TANG DYNASTY

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TANG DYNASTY

• 618-907 AD
• GREATEST DYNASTY IN CHINESE HISTORY
• FOUNDED BY TAIZONG
• INCLUDED NUMBER OF GOOD EMPERORS
• COLLAPSED IN 907
• CIVIL WAR

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TAIZONG

• Brilliant general and government reformer
• Divided government functions into six ministries
• State revenue, public works, defense, justice,
  personnel, and religious affairs
• Expanded civil service examination system
• Founded university
• Implemented new law code
• Restructured legal system
• Conquered Tibet
• Built Changan

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TANG CHINA
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CHANGAN

• Planned City
• 30 miles square
• Population of one million people
• Crowded with temples and markets
• Governmental complex covered several square miles
• Neighborhoods walled off from each other

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TANG GOVERNMENT

• POWERS OF GOVERNMENT
• National urban curfew
• Collective guarantee groups in countryside
• Emphasis on responsibility, not freedom

• TANG BUREAUCRACY
• Efficient and honest
• Board of censors
• Educational system

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SONG DYNASTY

• Would rule China from 960 to 1279
• Did not accomplish anything noteworthy in the
  areas of politics and military affairs
• Culture and science flourished brilliantly

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SCIENCE IN THE SONG DYNASTY

• Invented compass, printing press, and gunpowder
• Doctors took pulse to aid in diagnosis
• Doctors inoculated patients against smallpox
• Acupuncture long, thin needles used to
  anesthetize patients during surgery

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PROBLEMS DURING THE SONG DYNASTY

• Overpopulation (population exceeded 100 million)
• High taxes
• Over-working agricultural land
• Impoverishment of peasants
• Inflation (government deficit spent with abandon)
• Spread of concubinage
• Footbinding

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GENGHIZ KHAN

• Means Lord of All Men
• Born Temujin
• Cast out of tribe after fathers murder
• Killed his fathers murderers and took control of
  tribe
• Forged Mongols into a united nation and led them
  in the military conquest of most of Asia

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MONGOL EMPIRE
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MONGOL WARRIORS
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MONGOL CONQUESTS

• First attacked China and drove the Songs into the
  south
• Then headed west and conquered everything up to
  Persia
• Sent raiding parties into Russia and Middle East
  in preparation for further conquests
• Died suddenly in 1227
• Mongols returned to Gobi desert to select new
  leader
• Continued conquests
• Overran southern Russia, took over Baghdad, and
  even invaded Hungary and Poland
• Finally returned to southern China and took over
  entire country
• Organized conquests into an empire
• Divided into units known as khanates

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KHANATE OF THE GREAT KHAN

• Encompassed China, Korea, and Mongolia
• First ruler was Kublai Khan
• Much knowledge of China under Kublai Khan comes
  from Marco Polo
• Used Chinese middle level bureaucrats but filled
  top jobs with Mongols or foreigners

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COLLAPSE OF THE MONGOLS

• Mongol rule was never popular in China
• Mongols refused to assimilate
• Only shrewd leadership and brute force could keep
  them in power
• Fought losing battle to stay in control of China
  during the first half of 14th century
• Also began fighting among themselves
• Chinese rebel leader defeated and expelled
  Mongols from China
• 1368
• Mongols return to the Gobi Desert
• Native Chinese dynasty reinstalled
• Ming Dynasty

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JAPAN
Japan copied Chinese cultural and political
models for a long time
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EVOLUTION OF JAPAN

• Developed distinctive culture after 900
• Court aristocracy at Kyoto cultivated a delicate
  and sensitive lifestyle emphasizing refined
  poetry, art and graceful manners

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SAMURAI

• Rural warriors develop bushido)
• Emphasized military virtues (courage, pride,
  loyalty)
• Special emphasis on honor

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SEPPUKU

• Preferred death to dishonor

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SHOGUN

• Embodiment of bushido values
• Originally military commander appointed by
  emperor
• Becomes real power behind the throne as emperors
  weaken
• Civil wars between samurai chieftains for
  position (1200-1600)
• Establishment of Tokugawa Shogunate by Tokugawa
  Ieyasu in 1603.

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TOKUGAWA JAPAN

• Tokugawa family dominates position of shogun from
  1603 to 1868
• Good rulers
• Increasingly conservative
• Cut Japan off from rest of world
• Blending of aristocratic and bushido traditions
  to create unique Japanese temperament