History channels.

[Basileos Leandros I]

One thing I love recently in YouTube is the amount of animation effort put in by some amateur / professional animators, it's a joy to see and it's really informative for very complicated battles / subjects. Love it.

You can see it in the above video but also in WW2's improved animated maps as well.

[Cookiegod]

Kings and Generals, Baz Battles, Caspian Report, Skallagrim... they will all fall to their knees. They will give us their earth and their water.

Actually I have a few blog posts that I could turn into videos. In addition to this my brother wants to do reviews of Deadliest Warrior and I have two buddies who would be willing to do stuff as well. My brother has some video editing skills, one of my buddies does too and is also decent with graphics software. I myself took Graphic Design in college for 3 months and can work my way around a map. I personally can't do animation for , nor do I have any video editing skills though.

I'm hoping that Kings and Generals will respond to me so that I can help him write at least one video. Wouldn't know what event to do though. Actually I envision a large coalition with Baz Battles and Kings and Generals in order to wrest control of YouTube.

There was also this video that a guy sent me, though it seems nothing came of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdqsFENMnLo&t=27s

Animation and stuff can be learned. I mean my drawings are crap, but animating isn't that much different from drawing in the first place. But what programs/tools do they use. Do you know? It looks swell.

[Ramashan]

Animation and stuff can be learned. I mean my drawings are crap, but animating isn't that much different from drawing in the first place. But what programs/tools do they use. Do you know? It looks swell.

I imagine they use the Adobe suite (Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects) and although they are fairly easy to figure out, especially with all the youtube tutorials out there, it's the skill of constructing the openings and the battle map work that takes some skill and time.

As for the researching. I've recently been working on a project that entails a lot of historical research, and then taking all those notes and cramming them into something that is short, concise, and easily understood, well there's the rub. I can't talk too much about the details but an example I can use is: The person I'm researching was said to be a pirate, most sources found easily seem to back this up. But then you go to the primary sources and there's some debate. The English tried this man for piracy, but the King the man worked for said that he was sailing under a letter of marque. Acquitted by the English he moved to America where he made some powerful enemies who all began calling him a pirate in their official reports. So, was he a pirate or not? Some Governors and Judges say yes. A King and he himself say no. I could make a whole 15 minute video just on this topic alone. Simple answer is to make a line that states, "Although accused of being a pirate so and so was a privateer in the employ of." But then, do I have to explain what a privateer is? How much time will that take? All part of the video making thought process.

This is just an example of the issues that come up in researching history. If you're trying to produce videos quickly to keep your audience happy, what resources are you going to use? How much information do you give? Do you show all sides (like the spending the time to go over both the Union and Confederate views on who was responsible for the start of the war before getting into the history of Fort Sumter, because from my experience both sides have radically different takes on the same exact information) Or do you do your best to do a competent over view of the history and make it a stepping stone for the audience to go out and do their own research if they're interested in the topic?

I find the Kings & Generals channel to be quite good in that it often presents Battles and wars I am generally unaware of and they do it in a clean, engaging, and entertaining way. Like they're recent Battle of Mohacs video, I had never heard of this before.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I have no clue, animation isn't something I have ever attempted.

But with the adpocalypse there is no reason to try YouTube as a career. You would need to get a following and have them give you money via Patreon. Sometimes I'm tempted to do it but the production quality would have to be really high. Too much work unless you hire someone.

Watching some of these videos I get so triggered that I almost want to. A phenomenon I call the Normification of history.

[Basileos Leandros I]

[PikeStance]

I find Bazbattes to be better researched than Kings and Generals. K&G videos are entertaining. I think they did Battle of New Orleans and they did a bad job of it. I find they tend to do a lot of "filler.: than in-depth details.

In general, there are a lack of Google hacks (as like to call them). The level of research is equivalent to Wikipedia article. They will often present a nice research question only to not actually answer it like some of my students. This is the world we live in, History done by hacks who can use a search engine to give you information you can easily read. Hey, if you too lazy to wikipedia, then youtube is literally the next best thing.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Finally a good video about the Three Kingdoms.





