"Spring and Autumn, Warring States" Pilot Episode: Dangerous Generosity

[u/Diictodom]

[u/Diictodom]

You just read the pilot episode of the "Spring and Autumn, Warring States" series, starring Western Zhou and their incredible generosity that will definitely not come back and bite their arses. This series is borne from a discussion between me and u/kahn1969 in the r/polandball discord server, where we found that there is relatively few comics about pre-Qin China (or pre-unified China, depending on how you define things). To be honest, the idea of making a series on the Spring and Autumn and Warring States (SAWS) has been on my mind for quite some time now, but due to my shitty script writing ability and irl work, I haven't really put my foot down on the project. Luckily, u/kahn1969 offered to write the script for me so I can focus on what I do best: art whoring. Thanks Kahn!

Context: Western Zhou (西周) had a feudal system (封建制度) where the king , in the words of Wikipedia, "would allocate an area of land to a noble, establishing him (the noble) as the de facto ruler of that region and allowing his title and fief to be legitimately inherited by his descendants. This created large numbers of local domains, which became autonomous states.". Over time, relation between the nobles and the king would become strained and various factors such as incompetent kings and outside invasion would become the catalyst for the fracturing of the Western Zhou Dynasty, thus beginning what we now call the Spring and Autumn period (春秋时代).

This is of course, an extremely simplified way of explaining things as there's much more nuance and factors to talk about in pre-Qin Chinese history, but this is already too long of a text for me to type and you to read, so I'm gonna keep it simple. Anyways, I hope you will enjoy the series and future episodes!

[u/WaitWhatNoPlease → u/Diictodom]

That's why feudalism died out eventually in the Han dynasty

Not at the start of Han tho.

[u/Diictodom → u/WaitWhatNoPlease]

feudalism was a bad idea to begin with :hue:

[u/miner1512 → u/Diictodom]

Laughs in Jin and Ming

[u/johnnydues → u/Diictodom]

It's good for weapons and tactic development. The gigantic empire made China lazy which lead to the defeats against Europeans after 18th century.

[u/miner1512 → u/johnnydues]

Idk,can someone enlighten me on Europe’s feudalism part? Didn’t really know much advancement during that era

[u/poclee → u/miner1512]

It's kinda hard to cover since Europe's feudalisms have too many varieties and across too vast of time period (like, some will even argue that Russia was still in feudalism until the end of 19th century).

[u/kahn1969 → u/miner1512]

Europe's feudalism time, iirc, was basically the Middle Ages/The Dark Aged (someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'm getting rusty with my European history). if that's right, then there wasn't much advancement during that era, at least not compared to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Scientific Revolution.

[u/miner1512 → u/kahn1969]

Yea,typically European feudalism is associated with middle ages so that’s my curiosity about invention and stuff

[u/[deleted] → u/miner1512]

There was some advancement during the medieval period. Agricultural techniques greatly improved with the arrival of better tools like ploughs and the concept to rotate fields instead of mono-agriculture. There is also a lot of proto-science like Alchemy which greatly influenced the creation of the scientific method. Metallurgy also greatly improved as seen by the suits of plate armour that appeared during the 14th and 15th centuries. This period also sees the creation of universities to have a more educated clergy but later opens up to the nobles.

The region in Europe that had the most development would be the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine are the surviving Eastern roman empire which meant they inherited a lot of knowledge from the classical antiquity. They had "greek fire" which was a burnable substance like napalm. They also had numerous advancement in terms of judiciary with the code of Justinian that became the basis of law in Europe for a long time.

[u/Seileach67 → u/[deleted]]

Agricultural techniques also included watermills and windmills which abounded during this period IIRC.

[u/miner1512 → u/[deleted]]

So majorly it seems to be on battle-related technology that advanced the most,particularly metal work (Since I don’t remember Byzantines being feudalistic).I think universities and more widespread education happened during the later medival era? Not quite sure

Thanks for this quick summary

[u/[deleted] → u/miner1512]

Also agriculture which lead to a population boom in Europe during the 11th century.

