When it comes to ancient Chinese history, everyone will feel that Chinese rarely expanded, from the Qin and Han dynasties to modern times, our basic territory has not changed much, especially the densely populated areas, basically in the Tang and Song Dynasties and even the Han Dynasty were determined, there was not much expansion. This gives us the illusion that ancient China rarely expanded, so is this really the case?
The territory of the Western Han Dynasty is basically similar to that of now
Of course not, the expansion of territory is almost the inevitable choice of every great power, great power, empire, every country is like this, the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, China, are like this, there are only two situations in which territory is not expanded, either the strength is exhausted, or it is expanded to the extreme.
Map of the Tang Dynasty
Have you run out of strength? Of course, there are times when the expansion has reached a certain level, and the total strength is not enough, but for China, this is not the case, especially in the Han and Tang Dynasties, China almost fought invincible hands all over the world, like the last years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the world was in chaos, and any frontier warlord could also suppress the surrounding barbarians, a Han soldier could withstand five Xiongnu soldiers, not to mention other barbarians, no one could challenge China at that time. However, with such a powerful force, the Han and Tang dynasties seemed to have lost their motivation, even if they expanded, they quickly recovered, which also occurred in the Ming Dynasty, and the Two Dynasties of Hongwu and Yongle in the Ming Dynasty were also conquering the east and the west, fighting invincible hands all over the world, but later, they took it back.
Once or twice, it can be said that some people have brain pumping, but several times it is like this, which shows that it is not a leadership problem, but the expansion has encountered the extreme. And indeed it is.
The territories acquired by the United States were cheap at the time
We have to understand that territory is valuable, some territories are very valuable, some territories are very cheap, for example, two million square kilometers is not a vast territory? Many countries have not reached this level, but the French sold such a large area of Louisiana to the United States for $15 million, you know that the French mainland did not even arrive a million square kilometers, but if you let the French sell 10 square kilometers of the mainland to the United States, he estimated that he would not die, why, the value of the two is different. Mainland France is fertile land for development, while Louisiana is a wild land.
For example, the largest island in the world is Greenland, with two million square kilometers, belonging to the small country of Denmark, but no country wants to occupy it, why, because Greenland is ice, the population is only tens of thousands, there is no valuable mineral, there is no value.
The nomads are poor and pitiful
Then when ancient China wanted to expand, it was also faced with such worthless land. To the east, we have expanded to the sea, to the west, to the Gobi and the desert, to the north to the grasslands, and to the south to the jungle.
Because of poverty, the nomads came out to grab it
Gobi and desert needless to say, even if there is no oil and other minerals now, there are few people, not to mention ancient times, we said that the north and south, the north of the grassland, very suitable for nomadic people to raise horses, but for the farming people, it is difficult to have any value, farming people need farmland, in fact, we also try to farm in some places, but the efficiency and the Central Plains can not be compared. As for raising horses and cattle, it sounds good, but in ancient times, everyone should understand that the ancient peasants were far richer than the herders, and there were many more people who could feed the land than the nomads, whether it was the Roman Empire or China, why did the nomads desperately want to fight the farming peoples, because they were too poor and starved to death, so they had to give up their lives to grab it, if the peoples on the steppe were very rich, they didn't bother to come out. Every time there is a great famine in the steppe, it will lead to a great migration of nomadic peoples, which is forced.
For our ancient China, the grassland that could not be farmed was of no value at all, so for the nomads in the north, we could only drive away things, after all, the grassland was of little value.
As for the jungle in the south, the same is true, of course, the situation is more complicated, but the development cost is too high. Jungle can not be farmed, need large-scale development to become farmland, and the south of the jungle is too dense, many mountains and forests, are the reasons for the impact of development, take Jiangnan and the two lakes, these places are considered to be the areas that have long been controlled by ancient China, but to be fully developed, Jiangnan also needs to be in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the two lakes need to be song dynasty, this is because these two places the plains have more lakes and more populations, and the degree of development in the far south is doubled, so before the relatively good development of the areas There is certainly no incentive to continue expanding.
Therefore, for ancient China, it has reached the limit of expansion, and there is no incentive to expand.