1 AP World History Document Based Question (DBQ) Economic Growth as a Result of Chinese Government Policy Directions: ● Respond to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis or claim that establishes a line of reasoning. ● Describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt. ● Support an argument in response to the prompt using at least six documents. ● Use at least one additional piece of specific historical evidence (beyond that found in the documents) relevant to an argument about the prompt. ● For at least three documents, explain how or why the document’s point of view, purpose, historical situation, and/or audience is relevant to an argument. ● Use evidence to corroborate, qualify, or modify an argument that addresses the prompt. PROMPT: Evaluate the extent to which economic growth in China during the period circa 600 C.E. to circa 1200 C.E. was the result of Chinese government policies. Document 1 Source: Sima Guang, Chinese court historian, Comprehensive Mirror to Aid Governance, chronicle compiled in 1084 C.E. recording domestic policies of Chinese dynasties through the end of the Tang. Early in the Tang dynasty, the government files were being poorly maintained, and the tax rolls were often not accurate. The collection of taxes was done in a haphazard manner. More and more tax collection agencies were created, but no one supervised any of the other ones. The rich avoided taxes by becoming officials or becoming Buddhist monks, while the poor were struggling under their heavy obligation. Corrupt officials used the opportunity to seize assets and oppress people. Taxes that should have been collected once a year were being collected every half month instead. The people could not endure this kind of cruel treatment and fled their villages to make a living. In some places, no more than half of the population remained in their homes. To address this situation, Yang Yan, the chancellor of the Tang emperor Dezong [reigned 779–805 C.E.] reformed the tax system. Under the new system, the government calculated all the expenses for each town or region and added the amounts that were supposed to go to the central treasury. That then became the overall tax burden on the people in that locality. The old system had taxed young and old people at different rates; similarly those native to a place and those who had settled there from somewhere else had to pay different tax rates. All of these random divisions were abolished and taxes began to be assessed only based on one’s wealth. Businessmen and merchants were no longer able to evade their tax responsibilities and would bear similar tax burdens to their farming neighbors [relative to their wealth]. The local Director of Finances was put in charge of overseeing tax collection. 2 Document 2 Source: Zhu Changwen, Chinese scholar, local history of the Suzhou region of central China, written circa 1100 C.E. A series of dikes and breakwaters constructed during the Tang dynasty had prevented the Wusong River [in central China] from flooding. Over time, however, the dikes and breakwaters did not hold. If great rains fell in summer, then the river would flood, inundating crops, ruining houses, and resulting in a poor harvest. After the Tang dynasty, people wanted to restore the infrastructure and the transportation commissioner of the Grand Canal and other officials considered measures to address the problem. Finally, during the reign of the Song Emperor Renzong [reigned 1022–1063 c.e.], officials came to investigate the problems of water management and traveled around by boat looking into the situation, questioning the local people, and drawing a map to present to the emperor. As a result of that survey, a few years later, government officials decided to build an embankment to prevent the river from flooding. This was done by means of forced labor. The transportation commissioner of the Grand Canal then demanded that the raised paths between fields along the river should be restored so that they would form a network that could prevent flooding during storms. The commissioner also ordered that the local officials instruct peasant families to build raised paths for themselves and instructed local officials to set up classes in which they acted as instructors. This was all put into effect throughout the region at that time. Document 3 Source: Guo Zhongshu, Song dynasty court painter, Merchant River Boats on a Snowy Day, drawing on a silk scroll exhibited at the imperial palace in Hangzhou, c. 1100 C.E.. The text in the upper left corner was written by Song Emperor Huizong, a common practice with imperial palace painted scrolls. 3 Document 4 Source: Chen Fu, Confucian scholar from the city of Huzhou, Agricultural Treatise, 1149 C.E. The middle-income peasant households of the region around Huzhou rely for their income entirely on the cultivation of silkworms. An extended family of ten people can raise ten frames of silkworms, obtaining about 18 pounds of silk cocoons from each frame, which translates to about 10 pounds of silk thread. Based on typical market prices for silk and rice in the region, farmers can obtain about 130 pounds of rice for each 5 ounces of silk they take to market. So it is perfectly possible to earn enough for the entire food and clothing needs of the family for the year just by cultivating silk. Because the cultivation of the silkworms happens only in the spring and summer, it is not surprising that many farmers choose a few months of intensive labor to a full year of toil, and many stop growing rice. Document 5 Source: History of the Song, official history of the Song dynasty, commissioned by the Mongol Chief Minister of Emperor Shundi of the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty, 1345 C.E. In the twelfth year of the reign of the Song Emperor Taizu [972 C.E.], a superintendent of maritime trade was set up in the southern port city of Guangzhou, and afterward in the ports of Hangzhou and Mingzhou as well. Another superintendent was appointed to oversee the activities of all Arab, Sumatran, Javanese, Bornean, Philippine, and mainland Southeast Asian barbarians whose trade passed through China. These maritime merchants, both Chinese and barbarian, would usually take from China the following goods: gold, silver, strings of coins, lead, tin, many-colored silk, and porcelain. They would usually bring into China spices and aromatics, rhinoceros horn, ivory, coral, embers, pearls, fine steel, sea-turtle leather, tortoise shell, gemstones, foreign cloth, ebony wood, and other things. Document 6 Source: The Players, painting of women during the Song Period. According to literary and artistic sources, the custom of foot-binding originated during the fifty years that elapsed between the T'ang and Sung Dynasties (907-959 A.D.). Tradition traces the first bound foot to the court of poet-aesthete Li Yu, Emperor of the Southern T'ang Dynasty (961-975 A.D.) 4 THESIS Statement: ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ HAPP-Y Analysis of Doc # ____: ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ 5 THESIS: While participating in lucrative luxury overland networks of exchange like the silk roads likely would have continued without supportive governmental policy (4), the extent to which a single network of exchange grew to include more substantial connections to inter-regional maritime commerce (5) was heavily dependent on economic policies designed to maintain critical legal (1) and administrative (1,2,5) infrastructure, and environmental policies to maintain physical infrastructure (2,3). Analysis of DOCUMENT 1: Recognizing the importance of economic policies to maintain critical legal and administrative bureaucracies designed to improve tax collection and limit socio-economic divisions among people in China, the author of document 1, a court historian, writes with the express PURPOSE of showcasing how past rulers efficiently reformed their tax systems in an effort to aid in economic growth, providing lessons for current rulers.
