So I have had a fairly massive thread on Tibet, mostly driven by myself and @Semi-Lobster with valuable support from many others including @Warial and @JKiller96 who has engaged in the region.
The thread itself is pretty cramped as we adding new research and continously updated the thread through almost a months time, the old thread is linked below. Today I'm starting this thread as a response to the recent update to the tibet map @Trin Tragula
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/tibetan-region-changes.1017810/
EDIT: Please see threadmark: "Final update on my map mod" For a modded and final version of the map
While a lot of good work were put into southern/central tibet (the Ü-Tsang area) and parts of western tibet (Guge looking good)
Representing Tibet "exactly" is frankly impossible, the area is several times the size of germany, heavily decentralized with semi-feudal structures of nobles and monasteries, independent tribes and small kingdoms dotting the landscape making it comparable to the HRE in some sense while having significantly smaller population, less of an overarching structure and way less sources to use in depicting this region. After the fall of the Tibetan empire, what held together a sense of tibetan identity was primarily the religion and tibetan literary languages based on the old imperial.
This means that any approach to Tibet will have to be moderated focusing on significant actors in game
Central Tibetan region (Ü-Tsang):
Seeing the historical development of central Tibet during the era of Phagmodrupa, Ringpungpa and the later Tsangpa dynasties should not be seen as different 'states', rather dynastic strife for political power over central Tibet. To that extent Ü-Tsang can be likened to the dynastic wars of the HRE
Case of naming:
Splitting out central Tibet in two polities, Tsang based Ringpungpa and Ü based Phagmodrupa is a very good start. However I foind the naming conventions strange as the Ringpunga retain the Ü-Tsang portmanneau name while the Phagmodrupa (which is the place the dynasty is based on) are named after dynasty, something generally avoided in euiv, and espacially when contrasting these two states. I find using regional labels 'Tsang' for the Ringpungpa and 'Ü' for Phagmodrupa to be a far better approach. This is not something I pulled out of a hat but an existing practice in academia:
Case of controlled territory:
For those who have studied the new map a bit closer, and then compare it to above mentioned qoute we immediately run into a major discrepency, the base of the Ringpungpa, Zhigatse is controlled by the Phagmodrupa at the start!
On the other hand, it is unlikely that Ringpunga controlled that much of Ü-Tsang already in 1444:
For the case of more remote border areas, the Nyingtri province could just as well have been an independent state, Powo: http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...6&search_scope=global&scope=name&filter=dolpo
though I do not find that necessary it can sort of arbitrarily be placed with the Phagmodrupa/Ü.
Nagchu area seems to have been mostly nomadic, and at least part of it part of the Hor state: http://www.tibetguru.com/nagqu/history/ http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...es.thlib.org/features/23700/descriptions/1300
Both Nagchu and Powo is occasionally considered parts of Kham, rather than Ü-Tsang.
If we want to avoid adding too many small countries to the region, I would suggest an updated set-up as follows:
Tsang/Ringpungpa: Gyirong, Sakya Tsurphu, Shigatse (capitol), Damxung
Ü/Phagmodrupa: Lhasa, Nedong (capitol), Nyingtri, Nagchu, the Bhutan provinces
But I would also suggest that Bhutan could be made an independent state at start, since the tag already is there, the area was in reality a myriad of various tribes. Having it independent would also better balance central tibet with Ringpungpa being larger than Phagmodrupa.
There could be added a Hor state to the north,, encompassing some provinces in the borderlands of Kham, Amdo and Ü-Tsang.
Western Tibet (Guge & Ladakh):
After the fall of the Tibetan empire, the west tibetan region formed it's own kingdom and later fragmented, reunited, and so on with principal regions being Guge and Ladakh (two states represented in game). So game set up is fairly good in the Guge part of that area. Except that from what I can tell, the city of Purang isn't in the new Purang province, but in the easternmost part of Ngari province. If I'm right I would suggest renaming the province to Mangyül, capitol: Dzongkar
Aside from that I would like to suggest a new province (presumably it's own tag) in the form of the kingdom of Mustang: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Mustang#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolpo#History
I think this would merit having the area not as a wasteland, made into a province it could either be part of Guge or be independent. I also want to highlight the importance of this region to create better movement between Guge and central Nepal, as these areas were well intertwined in warfare and trade, with Mustang playing a relevant role (one of many sources: Historical Atlas of Tibet page 135)
While we haven't gotten a screenshot properly including Ladakh, it doesn't look like the country has changed at all. Here there could have been done some work and the first step is to properly divid (and correctly name!) the provinces in the area.
