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| Qin dynasty 221 - 206 BC | Short-lived but very influential in creating the first unified China 1st Emperor - Qin Shi Huang Chinese language standardized But the regime proved very legalistic Faced extensive rebellion |
| Han dynasty 206 BC - 220 AD |
The Han culture gives definition to China Great Wall completed Extensive expansion of the empire: Korea, Mongolia, Central Asia, Vietnam Silk Road reaches into central Asia Copper coins introduced |
| Another feudal period |
The Three Kingdoms (220-280) Jin Dynasty (265-420): Eastern Jin / Western Jin Buddhism established in China (300s) |
| Sui dynasty 581-618 |
Grand Canal lengthened But extensive warfare (598-614) weakens the dynasty |
| Tang dynasty 618-907 |
Printing developed and paper money introduced |
| 5 dynasties and 10 kingdoms period 907-960 |
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| Song dynasty 960-1279 |
Song dynasty in South China Liao dynasty in North China (907-1125) Gunpowder and compass introduced |
| Yuan (Mongol) dynasty 1271-1368 |
Kublai Khan invades China in 1271; ends the last of the Song dynasty in 1279 |
| Ming dynasty 1368-1644 |
Peasant Zhu Yuanzhang overthrows the Yuan dynasty Chinese capital moved from Nanjing to Beijing |
| Qing (Manchu) dynasty 1644-1911 |
European intervention undermines the dynasty Opium Wars Taiping Rebellion (1851-1862) Numerous smaller rebellions (1851-1877) Korea declares independence - 1893 (producing the 1st Sino-Japanese War) Korea and Taiwan ceded to Japan - 1895 Boxer Rebellion (1900-1901) |
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The Warring States Period (the late 400s to the late 200s BC)
Eventually seven states emerged out of the disarray of the Zhou disintegration. The Zhou dynasty continued to rule – but in name only. By and large these seven states operated as independent political units – usually in stiff competition with each other. The first true Chinese Emperor: Qin Shi Huang
 The
strongman Qin Shi Huang was successful in 221 BC in conquering and
unifying all these independent clans or "states" – forging them into a
single political unit: the first true Chinese Empire. The
following year he dropped the term "king" and took the title huángdì (Son of Heaven: the actual imperial title that would be used after him for the next 2000 years). In his ten-year reign as emperor he began the building of the Great Wall; he standardized weights, measures and the currency of China; he organized a very cohesive Chinese bureaucracy made up of legal scholars appointed through examination and run in accordance with strictly coded and enforced laws. But he also set up a challenge to the Axial Age legacy by attempting to eradicate it (he considered it too "soft") through the burning and burying of Confucianist and other scholars. Instead the Qin Emperor imposed Legalism as the only permissible Chinese political philosophy. But when Qin Shi died,1 he was replaced by an incompetent son (murdered), a couple of scheming officials (also murdered), and then an inept nephew (executed). Quickly the empire Qin Shi had built up split into a number of self-proclaimed kingdoms. Nonetheless he inadvertantly aided the cause of the Axial Age legacy by going too far in his persecution. The reaction of the rulers after him (the Han Dynasty) was deep and lasting – driving them to establish Confucianist philosophy as one of the most notable features of Chinese culture. 1His burial was also the occasion of the creation of the terracotta army of 8,000+ soldiers – each individually crafted – plus hundreds of chariots and horses and various officials and court entertainers ... buried with him ‘to protect him in the afterlife.’ |
Qin Shi Huangdi founds the Chinese Empire as its first Emperor
The Qin Empire - 220 BC
Miles Hodges
The first emperor of
China, Qin Shi Huang (221 BC - 206 BC).
Terra cotta soldiers - part
of a 7,500 army buried in the tomb of Shi Huhangdi,
China's first emperor (d.
