This might be a weirdly specific question, but re: the 16 rebel lords and 64 peasant revolts. I'm curious about those nonliteral numbers. I feel like in the West you'd probably express that with round numbers in the form of multiples of 10, or maybe in terms of dozens or scores (at least historically). And biblically, you see references to 40 (e.g. 40 days and 40 nights) which seems to be another example of non-literal large numbers. So my question is, what's up with 16 and 64? Do you see those numbers a lot in Chinese literature? Is it common to see powers of 2, or square numbers, or something like that?
It's actually powers of four. Unlike it's modern day association with death, four has a lot of special meaning within Daoism. A lot of things are counted in fours. I think maybe it's associated with natural phenomena too, like four seasons, four cardinal directions, etc, etc. Even today, when people rank like, Most Influential Actresses, instead of a Top 10 list, it'll often be a Top 4 list.
7 and 9 are often has a lot of significant numbers associated with them too. I'm not sure what's up with seven, but 9 is important because odd numbers were considered male, even numbers female. And therefore, 9, as the largest single-digit odd number is considered the most "powerful" number. If you've ever visited the Forbidden City in Beijing, you'll notice a lot of decorations and such are made in groups of 9 or 81. 7, as the next largest odd number, appears a lot in the Palaces of Princes.
Chinese history is crazy, it seems like anyone can just raise a 200,000+ army out of the earth
China's always had crazy population. Rice is magical, man.
This might be a weirdly specific question, but re: the 16 rebel lords and 64 peasant revolts. I'm curious about those nonliteral numbers. I feel like in the West you'd probably express that with round numbers in the form of multiples of 10, or maybe in terms of dozens or scores (at least historically). And biblically, you see references to 40 (e.g. 40 days and 40 nights) which seems to be another example of non-literal large numbers. So my question is, what's up with 16 and 64? Do you see those numbers a lot in Chinese literature? Is it common to see powers of 2, or square numbers, or something like that?
It's actually powers of four. Unlike it's modern day association with death, four has a lot of special meaning within Daoism. A lot of things are counted in fours. I think maybe it's associated with natural phenomena too, like four seasons, four cardinal directions, etc, etc. Even today, when people rank like, Most Influential Actresses, instead of a Top 10 list, it'll often be a Top 4 list.
7 and 9 are often has a lot of significant numbers associated with them too. I'm not sure what's up with seven, but 9 is important because odd numbers were considered male, even numbers female. And therefore, 9, as the largest single-digit odd number is considered the most "powerful" number. If you've ever visited the Forbidden City in Beijing, you'll notice a lot of decorations and such are made in groups of 9 or 81. 7, as the next largest odd number, appears a lot in the Palaces of Princes.
Interesting, thank you!