Talk:Yuan dynasty

Convenient Borders

Don't some of the borders of the Yuan Dynasty on the map at the top seem to be conveniently like today's national borders on the map? (I'm not the only one best at wording)

Soy milk emerged at end of Kublai Kahn empire

Bill Shurtleff is cited in the soy milk article as saying that: "a tofu broth (doufujiang) c. 1365 (was noted) amid the collapse of the Mongol Yuan."

References

Concerning the flags

I vectorized some military flags of the Yuan Dynasty found in old paintings of the Yuan army, but they got deleted due to them lacking scholarly sources, since I cited images of the paintings as sources. Even if there are no scholarly sources, paintings of the military from the Yuan era should be accepted, especially considering that the same standard is shown in many paintings, further legitimizing it. (I also added the naval flag of the Yuan Dynasty cited in CRW flags.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sci Show With Moh (talk • contribs) 13:15, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Sci Show With Moh, "Flags of the World" is considered an unreliable source; its entry on WP:RSP reads Flags of the World has been written off as an unreliable source in general. Although some of its pages might refer to reliable sources, it is self-published content without editorial oversight, and the hosts "disclaim any responsibility about the veracity and accuracy of the contents of the website.". I have reverted your addition, but you are of course free to re-add if you find a reliable source. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:08, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

The website sites the origin of the flag as being a flag on display in the Military History Museum of Vietnam, which could be considered a reliable source for a flag as it's a physical relic from a Yuan warship according to the museum. Sci Show With Moh (talk) 21:15, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

A photograph of the flag at the museum would be a reliable source. We are however getting this information through "self-published content without editorial oversight", so it might be untrue/exaggerated/misintepreted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:37, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Orthogonal to this, I'm not really sure what |flag= parameters are supposed to capture for this sort of polity. Does it matter whether or not the purported battle standard and purported naval flag are historically accurate? Do they represent the idea of the Yuan dynasty as a state in the way that modern flags are supposed to? According to historical records, the standard of the Great Khan was the nine white tug banners, accepted by scholarly sources, and replicas of which are extant. Would commons:File:Mongolia 9 suldes.png be an appropriate flag icon for the infobox? (Edited to note that I can't tell whether or not I'm asking this question rhetorically)

I can't claim to understand why people make such a big deal of flags, so my opinion might be kinda off base, but I think it is valid to question what any flag would have represented to the Yuan dynasty as compared to what a flag icon in the infobox feels like it should convey. Folly Mox (talk) 22:01, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Even if this flag was taken from a Yuan warship, what evidence is there to suggest that it represented the entire Yuan nation? I agree with the sentiment behind your comment. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:37, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Good point, as the other person said, the standard of the Mongol Nation was actually the nine white tugs banner/sulde. Could I possibly use that instead? (Also, I'm currently searching for an image of the Yuan Banner cited in CRW flags in some videos of the museum where it's supposedly located.) Sci Show With Moh (talk) 23:04, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Could I use the flag shown in the Catalan Atlas? Sci Show With Moh (talk) 23:59, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Is it described in reliable modern sources as a flag representing the entirety of the Yuan dynasty? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:36, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

For example Sci Show With Moh, this source states outright that such symbols are inauthentically depicted, and suggests that your supposed "Yuan dynasty flag" was actually a Timurid Empire flag. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:39, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

That's strange, because the Timurid Empire wasn't even on the Catalan Atlas for it to have its flag inauthentically depicted as the Yuan Dynasty flag. Sci Show With Moh (talk) 12:49, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Also, can you cite the exact place in the source that says that the Yuan Dynasty in the Catalan Atlas was inauthentically depicted as the Timurid flag? Sci Show With Moh (talk) 12:58, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

See pp 149–150 in Kadoi 2010 for that discussion, which seems to be describing the flag image you added most recently. She also translates 九斿白纛 as "white standard with nine tails" on p 146, which probably means that Chinese sources have been understandably mistranslating it based on reading 斿 as a counting word instead of using its base meaning of "tail".

