Chapters 12,
13, 14
Political

Interim period 220 - 589







th
Sui Dynasty 589 CE - 618
Tang Dynasty 618 CE - 907


333 - Roman capital moved to Constantinople
4 C - Beginning of Trans-Saharan Trade Routes
476 - Fall of Rome
527 - Justinian rule of Byzantine Empire
632 - Rise of Islam
732 - Battle of Tours (end of Muslim move into
France)
Sung Dynasty 969 CE - 1279






1054 - 1 Schism in Christian Church
1066 - Norman conquest of England
1071 - Battle of Manzikert (Seljuk Turks defeat Byz)
1095 - 1 Crusade
1258 - Mongols sack Baghdad
1271-1295 - Marco Polo travels
st
st
China
FYI
 China
undergoes less fundamental
change during Post-Classical period than
most other center of civilization (W.
Europe, Middle East, and the Americas)
Era of Division
Also
known as the Six Dynasties
Period—all est. capitals at
Nanjing
 Period
marked by nomadic
domination & economic decline
 Confucianism replaced by
Buddhism
 Trade & cities decline as nation is
decentralized
Sui Dynasty
Begins
through a
series of
alliances and
military
successes
Recentralized
control
Sui Dynasty (589 – 618 CE)
Wendi
 1st
Sui Emperor
 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
 Earned the respect of nomadic peoples
Yangdi
 2nd
Emperor
 Murdered Father.
 Established milder legal code
 Upgraded Confucian education and
restored examination system.
 ultimately succumbs to luxury Clear-cuts a
forest to build a private game park



 Is
Series of unsuccessful wars
Built multiple palaces and a new capitol
Constructs Grand Canal (1200 Miles Long)
assassinated
Grand Canal
Tang Dynasty
 Established
by military overthrow of Sui
leaders
 Li Yuan  Duke of Tang
 Bureaucracy is now restored

Improved and expanded
Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 CE)
Tang Dynasty
 Conquest
of surrounding territories and
nomadic tribes – largest expansion of
boundaries of China


Use of Turkic nomads in military – hopes for
assimilation
Expansion to Korea (Silla), Vietnam
 Golden
Age of foreign relations with
other countries

Japan, Korea, Persia
A Whole new world
 Rebuild
system
the bureaucratic/administrative
 Resurgence
of Confucianism
 Social status of scholars exceeds aristocrats
(nobles)
 Immediate and hereditary benefits for
successful examinees
 Social status still counts for more than
ability
Empress Wu: 690-705
 Tried


to make Buddhism the state religion
Large pagodas built
50,000 monasteries
 Conflict
is going to arise between the
Confucians and the Buddhist
Decline of the Tang
 755
CE, Revolts
 Ineffective leaders
 Frontier boarders
raided
 Corrupt government
officials
 907 CE, last Tang
emperor resigns
Decline of the Tang
 Try
to avoid opportunities for corruption
that plagued Tang
 Results
in weakness
 Limit power of military leaders: subordinate
to scholar-gentry
 Relax requirements for civil service exam:
bureaucracy becomes less successful
 Promote
Neo-Confucian ideology over
Buddhism: Return to “Classical”
Heritage
Song Dynasty
(960 – 1279 CE)
Song Dynasty
 Created
after a brief lull in political
power following collapse of Tang
 960- military commander Zhao
Kuangyin emerged to reunite
China under single dynasty
(educated man)
 He
was renamed emperor Taizu and
founded Song dynasty
Song Dynasty
 Unable
to completely
consolidate power

Routed out all rivals except
one- northern Liao dynasty
 Founded
by the nomadic
Khitan peoples from Manchuria
 Song forced to pay tribute to
keep it from raiding the Song
domains

Why is this so bad for the dynasty
??????
Song Politics
 Settling


Scholar-gentry patronized
Given power over military
 The


for Partial Restoration
Revival of Confucian Thought
Libraries established
Old texts recovered
 Neo-Confucians





Stress on personal morality
Zhu Xi
Importance of philosophy in everyday life
Hostility to foreign ideas
Gender, class, age distinctions reinforced
Fall of Song
 Continuous
problems with nomads-result of
initial weakness with Khitan tribe

Size of standing army becomes incredible drain
on finances
 Ultimately
incursion


fall due to civil unrest and nomadic
Jurchens conquer northern kingdom
Briefly establish a smaller kingdom to the south
before succumbing to Mongol invasion
 Will
rise again through Mongol assimilation into
Chinese culture
Japan
Japan’s Contact with China
 Taika

reforms (646 CE) What are these???
Revamps political system
 Adoption
of Confucian education (scholar class)
 Adoption of Chinese written language (very different)
 Adoption of Chinese political etiquette
 Transformation of Japanese monarch

