ASIA 600-1450

• After a 300 year period of disunity following the collapse of the Han dynasty in
220 CE, the Sui family reunited China in a short 40 years
– The Sui dynasty was short-lived, but it set the stage for China’s growth into a powerful society that dominated Asia up through the 20 th Century and affect the evolving cultures of Korea, Japan, & Vietnam
• The Sui laid the groundwork for many of the practices of the Tang Empire, which would come to power in 618,
– Under the Sui, Confucianism was reestablished as the philosophy of the state, and the examination system was revived.
• By the time of the Sui, Mahayana Buddhism had grown to be very influential in China & would be a defining characteristic of the Tang dynasty.
– The Sui placed their capital in Chang’an & built several canals to link the capital to the coast of Southern China
• The most important, the Grand Canal, linked the Yellow & Yangzi Rivers and would be a key part of the Tang’s economic success

• The Li family, whose roots were both Turkish & Chinese, established the Tang Empire in 618
– The Tang established a large empire, giving a great deal of power to local nobility in order to ensure control
– They expanded westward into Central Asia until Muslim
Arabs &Turks stopped their advance
– The Tang had ethnic ties to areas of Central Asia where
Buddhism had proved politically useful, and as they extended their empire into areas where Buddhism was popular among people of all classes, they continued to use it as a political tool
• For this reason Tang princes rewarded Buddhist monasteries that supported their rule with monetary gifts, tax exemptions, and land grants
– The Tang also reinstituted the tributary system, first used by the Han dynasty, by which independent states gave gifts to the Chinese emperor
• Both Japan & Korea paid tribute to the Tang and in doing so acknowledged China’s regional power

• The Tang Empire quickly attracted people from all over Asia who flocked especial to the Tang capital at Chang’an, a trading center, where they could be found worshiping as
Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists
– With more than 1 million people in the city and its suburbs,
Chang’an was a center for cultural exchange in the arts, textiles,
& music
– This cultural exchange was possible in part because the Tang, with control of the coast of southern China, participated in Indian
Ocean trade
• Chinese maritime technology included the compass & the ability to make oceangoing vessels that could transport all kinds of good up through the Grand Canal
• The Chinese also began to master new kinds of skills such as cotton production, & increasing competition with the textile industry in western Asia spurred them to increase their expertise in silk production

• In the 8 th Century, the power of the Tang began to be threatened by rival states, including the Uighur
& Tibetan Empires
– These external threats, combined with internal rebellion and overexpansion, signaled the decline and eventual destruction of the Tang Empire
– Buddhism, because it had come to China from India, became a scapegoat for many of the problems the Tang faced
• Buddhist monasteries were accused of being a foreign evil that drained money from the state because they were tax-exempt
• They were also blamed for causing the breakdown of the family because elite sons & daughters were entering monasteries rather then getting married & producing heirs

• After the fall of the Tang dynasty, 3 smaller empires controlled territory in China
– The Song Empire, based in central China, had a large army but never grew as large as the Tang, primarily because of the strength of the rival Tanggut & Liao Empires in northern
China
– These 3 empires had different religious & ethnic identities and competed for resources
• The Song fought against these “Barbarians” in the north
& focused on advancing their maritime expertise in order to build relationships with other states by sea
• The Jin, who defeated the Liao in 1115, captured the Song emperor 2 years later in the capital city of Kaifeng and forced the song south of the Yellow River, where they established a new capital at Hangzhou
– From this point on, historians refer to the Song Empire as the
Southern Song

• Although never as large as the Tang, the Song made outstanding scientific & technological contributions by building on the mathematical and engineering skills that had come to the farflung Tang Empire
– Example: they used their knowledge of astronomy to build a mechanical celestial clock and to improve the compass and the junk – the main Chinese seafaring ship
• The junk navigated the oceans with ease and had special features such as watertight compartments that allowed it to preserve all kinds of goods
– Military technologies were also essential because the Song military commanded more than 1 million men
– Improvements in iron & steel production and experiments with gunpowder produced innovative and effective weapons.

• The song also had many economic accomplishments:
– Paper money, possible thanks to printing techniques such as movable type, was a tremendous technological contribution that would spread across Asia, into Europe
& beyond
• Printing also allowed for the dissemination of agricultural techniques, educational resources, and public-health materials in cities and villages across China
– Improving production and health conditions in areas by combating malaria and the plague
• Another economic tool was credit, which could be used across the region

• Although the religious influence of Buddhism remained strong, Confucianism reemerged as the philosophical & ethical basis for Song society
• Neo-Confucianism – Confucian ideas that emerged in the Song period & thereafter – reflected Buddhist influence and incorporated new understandings of Confucian teachings
– Mastery of the Confucian classics was required under the scholar examination system, and meritbased appointments gave new prominence to the role of the scholar-official in Chinese society

