Ancient China

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Ancient China

• c.3000 BC 300 AD

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Geography
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Dynastic Cycle
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Shang Dynasty1750 1122 BC

• Farming society w/ aristocratic ruling class
• Veneration of ancestors and belief in life after
  death
• Burning of objects
• Oracle Bones
• Very warlike
• Most famous for artistic bronze castings

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Shang Dynasty
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Zhou Dynasty1122 256 BC

• Longest dynasty in Chinese history
• Mandate from Heaven (must know this!)
• Technology of the Zhou
• Massive canal and irrigation projects
• Use of iron in tools, utensils, weapons
• Crossbow
• Extensive trade route
• Feudalism

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Zhou Dynasty
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Chinese Family Life

• Central to Chinese Society
• Worshiping of ancestors
• Men had dominant role and could take additional
  wife
• Parents choose career of their children
• Parents of women paid a dowry to future husbands
• Filial Piety
• Children take care of their parents

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Belief systems in Zhou China

• Confucianism- Confucius- order in society
  believed in relationships between groups and
  people- very popular
• Taoism (Daoism)- belief in natural order nature
  guides yin-yang- somewhat popular
• Legalism- harsh laws punishments needed to keep
  society in check- not popular

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Chinese Language

• Pictographic
• Symbols to represent people, things, etc.
• Over 100,000 of characters

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Chin (Qin) Dynasty221 206 BC

• Shi Huangdi (1st and only Qin leader)
• Defeated rivals in a civil war and set-up a
  centralized government- legalism
• Very paranoid
• Had govt officials spy on each other
• Started the Great Wall of China
• Created a uniformed money expanded borders
• Burned books and attacked intellectuals
• Buried with the Terracotta Army

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Qin Dynasty
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Han Dynasty202 BC 221 AD

• Removed legalistic practices of Qin
• Promoted Confucianism (more on that later)
• Civil Service Exam
• Used to train future Chinese govt officials
• 3 sets of exams over a period of years
• Memorization and explaining moral lessons
• Schools set-up to help the poor (usually only
  helped rich)
• Used Confucian Practices
• Expanded the empire
• Wudi Han expanded south into present day
  Vietnam further north

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Han Dynasty
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Han Dynasty (cont.)

• Freed the peasants from noble landowners
• Peasants made to pay taxes to the state
• Population grew, many poor farmers sold land to
  aristocrats
• Technology
• Textile manufacturing, water mills, iron casting,
  paper
• Increased trade

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Silk Road
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Han Dynasty (cont.)

• Culture Family
• Family was the center of economic base
• History written down and taught to children
• Confucian classes
• Fall of the Han (220 221 AD)
• 300 years of chaos civil war
• Sui Dynasty (581 618 AD)
• Canal linking Huang He Yangtze Rivers

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Sui Dynasty
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Tang Dynasty618 907 AD

• Restored Civil Service Exam
• Broke up large landowners
• Expanded boundary in Northern Himalayan Mountains
  (Tibet)
• Painting Poetry
• End of Dynasty results in more civil war

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Tang Dynasty
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Song Dynasty960 1269 AD

• Lost Tibet
• Lost land to the Uighurs in Northern China
• Lost Manchuria to Jurchen people
• Mongols
• Nomads from Gobi Desert
• Defeated Jurchen
• Overthrew Song Dynasty

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Song Dynasty
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Economy Society of the Dynasties

• New lands gave more agriculture advantages
• Manufacturing textiles in cities
• Trade routes to many region (Silk Road)
• Horses, furs, raw hides, silk
• Steel, cotton, silk, gun powder developed
• Paper money
• Private traders (guilds)

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Mongols

• Pastoralists, lived in clans
• Genghis Khan (Temujin universal ruler)
• Unified clans in 1206 AD
• Conquered central Asia in 21 years
• Died in 1227 AD
• Sons set up an empire that stretched from Poland
  to China
• Pax Mongolica mid 1200s to 1300s (Peace
  Stability)
• Kublai Khan
• Conquered China began Yuan Dynasty
• Did not change Chinese culture
• Attempted take over of Japan
• Marco Polo

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Mongol Empire