*A bit more general but pretty good. So I don't have much to say other than to point out that this is generally how dynasties collapsed. In the case of the Han Dynasty it had spent centuries in power carrying out territorial expansion, but suffering from famines, banditry, foreign invaders like the Xiongnu and Xianbei and excess corruption from the nobility and bureaucrats. In order to keep their power they had to suppress talented men, sometimes regardless of loyalty or ambition. Even in some cases the corrupt bureaucracy executed capable officials who dared to criticize them (a famous example being the general and minister Zhang Huan).

Under such pressures it is no surprise that the peasants tried to find someone to alleviate their sufferings. This they found in the form of a religious movement called The Way of Peace (known later as Yellow Turbans). Their prophet Zhang Jiao purported not only to be a magical healer but also to be a seer, he claimed that the Han Dynasty had lost the Mandate of Heaven and that if the Way of Peace would only take up arms they could overthrow the Han Dynasty and create the Heaven to be born anew under their god Huang-Lao (the Yellow Emperor who was claimed by some to be a physical manifestation of Laozi). The Yellow Turbans finally took up arms in 184 and started the devastating conflict that laid Eastern China to waste and shook the very foundations of the Han Dynasty.

But such an event had already happened in the nation's history. From the year 1 to the year 30 a minister called Wang Mang had usurped the Han Dynasty and proclaimed the Xin Dynasty. Under his rule he sought to fix the inherent corruptions not only of the government but of the society and to restore the golden age of the ancient Zhou Kings. Wang Mang's justifications were simple, he argued that he had been given the Mandate of Heaven to fix Han but after being made Regent and acting Emperor he created his own dynasty. From this point onward the Mandate of Heaven became an important point in the political discourse and would have profound effects on the fall of Han almost two centuries later. His policies of monetary control and land distribution were alleged to have caused mass famine (tbh it can be debated to what extent) and this caused a peasant movement called the Red Eyebrows to rise up in rebellion, in addition to many local warlords and Han nobles. Wang Mang was overthrown in the year 23 by this massive coalition and a Han noble called Liu Xuan became Emperor of Han. Liu Xuan was unable to pacifiy the people, the same movement which put him into power was now starting to turn on him and his rule was ended in another revolt by the Red Eyebrows and he was killed. At the same time capable scholars flocked to another noble called Liu Xiu, who had pacified the north east and even gained support from some of the Wang Mang fanatics. With this new power base Liu Xiu defeated the peasant armies and various warlords and restored the Han Dynasty.

So you see to some extent history does repeat itself but not in an exact manner. One is immediately reminded of how in ages past Liu Bang joined the coalition against the Qin Dynasty and helped to overthrow it. The most powerful of these warlords Xiang Yu, sought to undo the imperial rule and make China into separate kingdoms once again. This was to no avail since Liu Bang, as King of Han, defeated Xiang Yu who was King of Chu as well as his allies and created the Han Dynasty. Not only did Liu Bang attempt to restore the centralist policies of Qin and found a new empire, he also ordered that offerings be given to Qin Shi Huangdi perhaps as an early concept of the Heavenly Mandate (in 203 BC). With Wang Mang's official usurpation in 9 AD that should have been the end of the Han Dynasty but it was restored first by Liu Xuan and then by Liu Xiu. During the Three Kingdoms similar events happened again, the restoration by Liu Xiu attempted to but in actuality failed to address key issues and one could say that he merely prolonged the inevitable. The Three Kingdoms however shook the very core principles of the Han Dynasty and since many had lost faith in the Han Dynasty they did not attempt to restore it. Instead the country fractured into a multitude of warlords which gradually fought each other until only three remained by 215. In this case the faction that sought to restore the Han Dynasty, under Liu Bei, was unable to do so. This is because unlike Liu Bang and Liu Xiu, the claimant Liu Bei was not as capable and as mentioned earlier he did not have the support that others did. His opposition in the north under Tsao Tsao and in the east under Sun Chuan were probably more capable than Xiang Yu (209 BC to 202 BC) and Wang Mang (1 to 23). As such history did not repeat itself a second time, the Han Dynasty was not restored where as Tsao Tsao and Sun Chuan lay down the foundations for later regimes.