Anyway, have a look at this google images search for "Yuan dynasty flag". Notice how the top results are all different? That's pretty suggestive of there not being an accepted flag design for the Yuan dynasty, and a bunch of people guessing based on different sources. Folly Mox (talk) 15:47, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Yeah I noticed that too. In my search for an accurate flag of the Yuan Dynasty I found many different flags from different sources. It seems as if there are many different flags and not a single solid one. Sci Show With Moh (talk) 16:08, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Although I'm not sure that the Yuan flag that I added to the page was actually inauthentically depicted and was actually a Timurid flag, considering that the Timurid Empire isn't even shown on the catalan atlas. Sci Show With Moh (talk) 16:47, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes. That's the point. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:11, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

In that case, could I add some of the atributted flags outside of the infobox? Sci Show With Moh (talk) 20:01, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

If they are attributed in reliable modern academic sources and you place them in related spots, yes. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:39, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, I could probably make an entire page on the attribbuted flags of the Mongol Empire and Yuan dynasty. What do you think? Sci Show With Moh (talk) 01:32, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

You might be able to find scholarly sources in Raven, which publishes papers on speculative vexillology. Most exercises in speculation tend to be unpublished, so I suspect sourcing may prove difficult. It may be possible, and I don't want to dissuade you from pursuing the topic since you seem very keen on it. Folly Mox (talk) 20:43, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Do you think I should make an entire page of the attributed flags of the Mongol Empire and Yuan Dynasty? Sci Show With Moh (talk) 21:12, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Do you have enough reliable sources to create a page? If yes, why not? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:05, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

At this point, I am of a "flagless until proven nation" position when it comes to these things: our obsession with flags is so excruciatingly recent, see the boneyard of Austria-Hungary's revision history for the persistent a priori assumption that a polity must have a symbol analogous to a national flag (if it's not a "national flag", it shouldn't be hoisted in the infobox for a sovereign state imo), even if they weren't a nation in a way we would recognize. Remsense留 08:14, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

New map

Hello. I was thinking of reworking the main map for this article as presented in the country infobox. The present infobox contains two maps, one of which (A) is awkwardly cropped in the north and follows modern borders to the T at places (as another user pointed out), and another one (B) which contains perhaps too much information for a infobox which I feel would fit better in the middle of the article, possibly under the "Administrative divisions" header. I propose combining the information of both maps into one, which I have already prepared below.

Old map A

Old map B

New map

Cattette (talk) 07:38, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

What are the sources for the new map? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:27, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I also feel that your new map still contains too much information and is too visually confusing. Removing the provinces/province names would help. It's also not very helpful to have the Song borders. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:30, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Here's a simplified version https://imgur.com/a/sAncf5m

The sources I used were the previous map B as well as Droysen's Historical Atlas from 1886 https://archive.org/details/DroysensHistoricalAtlas1886/Map%2028%20The%20Mongol%20empires%20around%201300.jpg Cattette (talk) 10:33, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't rely on an 1886 map and an unsourced Commons. I just consulted Atwood's Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire (2004) which also has a map for the Yuan c. 1294. Good news! It is mostly similar to yours. A couple of points of interest: 1) it doesn't have a strict northern border, but leaves the northern limits of Yuan control undefined as Map A currently does (as is much more realistic than an arbitrary "frontier line" somewhere in the steppe) 2) it includes a "disputed with Chagatai" region around Beshbalik in the West 3) I think the replacement "region names" ("Gobi", "Cathay" etc.) are too misleading to be used. Perhaps we could have the previous province boundaries without the names. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:53, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

It's hard to work with undefined boundaries while still making the polity-of-interest pop. I tried to accomplish this by removing the bold line across the northern frontier, thoughts? https://i.imgur.com/bLgnsun.png Cattette (talk) 11:41, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

That works! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:10, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Your new map looks extremely excruciating and conflicting to maps made by historians of the Mongol empire – crude and overinaccurate - such as the Lingbei, Yunnan, and Sichuan provinces, the locations of Bianjing and Kunming are incorrect. The Chaghadaid, Jochid, Huleguid, Annam, Champa were outside of the Shing-On-Tai system and so they were never parts of the Yuan Ulus; Khmer was not even in Mongol, nor tributary kingdoms should be considered parts of the Mongol empire by any definitions. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-the-mongol-empire/empire-of-the-great-khan/41EEE744E9D3545E7111DC25B77C33F2 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Genkouinterest (talk • contribs) 01:35, 21 June 2024 (UTC)