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Location
Capital
Rise to Power
Economy
Religion
Government
Military
Decline and Fall
Legacy
Information from Encarta
The Chinese China was unified under its first emperor in 221 BC. For most of the next 2,000 years it was the largest and most advanced civilizations in the world. Because it was geographically isolated from powerful civilizations in the Near East and later in Europe, it was able to develop and maintain a unique culture that spread its influence over much of Asia. The one great constant in Chinese life for these two millenium was political stability. Although emperors might change, the imperial court kept a firm hold on power. Neither the clergy, the military, nor the merchant class acquired long-lasting power, even though religion, warfare, and trade were significant influences in Chinese life. Of the 12 different dynasties that ruled China during these 2,000 years, the Sung were one of most important during the period when the West was passing through its Middle Ages.
The Sung Dynasty established control over the middle portion of what is now modern China. The Central Asian portions to the northwest and Manchuria to the northeast remained in barbarian hands. In 1126, the barbarian Kin armies invaded from the north and the Sung imperial court fled south. The Sung continued to rule the Yangtze Valley and southern regions, but China remained divided for one and one-half centuries.
New Chinese dynasties traditionally changed their capitals upon taking power. The Sung established their capital at Kaifeng. The capital was moved to Hangchou in the south in 1126 when barbarians took control of northern China.
The T'ang dynasty ruled China from 618 to 907, but the last 100 years of its rule had witnessed tumultuous peasant revolts and wars between local military rulers that the imperial court could not end. The years from 907 to 960 were known as the Five Dynasties period. Northern China was held by barbarians and Southern China split into 10 rival states. From one of these an army general named Chao K'uang-yin seized power and unified the southern states, founding the Sung dynasty. His descendants reunited China within 20 years.
During the Sung dynasty China changed from a predominately agricultural economy to a mixed economy where manufacturing and trade became increasingly important. Far in advance of the rest of the world, China built up trade both overland and by sea. The most valuable manufactured goods for trade were silk fabrics and porcelain pottery. Silk was traded to the West over the Silk Road, the world's most famous trade route of ancient and medieval times. Camel caravans carrying silk crossed Central Asia and the Near East to bring silk ultimately to Venice and Constantinople. The silks changed hands several times normally enroute. Tea exports became increasingly important as well.
The foundation of the Chinese economy remained the peasant rice farmers who made up the majority of the population. Several farming families formed a farming village surrounded by the fields and fish ponds that the group maintained. There was limited land for pasture so only a few oxen or water buffalos were kept to help with farming. The division and control of land was a recurring problem through the ages. Reforms were attempted on many occasions but increasing populations, natural disasters, and warfare often made peasant life harsh. Chinese history is punctuated with peasant revolts that occasionally toppled dynasties.
Internal trade also increased in importance. The first great canal was built in 246 BC to make it easier to speed troops and military supplies to threatened areas. Canals proved a great boon to the economy by providing water for irrigation and an efficient highway for trade. The Grand Canal linking the Yangtze and Huan he (Yellow) River valleys was opened in 618 and extended to Beijing in the 13th century.
Three major religions dominated the Chinese culture: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Each had its adherents, yet all lived together in harmony and tolerance. China was never subjected to wars based on religion.
Ancient beliefs held that all natural things contained spirits that were to be respected. There was no all-mighty god. The emperor was the son of heaven who was given a mandate to rule. So long as the emperor lived properly and conducted the correct ceremonies and rituals, life was expected to be good
Confucius taught that harmony followed from respecting social hierarchies, beginning within the family. This religion was concerned primarily with providing laws for proper government and personal behavior. Taoism taught that individuals should develop the inner self and strive for harmony with nature. Taoists ignored the human laws proposed by Confucius in favor of the tao, or the way, of natural laws discovered through meditation. Taoism drew on the ancient beliefs of China and employed mysticism, magic, prayer, and diet.
