108 replies to this topic

[Moloch]

If what you say is true then why not translate it as “legends” or something along the lines of that? This would certainly come closer to what you describe than “hero” does.

[voidvortex]

About making shin a hero, you have to take in account that he was a historical figure, a general, a warrior leader, his heroic deeds were killing more enemies without losing lots of his own soldiers, you can only change some parts to make this manga more shonen, you can't just alter li xin's history. And about the conquering of all china to bring peace to that land, and then build a wall between that land and the only potential enemy, i think is a pretty good plan to achieve peace if you don't have enemies inside.

[shelly]

The posts are long, and its late, so I will read them later.

 

Something along these lines might have already been mentioned, but anyway, if not, here's something interesting I read awhile back while reading a book about ancient Greek methods of education for fun (Its not weird. It was actually really interesting) :

 

In that book the author also talked about the way Heroes were viewed back then, as a result of the way they educated their society to deal with the situation they were in.   Back then, Heroes were people who were good at one thing to such a degree that it passed the ordinary. Their morals never really mattered. Those people thought of their own glory/success first and foremost.

     Later, soldiers began to be trained to think of the state first, and themselves second, and (on purpose) a new type of Hero was celebrated, the type that would selflessly die for their comrades/city/state/country/etc.  This was done so that the states would have less of a chance of being wiped out, since there were so many soldiers who would now see throwing away their lives for their state as heroism, whereas the older type of hero would have done whatever was in their own best interest.

 

Well, that roughly sums up what the author of that book stated.

I thought it would be an interesting thing to add to this conversation.

Edited by shelly, 08 November 2013 - 08:39 AM.

[Moloch]

Well, if anyone had any doubts left we now know for a fact that Shin’s conviction is a load of horseshit. Really? Eliminating borders will end wars and break the circle of hatred? How naïve can you get?

[truepurple]

Moloch is right, how ever you define heroic and even if you say that definition is irrelevant, its silly to think for example the hate of the guys in the last chapter against Qins going to evaporate just because their country has been conquered by the Qin, if anything it would become stronger. How often has history taught us that conquered nations brew and resist for a long time after the "victory", way too often.

 

So unless Shin has a final solution that involves wiping out all the people of the other nations. (and such brutal gruesome work would cause rebellion within Qin) Fine, history shows what ever this is based on really worked out. But that was luck, and that was Japanese go along with the crowd mentality. It could have easily not have worked out in RL.

 

To that end though, it is important to commit the least amount of atrocities, which Shin is trying to make so for moral reasons rather then the more pragmatic ones.

 

And since war itself feeds cycles of hate that fester long after the victory, I still say some good old fashion assassinations are in order, that and bribery, (and make a coup) a much more effective way to conquer then war, or at least a good complement to war.

Edited by truepurple, 09 December 2013 - 03:11 PM.

[Dragon88]

Moloch is right, how ever you define heroic and even if you say that definition is irrelevant, its silly to think for example the hate of the guys in the last chapter against Qins going to evaporate just because their country has been conquered by the Qin, if anything it would become stronger. How often has history taught us that conquered nations brew and resist for a long time after the "victory", way too often.

 

So unless Shin has a final solution that involves wiping out all the people of the other nations. (and such brutal gruesome work would cause rebellion within Qin) Fine, history shows what ever this is based on really worked out. But that was luck, and that was Japanese go along with the crowd mentality. It could have easily not have worked out in RL.

 

To that end though, it is important to commit the least amount of atrocities, which Shin is trying to make so for moral reasons rather then the more pragmatic ones.

 

And since war itself feeds cycles of hate that fester long after the victory, I still say some good old fashion assassinations are in order, that and bribery, (and make a coup) a much more effective way to conquer then war, or at least a good complement to war.

You do know that China was eventually united through war.  So the idea that Shin has is not naive or bad because that is exactly what happened.  China was eventually united through war and peace was achieved though it didn't happened with the Qin but later kings did it and achieved peace.  One thing that some of you guys are forgetting is that there are constant wars.  Its not like every nation is at peace and Qin is just coming to conquer them.  That is not the case, all the nations are at war constantly and there are crazy amount of deaths so Sei's plan is actually a good one.  Sacrifice thousands to save millions.  And the thing with Sei is that though he is not just making wars for his benefit of getting richer and all, he genuinely wants to unite China in order to achieve peace which to me is a great goal.  One of the thing Ouki was saying was that lot of other kings just want riches and wealth not really care about uniting China while Sei actually was thinking about the greater good.  Remember there were like no other option.  It wasn't like ow lets get along every nation and have no war.  There was no sense of peace and only way to achieve it was to unite China.  And one thing that was very interesting was when king Sho gave his message to Sei about how to unite China and treat people.  To me that was just awesome and showed great foresight.

