#to rate eras of chinese history based on vibes alone: tang sweep

[taihua]

The next historical conundrum for tonight: as of the present timeline story in TGCF, Xie Lian makes reference to monks and bodhisattvas, so Buddhism is part of the cultural landscape in which they operate. Thus the present timeline is at least comparable to the Han dynasty, ~200 BC to ~220 CE, but it could also be as late as the Tang dynasty where Buddhism was at its height of popularity in China (~600-900 CE)

If we assume present storyline = Han dynasty, then there would not have been a prominent Buddhist presence in Xianle kingdom, but it could be if the present storyline = Tang

and yes this is all to justify one nonessential but dramatic sentence in the fic I started writing

(My other timeline notes are that anything after the Yuan dynasty doesn't make sense for a tgcf comparison because that's when you start getting more foreign presence in China and there's nothing in the text that suggests they're at that point. Also Qing dynasty is a completely different culture which makes it questionable in terms of its usefulness for fic research)