• Confucianism’s patriarchal tradition, coupled with the backlash against Buddhism dating form the end of the
Tang period, meant that expectations for women were closely regulated in China and subsequently in all East
Asian states
In China, women:
– Did not have property rights
– Inability to remarry (very rarely occurred)
– Rarely had educational opportunities comparable to men
– Footbinding, a practice unique to China, came to embody the restrictions on women in Song China
• Their feet were tightly wrapped and subsequently broken
• When healed in a way to make the feet appear smaller
• Made the woman unable to work
• Footbinding became a status symbol among the elite in China
(wealthy = women could be objects and not productive “trophy”)

• What made the Mongols able to conquer Eurasia relatively quickly?
– Much of their success was a result of the military techniques these steppe nomads had practiced for centuries
• Mongol expertise in horsemanship and the use of the central
Asian bow, which could shoot 1/3 farther than the bows of their enemies, made them nearly unstoppable
– The only true military rivals to the Mongols were the
Mamluks, who shared many of the same cultural traditions and were therefore familiar with Mongol weaponry and tactics
– The Mongols also adapted the iron weaponry and tactics they encountered in China, and they absorbed many captured peoples into their army, including
Iranians, Turks, Chinese and even Europeans

• From 1240 to 1260 the capital of the Mongol
Empire was Karakorum, a flourishing city that attracted merchants, missionaries, and scholars from all over Eurasia.
• During this period, the Great Khan remained in
Mongolia and ruled over the khanate of the Golden
Horde in Russia, the Jagadai khanate in Central
Asia, and the Il-Khan in Iran
– After 1265, the Jagadai khanate continued to control
Central Asia and developed and thrived independently from the domain of the Great Khan in the East
• Both Turkish nomads and Muslims had a tremendous influence on developments in the
Central Asian khanate

• The Golden Horde, established under
Genghis’ grandson Batu in 1223, began as a unified khanate but broke apart into smaller khanates, the longest-lasting one surviving up until the 18 th Century
– The Mongols ruled Russia from a distance
– Their capital was just north of the Caspian Sea
– This allowed Russia to avoid direct subjugation and kept Russia’s principalities in place
• Much of the credit for this was due to Prince
Alexander Nevskii who convinced his peers that their best strategy was to cooperate with the Mongols
• In appreciation for his help, the Mongols favored
Nevskii’s territory of Novgorod
• Moscow the town his son ruled, eventually became the most important political hub in Russia

• The Mongols also recognized and patronized the
Orthodox Church, a shrewd political move to win the hearts of the Russian people
– Islam was also very influential and became a source of tension among the Mongols of the Golden Horde
• Batu’s successor declared himself a Muslim, which sparked conflict between Golden Horde leaders and those of the Ilkhan that culminated in war in 1260
• In 1295, the Il-khan leader declared himself a Muslim, which shifted alliances again

• In securing & controlling Eurasia, the Mongols allowed missionaries, merchants and diplomats to move freely and exchange ideas and goods
• However, the Mongols also unknowingly spread disease, in particular the bubonic plague
– It began in China under the Tang dynasty
– As Mongol Troops moved from their stations in China, rats in their cargo spread the disease across Central Asia into Russia and port cities like Kaffa on the Black Sea, and from there eventually to western Europe
• In addition, influenza, typhus, and smallpox were spread
– The death and devastation caused by the plague is one of the greatest legacies of the Mongols
– Peaceful trade allowed for an unforeseeable pandemic
• The Mongols brought demographic change in other ways as well
– The heavy burden they placed on western Eurasia in terms of taxes and resources led to population loss, drained the local economy, and destroyed rural areas

• As the Il-Khan khanate was declining in the
Middle East, new leadership rose in the Jagadai
Khanate under Timur (also known as Tamerlane in the West – ruled from 1370-1405)
– Although he was an ambitious military leader, Timur could never be khan because he was not born a Mongol – he was a Turk who had married into the Mongol dynasty
– This did not stop him from having incredible success in attacking the Delhi Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire
& bringing the Middle East under his control
– He then set his sights on East Asia but died before he could attack China
– Timur’s legacy lived on through his decedents, the
Timurids, in the Mughal Empire of the 16 th Century

• Placed strategically between Iran and China, the ends of the Silk Road, Timur’s capital at
Samarkand, became a key trading point on the
Silk Road
• Timur also patronized great scholars, painters, and historians, helping to preserve and build on the significant contributions of the Muslim world
– Astronomy was another field that flourished during this time
• Timur’s own grandson build an observatory in Samarkand and studied astronomy with great precision and dedication

