AP World History
Chapter 12
The Era of the Tang and Song
Dynasties
Wendi
Sui Dynasty
• Nobleman
• Victory over Chen united traditional Chinese Core.
• Built grain bins for storing grain.
• Lowered taxes and built massive canals.
• Leads nomadic leaders to control northern China
• 589, defeat of Chen kingdom
Yangdi Emperor (killed his dad and gets killed by his minister)
• Established milder legal code
• Upgraded Confucian education and restored examination
system.
• Extravagant living and building led to social upheaval. (plus
making worn out soldiers go get Korea)
• Sets up new capital at Loyang
Tang Dynasty
• Dynastic system saved by Li Yuan (Duke of Tang)
– Son, Tang Taizong, is given throne next
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Extended boarder to Afghanistan.
Continued the re-building of the Great Wall.
Moved capital to Changan
Re-building of the bureaucracy.
–Aristocracy weakened
–Confucian ideology revised
–Scholar-gentry elite reestablished
–Bureaucracy
–Bureau of Censors
•Examination system bigger than ever before
–Ministry of Rites
–jinshi
Confucianism and Buddhism
Confucianism and Buddhism potential rivals
Buddhism had been central
Mahayana (Pure Land) Buddhism popular in era of turmoil
Chan (Zen) Buddhism common among elite
Early Tang support Buddhism
Empress Wu (690-705)
Endows monasteries
Tried to make Buddhism the state religion
50,000 monasteries by c. 850
The Anti-Buddhist Backlash
Confucians in administration
• Support taxation of Buddhist monasteries
Persecution under Emperor Wuzong (841-847)
• Monasteries destroyed
• Lands redistributed
Confucian emerges the central ideology
Tang Decline
• 755 CE, Revolts
• Ineffective leaders (Empress Wei) (Xuanzong “hearts”
Yang Guifei)
• Frontier boarders raided
• Corrupt government officials
• 907 CE, last Tang emperor resigns
Song Dynasty
• Song founded in 960 C.E (Zhao Kuangyin aka Honest Abe
who “collected books rather than booty”)
– Zhao is renamed Taizu
• Song unable to defeat northern nomads.
• Song paid tribute to Liao
– Founded by Khitan people/Manchuria
Song Politics
Settling for Partial Restoration
• Scholar-gentry patronized
• Given power over military
The Revival of Confucian Thought
• Libraries established
• Old texts recovered
Neo-confucians
• Stress on personal morality
• Zhu Xi (apply philosophy to every day life)
• Importance of philosophy in everyday life
• Hostility to foreign ideas
• Gender, class, age distinctions reinforced
Roots of Decline: Attempts at Reform
Khitan independence encourages others
Tangut, Tibet
• Xi Xia kingdom
• Song pay tribute
Wang Anshi (aka FDR
• Confucian scholar, chief minister
• Reforms
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Legalist enthusiasm
Cheap loans/gov’t assistance
Taxed the scholars
Expanded military and agriculture
Tried to change education system
• When his emperor dies, he is out
Southern Song Dynasty
Jurchens defeat Liao in the North
• 1115, found Jin kingdom
• Invade China
Southern Song Dynasty
• New capital at Hangzhou
• Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279)
Tang and Song Prosperity: The Basis of a Golden Age
Canal system
• Built to accommodate population shift
• Yangdi's Grand Canal (links China across the
Noodle LIne
• Links North to South
Silk routes reopened
• Greater contact with Buddhist, Islamic regions
Sea trade
• Developed by late Tang, Song
• Junks (with gun powder rockets!)
Commerce expands
• Credit
• Deposit shops (banks)
• Flying money
Urban growth
• Changan
– Tang capital/2 million
• Hangzhou
– Song capital
– Marco Polo’s favorite
Tang and Song Prosperity:
The Basis of a Golden Age
Expanding Agrarian Production and Life in the Country
• New areas cultivated
• Canals help transport produce
Aristocratic estates
• Divided among peasants
• Scholar-gentry replace aristocracy
Family and Society in the Tang-Song Era
• Great continuity
• Marriage brokers
• Elite women have broader opportunities
– Empresses Wu, Wei
• Divorce widely available
The Neo-Confucian Assertion of Male
Dominance
Neo-Confucians reduce role of women
• Confinement
• Men allowed great freedom
• Men favored in inheritance, divorce
• Women not educated
• Foot binding
Glorious Age Conclusion
Invention and Artistic Creativity
• Influence over neighbors
• Economy stimulated by advances in farming, finance
• bridges
• Explosives and projectiles (Used by Song for armaments)
• Chairs used in household
• Tea as a common drink
• Compasses, abacus
• Bi Sheng
– Printing with moveable type
• Scholarly Refinement and Artistic Accomplishment
– Scholar-gentry key
– Change from Buddhist artists
– Secular scenes more common
• Li Bo
– Poet
– Nature a common theme in poetry, art