besides tang song poems. the most intellectual active era was in BC time, when china was like euro in 1500 AD, how ironic, seems big unified nation was no good for original thinking, no wonder, ever since qin 1st emperor, every supreme leader worries the same thing how can i keep citizens loyal, less education seemed the best choice.

chinese nowadays like to blame north barbarians for own failures. mongols was at ease at learning from advanced nations, "tanxiaofengsheng" with west vistors like marco polo, treating S and T way better than hans. from a place knowing nothing about water and navy, it quickly assimilated han experts and easily beat south song navies, then almost conquered japan if not for the typhoon.

manchurians the same in early time, gave best treatments to han elites who got nothing from ming government, turned surrendered weak ming forces into major forces to conquer china, young kangxi was really inerested in west stuff.

then they might be too smart, quickly sinicized, almost destroyed own language to get 300 year sof rule, way better than mongols, yet nowadays mongol still has an independent place, manchurians heritage will be almost all gone. let history be the judge.

never forget we chinese have two most famous and original inventions, which has no worry being credited to or plagiarized by others:

eunuch and boundfeet