Resurgent China (Tang and
Song)
Theme: Centralization
Lsn 5
ID & SIG
• bureaucracy of merit, equal-field system,
fast-ripening rice, Grand Canal,
gunpowder, letters of credit, movable type,
paper money, Song Dynasty, Tang
Dynasty
Dynasties
• “A sequence of powerful leaders in the
same family”
– Shang Dynasty 1766 to 1122 B.C.
– Zhou Dynasty 1122 to 256 B.C.
– Tang Dynasty 618 to 907 A.D.
– Song Dynasty 960 to 1279 A.D.
Tang Dynasty
Restoration of Centralized Imperial
Rule
• After the Han Dynasty, several regional
kingdoms made bids to assert their authority
over all of China, but none possessed the
resources necessary to dominate their rivals for
the long term
• In the late sixth century, Yang Jian was able to
reestablish centralized rule
• He was succeeded by the Tang and then Song
Dynasties which organized Chinese society so
effectively that China became a center of
exceptional agricultural and industrial production
that influenced much of the eastern hemisphere
Characteristics of a Civilization
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Intensive agricultural techniques
Specialization of labor
Cities
A social hierarchy
Organized religion and education
Development of complex forms of economic
exchange
• Development of new technologies
• Advanced development of the arts. (This can
include writing.)
Agriculture
Agriculture: Fast-ripening rice
• As Tang and Song
armies ventured into
Vietnam, they
encountered fastripening rice
– Allowed two crops per
year
– When introduced into
the fertile fields of
southern China, fastripening rice quickly
expanded the food
supply
Chinese characters for “rice field”
New Agricultural Techniques
• Heavy iron plows
• Harnessed oxen and
water buffaloes
• Enriched soil with manure
and composted organic
matter
• Extensive irrigation
systems
– Reservoirs, dikes, dams,
pumps, water wheels
– Artificial irrigation greatly
increased agricultural
production which led to a
rapid population expansion
Cities
Southern Gate of Chang’an
Cities
• Increased food supplies encouraged the
growth of cities
• During the Tang Dynasty, the imperial
capital of Chang’an was the world’s most
populous city
– Perhaps two million residents
• During the Song Dynasty, the capital of
Hangzhou had over a million residents
– Southern terminus of the Grand Canal
Economic Exchange
Coins from the Tang
Dynasty
Yellow and Yangzi
Rivers
Economic Exchange: Grand Canal
• Grand Canal built during the Sui Dynasty
(precursor to Tang)
– One of the world’s largest waterworks projects before
modern times
– Built to facilitate trade between northern and southern
China, particularly to make the abundant supplies of
rice and other agricultural products from the Yangzi
River valley available to residents of the northern
regions
– China’s rivers generally flow east to west so an
artificial waterway had to be built to facilitate trade
between north and south
Economic Exchange: The Grand
Canal
• Linked Hangzhou in the south
with Chang’an in the west and
Zhou (near modern Beijing) in
the north
• Almost 1,240 miles, reportedly
forty paces wide, with roads
running parallel to the
waterway on either side
• Integrated the economies of
northern and southern China
which established an
economic foundation for
political and cultural unity
Economic Exchange: Letters of
Credit
• Trade grew so rapidly during the Tang and
Song era that copper coin shortages
developed
– Traders began issuing letters of credit (“flying
cash”) as an alternative
– Enabled merchants to deposit goods or cash at
one location and draw the equivalent cash or
merchandise somewhere else
Coin from Tang Dynasty
Economic Exchange: Paper Money
• The search for
alternatives to cash also
led to the invention of
paper money
• During the late ninth
century, wealthy
merchants began
accepting cash from
their clients and issuing
them printed notes that
the clients could redeem
for merchandise
• Greatly facilitated
commercial transactions
Economic Exchange: Tea
• Tea trading
flourished
during Tang
and Song era
• Tea was
compressed
into bricks
and used as
money
Specialization
Agricultural Regional Areas of Specialization
Specialization
• Increased urbanization brought a host of
specialized activities to the cities
– Merchants, artisans, metallurgists, printers, chemists,
craftsmen, textile workers, performers, restaurateurs,
etc
• China’s various regions specialized in the
cultivation of particular food crops and traded
their own products for imports from other regions
• The government developed a specialized class
of bureaucrats
Social Hierarchy
Emperor
Xuanzong of
Tang China
