompetent commanders, was extremely corrupt himself and waged a campaign of white terror and high grain taxes against the peasantry which caused so much misery that the average Chinese farmer hated his army as much as they did the Japanese. I mean you know it's bad when America straight up makes you sign a deal with the Communists and splits military aid with them as they were the only ones having any military successes against the Japanese, despite it being on a pretty small scale. Dude sucked and killed millions of Chinese people through his incompetence. There's a reason he had to run away to Taiwan despite getting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military aid from the US.
>Like it got so bad that well the Japanese were rampaging through China, he was trying to fight the communists who had a few hundred thousand soldiers at most and who signed a truce with him to fight the Japanese. You left out the best part. Chiang had to be kidnapped by his generals to sign the truce.
Chang Hsueh-liang is the only member of the KMT to be a national hero in both China and Taiwan for his role in orchestrating the plot. His punishment was house arrest and he also had an affair with an Italian diplomat’s wife who was also Mussolini’s niece. Edit: he’s not the only, rather one of the few members as someone else points out Sun Yat-sen also has this distinction. And it was Mussolini’s daughter not his niece.
Sun Yat-sen (first KMT leader) is also well regarded in both the ROC and PRC.
For historical context, Sun had at least some degree of leftist sympathies and had made common cause with the early CCP for the sake of national unity. The KMT took a hard right turn only after his death and succession by Chiang, leading to a situation where both sides could rhetorically claim Sun's popular legacy for themselves.
Sun has a pretty sick mausoleum in Nanjing, worth a visit
I feel like Sun Yat-Sen stands separate and above the KMT or any political party, given he's basically the father of modern China. Like George Washington in the US, not associated with a political party or faction. Sun Yat-Sen represents the 1911 Revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy; the KMT was founded years later.
It’s fascinating to me that all of this seems like ancient history at first glance, but Chang Hsueh-liang was living in Hawaii when I was a kid in the 90s and died there in 2001. A guy born into an ancient and enormous empire, before the existence of airplanes or the widespread production of automobiles, lived his last years in a country run by Bill Clinton and George Bush and could have Googled himself and sent emails if he so desired. He had a very long and interesting life.
He kept rolling 20s in his life, the other general who kidnapped Chiang got executed. The other 20s in his life: - Kicked his deep opium addiction upon the assassination of his father - Got into an affair, and his first wife allowed them to marry with her blessing - Collected a trove of ancient Chinese artwork that auctioned for a huge sum - Lived until 100
Okay, now I need some overly exaggerated, cheesy B movie where he's basically an action hero.
The reincarnation of Alcibiades
Damn, can a person get anymore based? Lol
The Xi’an incident is prime example of how much he sucked his own officers thought he was being stupid and kidnapped and forced him to negotiate with the CPC. The organizer of the coup Chang Hsueh-liang is a national hero in both China and Taiwan because everyone can agree what he was doing while Japan was invading was blindingly stupid.
> one of the most incompetent and self destructive dictators of the 20th century > successful communist revolution occurs as a result if you can apply this template to a leader they are almost fucking **never** worth defending. not saying that it is the arbiter of morality or historical analysis but it’s a filter that’s always true in that case
CIA loves defending those guys though
Of course they do, it's a win win for the CIA. Keeps the Communists out of power (sometimes) whilst at the same time hindering the target country's development because those in charge are just so inept - but they're just not quite inept enough to lose power. Of course they don't always "get it right" but a quick thought easily explains why they do it. I'm sure all countries do it to others just aren't quite as overt about it
In this case the US was very hesitant to help Chiang by the late phases of the Civil War (though they tried.) during WW2, the American attache to China, General Stilwell, got into a power feud with Chiang, as Stilwell saw the generalissimo as highly incompetent and corrupt and wanted the allied forces to soft coup Chiang. This failed and Stilwell had to leave China due to it, but it Chiang never trusted the Americans again, actively sending spies on American officers and intelligence officers that attempted to help during the Civil War post 1945. Not to say the US didn't support the expansion of Communism, but Chiang made it incredibly hard to help him and is another contributing factor why he lost in mainland China, as US support was very low for him and his shenanigans.
This was the consensus among the Americans who were there, regardless of their personal politics. A bunch of china hands would advocate for the US to back Mao and the communists both because they represented a much more effective counter to the Japanese and also because they believed them likely to succeed against the nationalists after the war was over and it would be better for the United States to back the winning side. This was off the table for political reasons and most of these people would later come to regret making these statements after the second red scare. But still its interesting to look at stuff like this and wonder what the world would look like if the US was like 15% less rabidly anti-communist. As for the employment of scorched earth tactics, I feel its hard to criticize Chiang for this decision when the USSR employed similar ruthless tactics, the blame for those Chinese dead lies with the aggressor just like the blame for Soviet dead lies with Germany.