[freeskyonline]

It is funny that people keep saying that "if they had done things like this, it would have been better/ more "heroic"/ more "noble". Why not actually stating a solution you think that is better/ an example from history when wars were won by "peaceful" solution?

i don't talk about "small" heroes, who saved some lives from a fire. This manga is about "large" people, making decisions effecting thousands of lives, and if you want to criticize them, at least think of a greater decision compared to what they made (please also consider the conditions of thousand years ago, not this era, aka. no democracy, voting,etc.)

Reading people complaining is like either "wow, if they did it like I-the-know-it-all, they would be deserved to be called "heroic" or "if only they did it like some "heroes" I imagine about". Please compare/ judge people with what WE, humans, are capable of, not gods.

P/S: I'm actually surprised that someone could link "assassination" with "heroic". Please don't say that you are inspired by "Assassin Creed" (I don't play that game, so not sure). Assassination is used to shut annoying people's mouths off (like kings to their servants) or to take some powerful figures down (I can think of Lincoln and Kennedy), not as cool as games and comics describe. And not as easy either.

P/S 2: Heroes are people who are admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.

- Courage: "Old" China (and most countries) saw "death on the battlefields" as courage (no media to boost about some firefighters saving some lives)

- Outstanding achievement: killing a bunch of people gives achievement (considering that there were no Bill Gates or Steve Jobs at that time, only nobles, farmers, traders, etc)

- Noble qualities: Yes, the monarchy system (or the one in England, I don't know what it's called) has nobles. Being born a noble already makes you "noble"/ standing higher/ having more attention than most. No one cares about us, but millions care about the noble family (example from England too).

[Sydir]

I'm curious as to what people do in every day life that isn't self serving. You want to be the CEO? Why, to donate to charity? You want a raise, why? So you have more money to eat. 

 

What's wrong with wanting to be the very best at what you do? That's selfish, now? I'll remember that later, when someone less qualified than me gets the job I want. I shall be a self-sacrificing noble character. 

[Kevin_BigMan]

Sorry patato, but seriously, I'd rather have a civil war than a war against 6 other states of china which (as you saw in the manga) can ally against one state and rape you, like seriously, you think qins king is going to just lay back and say "how about let's just protect our kingdom and not conquer china?". Ahahah *uck me! over 600k men went to kill Qin, think about if that situation happened to them again, then what? The kingdom has fallen, the end.😂😂😂😂😂😂😂👏👏👏👏👏👏 also this is a freaken manga, not all this horseshit is true, so naive of some of you guys not to put that in mind that this.is.a.fucking.M.A.N.G.A, the author said, partially of the story is made up, so how would he know what li xin's actual feelings was back thousands of years ago? Like wtf! As many others have said, look at the situation that they were in, most of the peasants had no choice but to take arms, most of them were poor so whoever survived worked harder so they wont die the next battle, like come on, head patato, dont make a forum if you cant back it up fully without covering all these freaken things.

Edited by Kevin_BigMan, 06 March 2014 - 11:03 AM.

[Bert]

I dont care about the hero bs but i had to comment on this:

"Cutting through something hard like bone, even a little bit of bone, causes alot of damage to weapons, such individuals would find themselves with such blunt and bent weapons (if not outright shattered to bits) that they would be useless."

 

You sir have no idea. First of all, bones are not as hard as you think. While they are within the body, they are in fact quite flexible. They only harden once they are exposed to air. Even thought about how a broken arm can heal?

 

Second, as long as you dont have crappy metal like the medieval japanese your blade will be just fine. It needs some serious slashing against at steel of equal quality or stone to dull or break a sword. People who did not see their katana as a part of their sould also had no problem of sharpening their blade after a fight to make sure it cuts fine.

 

You can whack someone with a wooden baseball bat to death and it will hardly break (at least i would not be confident in breaking one with my head). Why should a sword, made out of a harder material break?