To begin with setting records straight, the province currently in game named Baltistan, is not Baltistan. Baltistan is located in the western part of the Ladakh province. The current Baltistan province should be renamed, potential name Druzha from one of the maps I have on Tibet but I don't know the historical context to that name. Modern name Gilgit might also work.
So let's look at the province of Ladakh. For starters it is pretty large, and if we look at it historically it has been split in several ways throughout history, I will focus on three main divisions of the province which I deem the most relevant: Baltistan (west), Sangskar (south) and Ladakh.
First of Baltistan should not be part of a Ladakh monarchy, it fell out of the Ladakh sphere of control in the 14-15th century and would most appropriately be represented as independent (this is a detail I'm not that sure of), could include the old province of Baltistan aswell.
The country of Ladakh would then constitute two provinces, Ladakh and Zangskar.
Zangskar should go as a belt along the southern part of the current Ladakh province and could also include the Lahul and Spiti valleys, which is currently wastelands, meaning that Zangskar would border the Guge kingdom.
Some general reasons why Zangskar merits it's own province: Was it's own kingdom, has it's own language, is separated from Ladakh by a mountain range.
Ladakh, Sangskar and Baltistan should all have tibetan culture. The culture of Druzhe/Gilgit should probably be kashmiri. The population is dardic and burushaki.
Eastern Tibet (Amdo&Kham)
These two regions are massive, modern Qinghai prefecture, covering most but not all of Amdo region is 720 000 km2 large, more than twice the size of the British isles. Needless to say I don't think Amdo should have that much level of detail as england. But having Amdo and Kham, which consist of dozens of polities as one country (and ruled by the wrong dynasty in the 1.25 set-up) is, I would believe, below the level of detail we by now can expact from the game.
In my previous thread I mark out a lot of potential new provinces to the region, including a province representing the Golok confederation in Amdo, the Muli kingdom in Kham,
redrawing the chinese-tibetan borderlands to add the Gyarong and Jinchuan region aswell as the important Choné kingdom.
Maybe this isn't the focus of the current update to Tibet, and there will be a future update the Amdo and Kham, so while my research is still in my old thread, I won't go into full detail of the Amdo-Kham region and I hope we can see a change to the area already in this patch. The first is pretty simple, the division of Kham and Amdo in sperate states. Using the Lingthang kingdom for Kham, and the Choné kingdom for Amdo (this will require reworking the Taozhou province in china as it's here that Choné actually were located)
When the Ming dynasty had ended the Yuan rule, sino-mongol overlordship over Tibet came to an effective end, though not the end of political relation. In the Amdo region the Ming allied with two kings who became "subjcects" of Ming and secured the very important horse-tea trade route. These kingdoms were based in Chone and Linxia, both within the current Taozhou province. In game these kingdoms are part of Ming, but it doesn't reflect reality there the kings ruled their own territory and also had the formal overlordship of most of Amdo. The exact relationship with these kings and the Ming are somewhat debatted but the Tibetan rulers existed before Ming established political presence in the area, and merely accepted a sort of political relation reminiscent of a vassal system. To me this would best fit having Amdo as a tributary of Ming at start.
Kham is also a heavily fragmented state during the EUIV timeline, with the strong Derge state barely having been founded (the one used by PDX). Instead the Lingtsang kingdom with roots in the Sakya-mongol administration were the most powerful state in Kham at in the 15th century. I would use the Lingtsang as template for Kham, and possibly add a seperate Lingtsang province (there could easily be added 2-3 new provinces to Kham but I will focus on spliitting the Current Tachienlu province in two parts)
Next (overlapping) issue also corresponds to the newly added wasteland between eastern Kham and Ming. I am very confounded by this wasteland, while the terrain is very difficut in the area (more about that in a second) the wasteland cuts right through the main trade route going from Tachienlu east, second, it is, if I'm reading the map right, the location of the jinchuan wars. It's unfortunate semi-lobster hasn't been active for some time now since he was the expert on the area but a brief summary of the wars based on wikipedia:
The area of eastern Kham, including the city of Tachienlu and the Songqu province was (and still is) home to Gyarong people and the region is called Gyelrong. Historicaly a multitude of tribal kingdoms existed in the region, with the most powerful one being the Chakla kingdom. I would rework the eastern borders of Kham, remove the new wasteland and include the Songqu province in a new state called Gyelrong
http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...earch_scope=global&scope=name&filter=gyelrong
(Look at the search window to the right for essays)
On a much smaller notice, the northernmost Bai province Lijiang should have Vajrayana religion (based on the Naxi people) while the rest of the Bai provinces should be Mahayana, rather than Theravada.