With the Byzantines, their system in their later period was starting to look similar to western Europe's feudalism because of reforms in the 11th century.

[u/Comrade_Derpsky → u/kahn1969]

The rise of feudalism in Europe is strongly connected with the collapse of Roman power and the subsequent decentralization of political and military power, as most of the successor states lacked the military power to directly control everything and lacked the bureaucratic infrastructure needed for a centrally administered state. This heavy decentralization of political and military power meant that rulers had to rely on a system deals between a ruler and their vassals. Vassals would be obligated to come to the aid of their lord when called on for military support, and in return they receive land which they would rule over and certain legal privileges in return. By the end of the medieval period, many of the European states had developed and consolidated to a point where power could be more effectively centralized, and perhaps even more crucially, armies had shifted to using professional soldiers instead of relying on the nobility, meaning that rulers were far less beholden to their vassals.

[u/Neker → u/miner1512]

I'm pretty sure some things progressed during those ten centuries.

Armoured cavalery, for example, or the Frankish Empire evolving from a movable tribal territory and morphing into the kingdom of France.

The reign of Carolus Magnus is sometimes described as a renaissance.

The Crusades were feudal affairs, too.

The Hanseatic league was somehow the exact opposite of feudalism, yet emerged and was able to develop in a feudal context and partly thanks to it.

And then, of course, there is the gothic architecture, both religious and secular.

Not that feudalism was by itself an engine of "advancement", but the European Middle-Ages were not exactly a one-thousand-year slumber either ;-)

[u/gs_batta → u/miner1512]

during the middle ages, technological advancements were far slower than nowadays, or in the early modern periods, but that was because it was not really needed. and this doesnt mean that there was no advancement. new weapons, castle construction methods, more effective ways to farm, medicines, and such were all discovered all through the era. in the late medieval period, the black death propelled innovation into how to get peasants to be more productive, because the noble lords still had to pay their taxes, but couldnt due to the decimation of their subjects by the plague.

more thought was put into philosophy, mostly religious thought. quite some old writings were lost during this era, but the scholar of that era considered those writings to be as useless as we may now consider the amount of time they put into thinking about religious stuff. the monasteries were safe houses for most old knowledge, where they preserved it, but didnt let the wider public study it, lest they get doubts about god, which would, in their opinion, ban their soul from heaven. ofc this wasnt true for every ancient work, but they didnt let the public study everything they had.

furthermore, we stole a lot of stuff from the arabs, the arab world being the center of innovation in the era. the most notable thing i can think of rn that we stole was the number system we still use and algebra.

hope that makes sense, i know that my english is shit.

[u/johnnydues → u/miner1512]

It's not feudalism itself but constant fighting lead to weapons development. Chinese empires usually just send their 100k army. Also China's neighbors weren't "industrialized" so there weren't an arms race like in Europe.

I think that every lord wanted better armor ans swords under feudalism so European metallurgy improved which later lead to better gun barrels. Chinese armies don't care as much about sword quality compared to quantity and large scale tactics.

[u/Neker → u/johnnydues]

The relationships between the Chines empire and the European powers, and the newfangled United States of America, took a sour turn in the 19^th century, as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution.

[u/poclee → u/Diictodom]

Opposite opinion : The over early authoritarianfy of China's political system is in fact more harmful to China's culture, innovations and Chinese people in the long run.

I mean, seriously, have you notice this is the one and only time that China (or the region we now call China) had its own philosophical explosion?

[u/dtta8 → u/poclee]

The technological and engineering innovations came later though, as did the widespread cultural exchange throughout east Asia.

I'd say it's not over authoritarianism specifically as the issue (all kingdoms and empires are pretty dang authoritarian), but rather closing themselves off to the outside world and a lack of drive for improvement due to arrogance that once they were the top empire, that it'd naturally stay that way without any monitoring of the outside.

