CHINA
1. Huang He River
•AKA- Yellow River
•Gets it’s name from the rich yellow silt
that it carries from Mongolia to the
Pacific Ocean
•Flooded the land, creating rich silt for
farming
•However, flooding also destroyed many
houses and many people drowned
•This led it to be called “China’s sorrow”
2. The Yangtze River
•Longest river in Asia
•Also had rich soil for farming
3. China’s Geography
•Only a little more than one tenth of
China’s land can be farmed
•Mountains and deserts cover most of the
land
4. Mountains and Deserts
•China’s mountains and deserts acted as
walls separating the Chinese from most
other people
•Chinese people united over time to form
the “Middle Kingdom”
5. The Shang Dynasty
•Anyang: China’s first capital
•The people of the Shang Dynasty were
divided into groups
•The most powerful group was the king and
his family
•Shang kings chose warlords to govern the
kingdom’s territories
•Warlords: military leaders who command
their own armies
5. The Shang Dynasty (cnt.)
•Warlords and aristocrats made up the
upper class
•Aristocrats: nobles whose wealth came
from the land they owned
•A few people were traders and artisans,
but most people were farmers
•Farmers worked the land that belonged to
the aristocrats
•Small number of slaves
6. Religion in the Shang Dynasty
•Worshipped gods and spirits
•Believed that spirits lived in mountains,
rivers, and seas
•Offerings of goods made gods and spirits
happy
•Honored ancestors so that they would
bring good luck in times of need
7. Government in the Shang
Dynasty
•Kings believed that they received power
and wisdom from gods, spirits, and
ancestors
•It was the duty of the King to contact
ancestors, spirits, and gods before making
important decisions
•Kings asked for help using oracle bones
8. Oracle Bones
•Priests scratched questions on the bones
and placed them on hot metal rods
•This caused them to crack
•They believed that the patterns of the
cracks formed answers from the gods
9. Chinese Language
•Pictographs: characters that stand for
objects
•Ideographs: join two or more pictographs
to create an idea
10. End of the Shang Dynasty
•During the Shang dynasty, kings lived in
luxury and began to treat people cruelly
•An aristocrat named Wu Wang lead a
rebellion to overthrow the Shang Dynasty
11. Zhou Dynasty
•Ruled for over 800 years, longer than any
other dynasty in Chinese history
•The Zhou kings were the head of the
government
•Under the king was a large bureaucracy
•Bureaucracy: made up of appointed
officials who are responsible for
different areas of government
12. Mandate of Heaven
•Mandate: formal order
•Mandate of Heaven was a heavenly law
that gave the Zhou king the power to rule
because of his talent and virtue
•King’s duty was to keep the gods happy
•Gave the people rights
•People had the right to overthrow a
dishonest ruler
•Natural disasters were signs that the king
had lost the Mandate of Heaven
13. Fall of the Zhou Dynasty
•Local leaders became powerful and
stopped obeying Zhou kings
•Fighting broke out
•200 years- “Period of the Warring
States”
•221 B.C. the ruler of Qin used a cavalry to
defeat the Zhou Dynasty and set up the
Qin Dynasty
14. Life in Ancient China
•Nine out of ten Chinese were farmers
•Farmers ranked above merchants and
looked down on them
•Filial Piety: children had to respect their
parents and older relatives
•Men grew crops, went to school, ran the
government, and fought wars
•Women stayed home and raised children
Chinese Philosophies
Confucianism
Daoism
Legalism
Founder
Confucius
Laozi
Hanfeizi
Main Ideas
People should put
the needs of
their family and
community first
People should
give up worldly
desires in favor
of nature and the
Dao
Society needs a
system of harsh
laws and strict
punishment
15. Qin Dynasty
•Qin Shihuangdi- “the First Qin Emperor”
•Based rule on legalism
•Had anyone who opposed him killed or
punished
•Made the central government strong
•Unified China
•One currency
16. Great Wall of China
•Nomads from the Gobi Desert, called
“Xiongnu”, often attacked
•Built walls to keep them out
•This STARTED the Great Wall of China
(rest was built 1,500 years later)
17. End of the Qin Dynasty
•Qin Shihuangdi was viewed as cruel by
many
•Aristocrats didn’t like him because he
reduced their power
•Scholars didn’t like him because he
burned their writings
•Farmers hated him for forcing them to
build roads and the Great Wall
•Four years after his death, civil war broke
out and the Qin Dynasty was overthrown
18. Han Dynasty
•Founded by Liu Bang in 202 B.C.
•Once a peasant, but became a military
leader
•Declared himself Han Gaozu- “Exalted
Emperor of Han”
•Threw out harsh policies of the Qin
dynasty
19. Han Wudi
•Han dynasty reached it's peak under Han
Wudi
•Wanted talented people to fill government
posts
•Created long, difficult, tests that people
had to take and pass in order to get a
government job
•These tests became “civil service
examinations”
20. Fall of the Han Dynasty
•During the Han dynasty, the population
grew from 20 million to 60 million
•Lived in peace for 150 years
•Emperors after Han Wudi were weak and
foolish, causing the central government to
lose respect and power
•Wars, rebellions, and plots against the
emperor caused the fall of the Han
dynasty
21. The Silk Road
•Silk Road: large network of trade routes
stretching 4,000 miles from western
China to southwest Asia
•Trip over the Silk Road was expensive
because merchants had to pay taxes to
kingdoms along the way
•Carried only expensive goods