ANCIENT CHINA

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ANCIENT CHINA

• Prepared by Anita Billeter
• Palmdale School District
• with funding from
• Jordan Fundamentals Grant
• Keeping History Alive Grant

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GEOGRAPHY

• Mountains and deserts separated regions in China
  and led them to develop separately from each
  other.
• Rivers serve to link the different regions.
• Flooding rivers provide minerals that enrich the
  soil but also sometimes bring disaster.

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EARLY CULTURES

• The Yangshao settled in farming villages and
  built houses with plaster floors and roofs
  supported by wooden posts.
• The Lungshan farmers harvested silk, wove fabric,
  made pottery, and used simple written symbols and
  numbers.

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• According to legend, a Lungshan engineer named Yu
  founded the first great Chinese dynasty called
  the Xia, around 2000 B.C.

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THE SHANG DYNASTY

• The Shang Dynasty followed the Xia and ruled for
  more than 700 years.
• The Shang built some great walled cities,
  developed bronze, devised a money system, and
  developed a class of skilled artisans.

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• The Shang people believed in an afterlife, many
  gods, ancestor worship, and the use of oracle
  bones to predict the future.

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THE ZHOU DYNASTY

• Wu the Martial attacked the Shang king and
  established the Zhou Dynasty, the longest in
  Chinas history.
• The Zhou worshiped tian, and established the
  mandate of heaven as the right to rule.

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• The Zhou spread their rule through feudalism, and
  used a character-based written language to unify
  communication.

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AN AGE OF CHANGE

• Independent lords invaded the Zhou capital,
  driving the Zhou rulers out.
• The heads of the strongest feudal states became
  the true rulers of China, and it was a time of
  chaos.
• During this period of unrest, a number of great
  thinkers sought ways to put Chinese society back
  in order. Confucious was one of these great
  thinkers.

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CONFUCIOUS

• Confucianism, a code of behavior, has influenced
  Chinese thought for over 2,500 years.
• Confucius taught that sincerity, loyalty, and
  mutual respect should be the center of all
  relationships, and that obedience to ones
  parents was vital.

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• Confucius taught that rulers should rule by good
  example, and act like a father to his people.
• Mencius spread the ideas of Confucianism.

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OPPONENTS OF CONFUCIANISM

• Moists believed in equal love for all people, and
  that such universal love would bring benefits,
  such as peace.
• Legalists believed people were naturally bad and
  required a government of strict laws and harsh
  punishments to keep their evil under control.

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• Daoists believed human nature was neither good
  nor bad, and that people should live a simple and
  thoughtful life in harmony with nature.

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The Qin Dynasty

• The king of the state of Qin conquered all other
  feudal kings and became the first emperor of
  China.
• The emperor, Qin Shuhuangdi, worked to maintain
  power over the many warring states by dividing
  the empire into provinces with governors who
  reported to him.

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THE LEGACY OF QIN

• Qin ended the Chinese feudal system, and set up a
  system of government by bureaucracy.
• Qin determined a set standard measurements, set
  one form of money, and decreed standard written
  characters.

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• Qin censored books and ideas that he believed
  challenged his power.
• Qin oversaw the building of the Great Wall, which
  stretches for over 1,500 miles.

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REVIVAL OF CONFUCIANISM

• The Qin government was harsh and was overthrown
  and replaced by the Han dynasty in 206 B.C.
• The Han lifted the ban on books and encouraged
  the study of Confucianism.
• The Han rulers combined Legalism with
  Confucianism to create a strong government with
  strict laws led by an emperor who set a good
  example for his people.

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DAILY LIFE IN THE EMPIRE

• Only one in 10 Chinese people lived in a city.
  Most Chinese were farmers, living in the country.
• Cities were centers of government, education,
  entertainment, and trade.

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ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE HAN DYNASTY

• Under the Han Dynasty, China expanded the Silk
  Road trade, and invented the seismograph and
  paper.
• Han writers increased the number of Chinese
  characters, and created the first Chinese
  dictionary.
• The Han civilization created important works in
  medicine, mathematics, poetry, history, and art.