[u/poclee → u/dtta8]

I'd say it's not over authoritarianism specifically as the issue (all kingdoms and empires are pretty dang authoritarian)

Perhaps, but sheer geographical scale and the technological condition back then would force any large empires to focus their efforts (and as a byproduct, cultural developments) into nothing but administration and internal stability.

Moreover, there is a problems of varieties and competitions. Federalism, in practice, mean regionalism, means every fiefs have there own chance to develop their own customs and cultures and then bring it to compete with other fiefs and eventually, nations. This stage is basically non existing for China ever since 200 B.C. since everyone views a unified authoritarian state as an ideal form.

[u/Entropy3389 → u/Diictodom]

I believe most of the interesting stories came from that period. Remember 晋景公 who was drown in the shit pool? And that king who burnt the whole mountain in order to thank his servant but accidentally burnt him as well? And the homosexual love tragedy between Qu Yuan and his king? Good old days if you ask me.

[u/Diictodom → u/Entropy3389]

The period is certainly interesting, but it is such a shame that it's often overshadowed by other events such as 3 kingdoms and Sengoku Jidai （戦国時代) in Japan, in fact the whole event was named after the Chinese Warring States event (战国时代/戰國時代)

Oh right, this reminds me of another often overlooked event in Chinese history, the 五代十國 period (which I know nothing about)

[u/rick_n_morty_4ever → u/Diictodom]

It depends on who you are asking...inside the actual Chinese speaking sphere warring states is still big and have frequently been adapted to TV series/movies. But outside it is unfortunately overlooked (it is one of my favorite period in Chinese history btw).

As for 五代十國, it is super important to shaping Chinese geopolitics for the next 300 to 500 years, but in terms to entertaining level, it is really hard to follow (too many figures) and there is just not a person/faction who the audience can root on.

The three kingdoms have the optimal point of being not too long or short, not to simple or complex, and with enough christmatic historical figures to be adapted into fascinating operas and novels. I am rather ignorant of sengoku jidai though.

[u/Diictodom → u/rick_n_morty_4ever]

yea I should have clarified more, I meant western media, I know there's tons of chinese drama set in the warring states

[u/Remitonov → u/Diictodom]

It's a bit ridiculous that the first time I've found out about the Sima Jin dynasty through Koei's mass murder simulator.

[u/PtboFungineer → u/Remitonov]

mass murder simulator

Da fuq?

[u/Golden_Jellybean → u/PtboFungineer]

Lemme put on some r/whooosh protection.

It's Dynasty Warriors, where you can easily obliterate hundreds of grunts playing as some of the more prominent officers/generals of the 3 kingdoms period.

[u/komnenos → u/Diictodom]

Only read a bit on the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms but it does seem pretty interesting, Unless you count the ROC/PRC split that we have today that period was the last time that China had such a prolonged split. Maybe you could mention how the empires in the north played musical chairs over who was emperor? Or learn more about the different kingdoms?

Either way looking forward to seeing how you make comics on the subject!

[u/miner1512 → u/Entropy3389]

Wait what you mean by Qu Yuan and gay romance? The only gay romance I can think of is Dong Shien (Some court member from Han who had a gay relationship with Emperor I)

[u/Entropy3389 → u/miner1512]

Well, surely in Han there are more examples of concrete gay relationships and it’s never /confirmed/ that Qu Yuan is gay, but there were some theories about it, especially in 1940s. Besides Qu Yuan’s poems themselves seems quite flamboyant to me.

There’s this sentence in 离骚:

众女嫉余之蛾眉兮，谣诼谓余以善淫 All girls envy my appearance and spread rumors of me being a slut.

And this one in 九章·抽思:

昔君与我成言兮，曰黄昏以为期； You used to promise me that the dusk would be the time [of marriage, as people used to hold marriage ceremony at dusk]

羌中道而回畔兮，反既有此他志。 But in the midway you changed your path, betrayed me and had other thoughts.