• The death of Ögödei caused conflict over who would be the next Great Khan
– When Genghis’ grandson Khubilai Khan took the title of the Great Khan in 1265, Jagadai’s descendents refused to recognize Khubilai as the supreme leader
– The fighting that ensued destroyed Karakorum, and as result, Khubilai began to rule from
Beijing, where he created an incredible city that was linked to the Grand Canal
– In 1271, he crated the Yuan Empire in China, the new domain of the Great Khan

• One of Khubilai’s greatest contributions to Chinese regional identity was his ability to unify the areas after the Song’s fragmentation
– He destroyed the Tanggut and Jin Empires in northern
China & conquered the Southern Song dynasty in 1279, thereby laying out the territory of modern China
– Eager to establish himself as a the rightful ruler of China, he worked to bring together Mongol and Chinese traditions
– To that end, Khubilai adopted many of the successful political and cultural practices of the previous dynastieswith a few exceptions:
• He did away with the scholar examination system & placed Mongols in the highest positions of authority in his court
• Chinese scholar officials kept their positions but were subordinate to the Mongols
• The Confucians were at odds with many of the practices of the Yuan
Empire, including the rising status of merchants, whom Confucians did not respect

• Mongol control of the entire Eurasian landmass revitalized the Silk road
– The Yuan Empire stood at one end and Il-khan at the other, which allowed for Pax Mongolica, or the
Mongol peace
– The flow of ideas, religion, technological innovations, and resources brought tremendous wealth and grandeur to the Yuan Empire
• Khubilai financed the building of canals and roads to bring the tribute and wealth right to his glorious palace in Beijing

• Because Khubilai valued this exchange so much, he welcomed to his court important men from all parts of the world, including Marco
Polo
– Polo was a Venetian merchant whose record of his alleged years at the court of Khubilai has given tremendous insight into life in the Yuan dynasty
– Muslims furthered astronomical studies, brought new medicinal practices, and left their imprint on language – Mandarin Chinese, a dominant language in China today, has many Mongolian influences that date back to this time

• The Mongols significantly affected Chinese demographics
– For various reasons the population under the Mongols declined significantly perhaps up to 40%:
• Warfare
• Flooding
• Migration
• Bubonic plague
• By the 1340s, feuding among Mongol princes led to mass rebellion and the eventual rise of a new empire that focused on reestablishing Chinese traditions
• The Mongols did not disappear
– Some were absorbed into Chinese society and others returned to the Mongol homeland
– The Ming would never rule over all the Mongols, who continued to be a serious concern on the northern edge of the
Ming Empire

• In response to the foreign threat represented by the Mongol’s
Yuan dynasty, a priority of the first Ming emperor,
Hongwu, was to reassert Chinese authority & indigenous cultural practices
– He moved the capital from Beijing to Nanjing, on the Yangzi river, and reinstituted the Confucian examination system
– The Ming also made many social and economic changes to reflect their desire to take back control form the Mongols
– Communication with the rest of Central Asia and the Middle East was scaled back tremendously, and silver replaced paper money as the main currency
– Growing staple crops became more important than growing commercial crops because of the large population increase under the Ming
– They also completed the Great Wall, which stood as a tangible symbol of imperial desire to keep foreigners out
• Despite these efforts, many of the influences of the Mongols remained, including the Mongol calendar

• The 2 nd Ming emperor, Yongle, was quite different from
Hongwu
– He increased ties to the previous empire by moving the capital back to Beijing and added onto Khubilai’s royal complex, the Forbidden
City
– Yongle also reopened trade with the Indian Ocean trade network & reestablished economic relations with the Middle East
– To avoid conflicts with the remaining Mongol presence in Central
Asia, he sent the eunuch naval admiral Zheng He on maritime voyages to Indian Ocean ports
• In the course of 7 expeditions between 1405-1433, Zheng He established trading, mercantile, and diplomatic relationships & added 50 new tribute states to China’s realm
• During this time, Ming cultural achievements blossomed in the areas of literature & painting, and Ming porcelain, known as Ming ware, became the most famous Chinese product throughout Eurasia
• The Ming Empire would endure until the mid-17 th Century

• The 1 st written records of Korean history come from
Chinese sources, which make clear that the Chinese heavily influenced Korea, but that Korea also maintained its own identity
• Both Confucianism & Buddhism had a tremendous impact on Korean culture, but political roles were not determined by a civil service examination system as in China
– Instead, Korea’s landed aristocracy created ruling families who were in power for centuries, & wealth was based on agriculture
– One of these families, the Silla, conquered the Korean peninsula with the support of the Tang

• The Silla fell in the 10 th Century, and the Koryo family, from which the name Korea derives, took over
– Like the Southern Song in China, the Koryo also feared the Liao and Jin Empires, and they established a diplomatic relationship with the Song in light of this threat
• The Koryo also had a tense relationship with the
Mongols that climaxed when the Mongols attacked in 1231
– In 1258, the same year that they sacked Baghdad, the
Mongols finally defeated the Koryo and brought Korea under their control
– The Mongols demanded economic tribute from the
Koreans, and the Koryo family married into the Mongols, which resulted in further exposure to the Yuan culture