 

It is easily possible to slice up unarmored people. But of course the manga is going over the top for stylistic reasons. Splitting a head is indeed hard to do, cutting right through body armor + the body should be quite impossible (although i dont know what armor that is supposed to be).

Edited by Bert, 16 March 2014 - 11:35 AM.

[Verne Jules]

Shin is fighting with his life on the line in the side of Qin. I don't see why it can't be called heroic. One could even say he's the very definition of a hero. However, some people are actually having a misconception of heroes as saints. In that respect, I'd have to say neither Shin nor Sei are saints.

 

Also, the Unification of all of China is nothing less but a great feat. I do not see such a dream it to be bad at all. Especially, it is China that Sei was talking about. Not the real Sei but the character in the manga, portrays a king who dreams to conquer all of China. Unlike our current conflicts about racism, the people there are all Chinese. And basically, the only thing that separates them from distinguishing brethren and enemies are the walls. If you look at it that way, then in a sense it would end an era of turmoil. While it's true that there'd still be wars on the boundaries of China, it would also be true that everything inside China aside from its boundaries would have in a sense peace. Because the Chinese would stop fighting among themselves. Even if conflicts do arise inside China, it wouldn't be in the scale of the large battles among the states.

[truepurple]

Bert, read this and know how clueless you are when it comes to the toughness of bones.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080629021032AAiW2Lh

You say cutting through the armor is almost impossible, well it would be infinitely easier then slicing through someones skull, especially without destroying your blade in the process.

And bones in our bodies are alive, and constantly getting remodeled etc., which is why they can knit back together when broken, your reasoning of that means they are soft is flawed in the extreme. (lots of flawed reasoning in your post, too much to respond to it all) BTW, living bone is alot stronger then dead bone usually.

 

Sure, unifying china is a reasonable goal, but that isn't the only path for peace, and throwing vast numbers of people at each other is the worst possible way to decide who should rule, unless you care nothing about the lives of common folk. Assassination for example, it's not pretty etc. but its alot more efficient with lives, means alot less death, heartache, Ill will etc. then large scale war.

Edited by truepurple, 18 March 2014 - 11:54 PM.

[Bert]

Yahoo answers, seriously? Moreover it seems you didnt even read the whole statement in your link. It says right there that bones have to be in a balance of hardness and elasticity. As for a more reliable source: http://web.mit.edu/mbuehler/www/research/PTO000041.pdf

 

its stiffness during elastic deformation spans 15-25 GPa, roughly a third of metallic aluminium; its strength, the applied stress at the onset of plastic deformation, is a few hundred MPa, comparable with aluminia ceramics; and its fracture toughness, a measure of the material's resistance to fracture, is typically 3-10 MPa/m, some 3 to 10 times as high as silicon.

(lots of flawed reasoning in your post, too much to respond to it all) - bath in your ignorance, good day sir.

 

edit: oh, and here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikVMXhcjbYc

Edited by Bert, 19 March 2014 - 04:05 AM.

[Chrysline]

[[If its tl;dr, just skim the bolded text]]

 

For a better understanding, we need to look at the political context of the time. We look through the cultural lens of our time whereas antiquity's people thought differently.

 

(#1 & #2 are from Political Science class. This is no problem, since I'm reviewing the material, haha)

1.

According to Arendt, Classical Antiquity's politics bans the question of life [BAN LIFE], unlike Modernity. Life was the concern of the household (oikos, the root for oikosnomikos/economics). The household/oikos was responsible for keeping its members alive, in doing so it enforced labor. The men of that era wanted to escape the household (boredom?).

 

One way of doing this was going to war. For them, war meant glory and serving their city. This is antagonism, wanting to defeat your enemy. Like the novel When Women Were Warriors said: "There is no need to ask for forgiveness on the battlefield." Everyone goes there knowing they could die - prepared or not. Back to Arendt, after the warriors returned to the battlefield, they needed another space to talk about war stories. This socializing eventually solidified in the agora (Greece's public fora, part of the polis/city). In the agora, politics was born, BAN LIFE meant they could do politics without taking it personally. Your public stand was the mask that you wore. (ex. the Greeks had a lot of notable orators and debates). Agonism meant making friends with having a life of always having rivals/enemies. For us the agon (root of agony) of politics is a hassle, for them this made life interesting - politics was enjoyment.