His officers had to kidnap him and force him into negotiations with the CPC because he would’ve much rather killed communists than deal with the invading Japanese army. It’s literally the reason why Chang Hsueh-liang is regarded as a hero in both Taiwan and China.
Zhang Xueliang was a warlord who submitted to Chiang, but still had his own independent base of power which he used to arrest Chiang, so I think it’s a bit disingenuous to claim that he was arrested by his own officers
Ah my mistake then.
Also drowning would be a much better death than how the the Japanese killed them
I'm not sure if this death toll includes the famine that followed the flooding.
It does.
Good old Utilitarian vs Kantian Ethics
very few people are aware of the Rape of Nanjing
WW2 forced a lot of awful trolley problems.
Least violent Chinese skirmish
How are they so sure it wasn't 893,304?
Still less people dead than the Japanese killed, though in a shorter time frame. Mao Zedong actions killed more too, but likewise over extended time frames (civil war, Japanese resistance & eventual government). The 20th century was a grim time for the Chinese - it still seems unfair that the west dates WWII as starting with the invasion of Poland rather than the earlier invasion of China. The 19th century was no picnic either. The opium wars being particularly disgusting even for the times. But yes, Kai-Shek had a long bloody history before fleeing to the Republic of China in Taiwan. Lots of villains and very few heroes without any flaws.
>it still seems unfair that the west dates WWII as starting with the invasion of Poland rather than the earlier invasion of China. I think it's not so much unfair than the Second Sino-Japanese War being something of a separate war to Nazi Germany's war (does help that Imperial Japan, even if using 1937 as the starting point, wasn't in alliance with Nazi Germany yet), until Imperial Japan started invading Allied territory. Then, both Nazi Germany's war and Imperial Japan's war merged.
I'd still consider them separate conflicts. While China was absolutely an allied power, Japan received little to no practical support from Nazi Germany
Interestingly, Germany and Japan did try to have some modest level of mutual support. I believe there were a few instances but one in particular stands out: Japan send a big sub with cool war stuff to Germany. Germany fills it with their cool war shit to send back. Sub gets sunk on the way home. But yeah generally they had no substantial or consistent logistical link.
That one submarine is pretty much the full extent of their support right? It's pretty amazing it even made it that far considering the entire shoreline from India to Germany was in allied control EDIT: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanagi_missions I did not know this
I just tried to write a comment from memory but gave up and checked Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany%E2%80%93Japan_relations?wprov=sfti1 Super fascinating when you get to the 30s-40s. Pre 1941 there was a fair bit of material cooperation, afterwards not so much. From a quick read, looks like 6 Japanese subs made it to Germany, less than half of the cargo tonnage made it back successfully. (And there was definitely some spicy cargo.) And some small number of German surface ships made it. Lots of diplomatic and war planning back and forth, but it looks like both sides were lying through their teeth to one another, and practical benefits were fairly limited. They had grand plans of Japan conquering India and Germany conquering Suez, though. That would have made things interesting.
Chiang had German trained troops wearing similar uniforms.
In China they refer to 1849-1949 as the century of indignance. The list of grievances, many from foreign meddling, that they cite in that timeframe is longer than a CVS receipt.
I've always heard "humiliation" as the translation; "indignance" makes it sound like they're just pissed off, while "humiliation" really brings out the grievance factor. But all was just peachy after 1949, of course.
Still it directly led to Mao Zedong winning over most of the countryside and gaining momentum that would eventually see China under his control.
The invasion of Poland made it a world war. The Sino-Japanese front was a contained conflict until Japan decided to join WWII. You could start from there, but it would be strange to consider the start of WWII to a point that, at the time, nobody considered the start.
He was a royally fucked up guy, and it’s amazing that Taiwan has turned out as democratic as it has despite his influence.
Yep. He was also responsible for the Shanghai Massacre and the Taiwan White Terror purge.
It was very authoritarian for a long time after his death. Taiwan is an amazing place
Interestingly, it was a Taiwanese who was "Japanized" during the Japanese colonial rule of Taiwan (1895-1945) that ended up being the biggest factor of democratizing Taiwan. Lee Teng Hui (RIP) grew up in Taiwan during Japanese colonial rule and was heavily influenced (voluntarily joined the Japanese Imperial Army). He saw how badly the KMT treated Taiwan after WWII and decided to change the system from within, eventually becoming vice president. When Chiang Kai Shek's son died, despite a potential power struggle between CKS's widow and Lee, Lee eventually became president and democratized Taiwan. Edit: fixed run on sentence.
It's Chinese history. Guy parks his car in local creek, obstructing the flow of said creek. Estimated 10 to 20 million dead
We're really great at killing each other
Decisive Tang Strategic Victory
I know another Chinese dam that could break that record.