s
The thread itself is pretty cramped as we adding new research and continously updated the thread through almost a months time, the old thread is linked below. Today I'm starting this thread as a response to the recent update to the tibet map @Trin Tragula
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/tibetan-region-changes.1017810/
EDIT: Please see threadmark: "Final update on my map mod" For a modded and final version of the map
While a lot of good work were put into southern/central tibet (the Ü-Tsang area) and parts of western tibet (Guge looking good)
Representing Tibet "exactly" is frankly impossible, the area is several times the size of germany, heavily decentralized with semi-feudal structures of nobles and monasteries, independent tribes and small kingdoms dotting the landscape making it comparable to the HRE in some sense while having significantly smaller population, less of an overarching structure and way less sources to use in depicting this region. After the fall of the Tibetan empire, what held together a sense of tibetan identity was primarily the religion and tibetan literary languages based on the old imperial.
This means that any approach to Tibet will have to be moderated focusing on significant actors in game
Central Tibetan region (Ü-Tsang):
source I'm refering to then putting only thlib in my sourcing for Ü-Tsang
http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...es.thlib.org/features/24112/descriptions/1227
http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...es.thlib.org/features/24112/descriptions/1227
Seeing the historical development of central Tibet during the era of Phagmodrupa, Ringpungpa and the later Tsangpa dynasties should not be seen as different 'states', rather dynastic strife for political power over central Tibet. To that extent Ü-Tsang can be likened to the dynastic wars of the HRE
Case of naming:
Splitting out central Tibet in two polities, Tsang based Ringpungpa and Ü based Phagmodrupa is a very good start. However I foind the naming conventions strange as the Ringpunga retain the Ü-Tsang portmanneau name while the Phagmodrupa (which is the place the dynasty is based on) are named after dynasty, something generally avoided in euiv, and espacially when contrasting these two states. I find using regional labels 'Tsang' for the Ringpungpa and 'Ü' for Phagmodrupa to be a far better approach. This is not something I pulled out of a hat but an existing practice in academia:
The rise of the Rinpung government represents the rise of a new region of power in Central Tibet, namely Zhikatsé (gzhis ka rtse) in Tsang. It is from this town that the Rinpung government successfully wrested control of Central Tibetan from the Pakmodru and began a century of conflict between Ü and Tsang. source: Thlib
Case of controlled territory:
For those who have studied the new map a bit closer, and then compare it to above mentioned qoute we immediately run into a major discrepency, the base of the Ringpungpa, Zhigatse is controlled by the Phagmodrupa at the start!
In 1435 the Rinpung family moved its administration from the family seat of Rinpung to the fortress of Samdruptsé (bsam grub rtse), located in present day Zhikatsé. This was to remain the center of the Rinpung Government through its reign. source thlib
On the other hand, it is unlikely that Ringpunga controlled that much of Ü-Tsang already in 1444:
This increasing family control laid the ground for Norbu Zangpo’s grandson, Dönyö Dorjé (don yod rdo rje, 1462-1512, the son of Künzangpa [kun bzang pa]) to significantly increase Rinpung’s control of Tsang in 1480, and launch a major offensive against the Lhasa area in 1481. In 1485 he attacked the Gyantsé polity, but was defeated when Pakmodru and Lhasa allied with Gyantsé. In 1492 Donyö Dorjé successfully took control of several districts around Lhasa, and in 1498 he held such control over Lhasa that he was able to forbid Gelukpa monks and religious leaders from attending the Lhasa Great Prayer festival, source: thlib
For the case of more remote border areas, the Nyingtri province could just as well have been an independent state, Powo: http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...6&search_scope=global&scope=name&filter=dolpo
though I do not find that necessary it can sort of arbitrarily be placed with the Phagmodrupa/Ü.
Nagchu area seems to have been mostly nomadic, and at least part of it part of the Hor state: http://www.tibetguru.com/nagqu/history/ http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...es.thlib.org/features/23700/descriptions/1300
Both Nagchu and Powo is occasionally considered parts of Kham, rather than Ü-Tsang.
If we want to avoid adding too many small countries to the region, I would suggest an updated set-up as follows:
Tsang/Ringpungpa: Gyirong, Sakya Tsurphu, Shigatse (capitol), Damxung
Ü/Phagmodrupa: Lhasa, Nedong (capitol), Nyingtri, Nagchu, the Bhutan provinces
But I would also suggest that Bhutan could be made an independent state at start, since the tag already is there, the area was in reality a myriad of various tribes. Having it independent would also better balance central tibet with Ringpungpa being larger than Phagmodrupa.
