Romans did migrate into Gaul as early as 118 BC, Rome founded its first Narbo Martius and populated it. In Narbonensis, new cities that joined Narbo Martius included Forum Julii, Arelate, and Baeterrae long with some other towns. Roman immigrants soon populated the towns alongside many natives who were given full rights of citizenship. And they became more latinized again due to politics.




The argument is not whether the larger will always aggect the lesser, but the fact that its the nature of the flow. Unless there is a political management behind, this will be the case.

The Franks spoke their language only at the top, not the whole population. This is again anarticifial construct.




We can't say its all one sided, the queue and Ma Gua was in fact adopted, however, once again, this is due to political force at hand than natural integration, of which the larger population would certainly assimilate the smaller one. My point is simply that influence has virtually nothing to do with sophistication of cultures(not technology). The factor that makes a lower population capable of influencing a larger one is due to political managements.

At the moment, I can only think of one example where a smaller population influenced a much larger population *without* political managements, or in this case, perhaps despite political machinations to the contary - the influence of black and latinos in American music.

Except in other areas, they are influenced more.

Arts? Education? Attire? Diet?

The more I think about it, the more I feel it's about practicality and appeal, but less of population size.

How about the amount of black in classical music, Jazz... in proportion. Yes, art, attires and language are all factors. I hardly consider appeal as an indicator since in a macroscale, appeal is relative. As for practicality, I wonder how one music can be more practicle than another.

I believe that's where appeal comes in.

Perhaps though, an argument for practicality can be made, in view of how music speaks to the inner persons.
E.g., in the roaring 20s (1920s), jazz was might have fitted the mood of the people who thought the future would be bright and shining forever, during an era of economic boom for the survivors of what people thought was the darkest era in human history.

The Mongols never adopted that much Chinese culture actually. Confucians were discriminated upon during the Mongol occupation of China. The Mongols ranked the conquered population in a hierarchy according to their profession, and out of ten ranks Confucian scholars were ranked ninth. The Mongol Yuan was a truly genuine period of foreign occupation for China.

As a rule of thumb, any ruling power that denigrates Confucianism cannot be considered to be sinised in any way, for Confucianism is the central pillar of Chinese culture. (There are of course many elements in Chinese culture but Confucianism is still the central pillar)

The Manchu Qing Dynasty was a somewhat different case because it was not a simple event of foreign Manchus conquering China. Among the ruling elite of the Qing Dynasty there was a significant proportion of Han Chinese in both civil politics and the military. Of the 24 original banners in the "Manchu" army before they conquered China, 8 were already Han Chinese. Jacques Gernet describes the Qing dynasty as a "Sino-Manchu" empire, not just Manchu. Of course, the Manchus did forcefully and brutally initiate the policy in which traditional Chinese clothing and hairstyle was changed. However, I think perhaps the Qing Dynasty should probably not be considered as a period of total foreign occupation. The Yuan Dynasty, however, Gernet calls it a period of foreign occupation, and quite rightly so, in my opinion.

The key here is whether or not Han Chinese people can be found in the ruling elite, and if so, how large was the proportion. The only period in Chinese history from the Xia Dynasty onwards (2000 BC onwards) where Han or Huaxia people did not form a significant proportion of the ruling elite was the Yuan Dynasty (Mongol occupation) and perhaps during the first few decades after the fall of the Western Jin in 317 AD, before the barbarians were significantly sinised, in Northern China. By the time of the Toba Northern Wei dynasty, not only was the ruling Toba house thoroughly sinised, but probably the majority of the ruling elite in the Northern Wei was ethnically Chinese (Han Chinese).

Of course in the fully Huaxia/Chinese dynasties: Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, Sui, Tang, Song, Ming etc, virtually all of the ruling elite was of Huaxia or Han Chinese origin. (Though during the Sui and early Tang there was a sizable minority of Xianbei people in the ruling elite, but they were thoroughly sinised and was still a minority)

I believe the population proportion among the elite classes is much more important than overall population proportion. If ethnicity A has a much higher proportion of elites than ethnicity B in a particular region, then in that region ethnicity A would culturally and politically be dominant, even if among the common people ethnicity B has a higher proportion.

Applying any term like "Manchu empire" is nothing but a recent invention to use ethnic lines to describe ancient political structures. There was never such a thing called Manchu empire. Its the Qing and that alone.

I did some further digging regarding to Chinese horse breeding industry record. I did use a flawed method in comparing the Han, Tang with that of Ming and Qing, the Ming and Qing figures I gave were the total number of cavalry in military service(similar to the amount of men in service) the Tang cavalry in service on the frontier is only around 80,000 according to the Zi Tong Jian, but probably a few ten thousand more when including those that does belong to the professional border garrisons. However, the Ming horse breeding industry enforced the kuo ma program which drew private breeding industry into the government industry. The private breeders were mainly the Guan ma ming, or breeders that works for the government. However the number of horse under Ming is unrecorded and can only be estimated. The Qing further prohibited private breeding industries and imports from Mongolia to prevent rebellions. The only record of Qing breeding industries outside the steppe are the breeding industry at Ili, which number 28,000 and one at Cha Ha Er which number 40,000.

So for a re-valuation in greater detail

The Han cavalry during the time of Jin Di numbered 300,000(Han Shu)汉书·景帝纪
During Wu Di that number increased to 450,000
The northern Wei dynasty the horse number over 2,000,000(Bei Wei Shu) 北魏书·食货志
During the Zheng Guan, Tang horse number 706,000 Xin Tang Shu新唐书·兵志
Climate condition killed huge numbers so during the Kai Yuan, the cavalry probably numbered little more than 400,000
The Liao had a horse supply of over 1,000,000 (Liao Shi)(辽史·食货志)
The Jin金 has 470,000 horse (Jin Shi)金史·兵志
Since the Yuan and Qing controlled the whole gobi, their horse "is numerous beyond counting" (Yuan Shi)元史·兵志




Note:
Of these, the Liao, Yuan and Qing has their major supplies of horse outside of the central plains, thats why they have a great abundance, yet the difference here is that these industries belong to pastorism instead of the plains horse husbandry, two different style of industry, the horse of the Mongolian steppe feed on natural pastures, the horses of the central plain feeds on millet.

none of these however, includes private horse breedings, which was at its height during the Tang and decclined afterwards, reaching a nadir during the Qing.

How about Yuan dynasty? China (under Mongol) was the most military powerful civilization on earth...

I think that Warhead might have had something to say about that before...

Yuan in reality did not control most of the other khanates, and it's debatable if that would make China necessarily the most militarily powerful even so (as it would probably be considered credit for the Mongols). Influencewise and relative to the world I would say that it was during the Tang.

I did make the comparison in this thread: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=25120

Not to mention, for most of Yuan, starting from 1306 onwards, the Delhi Sultanate could rival it in both population and productivity, just like how the Roman Empire rivaled the Han even if the former might not have been nearly as powerful.