Reunification & Renaissance
I.
Do you remember?
A. Chinese Dynasty Song
B. Cyclical nature of Chinese History
C. Daoism, Legalism, Confucianism, Buddhism
II. Centuries of decentralization & decline
A. The Four centuries following the fall of the Han Dynasty
were filled with political turmoil and regional kingdoms.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Period of the Six Dynasties: 220-589 CE
Elaborate bureaucracy of the Han collapsed
Scholar-Gentry class lose power to landed families
Buddhism supplants Confucianism
General economic, technological, intellectual and urban
decline.
III. Restoration
A. Sui Dynasty: 581-618
1. Wendi wins control of Northern China and eventually defeats
the Chen kingdom in Southern China
B. Sui Strengths
1. Lower taxes
2. Government established and suppored granaries
3. Construction of the Grand Canal linking the Hwang he and
Yangtze Rivers
a) Wheat production in the North with Rice production in the
south
4. Expansion of the state
5. Return of the scholar-gentry & Confucian teachings
C. Weaknesses
1. Extremely harsh rule (not unlike the Qin)
2. Threats from outside invaders and internal revolts
D. The Tang Dynasty: 681-907
1. Founded by Li Yuan
2. Expansion into Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, Vietnam and
Korea
3. Ultimately the size of the empire and weak leadership would
be its downfall as local warlords gain strength.
E. Tang influence
1. Repairing the Great Wall
2. Continued strengthening of the Scholar Gentry &
Confucianism
3. Weakened aristocracy/Strengthened bureaucracy
4. Enhanced examination system increasing the numbers of the
scholar gentry.
IV. Religion
A. Buddhism gained influence in China prior to the rise of
the Tang/Song Era
1. Mahayana/Pure Land Buddhism & Zen Buddhism
2. Buddhist growth opposed by Confucians and Daoists as an
‘alien faith’
3. Opposition during the Tang dynasty would replace Buddhist
influence with Confucianism as the central Chinese ideology.
a) Tax expemt status of Buddhist monesteries caused them to
be a target of bureaucratic action.
4. High point of Buddhism during the reign of Tang Empress
Wu
5. Following her rule, Neo-Confucians re-established Confucian
ideals with emphasis on rank, obligation and rituals
6. Reinforcement of gender and age distinctions
a) Male dominance
B. Decline of the Tang/Rise of the Song
1.
2.
3.
4.
Weak leadership
Strengthening independence from regional governors
Nomadic incursions
Economic/Peasant Revolts
V. Song Dynasty (960-1279)
A. Never as politically or militarily as strong as the Tang
1. Unable to defeat northern nomads in Manchuria
2. Slowly chipped away by nomadic states (eventually falling to
the Mongols)
VI. Chinese Golden Ages
A. Expansion of art, science, architecture, philosophy,
crafts, poetry, technology
B. Centuraies of relative stablity
1. Strong meritocratic bureaucracy based on Confucian Civil
service exams
C. Transportation, trade, economics, urban growth,
agricultural expansion, inventions :navigation
improvements, paper, printing