Hi, I'm a Korean who played STW a lot, but not these days because recently I'm very busy with my job.
I've read a lot of articles here too, but haven't posted a message mainly because I can say I'm not good at English.
I would like to comment a few things on the history regarding expansion pack, Mongol Invasion.
Well, I'm personally very interested in history in general, and Japanese history is no exception. Although I did not major in history at college, I have read a lot of books on Japanese history both written in Korean and Japanese, and even I have read a series of books on samurai in English(!) by Stephen Turnbull, a well-known British authority of Japanese history whom many of you will know because I wanted to know how her history is understood in view of western people.
As you know, the 3 countries in far east asia- Korea, China, Japan- they all use the Chinese Character in their languages, though pronounces a slightly different each other.
For example, the character meaning 'a person' is read 'ren' in Chinese, 'in' in korean, 'jin' in Japanese. Another a simple word, 'the light', could be 'ming', 'myung', 'mei' which some of you would be familiar with as the chinese dynasty name itself, the Ming dynasty.
Again, the Japanese word 'Kensai', which 'Keomsa' in Korean - which would be the name of an another additional unit to the expansion pack, can be very roughly translated as 'the Sword Master' but I don't personally think it's an appropriate usage. 'kensai' can't be a master, it should be at least 'Kensei' or 'Keomseong'.
What I'm trying to say by these boring examples is, that there are both very wide similarities and differences in 3 countries that are so subtle that I think most of you can't understand truly.
This is of course true to me when I studied european history I felt it can't be easy for me to understand Germans or French well more than British people could. They all have common Greek and Roman traditions deeply in their history, the languages are similar, and the Christianity.
But what I felt here in STW forum is, that
many people understands history only in a view of Japanese. Yeah I could understand that, because Japanese history has been well introduced to the west. There's a lot of study in history of Japan in english compared to that of Korean.
The problem is, there hasn't been almost any western historian who could study far east asian history in a balanced view- mainly because the language incapacity.
That explains the simple error what historians of 19C researching Steppes of Middle Asia made.
Historians who can speak only chinese could not read more than articles written by chinese, thus he could only get historical view point that of chinese. As Chinese were constantly in hostile condition with these Steppe countries(Mongols, Tartars, Chi-tans, etc.) their description of Steppe people is ridiculous. 'Babarians, having blue eyes and red face, having blond hair, no culture kill each other all the times blar blar'.
Nonsense. they have black hair, yellow face.
The reason that makes their way of living is nowadays explained as the poor soil itself, but not they are native babarians.
Well, that can be slightly adopted to the way of view you have in Korean history. Do you know a something about Korean history? What you read from the book or studied in schools are all just translations of what Japanese wrote.
Let me tell you one thing. Back to the Stephen Turnbull. As I told above, I read a few of his books interestingly, but astonished to found that it wasn't more than translation of Japanese history books. I mean he didn't copied it, but he had historical view point of just what Japanese historians urge to. If you read toward the
end of Sengoku-Jidai, you could find Korean-Japanese war or, what Japanese say Hideyoshi's Korean Campaigns.
There he describes korea as an almost barbarian, rogue state. he says there were only social ranks- aristrocracy and slaves. the soil were poor, and the officials were
totally lack of ability, thinking only of their pleasure. the soldiers were lack of courage. no fight will for them.....and so on....
Guys, do you think this can be fair? Of course I think Japanese historians may well wrote so because they were in war with Korea. But, don't you feel is it childish or awkward statement? do you believe that?
I'll tell you only one thing. If you only know only a little of confucian culture, you can't ignorant of 'sa, nong, kong, sang' or 'shi,no, ko, sho' for Japanese- the scholarly, agricultural, industrial, and mercantile classes; the traditional four classes of society.
The Japanese people who lived along the west coastal line especially island of kyushu near Korea were notorious of pirates because they couldn't get enough rice yields, so Koreans exported rice, imported silvers.
I just could laugh. The rest of descriptions were somewhat Saddam Hussein could say to Americans.
I recently visited his Homepage and found that after he has finished a series of Japanese history, he is also now preparing books on Korean military history and made some introduction to it. here's some quote:
Here's a few notes to set the scene for my new book, 'Hunting the Tiger'.