 

 

In modernity, The French Revolution is the indicator of the birth of modern democracy, and the nation state. The ideals of the enlightenment became state-wide practiced politics. The French Revolution judged people by their [intent] compassion and sincerity of pity with the poor.  Intent became the name of the game. Allowing the poor to suffer through life was no longer acceptable. [By the way, paradoxically, despite this intent, liberalism & capitalism together are systems that ensure that there will always be poor people and a rich few]. Let's address LIFE first, so we can retreat to our private lives, and LEAVE politics. This means NOT caring. 

 

Arendt said Modernity combined the issue of life with politics. The issue of life, the household, and labor - is coercive. The whole world became like the household/family, the whole world is coercive. In modernity, the state is responsible for ensuring we survive. Recall a recent restaurant meal, everything from the FDA, customs, department of health/trade/et cetera oversaw standards to ensure you wouldn't get sick. "Politics" in the modern sense is done so we could retreat back to our private lives. Politics is just a hostile hassle to us. 

(End of Arendt)

 

Is intent enough? Controversially, the French Revolution, "in the name of human freedom, introduced some of the worst forms of human oppression." "Sincerity was sufficient". The French revolutionaries could not face the artificiality of the human condition.

 

Personally, I do not believe that intent is enough. So what if people authentically say good things? It does not mean they practice it. I would respect more someone who claims to hate people, but saves lives anyway. No one knows our inner world, therefore it is easily faked. But the results of actions speak for themselves, whatever one's internal state.

 

Our modernity is far from perfect, this connects to point 4. We were pushed this way by the kinds of technologies (mechanical hardware and social software) that are available to us. Likewise, Shin and Sei are shaped by the culture and politics of their time.  

 

 

If we want to delve even deeper:

2.

Foucault compared & contrasted Classical and Modern functions of Power using 2 authors.

//Not a spoiler, but it makes the post look shorter

Spoiler

Machiavelli (16th century) 

1) defense of territory

Freedom is coextensive with territory. When you commit a crime, you do not offend the fellow citizen, but do a crime against the KING - sovereign of the land. [War-making increased territory, therefore it became an important activity for kingdoms - with most resources going to it. IMO, it makes sense for Shin to work in an important kingdom activity. Like he said, where else can a slave gain merit?]

 

2) law

Freedom existed within the bounds of the law. Outside the law, were unfreedoms. Law was the perimeter - it guards and binds. [Also, IMO, law was a heckuva lot more understandable, it wouldn't work otherwise].

 

3) common good

This is NOT the greatest common factor of individual traits (that modern liberalism leads us to believe), NOR is it an aggregation of individual goods. This is the common good as a political community.

 

The common good, the polis/city itself, living in common >>>> (is far greater than the) individual good. [If you've read Shoukoku no Altair, the Venetians fulfiled their duty as CITIZENs - they were citizen before they were friend, father, or son].

 

[I think this is close to Kingdom's politics. ]

 

La Perriere (18th century)

1) things

Modernity is concerned with the proper management and administration of things & their relations to each other. Take the census for example, we manage the Population's: birth rates, death rates, sickness, migration, identity, culture, et cetera.

 

2) convenient ends

 

Goal: Individual arrives at their convenient ends, what the person finds desirable. [The state also assures us by saying we have the right to private property - a totally invented thing. This is why we abuse nature and marginalize indigenous people. A counter principle is the universal destination of goods].

 

3) tactics and technologies

We have constant surveillance - the most concrete example is CCTVs, internet listening, and social media tracking (Yes, Facebook tracks you, beware if you do piracy). Political power is now more repressive and grand. There is Panoptical power. We are visible to structures that are invisible and productive. There is a microphysics, politics is more total and existing at every level. Power operates by creating knowledge about who we are. It seems "unquestionable", it presents itself as objective, unquestionable, and legitimized.

 

In Discipline and Punish, Foucault talks about many features of modern politics: from the managing of our soul (by social sciences), to docile bodies, to the gaze of the Panopticon that regulates our behavior. 

 

In the Philippines, we have 7,107 islands and many ethnicities. The state (through compulsory education & media)creates this national imaginary of a certain kind of "Filipino" even though each locality is so different. America is even larger, I imagine there are so many people that do not fit the stereotype. We are so focused on labels and ideologies that we do not fully encounter the person in front of us.

 

3.

