Submitted by Flares117 t3_zyyxk1 in todayilearned
Seems to be the fate of every good ruler: They leave behind shitty kids.
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*harem
Was he gay though?
Except Phillip of Macedon. His son proved far greater than he could hope to be.
TskTsk! Kids born into wealth!
But he died 33 years old without any heirs
That's why I'm conflicted about following Marcus Aurelius, should he reproach himself for short temper as a philosopher or be an iron fisted asshole?
Father: >tolerant towards Muslims
Son: “imma haram”
wanting to gobble his privates takes a whole new meaning then
It’s all kosher baby
Alexander did have a son who succeeded him. But the boy got killed and his kingdom usurped by a treacherous regent named Cassander right as he was old enough to take over.
There was a quote, I can't remember where I read it and paraphrasing it "Will Alexander still be considered "Great" if his empire fragmented before he died?"
Sure Alexander was an able conqueror but administering an empire as large as he carved is another matter. It literally fragmented at his death bed.
Also begs the idea if Heraclius is gonna be considered one of the "Greatest" Roman Emperors if he died a year or two before the Rashidun Caliphate undid his victories.
Alexander was the greatest conqueror in history, but he was not really a great king. He was basically his mom's puppet in Macedon and had to try to conquer new lands before he could consider himself sovereign....and then he screwed things up due to his Persophilia and so his generals took over after he died.
In fact, they may well have helped him along by poisoning him, but that's not confirmed.
> He was regarded as one of the greatest Emperors
Interestingly, he wasn't. And not because he's not benevolent enough, but that he's not expansionist or 'glorious' enough. Most modern Chinese folks wouldn't know who he was, and if you ask about greatest emperors, would give you Emperor Wu of Han, Taizong of Tang, Kangxi, or the First Emperor, and even if you ask specifically about the Ming dynasty, would likely give you Emperor Yongle. All those were better conquerors.
It's actually a shame how most competent but peaceful emperors are little known, and do not make it to 'greatest' lists.
Do you think his harem was haram?
Highly likely one of his Companion Generals poisoned him. His father was assasinated too after all.
With regards to being the "Greatest" Conqueror, I rate Genghis a little bit higher than Alexander, who also happened to be a great administrator.
Our current Emperor Xi could learn a thing or two from him
The Chinese nowadays, unconfirmed: "We were this close to greatness!"
it's rare to find a historical character that isn't a monster
The Mongols had a LOT of conquerors though. There was only one Alexander, but there were dozens of great Mongol generals.
And to make things better, the Mongol Empire coalesced at precisely the time when the Number 1 breaker of steppe empires, China, was in no position to fight them thanks to a horrible civil war and the dumbest goddamned Dynasty to ever rule the country.
It also helped that the other great horse riding empire, the Muslims, were basically in pieces at the time. So the Mongols could easily defeat them one at a time.
They weren't quite as lucky when fighting empires that were perfectly fine tho. The Indians beat them so easily that they barely even remember fighting them at all. The Vietnamese utterly humiliated them, hilariously so.
Vote for zhu youcheng because YOU matter
Hi harami 😉
The son or the dad?
I don't think so. We just mostly know about the terrible ones.
Almost certainly. Was exactly my first thought.
Why is that not acceptable speculation?
Tell me more about this dumbass dynasty
Song Dynasty. Idiots literally funded the Mongols after Genghis Khan died, which should have led to the empire collapsing, and then got attacked once the Jin had been destroyed by the Mongols.
Their own military also sucked, because the entire court was basically working for the enemies, and the generals constantly had to relay each battle's strategy to the court even when the battles were days away, which mean they almost always lacked any initiative.
If it had been literally ANY other dynasty, they could have finished the Mongols off. It's not like Genghis Khan was the first steppe conqueror China had faced. But the Song constantly kept snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and ensured all of China got conquered by foreigners for the first time in history.
Fellas, is it gay to be faithful to your wife and not have a harem on the side?
When you are faced with a statistical outlier of 1, it is worth looking for explanations.
It was the express duty of Chinese emperors to have many many sons with their concubines to ensure lineage.
You may not know this, but chinese emperors could choose any of their illegitimate sons to rule after them - they typically did this to stop unsuitable heirs.
This guy not doing so raises an eyebrow.
The saying is "working hand in hand"
This is why hereditary rule is so terrible. The Japanese have figured it out to some extent. It’s not unheard of for families without children or with incompetent children to “adopt” adults into the family to carry on the family business. Even that’s only slightly better though, meritocracy bc of capitalism and the nuclear family has probably done more to progress society than most people realize. Yes it’s not perfect, there’s nepotism, there’s greed, but we as humans haven’t figured out an alternative that’s been proven at scale yet.
He sounds a lot like the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius, similarly not well-remembered despite being a very competent, good ruler who presided over one of the longest stretches of peace in Roman history.
And every large empire a shitty entitled population
>Wang Mantang
The first Chinese porn star name? I'm sure I'm mispronouncing it, but that second name sure does read like man tang.
Maybe the rule "You know you're competent at your job when no one notices you or what you're doing" does exist in some capacity in high positions too.
The current emperor Xi
As much as I love Phillip II, Frederick William I of Prussia and Frederick the Great nailed the "kingdom building father" and "empire conquering son" combo so much better. Not as flashy, but a little longer lasting.