210 B.C.).
The full array of the 7,500
soldiers (near
the city of Xi'an) is several miles wide
BrokenSphere / Wikimedia
Commons
Terra cotta soldiers
Tor Svensson / Wikimedia
- "Terracotta Army"
Terra cotta soldiers
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| The
Han Dynasty did much to shape China into the political community that
still exists today. China’s imperial holdings extended to
Mongolia in the north and reached further south as the non-Han peoples
(Vietnamese, Thai, etc.) were pushed deeper and deeper into the
Indo-Chinese peninsula. The great Silk Road to the West was established during this era – adding greatly to the wealth of China. But the privileged aristocracy of China contributed little to the expenses of the state – and fell into fighting among themselves, plunging China into civil war, warlordism, and invasion from outsiders. For the next 400 years China split into different kingdoms, even different imperial territories. |
The Han Commanderies and
Kingdoms - 2 AD
Wikipedia - "Han
Dynasty"
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The Zhou begin a process of reunification
The path out of the disunity that marked China since the fall of the glorious Han dynasty was set by a non-Han Chinese warlord from western China, Yuwen Tai, who began to consolidate his holdings by bringing the northern part of China under his military discipline (utilizing extensively the fubing or commoner militias as the base of his power) ... and by cleverly portraying his rule as some kind of reversion to greatly romanticized ancient noble standards ... taking for his rule also the ancient name of Zhou. He also put restrictions on Buddhism and Daoism to emphasize the Confucianist (thus more purely Han) character of his rule. All of this was timed with a major weakening of the Chinese south when the Chen ruler brought the southern capital at Jiankang (Nanking) under his rule by starving and slaughtering the city of 1 million inhabitants (the largest in the world at the time) in 548. The greatly weakened South was thus a fairly easy pickoff by the new Zhou northern dynasty ... especially after the Chens lost an important battle to the Zhou army in 577. But two years later Yuwen Tai died and his rule was passed on to his notoriously brutal and amoral son Yuwen Pin. Emperor Wendi founds the brief Sui dynasty
But the key factor to holding Zhou gains in the face of imperial corruption was Yuwen Pin’s father-in-law, the duke of Sui – who took over governmental affairs and began putting down the rebellions which had broken out across the country. Then when Yuwen Pin died the next year (580) the duke finished off the last of the rebellions ... and then proceeded to eliminate members of the Yuwen clan. The following year (581) he took the title of Emperor, as Sui Wendi. When he then brought the Chen south to defeat in 589 (but showing impressive clemency to the defeated southerners), largely all of China was under his strong rule. China now had an emperor in fact as well as in name. Then Wendi sent out his armies and diplomats to deal with the surrounding peoples, bringing northern Vietnam into his orbit of control, and establishing working relationships with the Kingdom of Sulla (South Korea)6 in the East and the rising Turks and the far West. Being a devout Buddhist, Wendi lifted the Yuwen restrictions against Buddhism and Daoism ... but strengthened his government administration along even stronger Confucianist lines ... giving his government a more universal appeal among the people. Yet Emperor Wendi could be very tough on those who opposed his rule, executing many and imposing tough discipline even on his own family. Much wealth was lavished on Buddhism in the form of the new temples and statues erected in the hundreds of thousands. And he rebuilt his capital city, Chang’an, along truly monumental lines. |
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The historical high point of traditional Chinese civilization
In the early 600s AD China was reunited under a new Tang Dynasty – which restored Chinese prosperity and advanced the level of Chinese material culture to new heights. Commerce and trade not only opened China up to a larger world to the West, it actually led numerous foreign merchants to settle in China. The Tang dynasty marks the highest point in traditional Chinese civilization -- considered by historians to have been an even greater period than the Han Dynasty -- particularly during the first half of the dynastic period. The Tang capital of Chang'an (modern Xi'an) was the largest city in the world in its time, and the population of China itself reached around 50 million people in the 600s and 700s and as much as 80 million by the 800s. The development of the Mandarin governing system
During the Tang dynasty an examination system based on a person's knowledge of the Confucianist classics and his ability to compose both well written essays and poetry was instituted as a way of selecting well educated, disciplined and loyal civil servants to administer China in the name of the Emperor. This system was instituted in replacement of the older nine-rank system of chosing civil servants. Buddhism becomes an integral part of Chinese culture
This was also a time when Buddhism made a strong entry into Chinese culture, joining the older religious forms of Confucianism and Taoism to create a new religious blend in China. |
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| By
the early 900s there were five dynasties (Liang, Tang, Jin, Han and