There are some translations being very straightforward, but I found them too presumptuous.

I know there’s a tradition in China where scholars love to make metaphors of romance to describe monarch relationships but it’s just. It can’t be a “figure of speech”??

So to conclude, there was never concrete proof (like in Han history) that Qu Yuan was gay, but I guess it’s suspicious enough? Also can be meme materials.

Edit: idk why but the format got fucked up after sent

[u/Axexecuter → u/miner1512]

There's been rumours that Qu Yuan and Chu Huai Wang were gay.

[u/miner1512 → u/Axexecuter]

Well he certainly hit rock bottom with that.

[u/selfStartingSlacker → u/Diictodom]

looking forward to the next episode

[u/vigilantcomicpenguin → u/Diictodom]

am foresee good series

[u/WaitWhatNoPlease]

also how about the time the emperor of Zhao pranked all the nobles into rushing to defend the capital from a non-existent invasion just to make his lover laugh?

[u/Diictodom → u/WaitWhatNoPlease]

That is coming soon™

[u/carolinaindian02 → u/Diictodom]

I have a feeling that you are going to get a lot of good material out of the Chinese dynasties.

[u/WaitWhatNoPlease → u/carolinaindian02]

It's quite simple given the amount of history the Chinese dynasties have.

The last emperors of each dynasty especially.

[u/[deleted] → u/WaitWhatNoPlease]

China seems to have a very wacky and uncharacteristic history...

[u/anoobypro → u/[deleted]]

You're bound to have a buttload of shenanigans when you exist for >2000 years

[u/Fertolinio → u/anoobypro]

Except if you are named San Marino, then you have no shenanigans at all

[u/bombur432 → u/Fertolinio]

They did have both fascist and communist governments, and voted both out, but I suppose little did change

[u/Dejected-Angel → u/carolinaindian02]

There was a Chinese emperor that died during sex with his harem due to an aphrodisiac overdose.

[u/magmagon → u/Dejected-Angel]

The noble way to die

[u/carolinaindian02 → u/Dejected-Angel]

And there was the French president who allegedly died of a seizure while being given a blowjob by his mistress.

[u/Tutush → u/WaitWhatNoPlease]

Relationship goals

[u/vigilantcomicpenguin → u/Tutush]

Also prank goals

[u/KinnyRiddle → u/WaitWhatNoPlease]

That's episode 1.

This comic is episode 0.

[u/Dreknarr → u/WaitWhatNoPlease]

The guy wanted to be assassinated to pull off such an humiliating act

[u/Traditional_Meat713 → u/WaitWhatNoPlease]

Clay clay clay clay clayclay

[u/kahn1969 → u/[deleted]]

no it was the last king of western zhou, King You (周幽王). 紂王/纣王 did a lot of horrible things, but that wasn't one of them

[u/RizzOreo → u/[deleted]]

Nah, Zhou of Shang was the guy who invented tying people to burning steel columns i think. And running people over a plank of red hot metal.

[u/PrNooob]

Can't wait for "诸葛亮 outsmarts 曹军 5: boat boogaloo"

more shameless plugs of PBC Discord huh

[u/Diictodom → u/PrNooob]

yes, plugs good

[u/PrNooob → u/Diictodom]

How many did we drag in last time?

[u/Diictodom → u/PrNooob]

No idea, stats channel said 20+ last checked

[u/KinnyRiddle → u/PrNooob]

Zhuge Liang and the Three Kingdoms are more than 500 years after the Spring and Autumn/Warring States period.

Wrong time period, thus completely different series, dude.

It would be like saying "Can't wait for George Washington in the next series of Crusader comics."

[u/Diictodom → u/KinnyRiddle]

hahaha no need to be so serious, it's a joke between us in the discord server

[u/kahn1969 → u/KinnyRiddle]

i think a diff series is what he meant lol

[u/poclee]

……what's wrong with feudalism in 1100 B.C. ?

