China Bit Strips Notes
XIA DYNASTY (c. 2000 BCE to c. 1600 BCE)
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Legendary first dynasty. Scholars are not always sure what is real and what is
myth.
Seen as the time period when China moved from smaller Neolithic settlements to
large urban centers.
Da Yu was allegedly the founder of the dynasty and first king.
Allegedly Da Yu organized the people to stop the great floods which plagued
China. It took them thirteen years, but he had them built five canals which helped
stop the floods.
Yu was appointed king based on merit due to his success with the canals and in
the military.
He dropped the merit based kingship and established a hereditary monarchy by
naming his son (Qi) his heir.
Developed the first Chinese legal code.
Developed wine making.
SHANG DYNASTY (c.1600 BCE to 1122BCE)
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Tradition claims the Shang dynasty was started when a chariot driving people
invaded and took over from the Xia. The Shang are the first verifiable dynasty in
Chinese history.
The earliest surviving written Chinese records are from the Shang dynasty.
Most of the early written records are on oracle bones.
The founder Xie, was supposedly had a miraculous birth. He was conceived when
a black bird dropped an egg into the mouth of a queen.
The Shang built a large capital city with elaborate palaces and surrounded by a
protective wall.
Technically all land was owned by the king. The king allowed nobles to use large
tracts of land, which was usually tended to by peasant farmers. (The peasant
farmers made up the vast majority of the Chinese population).
It was likely during this dynasty that silk worms began to be domesticated and
that the Chinese learned to make silk cloth.
Many bronze artifacts have been discovered in the tombs of Shang royalty.
Servants also seem to have been sacrificed to serve Shang kings in the afterlife.
Their religion consisted not only of the worship of many gods, but also in
“ancestor worship.”
ZHOU DYNASTY (1122 BCE to 211 BCE)
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Took over from the Shang and became the first dynasty to claim the Mandate of
Heaven.
The Zhou defeated the Shang at the Battle of Muye. The Shang king allegedly
armed 170,000 slaves to help defeat the Zhou, but the slaves defected and joined
the other side.
Technically the longest ruling dynasty in Chinese history. The king gave land to
relatives who formed the noble class.
Over the centuries the nobles started to think of the land as their own and lost
their loyalty to the Zhou king. By 771 BCE the Zhou were no longer in control of
much of China but remained the ruling dynasty in name only.
According to legend this disintegration of power was due to King Kang Yu. In
order to impress a beautiful princess he lit the signal fire which meant the king
was in danger. When the feudal lords arrived to defend them the king and the
princess laughed at them. When the capital was invaded soon after the nobles did
not respond to the signal fire, and the Zhou lost control of China.
The late Zhou period is also known as the Warring States Period.
Fields were divided into 9 parts by nobles. One part went to the King so that it
could be distributed in times of famine. Each of the other 8 parts went to a
different peasant family, though most of the produce went to the noble.
During this dynasty iron was introduced.
WARRING STATES PERIOD (475 BCE to 221 BCE)
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During this time period China had many different states rather than one unified
government. Each small state hoped to reunify China through warfare.
The seven major states were: Chu, Han, Qi, Qin, Wei, Yan & Zhao. There were
several minor states as well.
With the invention of the crossbow it replaced the chariot as the main weapon of
war. Since crossbows could be cheaply mass produced and easy to use, armies
became much larger and peasants were drafted into armies which had hundreds of
thousands of soldiers each.
This development also meant that nobles were less important in battle. This gave
kings more power and hereditary government officials could be replaced with
merit based bureaucrats who passed civil service exams.
Many of the classic Chinese military manuals were written during this period.
Most notably The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
Most of the major Chinese philosophies developed during this period as
philosophers searched for ways to bring peace and order back to China.
Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism among others all developed around this
time period.
The Era of Warring States ended when Qin Shi Huang Di from the state of Qin
conquered the other states, reunified China and became emperor.
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One Qin general during this period, Bai Qi, was known as the “Human Butcher.”
He is said to have killed 890,000 people, and won 73 battles with no losses.
QIN DYNASTY (221 BCE to 206 BCE)
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When the Qin reunified China they favored Legalism, a philosophy which was
based on getting people to follow the law by threatening to use harsh punishments
against law breakers.
The Qin dynasty joined sectioned walls in the north of China together to create
the Great Wall of China, meant to prevent barbarian invasions.
They standardized weights, measures, currency and the writing system.
After they reunified China they had all weapons confiscated and melted down.
They built an irrigation system in Szechuan which has helped keep the region
drought free for over 2,000 years.
The first emperor had an elaborate tomb with thousands of clay (terracotta)
warriors built as his final resting place.
Legend says that the rebels who overthrew the Qin dynasty armed themselves in
part by stealing the weapons from the Terracotta warriors in the first emperor’s
tomb.
China is probably named after the Qin (Chin) dynasty.
HAN DYNASTY (206 BCE to 222 CE/AD)
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Often considered the golden age of China, known for many scientific advances.
Confucianism became the dominant philosophy under the Han and generally
remained dominant until the Communists took over more than 2,000 years later.
The most important Han invention was paper, which was invented by the eunuch
Ts’ia Lun.
Han scientists first observed sunspots in 28BCE, 1640 years before Galileo saw
them. (He typically gets credit for discovering sunspots).
Han scientists also created a seismograph to measure earthquakes, and created
birth control pills made out of evaporated human urine.
Birth control pills were only available to the elite. China’s population reached 60
million under the Han, the highest population in the world.
Wang Chung tried to eliminate superstition by observing the sky. He showed that
the movement of stars, planets, and even eclipses were predictable, and therefore
not dictated by the whims of the gods.
The Silk Road trade route was started during the Han Dynasty.
The last emperor was deposed in 220 and China fragmented into many smaller
states once again.
Zheng He (1371-1433 CE/AD)
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Zheng He was a Chinese admiral who led seven naval expeditions between 1405
and 1433, almost 100 years before Columbus made his trips.
He sailed for the Ming dynasty to help legitimize the rule of Zhu Di who had
illegally seized the throne.
At age 11 he was captured by Ming troops because he lived in a rebellious area.
He was made a eunuch and given as a gift to prince Zhu Di, who would go on to
become the emperor.
He traveled to India, Sri Lanka, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Horn of Africa,
Australia and Indonesia.
He brought back diplomats and tribute from at least thirty different kingdoms.
He helped make the waters around China safe from pirates.
He brought back exotic animals (like Giraffes) which were considered sacred and
viewed as evidence that the emperor was favored by heaven. These sacred
animals were called Quilin.
He made monuments to local religions wherever he traveled. Unlike later
European explorers he respected native religions, which may come from the fact
that he was a Muslim, which was a minority religion in China.
The ships in Zheng He’s fleet were five times larger than European ships used for
exploration later in the century. On his first voyage he took over 200 ships and
28,000 men.