One or two chapters left.
looks cool so far, small correction though. it’d be more accurate to translate 中国 as “Middle Kingdom” or “Middle Nation” rather than “Middle Empire” imo. 国 is mainly used in that way now. “Middle Empire” would probably more likely be written as 中帝国 (zhong1 di4 guo2). Great work!
Also iirc the reason for that name was because by the time the name was coined the state was surrounded from all sides by “barbarians”, including the east, so it was pretty much literal. It’s worth to mention since in older books and pop history i often hear or read that the name is result of gigantic hubris.
Great job, i’m reading it, i noticed a mistake here:
After the Zhou settled into sedentary agricultural communities, they became affiliated as a tributary state to the Zhou, a process that left them resentful of their new lords. Around the late 12th century BCE (-1150), as the Shang dynasty was facing external raids they could not defend against, the Zhou leaders decided that the Shang were unfit to rule and they should replace them.[5]
I think it should be “became affiliated as a tributary state to the Shang”
Also here:
King Wu was still quite young when he seized the state from the Shang dynasty. King Wen had a younger brother, who is only known as the duke of Zhou in historical records, who then served as an advisor to the young king.
Wasn’t Duke of Zhou younger brother of King Wu, not King Wen? Also his name is listed as Ji Dan.
I’m re-reading through it all now and proofreading. On the Duke of Zhou I’d have to listen again to the source but I’m pretty sure he said, perhaps mistakenly, King Wu. He also didn’t mention the name Ji Dan. The lecture was recorded in 2004 and may be outdated as new discoveries took place, in which case I’d need another source to reference his name as Ji Dan.
Chinese archeology is progressing crazy fast since the discovering of Shang writings. They did found what is probably Duke of Zhou tomb in 2004. This article also cites his name as Ji Dan, same as this one.
Holy shit. How long did this take?
Several months but it was on and off. It takes me around an hour to type down a lecture and there’s 32 of them
So did you have to learn China’s history in order to write this out, or is that like your specialty
If you look at the references they’re all from a lecture recorded in 2004, I listened to it all and transcribed by hand. I know there’s automated tools to do that, but this allowed me to learn the material, so you could say I do know about the history of china now lol. It’s a perk of being an editor on prolewiki, you learn a lot of stuff.
Thank you for your service
Holy shit that is impressive.
