APWH
Post-Classical China
Big Ideas
• Post-Classical China = Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming
• Today we will focus on the Sui, Tang, Song
• How did China change following the fall of the Han? How
did they stay the same?
• What impact did China have on the post-classical era?
Smaller Ideas – But Important!
• Due to advancements in agriculture, China’s population is
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going to BOOM!
Confucianism is revived through the civil service exam
Buddhism spread to China in the Classical era … what
happens during the Post-Classical era with this religion?
Women’s status will decline
Significant advancements in innovations and technology
will occur in the Tang and Song (Golden Age)
Loss of control over the Silk Road will result in China
seeking trade in the Indian Ocean
Important Vocabulary
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Granaries
Grand Canal
Pure Land Buddhism
Zen (Chan) Buddhism
Scholar-gentry class
Civil Service Exam
Jinshi
Kowtow
Neo-Confucianism
Flying Money
Junk
CHINA
Sui, Tang and
Song
How was
China the focal
point of Asia?
What impact
did China have
upon the
World?
Sui Dynasty
589-618
• 589-
Wendi
• Unites northern and southern
China
• Buddhist
• Lowered taxes
• Granaries
Yangdi
[son of Wendi]
• Milder legal system
• Promoted scholar-gentry in imperial
administration by
• Upgrading Confucian education
• Scholar-gentry re-established
• Restored examination system
• Grand Canal completed—helps to feed people
• 1 million build canal almost half die
• Thousands die rebuilding Great Wall
Widespread revolts due to war losses
In 618 he was murdered by his own ministers
Agricultural Advancements
• Fast-growing rice
• Farmers in south harvested two crops per year
• Improved agricultural techniques
• Heavy iron plows
• Extensive irrigation systems
• Use of manure and organic materials
• Terraced mountain farming
Tang Dynasty
618-907
• Reconquers lands in north and west
• Extends influence to Korea
• Tributary states in Vietnam, Tibet, and Korea
• Empress Wu
• Only woman to hold title of emperor
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Expanded roads and canals
Promoted foreign trade
Promoted agricultural improvements
Equal Field System
Tributary System
• Foster trade and cultural exchanges
• Promote diplomatic relations in east Asia
• Kowtow and exchange of gifts as part of ceremonies
Korea
Vietnam
•Benefitted with opening of
Chinese markets for Korean goods
•More hostile with revolts vs. China
•Adopted Chinese agricultural
practices
•Less patriarchal than China
Confucianism during the Tang
Dynasty
• What role did it play?
• How were the Scholar-gentry
involved with this?
• Was it exclusive?
• Was it monitored?
Civil Service examination revived
Scholar-gentry
Special status for office
holders
Jinshi = highest offices
achieved by passing
the more difficult exams
on Chinese literature.
Family connection still
helpful.
The Examination System
• What was its purpose?
• Who administered the exams?
• What were the exams based upon?
• What was the role of families and birth?
Religion
• Strong social, economic, and political force
• Early Tang continued to patronize
Buddhism
while promoting Confucian classics
• State patronage of Confucian learning threatened
old aristocratic families and Buddhist monastic
orders
• Mahayana or pure land
• Refuge from war and turmoil
• Chan or Zen
• Appealed to educated
• Meditation and appreciated for natural beauty
Empress Wu and Buddhism
• Tries to elevate it to status of state religion
• Commissions Buddhist paintings and sculptures
Anti-Buddhist Backlash
• Attacked by Confucian and Daoist rivals
• Scholar-administrators—they posed economic
challenge to imperial order
• because monastic land not taxed and therefore they lost
revenue
• Lost labor power because they could not conscript
peasants who worked on monastic estates
• Restrictions imposed on land and resources for
monastic orders
• Restrictions grew into persecution
• Thousands of monasteries and shrines destroyed
• Monks and nuns forced to return to civilian life
• Survived but never regained political and economic
influence
• (Emperor Wuzong persecutes Buddhists)
Buddhist-Confucian Conflict
• Early Tang acceptance of Buddhism
• Which leader strengthened it in China?
• Monastery construction
• Was this a threat? Yes! To who? Why?
• Results
• What was the “new” central ideology that emerged?