In the Greek definition of Virtue (according to Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics):

Virtue is something you repeatedly do. Anyone can give lip service. In Foucault's Care of the Self, he developed the argument that the Greeks did not find self-care and self-improvement as narcissistic. Becoming a better person was a logical conclusion. Likewise, many masters in Eastern cultures focused on improving/mastering the self.

 

4.

Most people commit ethnocentrism, using one's own culture's standards to judge another. In NO way does this mean moral relativism. It means we withhold our judgment and try to understand things from the other's point of view.

 

5.

Also, this is still a historical manga. If the timeline said Qin will unite all of China, and a lot of wars happened in order to do this, then the author would contradict his very premise of history if he skipped that important aspect.

[truepurple]

Bert,

That is hardly the only source of info saying that living healthy bones are very durable.

It's funny you think that your link and video contradicts anything I said.

 

Chrysline,

Holy shit, you replying or writing a dissertation? You really lost me anyway, to my less educated eye, it seems like some of the stuff you are talking about is completely off topic. But to reply to 5, I would dispute that this is a historical manga. I would say its fantasy, with some historical names dropped in and a bit of historical setting.

Edited by truepurple, 20 March 2014 - 10:20 AM.

[megelito]

Shin sure is a great guy, but his goal of being a great general for its own sake, not so heroic.

 

For that matter, this goal of conquering China to end all wars seems kinda fishy. So even when it succeeds, then what? A unified china can then start wars with other countries, tribes etc outside of china. And what if a despot ascends the throne and starts war with his own people, then you got the joy of a civil war. 

 

War to stop wars by conquering. Aiming to be a great general, accomplishing this by fighting wars of conquest, and in the end your job of great general only leaves you needing even more wars to justify itself. 

 

Both Shin and the king boy seem to be working towards goals of greed, rather then noble goals. Rather then this nonsense, it would have been better in my opinion if they had aimed for unifying china through peace, not conquest.(which still can require fighting of course, but not as much, doesn't depend on it like conquest goal does)

 

For that matter, if they must conquer,  they should try to take nations via assassinations, coops, etc. rather then on the battle field. Some might see such as less heroic, but it means alot less senseless loss of life. 

 

It really is hard to hope they succeed in this some of the time. It really reduces this comic for me.

Solder on any military rank  don`t mind being heroic it`s the people judge if you are heroic or a cunt, and i can tell ur not reading kindom why din`t u read what shin said during a fight against mangoku shin said:its due to boundaries which we classify as inside and outside we make enemies it`s precisely we put down borderthat kingdom is form and warfare continue which is why he will be unify everything into one kingdom(problem u pessimist) 

If what you say is true then why not translate it as “legends” or something along the lines of that? This would certainly come closer to what you describe than “hero” does.

It`s history and People on that age can only judge if u are a hero or a cunt  

[God-Emperor]

Sorry for broken english I'm going to post here.

Chrysline already said all I wanted to say, just adding some things here. In modern times, you're quite one retard if you want to go in war to conquer territories. The reason is very simple. WHO FUCKING WANT TO WAGER WAR AGAINST ONE COUNTRY WITH NUKES?

You can wager war against countries without nukes but if the country is backed by one country with nukes... Well, you're pretty much fucked or you need to be fast to conquer it before the backup get here.

Another point here... Check the Crimea situation. It's more one information war rather than proper war. Who was right and wrong here, Russia or USA and their allies? They use it for propaganda to further their agenda. One good point is the killer who was killing soldiers and citizens from both sides to fuel rage and probably trying to begin one civil war while both sides blame another one for this.

I dont care about the hero bs but i had to comment on this:
"Cutting through something hard like bone, even a little bit of bone, causes alot of damage to weapons, such individuals would find themselves with such blunt and bent weapons (if not outright shattered to bits) that they would be useless."
 
You sir have no idea. First of all, bones are not as hard as you think. While they are within the body, they are in fact quite flexible. They only harden once they are exposed to air. Even thought about how a broken arm can heal?
 
Second, as long as you dont have crappy metal like the medieval japanese your blade will be just fine. It needs some serious slashing against at steel of equal quality or stone to dull or break a sword. People who did not see their katana as a part of their sould also had no problem of sharpening their blade after a fight to make sure it cuts fine.
 
You can whack someone with a wooden baseball bat to death and it will hardly break (at least i would not be confident in breaking one with my head). Why should a sword, made out of a harder material break?
 