There could be added a Hor state to the north,, encompassing some provinces in the borderlands of Kham, Amdo and Ü-Tsang.
Western Tibet (Guge & Ladakh):
After the fall of the Tibetan empire, the west tibetan region formed it's own kingdom and later fragmented, reunited, and so on with principal regions being Guge and Ladakh (two states represented in game). So game set up is fairly good in the Guge part of that area. Except that from what I can tell, the city of Purang isn't in the new Purang province, but in the easternmost part of Ngari province. If I'm right I would suggest renaming the province to Mangyül, capitol: Dzongkar
Aside from that I would like to suggest a new province (presumably it's own tag) in the form of the kingdom of Mustang: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Mustang#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolpo#History
I think this would merit having the area not as a wasteland, made into a province it could either be part of Guge or be independent. I also want to highlight the importance of this region to create better movement between Guge and central Nepal, as these areas were well intertwined in warfare and trade, with Mustang playing a relevant role (one of many sources: Historical Atlas of Tibet page 135)
While we haven't gotten a screenshot properly including Ladakh, it doesn't look like the country has changed at all. Here there could have been done some work and the first step is to properly divid (and correctly name!) the provinces in the area.
To begin with setting records straight, the province currently in game named Baltistan, is not Baltistan. Baltistan is located in the western part of the Ladakh province. The current Baltistan province should be renamed, potential name Druzha from one of the maps I have on Tibet but I don't know the historical context to that name. Modern name Gilgit might also work.
So let's look at the province of Ladakh. For starters it is pretty large, and if we look at it historically it has been split in several ways throughout history, I will focus on three main divisions of the province which I deem the most relevant: Baltistan (west), Sangskar (south) and Ladakh.
First of Baltistan should not be part of a Ladakh monarchy, it fell out of the Ladakh sphere of control in the 14-15th century and would most appropriately be represented as independent (this is a detail I'm not that sure of), could include the old province of Baltistan aswell.
The country of Ladakh would then constitute two provinces, Ladakh and Zangskar.
Zangskar should go as a belt along the southern part of the current Ladakh province and could also include the Lahul and Spiti valleys, which is currently wastelands, meaning that Zangskar would border the Guge kingdom.
Some general reasons why Zangskar merits it's own province: Was it's own kingdom, has it's own language, is separated from Ladakh by a mountain range.
Ladakh, Sangskar and Baltistan should all have tibetan culture. The culture of Druzhe/Gilgit should probably be kashmiri. The population is dardic and burushaki.
Eastern Tibet (Amdo&Kham)
These two regions are massive, modern Qinghai prefecture, covering most but not all of Amdo region is 720 000 km2 large, more than twice the size of the British isles. Needless to say I don't think Amdo should have that much level of detail as england. But having Amdo and Kham, which consist of dozens of polities as one country (and ruled by the wrong dynasty in the 1.25 set-up) is, I would believe, below the level of detail we by now can expact from the game.
In my previous thread I mark out a lot of potential new provinces to the region, including a province representing the Golok confederation in Amdo, the Muli kingdom in Kham,
redrawing the chinese-tibetan borderlands to add the Gyarong and Jinchuan region aswell as the important Choné kingdom.
Maybe this isn't the focus of the current update to Tibet, and there will be a future update the Amdo and Kham, so while my research is still in my old thread, I won't go into full detail of the Amdo-Kham region and I hope we can see a change to the area already in this patch. The first is pretty simple, the division of Kham and Amdo in sperate states. Using the Lingthang kingdom for Kham, and the Choné kingdom for Amdo (this will require reworking the Taozhou province in china as it's here that Choné actually were located)
When the Ming dynasty had ended the Yuan rule, sino-mongol overlordship over Tibet came to an effective end, though not the end of political relation. In the Amdo region the Ming allied with two kings who became "subjcects" of Ming and secured the very important horse-tea trade route. These kingdoms were based in Chone and Linxia, both within the current Taozhou province. In game these kingdoms are part of Ming, but it doesn't reflect reality there the kings ruled their own territory and also had the formal overlordship of most of Amdo. The exact relationship with these kings and the Ming are somewhat debatted but the Tibetan rulers existed before Ming established political presence in the area, and merely accepted a sort of political relation reminiscent of a vassal system. To me this would best fit having Amdo as a tributary of Ming at start.