Therefore the period of the Fall of Han and the Wars of Three Kingdoms stands out in Chinese history up to that time. Not only because it was expected that China would be unified under one empire (since the time of Qin perhaps, but certainly since the Han was first established). The examples of Wang Mang and Liu Xiu were meant to be taken as proof of this. Especially the acceptance of Confucianism as the accepted ideology. But the Three Kingdoms put both notions on their heads. Not only was the Han Dynasty not restored but subsequent regimes paid more heed to militarism and state power in the form of Legalism and Taoism as a sort of guiding religious notion. The chaotic centuries after the fall of Han also saw the increase in popularity of Buddhism. The Confucian school became practically irrelevant until the Neo-Confucians attempted to regain their influence under the Tang and Song dynasties centuries later. But this period also saw a completely new dynamic. First the introduction of state sponsored feudalism (under the Sun clan and later the Sima clan) and also the introduction of total state power through militarism and state control and distribution of property under Tsao Tsao. Arguably a reintroduction since similar models were attempted by Shi Huangdi as Legalist militarism and Wang Mang as part of his wealth equality policies. In effect Tsao Tsao almost resolve both questions in a way that was completely foreign to the Confucian ideology of the time. When the Sima clan usurped the Tsao clan later on, they copied the existing model but transferred its management by the state to a new feudal class of landowners. These two policies pursued by the Tsao and Sun families set the precedent for their respective areas. But because the north would become a war torn region in the following centuries it was the southern method which was able to consolidate. For that reason the South became known as the economic breadbasket of China for the rest of history.



On this second video I want to add two points.

*9:40
It is actually interesting to point out that Tsao Tsao opposed He Jin and Yuan Shao's plans for eunuch extermination. As Tsao Tsao put it, He Jin could just as easily execute certain eunuchs which were corrupt and wielded vast amounts of power. That way he could defeat the Eunuch faction and grant amnesty to the rest thereby not destabilizing the regime and preventing significant backlash. Tsao Tsao had actually written a memorandum against the Eunuchs some years prior, for which he was purged from the government (not in a direct way as Tsao Tsao's father Tsao Song was an influential minister). But Tsao Tsao was often ignored because his late grandfather was the powerful eunuch Tsao Teng.

In addition Tsao Tsao advised that He Jin not entrust the success of his plans to Dong Zhuo and that Dong Zhuo should not by any means be entrusted such a level of influence within Luoyang. The common saying could be applied to this "to bring a tiger into one's den" or in this case "to bring a tiger in order to chase away a few wolves".

*10:40
It is debated whether Yuan Shu and Yuan Shao were brothers or cousins. Yuan Shao was actually given to a family member with no heirs as a child. That and the general lack of information and contradicting accounts has made some suggest that Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu were actually half-brothers. Perhaps not by accident they became arch rivals.

[Roma_Victrix]

LIAR! YOU LIE! Clearly THIS is the best Three Kingdoms video to have ever been made and will ever be made, from this day forth, in perpetuity, until the end of days and implosion of the universe.

Fight me.

[Basileos Leandros I]

[saxdude]

I'd honestly prefer a well sourced informal tangent with an interesting background than a bunch of meaningless stats.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

LIAR! YOU LIE! Clearly THIS is the best Three Kingdoms video to have ever been made and will ever be made, from this day forth, in perpetuity, until the end of days and implosion of the universe.

Fight me.

Just saw it.
It was okay. Got all the points across. There isn't that much written about Sun Ce anyway (a rather small biography in Sanguozhi)... given that his career only lasted five years and he died at the ripe old age of 25.