Become an absolutist divine emperor – “Son of Heaven”
 Creation

of professional bureaucracy
Adoption of Buddhism as religion of the elite
 Lower
classes fuse Buddhism & Shinto
Japan’s Contact with China
 Failure
of Taika reforms (mid-8th century)
 Japanese
aristocratic families & Buddhist monks
had too much power
 Would
not allow creation of an absolute emperor
 Buddhists were trying to gain control of gov’t
for themselves
 Emperor
abandons Taika reforms,
reinstates aristocrats
 Hopes
that alliance will weaken Buddhist power
 Japan
abandons Chinese merit-system of
advancement
 Revert
to standard social classes based on birth
Japan’s Growth & Development
 Competition
 Aristocrats


Increase land holdings to build power base
Accumulate wealth and peasants/artisans
 Buddhist


for Political Power
monastic orders
Increase land holdings to build power base
Accumulate wealth and peasants/artisans
 Local
provincial lords (Bushi)
Increase land holdings to build power base
 Control production in the countryside (labor and product)
 Create fortresses to defend their land (self-sufficient)
 Build up their own armies  samurai
 Samurai serve as police force for gov’t

 Emperor


Claim to divine power is weakened
Bureaucracy replaced by aristocrats
Japan’s Growth & Development
 Results
in several periods of warfare and
rebellion
 Creation
of Bakufu – military government
 Creation of Shogun – military leaders of the
Bakufu
 Noble families compete for real control of
government, but appoint emperors as
figurehead
 Provincial land owners destroy aristocracy
(could not defend themselves)
 Ultimately results in collapse of Japan’s political
structure

Creation of small kingdoms, ruled by daimyos (bushi)
Japanese
Feudalism
Korea
Early Korea: 4th century BCE 



Early Koreans were of
Siberian/Manchurian decent, rather
than Mongol/Turkic/Han
Acquire early traits of civilization
(agriculture, metalworking, etc) from
China
Korea conquered by Han China in
109 BCE


Chinese colonists remain until fall of
Classical period
As China weakens, native kingdoms
develop

Koguryo, Silla, Paekche
Development of Korea
Korea
almost re-conquered by
Tang  take advantage of
internal divisions
 Establish
a tribute system instead
with new Silla kingdom (668 CE)
 Boundaries of Korea effectively
unchanged from this point forward
Korean Independence…sort of
(668 – 1392 CE)
 Conscious
effort to model Tang court
 Korea was most dedicated tribute state
 Placation of Tang emperor  “kowtowing”
 Almost total adoption of Chinese culture
(except bureaucracy)
 Improvement
EVER)
 Creation
 Reigns
on Chinese pottery (one of finest
of Yi dynasty
from 1392 – 1910 CE
 Maintains relationship with China
Vietnam
Overview of Vietnam
 Most
removed (geographically) from
China’s influence
Early Vietnam: 220 BCE 
Conquest
 Viet
by Han China (111 BCE)
cooperate with Chinese in order to
learn and adapt
 Adoption of political /military forms 
control of neighbors
 Adoption of farming techniques 
population explosion
Vietnamese Fight for Independence
 Failure
of adoptions to impact lives of Viet
peasants  results in resistance
 Chinese contempt for traditional Viet
culture affects relationship
 Development of open hostility
 Cooperation between lords and peasants
to revolt
 Most famous revolt led by women: Trung
sisters (39 – 43 CE)
 Independence won from Tang (939 CE)
 Maintain
it against Mongols and Ming China
MONGOLS
The Big Picture
•
•
•
The Mongols interrupted the big post-classical
empires.
Extended the world network through re-defining
long distance trade routes.
Chinggis Khan and his successors brought under
their control:
–
–
–
–
–
•
Central Asia
China
Persia and Iraq
Tibet
Asia Minor and southern Russia
MAP
Last Nomadic group to be a formidable
challenge to settled civilizations.
The Mongol Empire
 One
major contribution
= facilitated worldwide
networks of exchange
and communication
 No real cultural impact


Did not spread any
major religion
Did not spread their
language or culture
Temujin (1162-1227)
 United
and led the
Mongols