It is easily possible to slice up unarmored people. But of course the manga is going over the top for stylistic reasons. Splitting a head is indeed hard to do, cutting right through body armor + the body should be quite impossible (although i dont know what armor that is supposed to be).

Yeah, I've been considering mentioning this somewhere. In kingdom you see skulls sliced in half. Not only would it require superman strength to do something like slice through a persons head/skull, (and all the other bone shown to easily cut through) Cutting through something hard like bone, even a little bit of bone, causes alot of damage to weapons, such individuals would find themselves with such blunt and bent weapons (if not outright shattered to bits) that they would be useless. Many people in this comic are like a hundred times or even a thousand times or more, strong then is possible to be in real life, with weapons of hardness and durability that are equally absurd.

You can cut skulls if you want but if you use it all time with sword the blade is going to suffer from this and it's going to get small chips or fissures in the edge of blade because you're using it way too much and your blade is going to break off.
The best weapon to cut things and going on without worrying about this are axes. Yeah, you got it right. The fucking axes are the best weapons if one zombie mob comes in your direction. You can use it even after losing the edge of blade like one blunt weapon without worrying about weapon breaking off. Just apply more strength to cut the skull.

Hmm, China some island of mainland with no people around it? What do you think the Great wall was about? And there was Genghis Khan and the Mongols.
 
And here from another history based comic (since I know very little about actual chinese history)
 
A way to have peace without conquering all of China, the Three Kingdoms.
http://vatoto.com/read/_/85095/ryuurouden_v2_ch7_by_jankenpon-scanlations/31
 
Rebellion within China.
http://vatoto.com/read/_/85107/ryuurouden_v5_ch16_by_mangascreener/6
 
I don't know how all this fits with the history Kingdom is loosely based on, but it does verify what I was saying before, there are other, and potentially better, ways of creating peace then total conquest and all that effort to conquer all of China could easily result in massive death and destruction yet have war continue on all the same. So for these fools to rush head long into bloody long conquest war, without giving any other path consideration at all, not heroic.

Another way to unite countries is by marrying off the son/daughter of another country and both countries merges. Common in medieval Europe but it's inane in actual times.

Solder on any military rank  don`t mind being heroic it`s the people judge if you are heroic or a cunt, and i can tell ur not reading kindom why din`t u read what shin said during a fight against mangoku shin said:its due to boundaries which we classify as inside and outside we make enemies it`s precisely we put down borderthat kingdom is form and warfare continue which is why he will be unify everything into one kingdom(problem u pessimist) 

It`s history and People on that age can only judge if u are a hero or a cunt

Or one hero who is one cunt too.

[OP Origins]

A great man once said: Honor: if you need it defined, you don't have it.

That being said, if you need to define what makes a hero, you're don't know a hero.

[silveus]

Truepurple, i understand what you're trying to say, but your argument has an awful lot of problems. the biggest one is the disconnect between the modern, and mostly fictional, concept of a hero, and then realistic one from back then.

 

Modern heroism is an ideal, and not something that is ever really achieved. Give some examples of modern, or even ancient heros that conform to the modern idea of a hero. There are very few, if any.

 

The idea of a completely selfless person who sacrifices everything he/she has for the sake of good, is incredibly rare. a person who does that, and then still manages to achieve anything is rarer still.

 

a random person who runs into a burning building to save a stranger has done a heroic deed, but i don't think one heroic deed makes a hero. it's an outlook on life and a history of consistently doing heroic deeds that makes a person a hero.

 

while a doctor who goes to warzones to heal the injured, or a fire fighter who consistently enters burning buildings might be hero's, their actions are largely irrelevant in the big picture. both might have saved 100's of lives, but those lives are all of average people. society would continue on unchanged without them.

 

I can think of very few people who put their own lives on the line, did the selfless thing, and also achieved something huge. Ghandi would be one.

 

Kingdom is based on real history. their problems are real world problems, and their solutions are real world solutions. the fantasy ideal of a modern hero has no place in real world problems. regardless of era.

 

 

 

you suggest assassination or peace talks as an alternative to conquest. but both of these have their own issues.

 

Starting with assassination.

 

First of all, your willingness to considered assassination as a better solution indicates that you're concerned about the end result, not the means. I agree with this sentiment.