The patronage and stealing your patron's army and territory thing was actually fairly common. Tsao Tsao did it to Yuan Shao since he was made administrator of Chenliu, before even being sent to Yan Province Tsao Tsao was Zhang Miao's subordinate but he got Yuan Shao to promote him to governor of Yan which caused extreme resentment from Zhang Miao and led to him rebelling later on in 194 with the support of Chen Gong and Lu Bu. Which ended about as well as you would expect... Zhang Miao's army mutinied and killed him, then Tsao Tsao exterminated Zhang Miao's entire clan the next year. Chen Gong and Lu Bu were sieged out at Xiapi and executed in 199, along with most of their followers. In the case of Sun Ce it made sense since Yuan Shu was laughably inept. After being thrashed by both Yuan Shao and Tsao Tsao, the guy decides to declare himself Emperor (probably not as inept as Jie Xuan and Tao Chian though). Staying with Yuan Shu would have been the real crime, literally and figuratively.

Also good examples of well known traitors being Lu Bu and Liu Bei. It wasn't really considered treason unless you did it four or five times and if you could get away with it then not at all. Though I never thought Sun Ce was particularly amazing. His 5 year campaign to conquer much of Yang province was okay I guess, it helped establish the Wu state. But the actual empire builder was his younger brother Sun Chuan who is criminally overlooked. Not only did Sun Chuan conquer the rest of Yang province he also took Jiaozhi and eventually Jing province. Aside from halting Tsao Tsao's southward expansion and later on defeating Liu Bei as well. Of the original "Three Kings" he outlived both of them by over 20 years (as he was the youngest). But most importantly he took a chunk of territory with a warlord army and transformed it into a functioning state, where people didn't try to kill him just because they could.

It is hard to really get across to what extent the collapse of the Han Dynasty destroyed China. Most of the country turned into a literal Mad Max scenario where entire areas like Bing Province became deserted and uninhabited. There was no army to stop barbarian raids. Entire communities resorted to banditry (entire armies of bandits with cool names like the White Tigers, the Black Mountain etc), some people even abandoning their settlements and going into the mountains for protection, in a Fallout style Anarcho-Capitalist society where all the peasants learned Kung Fu and a rich entrepreneur became their leader, selling his private Anarcho army to the warlord who could offer the most (no seriously this happened). Not to mention theocratic peasant communes who thought that they could make the Yellow Emperor come down from Heaven if they overthrew the government. Around every corner or so there was a tiny warlord who worked for a really big warlord, and nearby there was another warlord. Major cities like Luoyang and Chang'an were severely damaged in the wars against Dong Zhuo and were not militarily defensible so much of the populace fled to the country side, mostly to avoid starvation. Large amounts of refugees of all social classes fled south and helped develop what would become the Wu and Shu states. Some warlord or other was the least of anyone's problems.

*Jie Xuan is a hilarious case. Some random guy called Jie Xuan assembles an army of 1000 men in Xu province. The governor Tao Chian decides to support his claim. Somehow Tao Chian or his soldiers decide to kill Tsao Song and steal his money. This goes about as well as you would expect... Tsao Song was Tsao Tsao's father. Tsao Tsao invades them in 193 and 194 and kills Jie Xuan, loots and burns the entire province. Tao Chian is besieged. Tao Chian is only saved because of the revolt orchestrated by Zhang Miao, Chen Gong and Lu Bu and so Tsao Tsao has to return to Yan province to put them down. Tao Chian dies immediately afterwards presumably from the stress, and control of the province falls into the hands of Liu Bei (himself an officer of Tian Kai, who was a general or under the patronage of Gongsun Zan... who was facing the onslaught of Yuan Shao in You province, but wasted 4000 men to go help Tao Chian). Later on Lu Bu is defeated by Tsao Tsao so he runs off to Xu province and chases out Liu Bei, who then runs to Tsao Tsao.

What Tao Chian thought he could gain from supporting some nobody to be Emperor I will never know. What Jie Xuan thought he would get out of making himself Emperor with only an army of 1000 guys to support him... I mean. Jie Xuan is so obscure that I don't think there is even a biography about him. He is literally a footnote in the Sanguozhi.

[Common Soldier]

I wonder if your view of the collapse of the Hun dynasty isn't colored by the history of the collapse of the Roman Empire in Western Europe. While there may have been a lot of disorder, I don't see evidence of wide scale abandonment of cities that you found in western Europe post Roman empire. Cities like London went from a respectable 40,000 to all but abandoned.