Buddhism arrived from India around the first century A.D. It had much in common with Taoism, including the search for natural laws and harmony with nature through meditation. The goal of Buddhism was nirvana, a state of heavenly peace when the soul becomes one with the universe. Achieving nirvana was thought to be a long process that might take a soul through many reincarnations. The popularity of Buddhism in China peaked in the 8th century. By then Buddhist monasteries controlled great tracks of farmland and many peasants, both beyond the reach of imperial tax collectors. In the ninth century a T'ang emperor destroyed four thousand monasteries and forty thousand shrines.
Emperors generally held supreme power as the son of heaven. Natural disasters or other calamities were taken as proof that the mandate of heaven had been withdrawn, however, and could justify revolt and change of power to a new dynasty.
Mandarins were civil servants who operated most of the government at the local, province, and imperial level. Mandarins earned their positions by passing detailed civil service examinations based mainly on the works of Confucius. Though dynasties came and went, and foreigners even took the throne, the conservative civil bureaucracy carried on and was responsible in large part for the stable culture that was maintained for millenium.
In contrast to other civilizations of this period, there was little prestige attached to being in the Chinese military. The mandarins kept a close watch over military leaders, controlling them through control of supplies and troops.
Army officers were recruited from families of low nobility. Soldiers were drawn from the peasant class. Life in the military was an attractive alternative for men with little hope of obtaining land of their own.
By the standards of the world, the Chinese army was amazingly large. It was estimated to contain 400,000 soldiers in the 8th century and over one million by the 11th century. The largest European armies at this time might have numbered in the few tens of thousands. The Chinese army was made up of foot soldiers predominately, armed with spears, composite bows, crossbows, and the Ko (a six foot wooden shaft with an axe-like blade at the end). The Chinese made what was arguably the best crossbow in the world. They had invented that weapon in the 4th century BC. Better equipped soldiers carried iron or even steel swords, long before the technology of steel making was discovered in the West. Cavalry units were especially useful against the ever present threat of barbarian raiders from Mongolia to the north. Horse and rider were both armored in heavy cavalry units. The Chinese especially prized Western horses that were bigger than the typical Chinese pony.
Construction of defensive walls on the northern border of China begun possibly in the 4th century BC. The first emperor of China linked previously existing walls to create what has become known as the Great Wall of China. The wall was repaired, lengthened, and improved many times in the following centuries. The wall was intended not so much to keep barbarians out, but instead to slow their advance, provide an early warning system, and slow their withdraw with plunder. Local military leaders then had time to organize resistance or pursuit against invaders.
Gunpowder was discovered by the Chinese in the 10th century. It was first used in fireworks and later in weapons like rockets and hand grenades. A 13th century rocket with two stages was used in naval warfare. The Chinese failed, however, to develop cannon or hand-guns.
A side effect of the new industrialization and growth of cities was the spread of poverty. Masses of beggars plagued the big cities. Although money was set aside to house and feed the poor, most was siphoned off by the mandarins. A severe conservative mentality was imposed on the culture by the mandarins, discouraging science and technological advance. Overseas travel was banned, blocking contact with other civilizations.
Mongols under Kublai Khan invaded from the north and conquered all of China, deposing the Sung dynasty. The Mongols established the Yuan dynasty and ruled China from 1280 to 1368. The successors to Kublai Khan eventually grew weak and corrupt, and lost the military power that had been their strength. Secret societies arose across China, determined to mobilize the peasants and throw out the Mongol usurpers. A Buddhist monk leading one group of rebels captured Nanking in 1356 and Beijing by 1368. He established the Ming dynasty that ruled until 1644.
For most of the period 450 to 1450 AD, China was the world's greatest civilization. In terms of population size, economic production, and technology, it had no peer. Chinese culture dominated and influenced most of East Asia. Due to its isolation, however, it remained a land of mystery and legend to the West.
It is best remembered today for the technologies which were invented there, usually many centuries before a similar technology was invented in, or transmitted to, the West. Important Chinese technologies included the compass, iron casting, steel, paper, moveable type (printing), paper money, gunpowder, wheelbarrow, horse harness, stirrup, clock, calculator (abacus), and the stern-post rudder. Just as the Europe was beginning its renaissance, with the help of important Chinese technologies, China withdrew behind its geographic defenses by banning overseas travel, discouraging invention, and closing the Silk Road.
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