 

The problem with assassination is that it's a method to remove a problem, not a method to create stability. And stability is what's needed for peace. The effectiveness of assassination is also very random. President Kennedy was assassinated, and largely nothing happened from it. America did not fall to outside powers after his death, the country's stances did not change. but america is a stable country with a rather odd government system. It allowed for an effective and simple replacement system. America is held together by laws.

 

On the other hand, a country held together by a strong man who keeps power to himself, assassination will invite chaos. what do you think would happen if Kim Jong Un were assassinated? It wouldn't be pretty.

 

With the head guy gone, the remaining people will compete to see who can take his place. That will always create chaos. Even if their is a clear candidate to take over and there is no internal strife, then your assassination was largely pointless. the country is at worse developing into chaotic infighting, and at best, exactly the same as before, except now they are angry at someone for assassinating their leader.

 

you could in theory, keep assassinating the replacement leaders, but there is a question of how effective that would be. for one, the actual leader does very little administrative work. the leader sets direction, and then underlings make it happen. without a leader, the country can still effectively function.

 

think of it as a captain on a ship. he gives directions, and the others follow them. but the captain doesn't manually make the ship move, or steer it, or power the generators, or make food, or do anything. without the captain, the crew can still keep the ship powered, keep it moving, and keep themselves alive.

 

Now, you could assassinate everyone who keeps the country running. the ministers, councilors, administrators, even the local mayors and the like. that would create some form of stability, but the people would be living in caves at that point.

 

A final problem with assassination is that it can easily fail, and just become impossible.

 

so with that said, i ask you to name some examples where an assassination brought peace.

 

 

your next choice was via peace talks. And while, in theory, having everyone agree to stop fighting, and disarm, would lead to peace, that would never happen. for a whole slew of reasons.

 

first, nothing guarantees someone wont break the peace accord. and some one will. they always do. once the potential gain outweighs the costs, someone will. Russia seizing part of Ukraine is a good example. once they were confident they could do it, and that doing so would bring them more benefit that not doing it, they went right ahead.

 

Second, no one would ever agree. the strong states, Chu and Qin, would want something for their agreement to end wars. they'll need to take something from the other weaker states, and those will never agree.

 

the problem is, they aren't all fighting over past grudges, but also over scarce resources, Food, water, land, wealth. there isn't enough of those things for the 7 states, so they steal what they need from each other. an alliance between the seven states just means that they get to share shortages of goods amongst each other.

 

Eventually, someone will realize that everyone else isn't expecting a war anymore, and that all this not having food sucks, and spring a surprise attack on the others.

 

 

Now lets talk conquest.

 

Sure, tons of people are going to die in these wars. but those people were going to die in the chaos brought forth by all of those assassinations. Or in the food shortages caused my the peace deals.

 

but on the plus side of conquest, you know it works, and you know how it works. Assassination can just fail at any point, and the results can, and often are, unpredictable. a peace treaty can be broken at any time.

 

Further, after you conquered everyone, yeah, they will hate you for a while. but once they realize how great not getting conscripted into battle is, they will have a change of heart. and that's assuming you do nothing else after conquering them.

 

the big draw to conquering them, is that you now have 1 centralized government. Taxes can be collected amongst the whole empire, and that money can be cycled back into improving the infrastructure. not to mention you can massively downsize the standing armies, so those people can go back to the fields and their trades. with strong roads, strong irrigation, bridges, everything gets better. science advances due to more people being able to work on things.

 

Not only are less lives now being lost to war, but the over all quality of life has risen.

 

On the other hand, you have the general chaos that was left behind after you assassinated everyone in a country. all of the administrators are dead, so at best the people can form small tribal villages.

 

Or, you have a bunch of nations signing a peace deal, and then anxiously watching each other waiting for one to break the deal, or preparing to be the one to break the deal. all the while they must sill maintain an army, and there is little cooperation between the states.

 

 

 

Anyway, that's all i have to say. I understand your sentiments that peace through massive war doesn't sound great, but there really isn't a viable alternative

[saiga6360]

What is considered 'heroic' is not universal even in our times, what makes you think your definition matters to the people of Qin?  In the warring states era, if you kill many enemies and their generals, you are a hero.

 

As for the unification of China vs continous warring states?  Is this even worth debating?  Sure there will always be resentment but the greater evil is contnuous war and bloodshed and the hope is that time will heal all wounds in times of peace.