While warlords and bandits may have been common, how did the major cities and urban areas fare? Was there large scale drop in literacy? How about the printing of coinage? How was international and local trade effected? Some of the warlords seem to have carved out respectable realms, and even if they were just warlords, perhaps they were not as bad as made out. The situation reminds one of the later Roman empire, in the Crisis of the 3rd century, where you had a lot of political turmoil, and society suffered greatly, but was a ways from collapse. Certainly, China seemed to re-establish itself in a few centuries after the Han dynasty collapse.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I wonder if your view of the collapse of the Hun dynasty isn't colored by the history of the collapse of the Roman Empire in Western Europe. While there may have been a lot of disorder, I don't see evidence of wide scale abandonment of cities that you found in western Europe post Roman empire. Cities like London went from a respectable 40,000 to all but abandoned.

I'm not influenced by the Roman Empire at all.

Areas further to the north were the hardest hit. Provinces like Liang, You, Bing, Ji were the specific areas that suffered from depopulation. The provinces near the steppe due to difficulty in farming as well as barbarian raids. Decades of mismanagement actually led to Bing Province being largely abandoned and settled by the Xiongnu tribes, as early as around 150. It was such a problem that Bing Province was actually combined with Ji province in 213, restored in 220 by the Tsao regime but only about a third of its original size. The rest of the territory was organized into the five Xiongnu regions, autonomous vassals which provided soldiers for the state.

Unsurprisingly it was the north eastern areas where the Yellow Turban Revolt broke out (You, Ji, Qing, Xu, Yan, Yu and parts of Jing). Likewise in Liang in the north west a revolt carried out by some peasants, local magnates and tribal people. Most of these peasants were motivated by not having land, food shortages and too much taxation. A scenario that played out in 20 AD as well during the brief period when Wang Mang had usurped the Han and made himself Emperor of the Xin Dynasty. So as one might infer the inherent problems were never really addressed by the government. Food supply became such a problem that many armies lacked ample supplies and taking food from peasants could cause starvation. In the south this was addressed by tenant farmers working for major land owners. In the north Tsao Tsao instituted a series of land reforms and state controlled military colonies (the Tuntian system).

Abandonment was gradual, many lands were abandoned because the peasants could not make them produce grain or because they lacked the means to farm. Local landlords then took over these lands or they were claimed by bandits. Massive cities like Chang'an and Luoyang saw significant decline and looting by the armies of Dong Zhuo and they became a shadow of their former selves. Large amounts of refugees traveled to Yi, Jing and Yang provinces. At least during the Three Kingdoms period, the north still contained most of the population (about 4.5 million to the 3.5 million of the south). Unsurprisingly this provided the means for the Tsao regime and later the Sima regime to be the dominant faction.

While warlords and bandits may have been common, how did the major cities and urban areas fare? Was there large scale drop in literacy? How about the printing of coinage? How was international and local trade effected? Some of the warlords seem to have carved out respectable realms, and even if they were just warlords, perhaps they were not as bad as made out. The situation reminds one of the later Roman empire, in the Crisis of the 3rd century, where you had a lot of political turmoil, and society suffered greatly, but was a ways from collapse. Certainly, China seemed to re-establish itself in a few centuries after the Han dynasty collapse.

The two metropolitan areas of Chang'an and Luoyang experienced a severe decline. Chang'an had actually been overpopulated since before 1 AD and the capital was moved east to Luoyang by Liu Xie in 25 AD (something which Wang Mang had planned to do). Most of Luoyang was destroyed during Dong Zhuo's retreat in 190. Warlords which were able to establish themselves began to create rival courts in their own territories. Cities that usurped the two capitals in importance, both as urban centers and political centers, would have been Chengdu under Liu Zhang and Liu Bei; Wuling, Jingzhou and Changsha under Liu Biao; Xuchang under Tsao Tsao, later he moved to Ye when he took it from Yuan Shao as Ye was said to be a more prosperous city and Emperor Xian stayed in Xuchang; Wuchang and Jianye under Sun Chuan. In 220 Tsao Tsao ordered the city of Luoyang to be rebuild, when his son Tsao Pi made himself Emperor of Wei he moved his capital from Ye to Luoyang and of course removed Emperor Xian's court at Xuchang. Probably because Luoyang had more prestige since the ancient days of the Zhou kings and the Han Dynasty. But also because it was well situated in the center of China, Chang'an was well protected by mountain passes but too far in the west and decaying from a long period of habitation (since the Zhou kings and the Qin Dynasty, which Wang Mang wished to address).

