Stone carving. Silk culture and weaving. Wheeled vehicles. Expansion from Yellow River to Yangtse valley. Increased irrigation. Horse-drawn war chariots. Palace architecture.
Trade through Central Asia with Roman Empire. Chinese culture reaches Japan. Turk and Tungus alliances. Revival of Confucianism weakens power of Buddhist monasteries.
Cotton from India. First printed book. State examinations organized. Rise of Khitan. Foot binding. Poetry, painting, sculpture. China in fact had a civilization similar to that of Europe before the Industrial Revolution, and superior to it in many ways.
The agriculture of China was more advanced and productive than that of Europe because of the great use of irrigation: and the wide network of canals that supplied water for irrigation also provided cheap transport.
The Chinese bad reached a high level of technique and art in the malting of such things as porcelain and silk, and in general the guild craftsmen of their cities were at least equal to those of the cities of pre-industrial Europe. Moreover the Chinese had gone a good deal further than Europeans in the use of writing as a vehicle of civilization and -government, and everything which that means. They had extensive statistics of government and finance at a time when Europe had practically none.
They used written orders and regulations when Europe was still dependent on government by word of mouth. The historical chart shows what was happening in China at the time of well-known events in the Western world. Note that some of the highest points in Chinese civilization came during the darkest days in Europe. The central column of the chart shows a succession of Chinese dynasties.
A dynasty is the reign of one ruling family, and some families remained in power for several hundred years before they were overthrown either by another Chinese family or by barbarians from the north.
The Chinese people did not come to China from somewhere else as did our own early settlers but are thought to be the direct descendants of the prehistoric cave men who lived in North China hundreds of thousands of years ago. From the Yellow River the Chinese spread north, east, and south, sometimes absorbing aboriginal tribes, until by the time of Confucius B.
At the time of Confucius, China consisted of many small states ruled by feudal lords. While they were loosely federated under an emperor it was not until B.
The imperial form of government lasted from B. The purpose of this stupendous job of engineering was to protect the settled Chinese people from the raids of barbarian nomads who lived beyond it. Much of this great walled frontier is still standing today.
A dynasty would come into power after a period of war and famine had reduced the population to the point where there was enough land and food to go around. There would be prosperity, a civilized, sophisticated, and lavish court, families of great wealth and culture scattered over the country, and a flowering of art, literature, and philosophy.
Then gradually the population would increase and the farms be divided, the landlords would refuse to pay taxes, thus weakening the government, and at the same time would collect more and more rent from the peasants. There would be savage peasant rebellions. Out of these rebellions would arise warriors and adventurers who enlisted the outlawed peasants, seized power by the sword, and overthrew the dynasty.
Once in power, the successful war lord would need to bring into his service scholars who understood administration and the keeping of records. These scholars were largely from the landlord class, the only class with leisure to acquire an education. While they built a government service for the new dynasty they founded landed estates for themselves and their heirs. As the power of the landlords grew the state of the peasants worsened and the same things would happen all over again. Several times dynasties were founded by nomad warriors from beyond the Great Wall.
The last dynasty of the empire was founded by Manchus from Manchuria, who ruled in China from until the empire fell in It is said that China has always absorbed her conquerors.
Until the Japanese invasion her conquerors have been barbarians who looked up to the higher civilization of China and eagerly adopted it. The armored cars and tanks of a more mechanized civilization are not so readily digested. The values of culture and of being civilized have existed in China so long that they have soaked right through the whole people. Even a poor Chinese with no education is likely to have the instincts and bearing of an educated man.
Known for its trade expansion to the outside world that established cultural ties with the West, the Ming Dynasty is also remembered for its drama, literature and world-renowned The Qin Dynasty established the first empire in China, starting with efforts in B. The empire existed only briefly from to B. The Han Dynasty ruled China from B. Though tainted by deadly dramas within the royal court, it is also known for its promotion of Confucianism as the state religion and opening the Silk Road trade route to Europe, The Tang Dynasty is considered a golden age of Chinese arts and culture.
In power from to A. Beginning of the The Shang Dynasty is the earliest ruling dynasty of China to be established in recorded history, though other dynasties predated it.
The Shang ruled from to B. They were known for their advances in math, astronomy, artwork and Few civilizations knew how to tie one on better than the Egyptians. Though the 13th-century Italian explorer Marco Polo may have been the first Western European to leave a detailed chronicle of his travels to Asia, he was certainly not the first to make the trip. Chinese historians recorded earlier visits by people thought to be emissaries from Lascaux Cave In September , four French teenagers were roaming the forests near Montignac when their dog began sniffing around a mysterious hole in the ground.
Read our cookies policy. Ancient China was one of the most amazing civilizations in history. In the 5th century BCE it was made up of several rival kingdoms. The Chinese people became unified as one kingdom, which lasted for about 2, years. It was the most advanced civilization the world had ever seen. Under the Chinese kingdom, education was highly prized, and the arts, especially music and painting, grew and flourished.
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