To the popular mind, Korea has no military tradition of its own, being merely a pawn in the game between the great power blocs of China and Japan as if it were the Poland of the east. An eternally weak and backward Korea is also seen as being subject to repeated invasions from Chinese, Mongol, Japanese and tribal armies, each of which lays Korea waste in a short time with little resistance.
The reality is very different, and important Korean contributions to military history may be identified as early as 612, when a battle was fought by the Koguryo state, one of the ‘Three Kingdoms' of Koguryo, Paekche and Silla, which not only guaranteed Korean independence but also led to the fall of the Chinese Sui Dynasty and the establishment of the Tang dynasty. In 935 the Korean Koryo dynasty was founded, and in 1018 an invasion by Khitans from Liaodong was repulsed by General Kang Kam-chan.
In the early thirteenth century the Mongol horde swept across China, and made their first attack on Korea in 1218. A long war followed, with many bitter sieges where the Mongols used incendiary devices made from human fat. Korean warrior monks played a vital role in these operations, and shot dead a Mongol general in 1232. Korea was never completely conquered, its King taking refuge on Kanghwa island, which the Mongols failed to capture.
With the establishment of the Yi (Choson) dynasty in 1392 Korea faced new challenges from Japanese wako (pirate) raids, against which it pitted the contemporary world's finest cannon, and the fight was once actually taken to the Japanese during a raid on the pirates' lair of Tsushima in 1389. The Koryo and Yi dynasties also developed a fine navy based on stout ships, and it is interesting to note that it was the Chinese ships in the Mongol fleet, not the Korean ones, that were sunk by the kami-kaze storm during the invasion of Japan in 1281.
Yeah, when I first read it, I coudln't believe my eyes. Is he the same person that wrote the former book 'The Samurai: A Military History (Osprey Macmillan 1977)'?
Reasonably, it is clear. When he wrote his first book in 1977 what he could get and study is only Japanese written book. And now in 2001, he got some other information. Maybe he could have visited Korea, or read an english books translated from Korean historian books.
I don't won't say much, but please have a balanced view in understanding history. Imagine you as a French, and a Japanese friend comes to you and says, 'Hi I read a book on a hundred-years war between England and France, and I read an artical about Joan of Arc very interestingly. Was she that famous along the battle field as a bitch ass hooker?'
You could rationally think that, there were so many peoples and nations around the far east continent, and all the peoples are all assimilated under the name chinese now. Only Korea and Vietnam has not. They have unique language, character, culture. Can rogue state or that poor country whose army is totally lack of courage can survive? even the land isn't island like Japan or desert like Mongols or Rocky Mountains like Switzerland but plain lands?
You could find that koreans were good at cannons at that time and made innovations on chinese 'Zhen Tian Lei'- 'Jin Chun Roi' for Korean. 'Chun Ja Chong Tong' would be the bigger versions. but they are not widely used in land battles. they equipped it on naval battleships, which later plays a big role on Korea-Japanese War from 1592.
Korea had numberless wars with China during the history, but only one with Japan in 2000 years. So please don't say that Japan was a superpower like China. they were a stable country, but it's mainly thanks to their island. and You would know, straits between Korea and Japan is much swift and dangerous than the English Channel. So war between Japan and any other country has been only twice- As you know the Mongol Invasion along with Koreans, and the later Japanese invaded Korea.
Rest of that, Korea and Japan closed the door against the rest of the world only except each other, having good relationships after 16C's war until Japan got modernized
by Meiji Ishin which US admiral Perry opened Japan to rest of the world.
about the Korean units in the game- hehe,
I would say to CA/DT/EA that they would better put korean archery unit instead of
that 'silly spearmen', that would be the history perfect. Koreans hardly used
that spearmen with heavy shields. I thought
these spearmen is somewhat like roman infantry having throwing spears with shields making strong formations. but no such strategy in korean military history.
Koreans were rather famous for the archers.
Even the chinese ancient name calling koreans were 'tong-yi' - 'the east barbarians good at bows' hehe. Also in history, Korea was at a disadvantage not having portuguese related guns until the Japanese brought them during the war.
anyway, thunder bombers would be somewhat ridiculous but, TB would be a nice abbreviation, and if CA would like to put korean name, it would "Jin Chunroi' would be fine. Will be JC then?
That's it. thanks for reading awful english.
Any comments would be welcome.
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) can see the post and reply more in depth.
), your English is excellent - please don't let the language barrier deter you from posting more, you can and have overcome it quite easily.
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