Fair enough - to be honest I got all excited about the gunpowder timeline. Poor historian I would make. The general point about living on the edge of chaos an

Fair enough - to be honest I got all excited about the gunpowder timeline. Poor historian I would make. The general point about living on the edge of chaos and it falling in either side still stands - although if you do fall, falling like the Ming / Qing is waaaay better :-)