Tang and Song Dynasties

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Tang and Song Dynasties

• Reunification and Renaissance in Chinese
  Civilization

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SUI ERA 6TH CENTURY CE

• Marked return to strong dynastic control in China
• Wendi seized son-in-laws throne
• Supported by neighboring nomadic commanders
• Reunited core areas of China after three and a
  half centuries
• Won widespread support

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• Yangdi seized the throne by murdering his father
• extended fathers conquests
• Pushed back northern invaders
• legal and educational reforms
• weakness for luxury
• unpopular wars
• Assassinated by his own ministers in 618

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TANG DYNASTY

• Importance of Li Yuan Founded Golden Age
• Expanded Chinese territory larger than Han
• Rebuilt the bureaucracy
• Revived the scholar-gentry
• Confucian exams
• Ideological basis for centralized government

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Religion in Tang and Song Empires

• Tang Dynasty and Buddhism
• Buddhism had royal patronage and widespread
  conversion
• Emperors began limiting the flow of land and
  resources to monasteries
• Buddhists were persecuted
• Focus on Confucianism threatened old aristocratic
  families and Buddhism

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Decline of the Tang

• Empress Wei tried to establish a second dynasty
• Overthrown by a palace revolt led by another
  prince
• Emperor Xuanzong (713-756) marked the peak of
  Tang dynasty
• Initially supported political and economic
  reforms
• His later actions increased economic distress,
  discontent, and military weakness
• Rebellion against the Tang failed, but weakened
  the dynasty
• Tang made alliances with northern nomads

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• Many provincial governors became independent
  rulers
• 9th century Succession of revolts led by
  peasants
• 907 Last Tang emperor was forced to resign

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Founding of the Song Dynasty

• 960 Strong military commander emerged to
  reunite China under a single dynasty
• Emperor Taizu founded the Song, which
  lasted for three centuries
• Never matches the Tang Dynasty in political or
  military strength
• In part, this was because the Song changed
  Chinese systems to ensure that they wouldnt fall
  like the Tang had

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• Promoted interests of scholar-gentry
• Civil service exams were fully routinized
• Bureaucracy soon had too many well-paid officials
  with little to do
• Revival of Confucian ideas and values
  (Neo-Confucianism)
• Reinforced class, age, and gender distinctions
• Hostility towards Buddhism
• Stifled critical thinking and innovation

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Song Decline

• Nomadic groups carved out
  kingdoms on the northern border
• Peasant taxation increased
• Armies were large but commanders werent the best
  possible leaders
• 1070s and 1080s Introduced sweeping reforms in
  an effort to keep the empire from collapsing
• Neo-Confucianists came to power and reversed the
  previous policies

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• Northern nomads began taking more Song land
• Songs had to flee to the south
• Empire survived for another century and a half

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Contributions of the Tang and Song

• Construction
• Canal building (Grand Canal)
• Helped transport goods and collect taxes
• 1200 miles long, 40 paces wide, with tree lined
  highways on each side

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• Commercial Expansion
• Conquests and canals promoted commercial
  expansion
• Tang control in Asia helped reopen and protect
  the Silk Roads between China and Persia
• Increased international contacts
• China imported luxury products and exported
  manufactured goods
• Chinese merchants began taking goods to others
  instead of waiting for the goods to come to them
• Chinese junks

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• There were market quarters in every city
• Increase in forms of credit available
• Use of paper money
• Surge in urban growth

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• Expanding agrarian production
• People moved south to fertile river valleys
• Supported by rulers of both dynasties
• State created irrigation and embankment systems
• New seeds and methods increased production
• Aristocratic lands were divided up amongst free
  farmers

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Family and Society during the Tang and Song Era

• Position of women initially improved
• Tang women could exercise considerable power at
  the highest levels of Chinese society
• Patriarchal society encouraged by Confucius
  remained
• Elaborate system of arranged marriages
• Divorce was allowed by mutual consent
• Position of women declined under the Song
  (neo-Confucians)

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• Foot binding

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Inventions and the Arts

• New tools, production techniques, and weapons
  spread to other civilizations and fundamentally
  changed the course of human development
• Inventions
• Banks and paper money
• Dams, dikes, and bridges
• Explosive powder and weapons
• Compasses
• Abacus
• Printing with moveable type

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• Arts
• Scholar-gentry was responsible for most artistic
  and literary creativity
• Confucian and Buddhist art and poetry were
  important
• Tang Short stories and poems
• Song Landscape paintings