Literacy wasn't really affected since China was agrarian and most peasants were not considered literate. The educational system (for scribes and scholars) did collapse for a short time but not long enough to cause significant issues. Scholars were still sought out by warlords however those who were capable enough sought legitimacy and crafted an image of civic authority. Many wanting to escape the wars in the northern plain traveled to Yi, Yang and Jing which was to the benefit of Liu Biao, Sun Chuan and Liu Bei. Also the rise of local talent and southern power for the first time in history. Tsao Tsao and Yuan Shao crafted a similar image and attracted many talented officers and scholars. Tsao Tsao also ordered the creation of an education system in major cities but rather than adopting a system of national exams for state positions, scholars and officials were recruited directly by the bureaucrats and by the state. There was somewhat of an idea that meritocracy had failed and caused corruption so society had somewhat shifted away from a merit system towards one of innate characteristics. That is to say that everyone was born with traits specific to them and so only some people were pushed up into high offices. For the most part the unbridled meritocracy of the Han was ended and so many officials were already from within the system. On the other hand Tsao Tsao made clear that he was interested in all men of talent regardless of morals or character, which was a major component of the Han state examinations.

Later both the Tsao/Sima and Sun regimes adopted a system of ranks and titles (in addition to money, lands and serfs; not under Tsao Tsao though) which could be earned both to encourage people but also to trap them within a system. In the case of the Tsao regime the land reforms and Tuntian colonies were controlled by the state so laborers and soldiers were given land to work as well as tools and oxen, in exchange for a state tax or some form of service. This gave the clear impression that the Wei regime was Legalist militancy but due to its success it destroyed the Confucian paradigm of the Han. Where as the Liu regime in Yi was largely supportive of powerful landowners and the authority of the state (prompting later scholars to say that Shu was Confucian in appearance but Legalist in reality). The regime of Sun Chuan was also clearly Legalist but upheld through a system of feudalism for the local landed gentry as well as those promoted to the gentry. When the Sima clan usurped the Tsao clan they turned the Tuntian system into a feudalistic type of system of the influential landowners and promoted individuals to the gentry. In addition to giving large amounts of lands and noble titles to other members of the Sima clan. Later scholars would say "those people who were indentured serfs were legion".

