Mao Zedong vs Wanyan Aguda

This comparison inadvertently underscores a critical historiographical problem: we are judging a 20th-century revolutionary by the same metrics as a 12th-century tribal conqueror. Aguda’s military score of 91 rests heavily on Sima Guang’s (or rather, later Jin court historians’) accounts of the Liao campaign, which are notoriously prone to exaggeration of Jurchen ferocity. Conversely, Mao’s 76 may be too harsh if we consider his strategic innovation—his 1938 essay 'On Protracted War' remains required reading at the US Army War College. Politically, Aguda’s dual-administration system was indeed clever, but it was borrowed from Khitan precedents; Mao’s 'mass line' was a genuine novelty in governance. The biggest distortion is Influence: Mao’s thought shaped not just China but the entire Global South, while Aguda’s influence was largely confined to a single dynasty that collapsed within generations. Plutarch would have said we need better categories.

Aguda all the way! Mao was a desk strategist who sent millions to die in the Great Leap Forward while he sat in Beijing. Aguda? This guy personally led a cavalry charge against the Liao emperor’s elite guard at the Battle of Huchiligate—talk about leading from the front! He conquered the entire Liao Empire with maybe 20,000 Jurchen horsemen, fighting against odds that would make even Napoleon blink. The scoring here is criminal: Aguda gets 79 military? He should be in the 90s, above Genghis Khan even. And Mao's political score being almost equal? Please. Aguda unified a dozen feuding tribes into a dynasty that crushed the Song superpower. Mao inherited a broken China but also inherited the victory of the CCP in a civil war where he had Soviet support. Give me the barbarian king who built an empire from scratch any day.

This comparison reeks of a teleological, state-centric bias that both figures actually challenge. Mao is scored highly for 'unifying China,' but that's a nationalist framing—he was a revolutionary who destroyed the Confucian order, not a unifier in any traditional sense. Aguda, meanwhile, is reduced to a 'conqueror,' but his Jurchen identity was systematically Sinicized by later Chinese historians to fit the 'barbarian conquest dynasty' trope. The real tragedy is that both figures are judged by how well they built states—Mao's Maoist state that now worships markets, Aguda's Jin that became indistinguishable from the Song it conquered. Where's the score for subaltern resistance? For the peasants Mao starved, or the Khitan tribes Aguda annihilated? The metrics themselves should be questioned: 'Military' and 'Political' are just code for 'how well did you oppress people?' Maybe we need a new category: 'How much did you disrupt the dominant paradigm?' There, Mao and Aguda both get 100.

我来抠抠数据。军事分给毛65给阿骨打79，差14分，但阿骨打灭辽用了12年（1113-1125），毛从秋收起义到新中国成立用了22年，时间效率上阿骨打确实高，但毛面对的是有美援的国民党，而辽末帝天祚帝的军队已经腐化到打仗都要临时抓壮丁。政治分毛83对阿骨打84，几乎一样，但毛的政治遗产——中国共产党、人民代表大会制度——延续至今，而阿骨打的金朝只持续了120年，他创立的猛安谋克到了金朝中期就名存实亡。我说政治分应该毛90、阿骨打70。影响力分毛80对阿骨打69？这个更离谱。毛的著作被翻译成100多种语言，阿骨打的功绩除了中国史学生谁还知道？我怀疑评分者把“影响力”等同于“朝代持续时间”了，完全忽略了20世纪中国的全球辐射力。

这个比较有意思，但评分明显带着西方中心论的偏见。毛泽东的军事分给到65？他领导的人民战争理论在亚非拉殖民地解放运动中影响深远，古巴的切·格瓦拉、越南的武元甲都公开承认受其启发。而完颜阿骨打的91分虽然合理，但要注意背景：女真灭辽时辽已腐朽，灭北宋时宋徽宗正在搞花石纲，这跟毛泽东对抗美式装备的国民党军队不可同日而语。政治上两人都不低，但阿骨打的猛安谋克制度在汉地水土不服，最后金朝不得不汉化；毛泽东的农村包围城市路线至今仍是发展中国家的政治教科书。说毛泽东影响力只有84，我建议评分者去问问非洲那些老革命家怎么看。