What would you change? Why? Personally, I would change the way that China was modernized from Qing to early republic, and perhaps make it so that reforms would happen in a manner more similar to Japan.

I wouldn't really change anything....

My reasons would be too much to post about, however....

if there is only one thing I would change...is if the literacy rate in the past was higher, as in if education was available for everyone.

Only in my imagination.

I would change it when Ming dynasty burned the sea-going boats and the sea maps. I hope the Ming Emperor killed the official(s) who suggested Zheng He's sea trips were wasteful and useless!!! That was the start of China's stagnations and our many troubles because Chinese stopped learning that the world was progressing. I hope the Emperor told them to think of ways to make those trips not wasteful!

I could change so that the 100 days reforms in the late Qing didn't get destroyed by the conservatives, in fact the conservatives gets kill by the Qing emperor.

Hmm...there isn't really much to change, but if I could change something, I would change the mindset of all the males in the past (the discrimination of females). In ancient China, femals were treated as filth and they had very low positions in the social ladder. That's what I want to change. Women can excel like men if they are given the chance.

I'm a girl myself.

Liu Bang

Zunjing de China History Forum members,

So far, if I can alter one thing in Chinese history, then I would wish that before Qing Emperor Dao Guang’s death, nature would find a convenient way to kill the eventual Emperor Xian Feng, so that Prince Gong, the younger but much more talented son of Dao Guang, can be the legitimate successor to the throne. With Prince Gong’s grit and forward thinking, the Qing Dynasty would not have be overthrown so quickly by a bunch of educated peasants, and China would also not have to confront with years of humiliation at the hands of Westerners. Even though I am not certain whether or not Prince Gong would turn China into a powerhouse, but he would have at least implemented effective reforms better than Ci Xi.

I surmise the Mandate of Heaven was never with Prince Gong; this also signified the slow downfall of Qing Dynasty.

Although the incident of Jing Kang, where Song Emperors Huizong and Qinzong were taken captive by the Mongolians, was also considered as a major national humiliation of the time, Chinese people were at least not being nicknamed as “sick men of Asia.” On a global scale, the embarrassments that befell the Chinese during the warlord period were much more severe when being compared to the subsequent events of the Jing Kang incident.

Liu Bang and Rong Qin Wang both make excellent arguments. CiXi did much to bring about the down fall, but I am not sure that it was not already too late.

Where as if Zheng He's sea trips had not been almost totally erased, and he had been allowed to continue.. who knows.

Made sure Li Si was conveniently "disappeared" in his youth, not have the Qin Emperor's ear to himself.

If I could change one thing, I would want a party other than those of Mao and Chiang Kai Shek to be able to gained control of China during the civil war. Also, the new party would have to be more democratic than the other two. That way, China would be more advanced and democratic than what it is today.

I can think of a lot of books I'd like to see 'unburned'. ^__^

Of course, in writing that, I thought to myself, "Bitch. What about all the scholars who died as well?" And my cold-hearted reply to that was, Eventually they would have died, as we all do, but there's the possibility that the books would be with us today.

Cold-hearted Pattie, talking to herself.

Yes, I often wonder how much was lost by those book burnings.. what a huge loss of knowledge for everyone.

Well, if there is really one thing to be changed in the history, i would like to see the social revolution happened in Song dynasty a success. That may bring China to modern society 1000 years earlier as the enlighterment of natural and social sciences of the civilization had achieved a very sophisticate degree that a profound upgrading was on the eve should the mongol invasion did not occur and Wang 'anshi did not fail. A similar scenario was during the Wanli's reign in Ming dynasty when the merchants class was unprecedently strong and a possible capitalists' revolution was on the way but the rising manchu and the conservative landlords suppresion made it far from being realized.

Hi, kaiselin and Pattie,

It is a common myth that Qin Shi Huang burned all books except those legalism works. The fact is the national library of Qin empire kept copies of all those books burnt. They were just not allowed to be published and existed among the people. By killing a few scholars, Qin Shi Huang was creating a terror on dissidents to deter them from criticising the centrual system and advocating a restoration of those perished states. The range of books diminished was limited.

On the other hand, many scholars and their followers had hid or recited those books before they got burned and the suvivors wrote them down when the Qin empire fell a few years later. That's why we are still accessible to many classic works today.

The chaos at turning points of dynasties were much more destructive to cultural essentials. One well illustrated case is the YONG LE DA DIAN ( the great compilation of YONG LE emperor). It took 6 years to be finished with a team work of more than 3000 scholars and their assistants. It was an encyclopedic compilation that offered a panoramical view of works of all kinds in a span over 4000 years. One of the remarkable things is that all the works it compiled in were remained intact without change of a character from the original texts.

Now there are 30 libraries and universties across the world have remnants of this compilation including the national library of China, shanghai library, Taipei Palace muesum, Oxford, Harvard, Cornell, Tyoko university, Boston university, cambridge, SOAS, Library of Congress in united states and so on. However, the extant volumes added up are less than 3% of the whole compilation which means 97% had been lost forever. The whole book contains 22877 volumes with 370 million characters. It had four copies preserved at four different places with heavy safeguards. But it did not escape the fate of being perished at the end of Ming dynasty when the regime was reshuffled with bloody wars and appalling destruction.

Thank you, Bayonet, for dispelling a misconception. ^__^