Kham is also a heavily fragmented state during the EUIV timeline, with the strong Derge state barely having been founded (the one used by PDX). Instead the Lingtsang kingdom with roots in the Sakya-mongol administration were the most powerful state in Kham at in the 15th century. I would use the Lingtsang as template for Kham, and possibly add a seperate Lingtsang province (there could easily be added 2-3 new provinces to Kham but I will focus on spliitting the Current Tachienlu province in two parts)
Next (overlapping) issue also corresponds to the newly added wasteland between eastern Kham and Ming. I am very confounded by this wasteland, while the terrain is very difficut in the area (more about that in a second) the wasteland cuts right through the main trade route going from Tachienlu east, second, it is, if I'm reading the map right, the location of the jinchuan wars. It's unfortunate semi-lobster hasn't been active for some time now since he was the expert on the area but a brief summary of the wars based on wikipedia:
The Jinchuan campaigns were two of the Ten Great Campaigns of Qianlong. Compare to his other eight campaigns, the cost of fighting Jinchuan was extraordinary. Jinchuan, a small county of Sichuan, cost the Qing Empire 600,000 people and 70 million silver taels to conquer, a cost that was more devastating than any other Great Campaigns accomplished by Qianlong.
The area of eastern Kham, including the city of Tachienlu and the Songqu province was (and still is) home to Gyarong people and the region is called Gyelrong. Historicaly a multitude of tribal kingdoms existed in the region, with the most powerful one being the Chakla kingdom. I would rework the eastern borders of Kham, remove the new wasteland and include the Songqu province in a new state called Gyelrong
http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...earch_scope=global&scope=name&filter=gyelrong
(Look at the search window to the right for essays)
On a much smaller notice, the northernmost Bai province Lijiang should have Vajrayana religion (based on the Naxi people) while the rest of the Bai provinces should be Mahayana, rather than Theravada.
West:
New provinces, Baltistan (rename old Baltistan)
Zangskar (including Lahul and Spiti valleys)
Mustang (preferably as an OPM)
rename Purang (or redraw the province to include the city)
Central:
Rename Phagmodrupa to Ü
Rename Ü-tsang to Tsang
fix the borders between the two states
possibly start with Bhutan being independent
east:
New kingdoms Amdo and Gyelrong
remove the new eastern wasteland
take Taozhou and Songqu from China
possibly make some new provinces
Base the Kham kingdom on the Lingtsang dynasty, rather than the anachronistic Dege kingdom
Lijiang should have Vajrayana religion
New provinces, Baltistan (rename old Baltistan)
Zangskar (including Lahul and Spiti valleys)
Mustang (preferably as an OPM)
rename Purang (or redraw the province to include the city)
Central:
Rename Phagmodrupa to Ü
Rename Ü-tsang to Tsang
fix the borders between the two states
possibly start with Bhutan being independent
east:
New kingdoms Amdo and Gyelrong
remove the new eastern wasteland
take Taozhou and Songqu from China
possibly make some new provinces
Base the Kham kingdom on the Lingtsang dynasty, rather than the anachronistic Dege kingdom
Lijiang should have Vajrayana religion
Hopefully there also comes an update to the requirments to form Tibet, as the current set-up is a wee bit too easy, only asking for Garze, Tachienlu and Lhasa.
Looking at the 5 main regions of Tibet, Ngari, Tsang, Ü, Kham and Amdo, I suggest it should be multi-option requirments holding key provinces in 3 of five region (to allow for a more diverse way of unification being equally valid for all tibtan nations)
various possible combinations:
Ngari, Shigatse, Lhasa
Shigatse, Lhasa, Dege (or other important city in Kham)
Shigatse, Lhasa, Rebgong or other important city in Amdo)
Ngari, Lhasa, Dege (or any important city in Amdo or Kham)
Looking at the 5 main regions of Tibet, Ngari, Tsang, Ü, Kham and Amdo, I suggest it should be multi-option requirments holding key provinces in 3 of five region (to allow for a more diverse way of unification being equally valid for all tibtan nations)
various possible combinations:
Ngari, Shigatse, Lhasa
Shigatse, Lhasa, Dege (or other important city in Kham)
Shigatse, Lhasa, Rebgong or other important city in Amdo)
Ngari, Lhasa, Dege (or any important city in Amdo or Kham)
s
for convinience of internet links I have mostly used thlib for sourcing but I also have Sam van Shaiks "Tibet a history" and Historical Atlas of Tibet by Karl Ryavec in bookform, I also visited many more intenret sources during my research and collaborated with other forumites
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