It was the combination of state power and feudalism which characterized the next 300 years. It was for these reason that the time period is maligned and many recalled the glory days of Han with nostalgia. But is to some extent a simplistic and unfair analysis. It doesn't address why these events developed in this way either, or why no one attempted to restore the Han Dynasty. Ultimately we have to remember that the Three Kingdoms resulted in a brief unification under the Jin Dynasty. However it immediately after resulted in civil war and large scale invasions by the barbarians which then led to another 200 years of disunity and warfare. So the periods after the fall of Han and then Jin are widely regarded as the Dark Ages in Chinese history.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Fall of Han, Three Kingdoms, Jin Dynasty, Sixteen Kingdoms, Northern & Southern Dynasties timeline
-184 Yellow Turban rebellion erupts in eastern and central China, Five Pecks of Rice rebellion erupts in Hanzhong, Han rebels and their Di and Qiang tribal allies carry out an uprising in Liang province in the west
-189 Emperor Ling dies which prompts He Jin and his sister Empress He to plot against the Eunuch Faction, He Jin orders Dong Zhuo to bring troops in order to seize control of the capital but is assassinated, Dong Zhuo arrives, kills the eunuchs, seizes control of both He Jin's army and Emperor Ling's army and declares martial law, kills Empress He and her son Emperor Shao, places Emperor Xian into power and declares himself regent
-190 several officers and nobles form a coalition against Dong Zhuo and after some defeats he chooses to burn Luoyang and relocate the capital east to Chang'an
-191 the coalition falls apart due to infighting
-192 Dong Zhuo is assassinated, in addition the Yellow Turban revolt is put down in most of the country
-193 Jue Xuan raises 1000 men and proclaims himself emperor and is supported by the warlord Tao Qian, Tao Qian kills Cao Song which leads to his son Cao Cao declaring war on Tao Qian and killing the pretender Jue Xuan
-196 Cao Cao takes control of Emperor Xian and convinces him to relocate the capital to Cao Cao's city of Xuchang, Yuan Shu proclaims himself Emperor of the Zhong Dynasty which leads to a coalition being formed against him and he is defeated and dies in 199
-198 to 199 Cao Cao defeats Lu Bu and takes most of Xu province in the east
-200 Cao Cao defeats the powerful warlord Yuan Shao and then that warlord dies in 202
-202 to 208 Cao Cao conquers most of the north, moves his capital from Xuchang to Ye, and then heads south and takes Jing province, an alliance between Liu Bei and Sun Quan leads to the Battle of Red Cliff in which Cao Cao is defeated
-215 Cao Cao conquers Liang province in the west and Hanzhong, Liu Bei conquers Yi province (China is now ruled by Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Quan)
-216 Cao Cao is made King of Wei by Emperor Xian
-219 Liu Bei takes Hanzhong and proclaims himself King of Hanzhong, Cao Cao allies with Sun Quan and the two move against Liu Bei to take Jing province from Liu Bei
-220 Cao Cao dies, his son Cao Pi forces Emperor Xian to abdicate, Cao Pi proclaims himself Emperor of Wei, Liu Bei proclaims himself Emperor of Han, Sun Quan is made King of Wu by Cao Pi
-222 Liu Bei invades Wu but is defeated by Sun Quan's forces at Xiaoting
-223 Liu Bei falls ill and dies and is succeeded by his son Liu Shan, Cao Pi takes the opportunity and invades Wu but is unable to defeat Sun Quan
-226 Cao Pi falls ill and dies and is succeeded by his son Cao Rui
-228 the chancellor of the Han, minister Zhuge Liang, leads five campaigns north to invade Wei, Cao Rui orders an invasion into Wu which fails, Sun Quan then orders counter attacks north into Wei, which fail to take ground
-234 chancellor Zhuge Liang dies and the general who defended Wei, a man called Sima Yi, is promoted
-239 Cao Rui dies and names his uncle Cao Shuang and general Sima Yi as regents for the baby Cao Fang
-249 Sima Yi successfully purges Cao Shuang and his family now controls the court through influence
-251 Sima Yi puts down a rebellion by Wang Ling but dies soon after, his older son Sima Shi becomes regent for the 12 year old Cao Fang
-252 Sun Quan dies which leads to a succession struggle between his sons Sun Liang, and Sun Xiu as well as nephew Sun Chen
-254 Sima Shi forces Cao Fang to abdicate and puts his cousin Cao Mao as Emperor of Wei
-255 Sima Shi puts down a revolt by Guanqiu Jian and Wen Qin, Sima Shi then dies and his younger brother Sima Zhao becomes regent
-258 Sima Zhao puts down a revolt by Zhuge Dan and Sun Chen
-260 Emperor Cao Mao attempts to overthrow Sima Zhao but is defeated and forced to abdicate, his great uncle Cao Huan, a son of Cao Cao, is made Emperor of Wei, Sima Zhao is made Duke of Jin
-263 Sima Zhao conquers Liu Shan's Shu Han Empire in the south west
-264 Sima Zhao puts down revolts by Zhong Hui and Jiang Wei, is made King of Jin
-265 Sima Zhao dies, succeeded by his son Sima Yan as King of Jin and Regent of the Wei Empire
-266 Sima Yan forces Cao Huan to abdicate, Cao Wei Empire is replaced by Jin Empire and Sima Yan becomes Emperor
-280 Sima Yan conquers Wu in the south east and unifies China under the Jin Dynasty
-290 Sima Yan dies and is succeeded by Sima Zhong, various revolts carried out by members of the Sima family from 291 to 307 shake the empire's core
-304 various invasions carried out by barbarians cause the north to be lost by 316, Chinese states are established by the Qiang, Di, Xiongnu, Jie and Xianbei tribes, Jin dynasty gradually pushed into the south past the Yangtze River, a century is spent trying to defend the frontier until a general named Liu Yu usurps and established the Liu Song state in the south in 420
-304 to 439 Sixteen Kingdoms; China is in an all out war and only the south survives, in the north states are formed and then quickly collapse
-440 the Xianbei under the Tuoba clan conquer the north and create the Northern Wei Dynasty
-479 to 502 Liu Song Dynasty in the south is usurped by Xiao Daocheng who declares the Southern Qi Dynasty, but is usurped by Xiao Yan who declares the Liang Dynasty in 502
-535 Northern Wei collapsed in a civil war and members of the Tuoba clan split it into Eastern Wei and Western Wei
-550 to 557 Eastern Wei, Western Wei and Liang are overthrown and the states of Northern Zhou, Northern Qi, Western Liang and Chen are formed
-577 to 589 the state of Northern Zhou conquers Northern Qi, the general Yang Jian usurps Northern Zhou, conquers Chen and declares the Sui Dynasty; China is unified for the first time since 280

