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Libray of Congress]
Much of what came to constitute China Proper was unified for the first time in 221 B.C. (see fig. 2). In that year the western frontier state of Qin, the most aggressive of the Warring States, subjugated the last of its rival states. . . .Qin aggrandizement was aided by frequent military expeditions pushing forward the frontiers in the north and south.. . . The empire expanded westward as far as the rim of the Tarim Basin (in modern Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region), making possible relatively secure caravan traffic across Central Asia to Antioch, Baghdad, and Alexandria. The paths of caravan traffic are often called the "silk route" because the route was used to export Chinese silk to the Roman Empire.. . . Chinese armies also invaded and annexed parts of northern Vietnam and northern Korea toward the end of the second century B.C. . . China was reunified in A.D. 589 by the short-lived Sui dynasty (A.D. 581-617), which has often been compared to the earlier Qin dynasty in tenure and the ruthlessness of its accomplishments. The Sui dynasty's early demise was attributed to the government's tyrannical demands on the people, who bore the crushing burden of taxes and compulsory labor. These resources were overstrained in the completion of the Grand Canal--a monumental engineering feat-- and in the undertaking of other construction projects, including the reconstruction of the Great Wall. Weakened by costly and disastrous military campaigns against Korea in the early seventh century. . . By the mid-thirteenth century, the Mongols had subjugated north China, Korea, and the Muslim kingdoms of Central Asia and had twice penetrated Europe(emphasis added). . . After China Proper had been subdued, the Manchus conquered Outer Mongolia (now the Mongolian People's Republic) in the late seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century they gained control of Central Asia as far as the Pamir Mountains and established a protectorate over the area the Chinese call Xizang but commonly known in the West as Tibet. . . . The Opium War, 1839-42 (more below)
Korean War, Tibet
Originally posted by PublicGadfly
Twice China invaded Europe!