Japan
Meiji was not the 1st great reform, the 1st great reorganization was during the tang when they felt threatened by the tang & reorganized the state on Tang model with modifications where needed.
Japanese residents of Korea sent back reports of Mongol conquest of China soon after it happened, so the Japanese were aware of the Mongol threat.
shogunate ordered hayashi gaho to compile a detailed record of the manchu conquest of china after interviewing chinese merchants & ming loyalist refugees.
Japan of course studied qing empire in detail long before 1894, while the zongli yamen only published his poems & didn’t publish huang’s study of japan of 1877 (they only published it after they lost the war).
Japan also studied Russia in depth, Akashi Motojiro was a famous spy colonel who operated in Russia & exploited the internal faultlines like finns, poles, bolsheviks etc to forment revolution.
Chinese delays
Hardly had the ink dried on the ignominious Treaty of Shimonoseki, when a publishing house in Guangzhou published in late 1895 the manuscript “A Note on Japan” by Huang Zunxian, ex-Chinese attache in Japan.
Readers were shocked to find that this book, a panoramic sketch of Japan, was written in 1887. Criticism was immediately heaped on Huang for the delay in its publication. Had it been released earlier, critics asserted, Japan would not have been perceived as an adversary so easily vanquished, and the warmongers would have thought twice about doing battle.
But hindsight is 20-20, said historian Lei Yi, acknowledging a universal truth. In fact, Huang had tried desperately to get his book published, to no avail, as its value was not duly recognized in the beginning.
Similarly dismissed in China was the seminal book “Illustrated Records of Maritime Nations,” written by scholar-turned-strategist Wei Yuan in 1842. After selling a mere 1,000 copies, it was banned as a result of the stultifying policy of a regime fearful of foreign influence. Nonetheless, it was a bestseller in Japan, and there it was reprinted more than 20 times within several years.
British and Europeans
EIC had extensively studied hindus long before colonization, likewise russian empire was gathering intel on qing for centuries before grabbing vast lands in 1800’s.
Besides, the British Plan already had the solid backing of a very thorough study of India by now and evaluation of its people. Consider this: Captain James Tod had already surveyed the history and geography of the entire rAjapUta country with every single one of its clan – even though they were politically still independent – and had already produced in the first two decade his celebrated ‘Annals and Antiquities of rAjapUtAnA’, not to mention that the European Indology as a discipline was already flourishing with its second generation with the likes of Colebrooke and Schlegel now in chairs, William Jones dead just a couple of years back. In contrast, we seriously doubt if there was even one Hindu at the time who properly knew the basic history and geography of Britain! We must keep these views in mind when evaluating how the native states fared against such a well informed adversary with such a great military exposure, not to mention their technology and strategy for the Great Game.
Eg. Wendel’s History of the Jats, Pathāns, and Sikhs, 1768. There was also jp malcolms history of the sikhs in early 1800’s decades before the anglo-sikh wars
One of the earliest bio’s of Shivaji was by a Portuguese guy, translated by Surendranath Sen in his foreign bios of Shivaji. Written in late 1600’s soon after Shivaji died. German book on Maratha history from 1786, they didn’t even have a hand in our country directly.
From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire made concerted efforts to collect information about China. It bribed Chinese porcelain-makers to give up trade secrets, sent Buddhist monks to Mongolia on intelligence-gathering missions, and trained students at its Orthodox mission in Beijing to spy on their hosts. From diplomatic offices to guard posts on the Chinese frontier, Russians were producing knowledge everywhere, not only at elite institutions like the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. But that information was secret, not destined for wide circulation. Source: TW
Criticism of hindus
the gathering of information is extremely understudied esp among hindu retards, thy think only of futile cavalry charges, jauhars etc. if i tweet abt this portuguese guy’s bio of Shivaji or the German hist of Marathas, they will take it as proof of vishwaguru greatness instead of asking themselves why we cudnt produce a history of Prussia.
A slightly compensating factor - the Europeans had outposts and interests here, rather than the other way round - so it was natural that they studied us.
Japanese produced a biography of Peter the Great in 1807 or 08, at the time Japanese cudn’t travel abroad at all. so problem primarily was of mindset, not access.+++(5)+++
They were not otherwise occupied (as we were with muzzies) .. so curiosity had room.
Under vijayanagara hindus had freedom for centuries, but do u see a single detailed study of sullas or their ideology, sullas produced many studies of hindus. madhavacharya was flogging long dead charvakas in his tome. Maybe if they had studied sullas ideology thy wud have known tht hiring sullas without checks & balances as mercenaries was a bad idea.+++(5)+++
we have 0 records of sulla conquest of iran. nor do we have any records of us interviewing parsi refugees after they landed. chinks do have records of sassanid’s fall, sassanid royalty fled there.
Even the records about parsi refugee here are maintained only by parsis. Hindus don’t have any record ABT their entry into India
Today with chatgpt & libgen etc, how many hindus are seriously studying china.
There ought to be more .. but I know a couple of RN Iyengar’s students here who do. Also happy to note Indica’s pagan program.
रविलोचन-टिप्पनी
Studying the enemies is something which we have failed to do since the 1200s.. perhaps someone like lalitaditya was the last Hindu ruler to actually study the geopolitical state of affairs outside india.
Marathas maintained detailed records. But failed to note that their European general (Perron) owned shares in EIC prior to second Anglo maratha war.