[The Wandering Storyteller]

Kings and Generals have really improved their content, and I love the new custom artwork they have. Their new selection of periods is also quite good.

They make history worth watching, unlike the History Channel.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I rather dislike when Kings and Generals makes one video about an entire period in history. They really should just do specific videos about individual battles or campaigns. Their Chinese videos sound like something off Wikipedia, no offense. Due to the recent Total War game, just about everyone was trying to cash in on that Three Kingdoms market. Maybe I'm dumb for not attempting to.

Unrelated but I've been watching Little Wars. Wargaming seems pretty fun. But sometimes their takes are a bit painful. They could have done a better job with the Kawanakajima video, at least the history and the strategic consequences of that 1561 campaign. Or some of their Napoleonic videos, all their sources are probably old 90's books but they don't really seem to think it through. Like when they claim that Marengo was a near defeat, but it doesn't occur to them that there was a reason why Napoleon won the 1800 campaign with overwhelming results, and that their Napoleon team won the game with overwhelming results. Gee it's almost like Napoleon planned this campaign specifically so that it couldn't be lost. Then they go one about Napoleon's stolen valor and how Massena was the real hero, which... no.

[NorthernXY]

Agree with most on here that most channels just do a brief skim and never go in depth.

History Time - Has many videos over 20 minutes about specific topics so he goes in depth.

History Matters (previously 10 Minute History) - Used to be a lot better before he started doing 2-3 minute videos on narrow topics.

OverSimplified - More entertaining than informative, but every video is great.

The Study of the Antiquity and the Middle Ages - He doesn't produce his own content but he has a lot of good stuff that I can actually learn something from.

Real Crusades History - Pretty in depth and has on a lot of guests.

I really should start watching Chinese history channels. I've had The History of China podcast on my phone that I've been meaning to get to.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

A lot of these guys are so lazy though. Barely any detail what so ever, you would get the same reading Wikipedia or one of those 80 page Osprey books.

[NorthernXY]

Yep. I don't really watch them anymore because I'm not going to learn anything, which is why I like ones like OverSimplified that have a comedic angle. I might not learn anything but at least I'll laugh.

I don't think they realize they're quickly running out of topics to do videos on because each video is short and on a broad topic like the history of German in less than 10 minutes. They'll run through Europe and the Americas and everybody's videos will essentially have the same script. Then what do they do? History Time has many videos over 30 minutes about a single event or a reign of an Anglo-Saxon king. They're not realizing their audience are history buffs too and already know a lot and are wanting to know more.

[Basileos Leandros I]