– The Yi remained in power until the Japanese takeover in 1910
– Part of their ability to remain independent as a tributary state to the Qing Empire was their strong naval power – gunpowder technology taken from the Chinese allowed them to mount canons on ships

– Although the earliest woodblock print dates back to Han China & moveable type was in place in
Korea by the 1300s, it was the invention of metal movable type by the Koreans in the 1400s that allowed for increased accuracy and readability

• The 1 st written records of Japan, like those of Korea, came from the Chinese
– Many Chinese influences reached Japan through Korea, among them Confucianism & Buddhism
– Indeed, Japan became a center for Mahayana Buddhism in the 8 th
Century
• Like Korea, Japan adopted some practices from China but had some key differences in political organization
– There was no concept of a Mandate of Heaven in Japan – Instead emperors descended from one continuous lineage
• The Fujiwara family assumed protection of the emperor & was in power from 794-1185, although a civil war plagued the last
30 years
• The Kamakura family took power in 1185 & established a shogunate that controlled Japan through the military
• Japan became a decentralized feudal state that recognized the emperor and shogun but was not unified

• It was the threat of a Mongol invasion that unified feuding Japanese lords and helped create a national identity out of a politically decentralized environment
– Every effort went into protecting Japan’s economic resources & preparing for attack
– Japan’s ability to resist a Mongol invasion twice was partly because of the weather
– Both times storms undermined the Mongols’ attempts
– This fact helped cement the view that Japan was a unique state among her East Asian neighbors
• Defending Japan successfully strengthened the power of the warrior elite, or samurai, who developed a culture centered on Zen Buddhism during the period of the
Ashikaga Shogunate, established in 1338

• During the period 600-1450, Vietnam was divided into 2 rival kingdoms:
– Annam in the north
• Environment similar to that of southern China & agriculturally based like its neighbors of East Asia
• Culturally, politically & economically tied to China beginning in the Tang period
– Champa in the south
• It was a part of the Indian Ocean trade network
• Heavily influenced by India & Malaysa
• Both Annam & Champa were tributary states of the Song, and Champa made a significant tribute gift of Champa rice, which grows fast and allowed Chinese farmers in the song period to produce more of this staple crop
• When the Mongols came, they made both Annam & Champa tribute states
– This continued under the Ming (who occupied Annam for a time)
– Annam regained tribute status, then took Champa – uniting the 2 kingdoms into one state named Annam by 1500
• Annam continued to have Confucian political structures, including the examination system, but women retained property rights

• Since the decline of the Gupta Empire, India was divided into separate states that often fought one another
• In the 12 th Century, Turkish invaders from
Central Asia poured into northern India and established the Delhi Sultanate
– From 1206-1526, this Muslim empire ruled almost the entire subcontinent of India except the south, which
Hindu princes held, and did much to centralize India under a strict government bureaucracy
– The Turks destroyed temples and massacred thousands

• Once the initial conquest was over, the Delhi sultanate required Hindus to pay a special tax in exchange for protection
– This created an ongoing tension between Hindus &
Muslims that would ultimately weaken the Delhi
Sultanate significantly – in fact, this tension between
Hindus & Muslims still goes on today and causes much of the conflict in this region
– The sultanate received a fatal blow in 1398 when Timur sacked & captured Delhi, a defeat that signaled the end of the prominence of Delhi
– Despite its difficulty in controlling all of India, the Delhi
Sultanate profited tremendously from the Indian Ocean trade network because it held many of the key port cities and regions along the trade routes

• The key to Indian Ocean trade was mastering the monsoon winds and navigating their currents
– The typical ship of the Indian Ocean was the dhow, a boat fitted with a lateen sail – a triangular sail that caught the winds of the ocean beautifully
– The Chinese junk became known in the Indian Ocean as the best vessel for travel and large transport
• The Indian Ocean trade network grew to be the richest trade network during the period 600-1450 & it was at its height from 1200-1500
– So precious was this trade network that gaining control of it would become the quest of European explorers like
Christopher Columbus by the end of the period

• The complex trading patterns of the Indian Ocean were not controlled by one central political authority but worked through a series of smaller economic relationships
– Gold from Africa flowed through the East African citystates.
– Goods from the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Europe were transported across the Arabian peninsula
• Port cities like Malacca stood as a gateway between
Southeast Asia, China, and the Indian Ocean
– Islam was the dominant religion of the network and facilitated trading relationships between peoples of all languages and ethnicities who shared this faith, among them
– ibn Battuta, a Moroccan Muslim, who chronicled his extensive travels to many of the prominent locations along the Indian Ocean trade route and recorded that Islam spread to each port along the trade route and then beyond