Alternate history project

[vocal otter]

First of all, I am going to use some pinyin in my messages, I DO NOT understand any written or spoken Chinese, I am just taking this information from google and wikipedia and it may need correction.

I hope this is an appropriate use of this channel. I need a lot of information, but I don't expect any individual to give a lot, so ANY input will be useful. I am developing a global alternate history scenario, with China playing a key role in shaping the world. The setting is 1616, yet with no Mongol conquest of China in the 1200s. The alternate history assumes that, without this, China would go on to commercialize, standardize, industrialize, and centralize in a manner analogous (but unrelated) to that of England. I am imagining a completely different direction of history, however, as the conditions in China are not analogous to those in England.

In the setting, there is a Chinese state in Mongolia not unlike the Han Protectorate of the Western Regions. In pinyin this is real state is called Xīyù Dūhù Fǔ. My fantasy state, I originally simply called Duhu Fu, as it covered the entire Northern steppe, from the lakes of Eastern Kazakhstan to the Lena river. This has since been corrected to Beiguo, which I understand to mean simply "North Country". I appreciate Russia is sometimes called this today, but I hope this use is not strict. I am seeking further information about what such a country, a military and colonial substate of a powerful Chinese Empire in the early modern period, should be called...

I am also interested to learn if it is natural to use terms that, to Europeans/Americans, can seem too neutral. In Europe, there are SOME countries that are named after their orientation (Austria, Ukraine) that became nouns and MANY named after ethnic nouns that predate the nation-state (England, Spain, France, or Germany). Perhaps due to unification, Chinese seems to often use orientation names. Is this really true? Or is this just an illusion of unfamiliarity?

Please ping me if you reply 🙂

[hidden elbow]

1.The name CHINA中国 itself just means [Middle country] in chinese language. For fictional China, there are names like 神州Celestial Empire, or just 中华共和国China Republic.

2.Many people imagined a empire-like China developed in a western way. Most of them started from Ming明 dynasty. And these ideas are generally based on one thing: Ming defeated Qing清 dynasty. Liu Cixing wrote a novel—《西洋》—about [What if Zhenghe郑和 contiuned his voyage?]，in which he described a China just the same way British Empire was at Victoria age.

3.Also, a lot of very serious research was conducted that if can Ming become a British-like empire. However these articles are too hard to read for even native Chinese. So I can't give more info.

You may found some ideas in games like Europa Universalis 4.

Btw,I recommend Liu Cixing's novel

[vocal otter]

What is the name of the novel? NVM I saw it

The Ming, I believe, were weak. The Qing were strong but oppressive. The Song were prior to the Ming and Qing, and were more meritocratic than either

[hidden elbow]

Qing's rule class were most Man nationality which only took place of less than 1% population but share all the glory, for which most Han people don't really accept their rule. Although Qing reached highest peak of centralised state power, however its root and soul stopped it from being a true great empire

Ming's majority is still Han people, and Ming acted more aggressively in diplomacy and military, for which Ming should be more likely to form a globle empire as many Chinese believe today

"Ming may not be able to be a superpower, but Qing can never be"

[civic sail]

In the setting, there is a Chinese state in Mongolia not unlike the Han Protectorate of the Western Regions. In pinyin this is real state is called Xīyù Dūhù Fǔ. My fantasy state, I originally simply called Duhu Fu, as it covered the entire Northern steppe, from the lakes of Eastern Kazakhstan to the Lena river. This has since been corrected to Beiguo, which I understand to mean simply "North Country".
You were corrected because Duhu Fu means "protectorate" on its own. Unless that political entity is the only protectorate of the Chinese empire, it doesn't make sense to call it "The Protectorate". Xīyù means "western regions", and if you want to parallel that construction, you should call it Běiyù Dūhù Fǔ, "bei" being the word for "north".
You say it is a Chinese "state". What does that mean? If you say Beiguo, that implies an independent state, because it recalls how the various increasingly rebellious warring states under the Zhou dynasty styled themselves as "guo" when they were autonomous enough to ignore the Zhou emperor. This is not an insinuation that any Chinese emperor (actually, his court, which would handle such trivial matters) would tolerate, so Beiguo is totally out of the question.
I appreciate Russia is sometimes called this today, but I hope this use is not strict.
Beiguo can also just mean "the North". Russia is north of China, so it can be one of the many Beiguos.

[civic sail]

what such a country, a military and colonial substate of a powerful Chinese Empire in the early modern period, should be called
Look at how the provinces of China have been called throughout history, or even how they're called now.
Perhaps due to unification, Chinese seems to often use orientation names. Is this really true? Or is this just an illusion of unfamiliarity?
It's true, but it's not due to "unification", whatever that means. It's just convenient when you have so many places to name because your empire is so big. For example, you have bei/nan (north/south) in the provinces of Hebei/Henan (River North and South) and Hubei/Hunan (Lake North and South), and dong/xi (east/west) in the provinces of Guangdong/Guangxi (literally, Wide East and West, meaning eastern and western expanses).
The names of cardinal directions are used in various ways in different cultures. For example, colour can be used in Northern Eurasia to refer to cardinal directions. The Black Sea is called "Black", for example, because it's north of Turkey; similarly, the Heilongjiang (literally, Black Dragon River) in northeastern China is called black for the same reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_direction#Northern_Eurasia.
So there are a number of ways in which this fictional state could be named that could incorporate both its cardinal direction relative to the empire and the wide expanse of the steppes.