美论坛为何古代中国没有像凯撒和亚历山大大帝那样伟大的征服者

　　古代中国不是没有征服者，而是太多了，而且更高级。秦始皇、汉武帝、唐太宗都是征服者，不过中国人讲的不是征服而是统一，统一比简单的征服高级多了，也难多了。并且时至今日，放眼全球，还能守住几百上千年疆域边界的国家唯有中国，没有之一！
　　在美版知乎上有美国网友发出这样的提问：为什么古代中国没有产生像凯撒大帝和亚历山大大帝那样伟大的征服者? 这位美国网友有可能是被美国两百多年的历史遮住了自己的双眼，才会问出这样无知的问题。让我们来看看国外网友是如何回复他的吧。
　　论坛话题：为什么古代中国没有产生像凯撒大帝和亚历山大大帝那样伟大的征服者?
　　美国网友Brandon的观点
　　The problem is that too many people accept the Chinese national myth that China is a peaceful nation that has never attacked others. This is patently false. China didn’t emerge from the primordial muck fully formed as the third largest nation on the planet. It became so large by conquering and integrating land that was inhabited by other peoples.
　　问题是太多人接受了中国的民族神话，认为中国是一个从不攻击别人的和平民族。这显然是错误的。中国并没有从原始的淤泥中完全形成，成为地球上第三大国家。它通过征服和整合其他民族居住的土地而变得如此庞大。
　　The first great conqueror of China was Ying Zheng, the king of Qin. Roughly contemporaneous with Alexander of Macedon, he conquered all the states of the North China Plain by 220 BC at age 38 and proclaimed himself Qin Shihuang. In the next few years, he campaigned southwards and expanded the Chinese world further than it had ever reached. By the time he died, the Qin Empire stretched from the edge of the Eurasian steppe into the jungles of Vietnam.
　　中国第一个伟大的征服者是秦王嬴政。秦始皇大约与马其顿的亚历山大同时代，他在公元前220年征服了华北平原的所有国家，当时他38岁，自称秦始皇。在接下来的几年里，他向南进军，将华人的世界扩大到前所未有的范围。到他去世的时候，秦朝帝国已经从欧亚大草原的边缘延伸到了越南的丛林。
　　This realm was similar in size to Alexander’s empire and had a similar aftermath. Neither empire outlasted its founder’s death for long, but although the expanded Hellenic world created by Alexander collapsed within 300 years, the Sinosphere continued to expand over millennia.
　　这个王国的规模与亚历山大的帝国相似，其后果也类似。两个帝国都没有比其创始人死得更久，但尽管亚历山大建立的扩张的希腊世界在300年内崩溃了，但汉化圈在数千年里继续扩张。
　　Later emperors would rule even larger polities. For example, Li Shimin, who founded the Tang Dynasty alongside his father whom he would go on to depose went on to rule an empire even larger than Rome’s. Tang soldiers occupied swathes Korea, the jungles of Vietnam, and even marched across thousands of miles of desert and mountains to subjugate territories in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Although the Tang never settled the Mongolian steppe to their north, they succeeded in annihilating the Eastern Turkic Khaganate that ruled it, eliminating the nomad threat for generations. All of this was accomplished in a single lifetime.
　　后来的皇帝统治着更大的政体。例如，李世民和他的父亲一起建立了唐朝，他的父亲后来被他废黜，他统治的帝国甚至比罗马帝国还大。唐朝士兵占领了朝鲜半岛，越南的丛林，甚至行军越过数千英里的沙漠和山脉，征服了阿富汗和中亚的领土。虽然唐朝从未在北方的蒙古草原上定居，但他们成功地消灭了统治那里的东突厥汗国，消除了几代人的游牧威胁。这一切都是在一个人的一生中完成的。
　　The Tang are in yellow while the subjugated polities on their borders are in brown
　　唐朝是黄色的，而边界上的被征服的政体是棕色的
　　The real issue is the over lionization of certain Western military figures. The campaigns of Hannibal, Julius Caesar, and Alexander have been studied and repeated so often that they have attained a certain mythic aura around them. They were certainly some of the most gifted military minds in human history, but the rest of the world held some serious talent too. Men like Cyrus, Khalid ibn al-Walid, Chandragupta Maurya, and Li Shimin conquered huge tracts of land and helped build long lasting empires, but are often left by the wayside in discussions of great conquerors out of no fault of their own.
