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How Empires Were Built (Comment ont été construits empires?)
Turning the potential disaster to one's advantage is a proverb often found in many countries.
It can apply to an individual but also to a nation.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, there were only two great empires in the world long in the subsequent history of the world: India and China.
But, China could not colonize Siberia and Russia while India was vastly colonized by one European nation, Great Britain. We had better review some concerning them, since China and India are now potentially rising economic powers in the world.
SECTION I: Siberia
Siberia is from an old kingdom situated in the east of Ural Mountains.
The Khanate of Sibir was a Tatar Turkic khanate in Siberia, just east of the middle Urals. The Khanate had an ethnically diverse population of Siberian Tatars, Khanty, Mansi, Nenets and Selkup people. Along with the Khanate of Kazan it was the northernmost Muslim state. It was also the second northernmost Turkic state after the Yakuts. Its conquest by Ermak in 1582 was the beginning of the Russian conquest of Siberia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khanate_of_Sibir
What made it possible for Russia to conquer Siberia is its application of fire arms. Especially, artillery guns of the Russian Empire exercised their power on native tribes in Siberia. However Mongolians had long enjoyed superiority in the west of Siberia. Fire arms and saltpeter were originally invented and put into application in China around the 10th century. Then why would not Mongolians, or descendants of Genghis Khan, equip themselves with fire arms to cope with Russians?
If Mongolians had upgraded their arms, Russians could not have conquered Siberia. But why would they not?
It is because they had had excellent arms of special bows and arrows. Their bows and arrows were suitable for use on horseback. The arms had once enabled the great conquest by Mongolians and Genghis Khan before the emergence of Russians with fire arms.
Accordingly, Russians have relied on cannons, artillery guns, and rockets and missiles even to date, while occupying the southern Kuril Islands, which legitimately belong to Japan, since the end of WWII.
Anyway, the historical fact that Russians having been put under Mongolian power for centuries came to outdo and eclipse Mongolians is one example that making up for one's shortcomings promises a great success against enemies who had more advantage. By adopting fire arms or harquebuses, Russians won Mongolians with old, though excellent, bows and rows only.
Mongolians attached their minds consistently to horse riding and arrowing technique, while fire arms or matchlocks at the time were not suitable for such a way of fight.
SECTION II: India
What made Great Britain a richer nation was India.
Without making India its colony, the higher living standards the British people today enjoy should be impossible. Then, the United States should have been gravely influenced due to less financial and business resources available from England for its material success.
But, how did the U.K. conquer India which then included today's Pakistan and Bangladesh?
The Battle of Plassey, 23 June 1757, was a decisive British East India Company victory over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, establishing Company rule in South Asia which expanded over much of the Indies for the next hundred years. The battle took place at Palashi, Bengal, on the river banks of the Bhagirathi River, about 150 km north of Calcutta, near Murshidabad, then capital of undivided Bengal. The belligerents were Siraj-ud-daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal, and the British East India Company.
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As a result of the battle of Plassey, the French were no longer a significant force in Bengal. In 1759, the British defeated a larger French garrison at Masulipatam, securing the Northern Circars. By 1759, Mir Jafar felt that his position as a subordinate to the British could not be tolerated. He started encouraging the Dutch to advance against the British and eject them from Bengal. In late 1759, the Dutch sent seven large ships and 1400 men from Java to Bengal under the pretext of reinforcing their Bengal settlement of Chinsura even though Britain and Holland were not officially at war. Clive, however, initiated immediate offensive operations by land and sea and defeated the much larger Dutch force on 25 November 1759 in the Battle of Chinsura. The British then deposed Mir Jafar and installed Mir Qasim as the Nawab of Bengal. The British were now the paramount European power in Bengal. When Clive returned to England due to ill-health, he was rewarded with an Irish peerage, as Lord Clive, Baron of Plassey and also obtained a seat in the English House of Commons...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey
The U.K. did not launch major wars against Indians to invade India war after war against native kingdoms, tribes, and people. But, it defeated France and the Netherlands by force to secure a monopolized position to handle India politically and economically. These wars displayed its military power to Indians, but the U.K. adopted more sophisticated strategy to overwhelm anti-British camps in India.
The U.K. first established friendly relationships with local kings in India and then made them at feud against one another. The British rulers also leveraged the discriminatory social system in India. They abused the class divide in the Indian society. They rather controlled the Indian society by guile. As there were no rival European forces, the British way penetrated without check. Indians could not see through British malicious intent, since they had no other Europeans to consult.
But, where did they get such craft? How could they handle so easily Indians who had long civilized history.
(To be continued...)
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Joh 6:3 And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples.
Joh 6:4 And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.
Joh 6:5 When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?