Fall of Tang
• Poor leadership--Yang Guifei leads emperor astray
Fall of Tang
• Heavy taxation burdens people but still not enough for
military and building projects
• 751 defeat at Battle of Talas River against Muslims
• An Lushan [foreigner] led unsuccessful revolt 755
• Worsening economic conditions
• Border attacks and rebellion
• 907 capital sacked
Song Dynasty
960-1279
• Paid tributes to northern enemies but failed to
stop threat
• Khitans from Manchuria
• Their Liao dynasty recognized the Song’s
cultural superiority (Sinified)
• Confucian
scholar-gentry gain power and status
• Number of bureaucrats grew
• High pay
• Little to do
Now in the Song era, the
bureaucrats are finally more powerful
than the aristocratic families and the
Buddhists
With the stress on Confucianism
Neo Confucianism
• Neo=New
• New strict form of Confucianism
• Virtue could be attained through book learning and
personal observation
• Hostility to foreign philosophical systems
• Less receptive to foreign influences and ideas
• Stifles innovation and critical thinking as time passes
• Emphasis on rank, tradition, obligation
• Reinforced class, age, and gender distinctions
• Patriarchal
Effects of Neo-Confucianism which
endure today
1. simplified rituals and behaviors for
of society
2. strengthen patriarchy
3. spiritual needs acknowledged
4. reinforce hierarchies
each segment
Decline of Song
• Challenges from nomadic peoples from north continued
• Tribute for protection costly
• Cost of army
• Emphasis on civil administration and scholar-gentry
• Funds diverted from military needs to scholarly and
entertainment pursuits
Wang Anshi as Chief Minister
• Reforms
• Legalist basis
• Cheap loans and government assisted irrigation
projects to promote agricultural growth
• Taxed landlord and scholarly class who had been
exempted from military service
• Used money to establish well trained army
• Education emphasized critical thinking rather than rote
memorization of classics
• Lost support and reforms reversed
• Neo-Confucians came to wield greater influence
and ended Wang’s attempts at reform
Southern Song
Jurchens overthrow
Khitans and establish Jin
Dynasty in 1127
• Overran Song territory to
the Yangtze Valley
Southern Song
• Rapid economic growth
• Merchants grew rich from trade
• Culturally the most glorious era
in Chinese history
Changes in China
• Population doubled from Tang-Song
• 100 million
• 10 cities with 1 million
• Agricultural Advances
• new type of rice helped to feed growing population
Agrarian Production
• Peasants encouraged to move to uncultivated
areas
• State regulated irrigation
• Canals increased markets for crops
• New types of rice to feed growing population
• Manures
• Wheelbarrow
• Policies to redistribute land from large
landholders to free peasants
• Weakened powerful aristocracy
Commercial Organization and
Imperial Supervision
• Cities’ market quarters—local
Changan, Song capital
products, artisan production,
overseas trade goods
• Hours and marketing measures
regulated
• Guilds
• “deposit shops”—first use of
paper money (flying money)
• credit
Silk Road
Linked China with west for growing trade
Watertight bulkheads, sternpost
rudders, oars, sails, compasses, bamboo
fenders, gunpowder-propelled rockets
for self-defense.
Chinese junks
Arab dhow
Hangzhou
Advancements
Woodblock
Printing
Tang Dynasty
700’s
Moveable type
Sung Dynasty
1040
Gunpowder
800’s
Paper money
1020’s
Magnetic compass
1100’s
Poetry and Art
• Tang poetry
• Praised Confucian virtues and orderliness
• Song art
• Daoist influence
• Use of black ink
Changes in Society
• More mobile as more move to cities
• Civil service=advancement
• Old aristocratic family power declined
• Scholar-gentry--officials rose in status
• Education rather than land ownership gave status
• Urban middle class
• Merchants, shopkeepers, skilled artisans, minor officials
• Urban lower class
• Laborers, soldiers, servants
• Peasants
• Toiled for wealthy landowners
Women
• Always seen as subservient to
men
• Decline more during Tang and
Song
• Especially upper class in cities
• Women’s work less important to
family’s prosperity and status
• Foot binding
• Peasant women affected less as they
worked fields and helped produce
food and income
The Mongols are Coming!!
1279—Kublai Khan conquers the Southern
Song beginning Mongol rule of China known
as the
Yuan Dynasty
Important Vocabulary
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Granaries
Grand Canal
Pure Land Buddhism
Zen (Chan) Buddhism
Scholar-gentry class
Civil Service Exam
Jinshi
Kowtow
Neo-Confucianism
Flying Money
Junk
Big Ideas
• Post-Classical China = Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming
• Today we will focus on the Sui, Tang, Song
• How did China change following the fall of the Han? How
did they stay the same?
• What impact did China have on the post-classical era?
Smaller Ideas – But Important!
• Due to advancements in agriculture, China’s population is
•
•
•
•
•
going to BOOM!
Confucianism is revived through the civil service exam
Buddhism spread to China in the Classical era … what
happens during the Post-Classical era with this religion?
Women’s status will decline
Significant advancements in innovations and technology
will occur in the Tang and Song (Golden Age)
Loss of control over the Silk Road will result in China
seeking trade in the Indian Ocean