　　真正的问题是对某些西方军事人物的过度崇拜。汉尼拔、尤里乌斯·凯撒和亚历山大的战役被研究和重复得如此频繁，以至于他们获得了某种神话光环。他们无疑是人类历史上最有天赋的军事头脑，但世界其他地方也有一些真正的人才。像居鲁士、哈立德·本·瓦利德、旃陀罗笈多和李世民这样的人征服了大片土地，帮助建立了持久的帝国，但在讨论伟大的征服者并不是他们自己的过错时，他们经常被遗弃在路边。
　　美国网友Ken Kaneki的观点
　　Very Easy before unified China was a thing 2k+ yrs ago there were 6 nations at each other’s throats literally with brutal massive bloodshed only second to what the Christians did but thats because that happened before Christianity so population was not as great as when Christians went bonkers.
　　很简单，在统一中国之前，2000年前有6个国家相互厮杀，残酷的大规模流血事件仅次于基督教徒，但那是因为那发生在基督教之前，所以人口没有基督教徒疯狂时那么多。
　　After one of the six nations beat the others and unified and made the concept of China they have broken again and China has always been fighting China ever since unable to expand barely holding itself. Their empires lasting 200 yrs some just a few yrs. Unlike how Romans lasted for 1k+ yrs or Islamic Caliphates lasting for 500 and 600 yrs both Or Persian empires ruling as large an area as China and probably bigger especially with myriad of different peoples and ethnicity yet lasting longer.
　　在六国中的一个打败了其他国家，统一了中国，形成了中国的概念之后，他们再次崩溃了，中国一直战乱不断，从那以后，中国无法扩张，几乎无法保持自己。他们的帝国持续了200年，有些只持续了几年。不像罗马人持续了1000年，伊斯兰哈里发持续了500年和600年，或者波斯帝国统治了和中国一样大的地区，可能更大，特别是有无数不同的民族和种族，但持续的时间更长。
　　China since first unification has been ruled by Mongols and Manchurians the Qing and last dynasty of imperial China. PRC just inherited their predecessor’s territory mainly because China’s main population are considered one ethnicity with nationalism so they stayed one nation unlike for example the Ottoman empire had many different ethnicities. Yes, China has many minority groups but their majority is over a billion… I dunno how China was able to form this one humongous ethnic group and convinced them that they are one people but they did a great job, may be because they look similar?
　　自第一次统一以来，中国一直由蒙古人和满洲人统治，清朝和中国帝国的最后一个王朝。中华人民共和国只是继承了他们前任的领土，主要是因为中国的主要人口被认为是一个民族主义，所以他们是一个国家，不像奥斯曼帝国有许多不同的民族。是的，中国有许多少数民族，但他们的多数人口超过10亿，我不知道中国是如何形成这个庞大的民族，并说服他们，他们是一个民族，但他们做得很好，可能是因为他们长得很像吧?
　　Probably the main reason they have not broken into countless nations is because China has not really been invaded by ＂outsiders＂ like how Romans were dealing with the Caliphate and Europe, Slavic people, etc. China was also able to convince their minority groups who ruled china like the Mongols that they are actually also Chinese. So Genghis khan according to them is actually Chinese because Mongols are Chinese…..
　　可能他们没有分裂成无数国家的主要原因是因为中国没有真正被＂外来者＂入侵，就像罗马人对待哈里发和欧洲，斯拉夫人等人那样。中国也能够说服那些统治中国的少数民族，比如蒙古人，他们实际上也是中国人。根据他们的说法，成吉思汗实际上是中国人，因为蒙古人是中国人.....
　　However, China’s empire is not the only place to hold onto their identity. There are remnants of the Caliphates today because Muslims or I should say a lot of Muslims all over the world from Muslim majority countries consider themselves all one nation pided by the west and dictators because to them ethnicity is not a problem since Islam is supposedly universal and does not care about these things and only unites them. Some Orthodox Christians also believe in the return of the Roman empire to unite them again.
　　然而，中华帝国并不是唯一一个保持他们身份的地方。今天还有一些哈里发的残余，因为穆斯林，或者我应该说，来自世界各地穆斯林占多数的国家的很多穆斯林认为他们自己都是一个被西方和独裁者分裂的国家，因为对他们来说，种族不是问题，因为伊斯兰教被认为是普遍的，不关心这些事情，只团结他们。一些东正教徒也相信罗马帝国会再次统一他们。
　　中国网友的观点
　　This reminds me of a joke within the Chinese netizen community.
　　这让我想起了中国网民社区里的一个笑话。
　　Whenever someone makes statements about how Chinese don＂t have conquerors or how peaceful the Chinese are because they never conquered other country.
　　每当有人说中国人没有征服者，或者中国人是多么和平，因为他们从未征服过其他国家。
　　The standard answer was: The Chinese started off as a small village along the Yellow River and now its borders resembles a giant rooster. Where do you think those lands came from? Buy one get one free coupon from McDonald＂s?
