• sudo@programming.dev
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    6 days ago

    If you want a sample of how crazy Chinese history can get look at the Tai Ping rebellion:

    • Student fails Civil Servant Exam for the third time and has a mental breakdown
    • starts claiming he’s Jesus’ little brother who trained him to fight demons in his dreams
    • more dead than WWI
    • Godort@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      There was also that time a prison guard lost a prisoner during a transfer, and because the punishment for such a crime was death, he released all his prisoners, became their leader, and overthrew the monarchy.

      • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
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        6 days ago

        There’s a few examples throughout history where having an insane punishment for a crime has caused serious problems.

        • riwo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 days ago

          this is such a typical issue in hierarchical structures and i love it because its so what they deserve

        • Godort@lemmy.ca
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          6 days ago

          There have probably been a few, but they’re almost certainly all Chinese.

          The guy’s name was Liu Bang if you want to read up about it

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Wasn’t there at least one other time where “failure means death” turned into “guess we might as well just try to take over”?

        Time I’m thinking about was when an emperor had summoned some warlords to be there by x date or die and one group realized they weren’t going to make it by the date, so since they had their armies with them anyways, they just pivoted from answering summons to invading/conquering. Not sure that one worked out though.

        • fibojoly@sh.itjust.works
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          5 days ago

          Yes! I clearly remember reading about that one, but it was Japan. Something about being summoned and if you ain’t on time, well, clearly you are a traitor and it means death. They get late so they decide to just go with the flow. I looked it up but no luck :/

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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      6 days ago

      You doubt Jesus Hong Christ?

      That’s it, Wing King Shi Dakai Lord of Five Thousand Years is going to escort you out of the Heavenly Kingdom.

      Now you won’t ever get to eat grass with the Heavenly King.

  • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    There’s a period of time where the population of China legitimately moved in a sawtooth pattern, as they had a massive war every few generations and wiped out a chunk of their population.

  • slothrop@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    …some hooligans and gadabouts were gaoled for overturning dustbins on Hampstead Heath…

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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    6 days ago

    The Ancient Chinese were certainly good at recordkeeping*, having a unified kingdom and being a lot of people.

    *numbers to be taken with a grain of salt, but European countries often just didn’t make or preserve records at all.