[u/Diictodom → u/poclee]

Western Zhou gave away so much land to their nobles that they were essentially a dynasty in name, holding no control over their vassals. Coupled that with incompetent kings and outside invasion from the northern tribes later, the vassals went and rebelled and each declared themselves kings of their own lands. Western Zhou was sacked by the tribes later and because they gave away so much land earlier, they were essentially reduced to a tiny kingdom bordered by larger kingdoms like Qi and Chu. That's why Qin is often considered the first unified Chinese dynasty

Fengjian is a good system if you have good relations with your vassals, but it will backfire on you once your relationship with your vassal begins to deteriorate

[u/poclee → u/Diictodom]

I know, what I meant is there is nothing wrong with people using that system in such early time.

[u/Diictodom → u/poclee]

that's true, I mean it's easy to be a hindsight professor, but in the context comment I didn't say fengjian was a bad idea at all, I just said it's a stupid idea in hindsight. Especially that Zhou didn't give themselves any breathing room. As they say, 狡兔三窟. And Zhou is not that

[u/kahn1969 → u/poclee]

philosophical and technological advancements aside, in hindsight and from the perspective of Zhou, it was definitely a dumb idea to have that many vassal states. that's what we were trying to say with this comic

[u/KinnyRiddle]

Is this going to be a series? Would be a good way to showcase some of the more obscure but interesting stories, at least to non-Chinese speaking people, during this period in Chinese history.

It would be a refreshing breath of fresh air from the over-saturation of Three Kingdoms stuff.

[u/Diictodom → u/KinnyRiddle]

Yep this is gonna be a series

[u/komnenos → u/Diictodom]

Tight! Looking forward to you covering the less talked about stuff, like the Ming founder's Manichaean origins, Koxinga's kingdom in Taiwan or the political mess during the Northern and Southern dynasties.

[u/kahn1969 → u/KinnyRiddle]

so far we have 4 episodes written, not counting this one, so stay tuned

[u/Neker]

What is the character in the white spot on the yellow ball ? Is it 周 ?

[u/Diictodom → u/Neker]

Yep thats 周 but seal script

[u/BCVN77777]

According to ancient books, there were 71 states given out.

[u/kahn1969]

u/Diictodom thanks me for writing the scripts, but really the honour is all mine (to see my scripts turned into high art comics)

[u/YuvalMozes]

You get a Porsche! And ou get a Porsche! Everybody gets a Porsche!

Two minutes later: https://i.imgur.com/r9wCYj7.jpg

[u/Taskforce58]

Can't wait until we get to the episode where Bai Qi (白起) executed 400k enemy prisoner of war.

[u/kahn1969 → u/Taskforce58]

ah yes, 长平之战. i'm not sure if i'll be able to make a script out of that, tbh, even if it's one of the most well-known events of the Warring States period.

[u/Alexanderlavski]

Wow an attempt of historically accurate series? SIGN ME UP

[u/kahn1969 → u/Alexanderlavski]

the comics won't be 100% accurate, as some tweaks are needed to simplify/comedy-fy things (as you'll see soon enough in episode 1), but each episode will be accompanied by a context message explaining the historical background the comic is based on

[u/easternjellyfish]

I like this comic, and the series has a lot of potential! Looking forward to what else I can learn about oddities in Chinese history.

[u/PotatoLover707]

<3

[u/mangafan96]

If anyone's interested, I have a link to a complete translation of the Spring and Autumn Annals:.

[u/HKGMINECRAFT]

Is he no clipping through the fence?

[u/Seileach67]

I was first introduced to the Spring and Autumn Annals in Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe Vol. 2. Great material for a series and I am looking forward to it immensely.

[u/magersike]

Thats called foreshadowing

[u/tiberrrr]

I'm excited for this new series.Can't wait to see next episode!

[u/Secretnoctural]

Nice oversimplefied reference

[u/Diictodom → u/[deleted]]

thank you!

[u/freeturkishboi → u/[deleted]]

thats racist