So, it's less fun, but from what little I understand of Mandarin(?) pronunciation all of the A's in that name would be pronounced something like "ahh"; closer to "Wong Mon Tong".
Yah i figured I was just ignorant. Thanks for educating me a bit.
Gigachad, china edition.
Yeah, this. I have no idea how someone could have access to so many hot Chinese girls and not have a fresh one each day.
Are you 12?
Not a great way to measure the size of a harem. I mean, that could be one woman he forgot to feed.
He ate well
Isn't he the opposite of a "gigachad"?
Protocol: Harem
Procol Harum
Harambe was in his haram harem.
There is a high probability that his son played a roll in assassinating him.
Garum Masala
It's a southern dynasty, so of course they would be run by incompetents and assholes who put themselves above all else.
Well tbf he inherited his father’s army (with all of its crack discipline and veterancy), his father’s plans, and a fortuitous group loyal advisors and friends. Some speculate that Alexander was actually rather dangerously reckless, all things considered. His greatness can be attributed to the successes of his father and an extraordinary amount of luck.
Thank you, I didn't want to be the one to say it lol
exactly.
terrible rulers -> largest effects -> history books
That's just a normal occupational hazard for dynastic children.
There were 5 Roman emperors who ruled in succession, known as the “Five Good Emperors,” the last of whom was Marcus Aurelius. They shared the common distinction of not ascending to power through heredity, the last four being adopted heirs.
garum (fermented salted fish sauce) is very different from garam masala lol
But what if you put garam masala in garum and added some marsala?
Nah, he was pretty awesome. But yeah, he would have ended up like Napoleon if not for his dad leaving him that army.
Frederick was a warmongering lunatic though, and only survived because of sheer luck.
Prussia then proceeded to follow his example of having basically no strategy asides from "ATTACK!!!", and ignoring anything beyond tactics.
You have to be more specific. The basic story of China is about 6000 years of a cycle of a competent emperor coming to power, each successive emperor in the dynasty is worse than the last, it gets to a point where the emperor is a legendary assclown, horrible things happen to the Chinese people, and then a rebellion/coup happens and there’s a new emperor.
Most of Alexander’s accomplishments were basically set up by his father like the army innovations or getting Greece behind him.
Those were not his accomplishments, those were just some of the tools he used to set up his accomplishments.
I can't argue that if not for daddy dearest, Alex wouldn't have been able to start to become a great conqueror until he was in his 40s.
Sounds like Marcus Aurelius followed by Commodus
What does this even mean
What if you gave Gary Busey some Marsala wine?
So the Marcus Aurelius and Commodus of Chinese history?
That's Cantonese pronunciation, where the A's sound like O's. Mandarin A's sound like aaaah in banana.
Killing hundreds of thousands of people and conquering lands doesn't make you a good ruler, especially if you can't keep the empire together afterwards.
He's great the way genghis khan is great. A world historic militarty leader. but a great emperor he was not
Genghis Khan's empire lasted for a long time compared to Alexander's.
fair enough, at least genghis had his successsion in order.
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This is so top notch and unfortunately so unknown
Oi, that would be starting down a slippery (and sloppy) slippy slope!
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Depends on what you see as a gigachad. Fuckboy type? Then he isn't. The type as in "an exemplary male figure", then yeah, seems so.
The first one was the OG usage, and second one evolved over time from memes. To sum up that version: the really cool and respectable type of guy (chad) is actually the one who respects his women, supports his fellow guy friends, does something amazing, and generally is a good influence rather than a toxic one
Japanese women beauty standards have been ridiculous throughout it's history. Men where obsessed with thin women. Most women of that day would have been considered anorexic today.
You can see why monogamy was so rare— it effectively ended his line of succession.
“Unlike almost all of his predecessors and successors who took up many concubines who bore many children to the emperor, the Hongzhi Emperor had only one Empress during his lifetime. Coupled with the fact that Empress Zhang had only two sons (one of whom died in infancy), the Hongzhi Emperor was left with only one nominee to succeed him. After the emperor died in 1505, he was succeeded by his son, the Zhengde Emperor. The Zhengde Emperor died childless in 1521 and the throne had to be passed to a cousin from Hubei named Zhu Houcong, effectively ending the Hongzhi Emperor's own line of succession.”— wikipedia
Xi doesn't even have a son
Flares117 OP t1_j28hcmg wrote
He was regarded as one of the greatest emperors working hand and hand with officials. It was noted that there was almost no palace intrigue by the eunuchs or power struggles.
His son was given the best education and teaching on how to follow in his father's footsteps, but he loved brothels and hated his wife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongzhi_Emperor
He was a party boy with "The Zhengde Emperor took up a luxurious and prodigal lifestyle and indulged himself in women. It was said that he liked to frequent brothels and even created palaces called "Bao Fang" (豹房; literally "The Leopards' Chamber") outside the Forbidden City in Beijing initially to house exotic animals such as tigers and leopards for his amusement and then later used to house beautiful women for his personal enjoyment.[3] He also met Wang Mantang, one of his favorite consorts at a Bao Fang. On one occasion he was badly mauled while hunting tigers, and could not appear in court audiences for a month.[2] On another occasion he burned down his palace by storing gunpowder in the courtyards during the lantern festival.[2] His harem was so overfilled that many women starved to death due to lack of supplies.[4]"
Imagine having a haram so large, you dont have enough food for all your waifus