　　标准答案是:中国人最初是黄河沿岸的一个小村庄，现在它的边界就像一只巨大的公鸡。你觉得那些土地是从哪里来的?麦当劳买一送一优惠券?
　　曾在中国留学的美国网友的观点
　　Where is Caesar’s empire now? And where is Alexander’s empire now? And where is China now?
　　凯撒的帝国现在在哪里?亚历山大的帝国现在在哪里?中国现在在哪里?
　　Just because Caesar and Alexander were lionized, doesn’t mean that these guys were indeed good for their country, or their people, or even their own family. Objectively, they started a process that over-taxed their national wealth, over-glorified violence, and bled too much the blood of their young men. And you know what they say: live by the sword, die by the sword. They set up an incentive system where you got paid by killing other people. So their own families went genetically extinct pretty soon, wiped out by their own ＂family and friends＂, and their empires died in a firestorm of violence.
　　仅仅因为凯撒和亚历山大被奉为英雄，并不意味着这些人确实对他们的国家、他们的人民、甚至他们自己的家庭有好处。 客观上，他们开始了一个对他们的国家财富过度征税、过度美化暴力并让他们的年轻人流血过多的过程。 你知道他们在说什么：生于剑下，死于剑下。 他们建立了一个激励系统，你可以通过杀死其他人来获得报酬。 所以他们自己的家族很快就在基因上灭绝了，被他们自己的＂家人和朋友＂消灭，他们的帝国在一场暴力风暴中消亡。
　　It’s like playing Monopoly. If you spend all your money occupying ＂property＂, leaving nothing to ＂develop the property＂, you go bankrupt pretty quickly. The Chinese never had the urge to take territories it can not develop, and developing a place usually takes at least ten times more time, effort, and money than just conquering it. Pretty much every single Chinese emperor who started a war, stopped the war and returned the state back to peaceful state within his own reign, urgently halting the cycle of violence and destruction.
　　就像玩大富翁。如果你把所有的钱都花在＂财产＂上，没有留下任何＂开发财产＂的钱，你很快就会破产。中国人从来没有冲动去占领他们无法开发的领土，开发一个地方通常比征服它花费至少十倍的时间、精力和金钱。几乎每一个发动战争的中国皇帝，都在自己的统治下停止了战争，让国家回到了和平的状态，紧急地停止了暴力和破坏的循环。
　　All the places the Chinese went, they immediately started making farmland, building roads, planting fruit trees, setting up schools, marrying with the local people, and appointing local officials selected through national exams, who would then be evaluated on the composite KPI right away. And keep doing it for the next 300 years at least. They ended up with developed land and civilized people, making them cash cows instead of money sinks. Basically, the way the KPIs were set up in ancient China, is that you really only get paid if the place you manage became rich, peaceful, and filled with learned people. Otherwise it’s not worth it. All successful Chinese dynasties ended up with their direct offspring numbering in millions, or even tens of millions, today.
　　中国人所到之处，立即开始开垦农田，修路，种植果树，建立学校，与当地人联姻，任命通过国家考试选出的地方官员，然后立即根据综合KPI对他们进行评估。至少在接下来的300年里还会继续这样做。他们最终拥有了发达的土地和文明的人民，使他们成为摇钱树而不是摇钱树。基本上，中国古代建立kpi的方式是，只有当你管理的地方变得富裕、和平、充满学者时，你才会得到报酬。否则就不值得了。所有成功的中国朝代，他们的直系后代在今天都有数百万甚至数千万。
　　The funny thing is that 2,000 years later, each still behaves in the same way. Places like Afghanistan, next door to China, even if you PAY the Chinese, they wouldn’t take it. And you have NATO staying there for 16 years already, bleeding and paying the Taliban not to attack them, and allowing their own homeland to be filled with Afghan refugees and awash with Afghan-grown Heroin! That’s how they ＂defend Europe＂ 5,000 km’s away!
　　有趣的是，2000年后，它们的行为方式仍然相同。像阿富汗这样的地方，中国的隔壁，即使你付钱给中国人，他们也不会接受。北约已经在那里呆了16年，流血，付钱让塔利班不要袭击他们，让他们自己的家园充满阿富汗难民，充斥着阿富汗产的海洛因!这就是他们在5000公里外＂保卫欧洲＂的方式!
　　新加坡网友的观点
　　The Chinese had great conquerers, Qing that united the whole China. Han that went south into Vietnam, Ching that took Tibet, Sinjiang, Mongolia and Korea. Other than Sun Tze, the rest are barely known outside China since they are not relevant to the Western narrative of conquests, slavery and colonialism.