Zhou) ruling northern China in rapid succession ... the middle three
actually Turks who had adopted Chinese culture and ruled as ‘Chinese’
dynasties only in the northern portion of China. All five
‘dynasties’ originated – as with all dynastic founders – had been
founded by ‘usurpers,’ military governors originally serving under the
Tang. Each dynasty claimed to possess the Mandate of Heaven; each
dynasty however was short-lived: the ‘Later Liang’ (907-923), the
‘Later Tang’ (923-936), the ‘Later Jin’ (936-946), the ‘Later Han’
(947-950) and the ‘Later Zhou’ (951-960). The founder of the
Later Liang had murdered two Tang Emperors on the road to power, the
Khitans then helped the Tangs overthrow the Liang ... but brought the
Tangs – and after them especially the Jins – under Khitan
mastery. So weak were these ‘dynasties, that at one point
(946-947) the Khitans even seized the Jin capital at Kaifeng. The
Hans recovered Kaifeng and some of the prefectures under Khitan
dominance ... but they were soon overthrown by a rising Zhou power. Despite the chaos (and it was quite severe) this period saw some key advances in Chinese culture ... notably the block printing of all the Confucian classics (some 130 volumes) and the introduction of paper money in the form of bankers’ promissory notes. In both areas the Chinese would be centuries ahead of the West in the development of printing and banking. At the same time that the Five Dynasties were savagely replacing each other one after another, in the south of China ten smaller but more stable kingdoms were able to operate regionally with some degree of security and prosperity. This contrast in living conditions thus caused the massive migration of many Han Chinese from the north to the south. Also, a huge growth in the population occurred – principally in the prosperous south, where by the early 900s 60 percent of the 100 million Chinese now lived. |
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| But the colonistsBut once again, weak rulers and ambitious warlords brought a new round of disunity and chaos to China by the late 800s. Eventually the divisions of China were stabilized into a number of kingdoms and Empires – with the Song Dynasty holding the largest portion of China. Despite this political disunity this was a time of continuing cultural development for China – with Confucianism being formalized into an even more orthodox political ideology (Neo-Confucianism) and classical Chinese art and history developing into very sophisticated forms. Also Buddhism continued to develop as a Chinese religion. |
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| But
in the early 1200s Northern China was overrun by invading Mongols and a
new, foreign or Mongol, dynasty (the Yuan Dynasty) was established in
northern China (its capital city being modern Beijing) by Kublai Khan,
grandson of the great Mongol conqueror, Genghis Khan. Eventually
(1279) Kublai Khan defeated the last of the Song Dynasty in Southern
China. This united China was now theoretically part of the great
Mongol Empire which stretched all the way across Asia and Southern
Russia to the Mediterranean. The Mongol conquest had come at a
great cost to China, the population suffering a decline of almost 50
per cent. But fairly quickly this Mongol dynasty was won over to
Chinese ways and lost much of its ‘Mongol’ feel. But plagues in
the mid 1300s further devastated China – with another third of the
population being lost to the Black Death. This intrusion of the Mongol foreigner had never been accepted by the Chinese – and seeing these devastations of China since the arrival of the Mongols as part of the displeasure of Heaven, revolts broke out and in 1368 the Mongol rule was ended with the establishment of the new Ming Dynasty in 1368. |
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| Whereas the Mongol Yuan Dynasty reshaped the Chinese economy around commerce (thanks to the Mongol ‘peace’ which stretched across Asia), the Ming Dynasty was more narrowly focused on just China itself – and tended to base its wealth and power on landowning and agriculture. The Great Wall was repaired and strengthened as China looked inward in a spirit of nationalist conservatism. |
The Great Wall of China at
Jinshanling - as rebuilt during the Ming Dynasty
Severin.Stalder /
Wikimedia - "Great Wall of China"
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| But
this strong spirit of nationalism was not able to prevent the Chinese
from being overrun in the mid 1600s by a non-Han Chinese people, the
Manchus of Northern China. The Manchu or Qing (Ch'ing) Dynasty
attempted to prevent their distinctive Manchu culture from being
absorbed by Chinese culture – and even forced Manchu customs and styles
on the Chinese people (the pig-tail or ‘queue’ and the particular
clothes style that moderns mistakenly supposed was ‘traditional’
Chinese). Eventually Chinese culture moved toward a blend of
traditional Chinese and newer Manchu cultures. During this period of Manchu rule the Chinese Empire extended to Tibet, Xinjiang and Mongolia in the north and west. |
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| But the Manchus lost their strength over time – and in the early 1800s found themselves being overrun by European traders and their military guards or armies. China found itself face to face with a new, modern culture arising from the West, one which would shake Chinese culture to its foundations – and turn Chinese society upside down for the next century and a half. |
Miles
H. Hodges