Song examination
candidate dreaming of the
rewards of academic
success
Social Hierarchy: Centralization
• Tang society revolved around centralized
imperial rule
• Early successes based on
– Well-articulated transportation and
communication network (Grand Canal)
– Equal-field system
– Bureaucracy of merit
Social Hierarchy: Equal-field
System
• Governed allocation of agricultural land
• Ensured equal distribution of land to avoid the
concentration of landed property that had
caused social problems during the Han Dynasty
• Land was allotted to individuals and their
families according to the land’s fertility and the
recipient’s needs
• About one-fifth of the land became the
hereditary possession of the recipients, while
the rest was available for redistribution
Social Hierarchy: Bureaucracy of
Merit
• Rulers recruited government officials from the
ranks of candidates who had progressed
through the Confucian educational system
• Merit was based on performance on the imperial
civil service examinations
• Some powerful families were able to use their
influence, but most officeholders won their posts
on the basis of intellectual ability
• Talented class of bureaucrats were generally
loyal to the dynasty and worked to strengthen
and preserve the state
Social Hierarchy: Song
Bureaucracy
• Song rulers mistrusted the military
so they placed more emphasis on
civil administration
– Scholar bureaucrats proved to have
limited military expertise and Song was
vulnerable to military aggression
• Song increased centralization and
built an enormous bureaucracy
– Devoured China’s surplus production
and strained the treasury
• Efforts to raise taxes led to two
peasant rebellions
Wang Anshi unsuccessfully
attempted socioeconomic
reforms during the Song era
Religion and Education
Buddha from Tang Dynasty
Religion and Education
• Buddhist merchants visited
China as early as the second
century B.C.
• Found a popular following in
Tang and Song China
• Emphasized high standards of
morality, intellectual
sophistication, and a promise
of salvation
• We’ll talk more about
Buddhism during Lesson 9
(Buddhism and Hinduism) and
Lesson 23 (the Silk Roads)
A Buddhist monk
New Technologies
Song porcelain
Cannon ca. 1368
New Technologies: Porcelain
• Tang craftsmen discovered
how to produce porcelain
which was lighter, thinner,
and adaptable to more uses
than earlier pottery
– Strong enough and attractive
enough to serve utilitarian or
aesthetic purposes
• Tang and Song products
gained such a reputation that
porcelain is commonly called
“chinaware”
Tang Marble Glazed
Porcelain Figure
New Technologies: Printing
Book printing ca. 868
New Technologies: Printing
• Became common in Tang era
• Earliest printers used block-printing techniques
– Carved a reverse image of an entire page into a
wooden block, inked the block, then pressed a sheet
of paper on top of it
• By the mid-eleventh century, printers began to
experiment with movable type
– Fashioned dies in the shape of ideographs, arranged
them in a frame, inked them, and pressed the frame
over paper sheets
– Speeded up the process and allowed printers to make
revisions and corrections
– Facilitated production and distribution of texts quickly,
cheaply, and in large quantities
Impact of Movable Type
• Allowed large
production and
distribution of
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Buddhist texts
Confucian works
Calendars
Agricultural treatises
Popular works
New Technologies: Gunpowder
• During the Tang era, Daoist
alchemists learned it was
dangerous to mix charcoal,
saltpeter, sulphur, and arsenic
– Military officials saw
possibilities
• By the tenth-century, the Tang
military was using gunpowder in
bamboo “fire lances,” a kind of
flame thrower and by the
eleventh century they had made
primitive bombs
Art and Writing
Poet Li Bo
Poet Du Fu
Art and Writing
• The ruling and elite
classes of the Tang
and Song Dynasties
were major
supporters of Chinese
painting.
– Sought elaborate and
ornate art with political
and educational
significance
– Stressed realism
Art and Writing
• Eighth Century was a
golden age in Chinese
poetry
• Du Fu (712-770 A.D.) is
often considered China’s
greatest poet
• Other great poets of the
Tang era were Wang Wei
(699 – 761) and
Li Bo (701 – 762)
Passing the Night at
Headquarters
Clear autumn at headquarters,
wu-tung trees cold beside
the well;
I spend the night alone in the
river city, using up all of the
candles.
Sad bugle notes sound
through the long night as I talk
to myself;
glorious moon hanging in midsky but who looks?
Next Lesson
• Mayans and Incas