　　中国人有伟大的征服者，清朝统一了整个中国。汉朝南下越南，清朝占领西藏、新疆、蒙古和朝鲜。除了孙策，其他人在中国以外几乎不为人知，因为他们与西方的征服、奴役和殖民主义叙事无关。
　　Western history and civilisation is traced back to the Greeks and Romans. Hence, Alexander and Caesar are relevant cultural icons of inspiration.
　　西方的历史和文明可以追溯到希腊人和罗马人。因此，亚历山大和凯撒是相关的灵感文化偶像。
　　But if you compare at the reach of the civilisations today : The current land mass of China is 9,596,961 km2 which is almost double that of EU 4,475,757 km2.
　　但如果你比较今天的文明范围:中国目前的陆地面积为9,596,961平方公里，几乎是欧盟4,475,757平方公里的两倍。
　　Yes, what Alexander and Caesar has achieved are rather …small time… by comparison.
　　是的，相比之下，亚历山大和凯撒所取得的成就微不足道。
　　比利时历史爱好网友的观点
　　Who says that? Chinese history starts with expansion. China started as a few kingdoms in Eastern Coast. They went on spreading North, South and West continuously. During Tang dynasty China and Abbasids fought for dominance in Transoxiana.
　　谁说的?中国历史始于扩张。中国最初是东海岸的几个王国。他们不断地向北、南、西扩张。在唐朝时期，中国和阿巴斯王朝争夺在河中的统治地位。
　　I think people don’t consider it a great expansion because Chinese integrated (assimilated) almost all conquered people into a single nation and they still hold most of their expansion territory. If tiny countries such as Greece, Italy or Mongolia have Alexander, Rome or Genghis in their history, it catches attention. If China lost all the territories and was a smaller country in eastern coast, people might be amazed about how ancient Chinese went all the way to Transoxiana.
　　我认为人们不认为这是一次伟大的扩张，因为中国人几乎把所有被征服的人融合(同化)成一个单一的国家，他们仍然拥有大部分的扩张领土。如果希腊、意大利或蒙古这样的小国历史上有亚历山大、罗马或成吉思汗，就会引起人们的注意。如果中国失去了所有的领土，成为东部沿海的一个小国，人们可能会惊讶于古代中国人是如何一路走到河中地区的。
　　Longest struggle in Chinese history is their fight with nomads in the north. It is exactly like Romans and Germans. The difference is people focus on Roman expansion to North and their defeats against Germans is considered as a sign of decline.
　　中国历史上最长的斗争是他们与北方游牧民族的斗争。就像罗马人和日耳曼人一样。不同的是，人们关注的是罗马向北扩张，他们对日耳曼人的失败被认为是衰落的标志。
　　In China the expansion part is ignored and the struggle to keep nomads in North away from the land they initially captured is used to paint a defensive image.
　　在中国，扩张的部分被忽略了，让北方游牧民族远离他们最初占领的土地的斗争被用来描绘一种防御性的形象。
　　First time a nomad confederacy was formed and started serious struggle with China corresponds with Qin expansion. Qin pushed nomads away from all fertile lands in Yellow River basin. That is what started the millennia long struggle of nomads and Chinese. It is not a coincidence that Modu Kagan formed a Nomadic Empire in 220 BC, but there was no Modu Kagan before Qin expansion to North. Nomads were living their own pastoral lives until Chinese pushed them away from their life lines.
　　第一次形成游牧联盟，并与中国展开了激烈的斗争，这与秦朝的扩张是一致的。秦朝把游牧民族赶出了黄河流域所有肥沃的土地。这就是游牧民族和中国人几千年斗争的开始。莫都卡根在公元前220年建立了一个游牧帝国，这并非巧合，但在秦朝北扩张之前，没有莫都卡根。游牧民族一直过着自己的田园生活，直到中国人把他们赶出了自己的生命线。
　　Great wall of China is the boundary between fertile Yellow river basin and Gobi Desert. Even modern day China-Mongolia border makes sure Mongolia gets no river basin. Yellow river goes north in inner Mongolia and flows very close to Gobi Desert. Actually south of the river is also the Ordos Desert (gets its name from Turkic word for Army Ordu). However, the wall encloses this region as well. They made sure noone else got any resources. Rest of Chinese history is keeping these lands, fighting to keep nomads from resources and starve in Desert.
　　中国的长城是肥沃的黄河流域和戈壁沙漠之间的边界。即使是现代的中蒙边界也确保蒙古没有流域。黄河在内蒙古向北流，离戈壁沙漠很近。实际上，河的南部也是鄂尔多斯沙漠(得名于突厥语，意思是军队奥尔都)。然而，城墙也包围了这个区域。他们确保没有其他人得到任何资源。中国的其他历史都在保护这些土地，与游牧民族斗争，不让他们获得资源，饿死在沙漠里。