Capitalized on shifting
tribal alliances and
betrayals
Enemies were indecisive
Incorporated warriors
from defeated tribes into
his own forces
Mongol Expansion
 Two
major reasons for
Mongol expansion under
Genghis Khan:
 The newly united
Mongols needed a
common task or else
they would fragment
and fall apart
 He needed external
resources with which to
reward his followers
 1st goal = China
Mongol Expansion
 1209
= marks the beginning of
Mongol conquests
 Conquests continued for about 50
years under Genghis Khan and his
grandsons = Ogodei, Mongke, and
Kublai
 Final empire contained: China,
Korea, Central Asia, Russia, much of
the Islamic Middle East, and parts of
Eastern Europe
The Mongol Military
 Genghis
Khan reorganized the
entire social structure of the
Mongols into military units
 Of
10, 100, 1,000, and 10,000 warriors
 Allowed for effective control and
command
 Conquered
tribes = broken up and
dispersed throughout these units
The Mongol Military
 Displayed
loyalty



incredible discipline and
People that deserted their unit in battle =
put to death
Unit leaders fought alongside their men
ALL Mongols benefited from the wealth that
flowed into the Mongol Empire from
conquered civilizations
The Mongol Military
 Brutal


and ruthless military tactics
All who resisted Mongol rule = slaughtered
along with their wives, children, and
dependents
Cities destroyed
 Their
brutality worked as psychological
warfare also  many of those that heard
about the Mongols were afraid and
voluntarily surrendered
Kublai Khan
 Mongol
ruler of the Yuan
dynasty (1271-1294)
 Improved roads
 Built canals
 Lowered some taxes
 Supported scholars and
artists
 Limited the death
penalty and torture
 Supported peasant
agriculture
Mongol Efficiency
 Mobilized
human and material resources
 Detailed census taking
 Knew
how many people they controlled and
what resources were available to them
 Allowed them to effectively tax the people
 Set
up an effective system of relay stations
 Provided
for rapid communication
 Fostered trade
 Centralized
 Various
government
government offices
 Scribes translated laws into the various
languages people spoke throughout the empire
China and the Mongols
 Goal
= extract wealth from China
 In order to do so  must accommodate the
Chinese
 Accommodations included:
 Use of Chinese administrative practices,
taxation systems, and postal system
 Took a Chinese dynastic title = the Yuan
 Transferred capital from Karakorum in
Mongolia to Beijing in China
 Mongol rule in China was still harsh,
exploitative, foreign and resented
China and the Mongols
 Mongol
rule in China declined in the
mid-1300s
 Many factors caused this decline:
 Division
among the Mongols
 Rising prices (inflation)
 Epidemics of the plague
 Growing peasant rebellions
Persia and the Mongols
 Conquest
of Persia = much quicker
and more violent than that of China
 1258 = capital of Baghdad sacked
 End
of Abbasid dynasty
 More than 200,000 people massacred
Russia and the Mongols
 Heavy
devastation to Russia  perhaps
more than in Persia
 Mongol conquest of Russia = called the
“Khanate of the Golden Horde”
 Mongols defeated the Russians, but did
NOT occupy Russia
 Russia
had little to offer
 Less developed economy
 Not located along any major trade routes
Exploitation of the Russians
 Russian
princes required to send
tribute to the Mongols
 Variety of heavy taxes on Russian
people
 Continuing border raids
 Tens of thousands of Russians sent
into slavery
End of Mongol Rule in Russia
 Mongol
rule in Russia started to
decline by the end of the 1400s
 Major causes of this decline:
 Divisions
among Mongols
 Growing strength of Russian state  now
centered on the city of Moscow
Decline of the Mongols
 Mongols
too few in number, settled
populations massive
 Any interaction resulted in acculturation
 Mongol rule resented by conquered
populations
 Settled populations began to use firearms
The Fall of the House of Yuan




Slow erosion of Mongol military powerdefeats by Japanese and later Vietnam
and Java
Kubilai’s successors lacked capacity for
leadership
By 1350s signs of decline present:
banditry, piracy, famine, secret religious
sects
Led to rise of Ming dynasty under the
leadership of a man from a poor peasant
family: Ju Yuanzhang
Aftershock: The Brief Ride of Timur






Turks
Timur-i Lang (Timur the Lame) interesting
personality- highly cultivated on the one
hand and vicious on the other
Began conquests in Persia, Fertile
Crescent, India, and Russia in 1360s from
base in Samarkand
Smaller than Mongols but more ferocious
– pyramids of skulls
His rule did not bring increased trade,
peace, nor cross-cultural exchanges
1405- died and successors fought for
power and his empire was pulled apart