Download Ancient China (Shang and Zhou Dynasties) Theme: The importance

Ancient China (Shang and Zhou
Dynasties)
and Resurgent China (Tang and
Song Dynasties)
Theme: When Centralization is Lost
Lsn 11
Ancient China (Shang and Zhou
Dynasties)
ID & SIG:
• Book of Songs, dynasty, bronze
production monopolization in Shang and
Zhou China, mandate of heaven, Shang
Dynasty, tian, veneration of ancestors,
Yellow River, Zhou Dynasty
Centralizing Aspects of Chinese
Civilization
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Agriculture
Dynasties
Bronze Monopoly
Great Wall
Economic Exchange
Equal Field System
Bureaucracy of merit
Grand Canal
Importance of Rivers
rivers
agriculture
populations
cities
specialization
hierarchy
YELLOW RIVER
YANGZI RIVER
Population Growth
• Settlements began to crop up along the
Yellow and Yangzi Rivers
– Created a need for recognized authorities
who could maintain order, resolve disputes,
and organize public works projects
– Village-level organizations could only act
locally
• Small dynasties followed that extended
their control over progressively larger
regions
Dynasties
• “A sequence of powerful leaders in the
same family”
– Shang Dynasty 1766 to 1122 B.C.
– Zhou Dynasty 1122 to 256 B.C.
– Tang Dynasty 618 to 907 A.D.
– Song Dynasty 960 to 1279 A.D.
Shang Dynasty
Yellow River
• Takes its name from the vast
quantities of loess soil it
picks up along its route
– Loess is an extremely fine and
powder-like soil that gradually
builds up in the river bed,
raising the river bed and
forcing the water out of its
established path
– Yellow River periodically
unleashes terrible floods,
earning it the nickname
“China’s Sorrow”
Agriculture
• Loess soil is
extremely fertile
and easy to work
– Even before the
introduction of
metal tools,
cultivators with
wooden
instruments could
generate large
harvests
Crops
• Initially, millet was the main
crop (especially in the north)
• Sometime thereafter, the
Chinese began cultivating rice
(especially in the south where
the Yangzi River is less prone
than the Yellow River to
devastating floods)
– Extensive rice production
would require developing a
complex irrigation system
(made possible by the
centralizing authority of the
Shang and Zhou Dynasties)
Cities
Ruins of Banpo Village near modern Xian
Cities: Shang
• Vast network of walled
towns whose local
rulers recognized
authority of the Shang
kings
• Shang rulers moved
their capital six times
– Capital at Yin (near
modern Anyang)
contained a complex of
royal palaces and
eleven large and lavish
royal tombs
Royal tomb at Anyang
Great Wall
• The Great Wall of
China originated as a
defensive barrier
against tribal
intrusions
• Construction started
in the seventh
century B. C. and
spanned over 20
states and dynasties
– Two sections were
built during the Zhou
era
– As China unified, the
various sections were
connected
Social Hierarchy
King Wen of Zhou China
Social Hierarchy: Shang and early
Zhou
• Royal family and allied noble families
– Resided in large, palatial compounds and lived on the
agricultural surplus and taxes delivered by their
subjects
– Power tied to bronze
• Privileged class of hereditary aristocrats
– Rose from the military allies of the rulers
– Possessed extensive land holdings and performed
military and administrative tasks
– Some access to education for those who lived in
cities
– Detailed rules of etiquette during Zhou era
Social Hierarchy: Ancient Shang
and early Zhou
• Small class of free artisans and craftsmen
– Lived in cities
– Those who worked almost extensively for the privileged classes
lived reasonably comfortably
• Peasants
– Semi-servile class that lived in the countryside and did not own
land
– Provided agricultural, military, and labor services for lords in
exchange for plots to cultivate, security, and a portion of the
harvest
• Slaves
– Most were captured enemy warriors
– Performed hard labor that required a large work force such as
clearing fields or building city walls
– During the Shang Dynasty many were victims of human sacrifice
during funerals and other religious and ritual observances
New Technologies: Shang and
Military Success
• Shang ruling elites were
able to monopolize
production of bronze in
the Yellow River Valley by
controlling access to
copper and tin ores
• Allowed Shang forces to
defeat Xia forces who
were equipped with only
stone, wood, and bone
weapons
• Shang nobles used
bronze to make fittings for
horse-drawn chariots
New Technologies: Shang and
Military Success
• Shang were also able to
exert military might over
the Xia through bows
Shang pictograph
of composite bow
New Technologies: Zhou and
Military Failure
• Zhou kings were not able to monopolize bronze
production as the Shang had
• Moreover, iron technology was spreading rapidly
throughout China
– Iron ores were cheaper and more abundant than
copper and tin so Zhou could not monopolize iron
either
• Subordinates were able to outfit their forces with iron
which enabled them to resist the central government
• When nomads invaded the Zhou capital at Hao in 771
B.C., the subordinates refused to support the king
Resurgent China (Tang and
Song)
ID & SIG:
• bureaucracy of merit, equal-field system,
fast-ripening rice, Grand Canal,
gunpowder, letters of credit, movable type,
paper money, Song Dynasty, Tang
Dynasty
Dynasties
• “A sequence of powerful leaders in the
same family”
– Shang Dynasty 1766 to 1122 B.C.
– Zhou Dynasty 1122 to 256 B.C.
– Tang Dynasty 618 to 907 A.D.
– Song Dynasty 960 to 1279 A.D.
Tang Dynasty
Restoration of Centralized Imperial
Rule
• After the Han Dynasty, several regional
kingdoms made bids to assert their authority
over all of China, but none possessed the
resources necessary to dominate their rivals for
the long term
• In the late sixth century, Yang Jian was able to
reestablish centralized rule
• He was succeeded by the Tang and then Song
Dynasties which organized Chinese so
effectively that China became a center of
exceptional agricultural and industrial production
that influenced much of the eastern hemisphere
Characteristics of a Civilization
•
•
•
•
•
•
Intensive agricultural techniques
Specialization of labor
Cities
A social hierarchy
Organized religion and education
Development of complex forms of economic
exchange
• Development of new technologies
• Advanced development of the arts. (This can
include writing.)
Agriculture
Agriculture: Fast-ripening rice
• As Tang and Song
armies ventured into
Vietnam, they
encountered fastripening rice
– Allowed two crops per
year
– When introduced into
the fertile fields of
southern China, fastripening rice quickly
expanded the food
supply
Chinese characters for “rice field”
New Agricultural Techniques
• Heavy iron plows
• Harnessed oxen and
water buffaloes
• Enriched soil with manure
and composted organic
matter
• Extensive irrigation
systems
– Reservoirs, dikes, dams,
pumps, water wheels
– Artificial irrigation greatly
increased agricultural
production which led to a
rapid population expansion
Cities
Southern Gate of Chang’an
Cities
• Increased food supplies encouraged the
growth of cities
• During the Tang Dynasty, the imperial
capital of Chang’an was the world’s most
populous city
– Perhaps two million residents
• During the Song Dynasty, the capital of
Hangzhou had over a million residents
– Southern terminus of the Grand Canal
Economic Exchange
Coins from the Tang
Dynasty
Yellow and Yangzi
Rivers
Economic Exchange: Grand Canal
• Grand Canal built during the Sui Dynasty
(precursor to Tang)
– One of the world’s largest waterworks projects before
modern times
– Built to facilitate trade between northern and southern
China, particularly to make the abundant supplies of
rice and other agricultural products from the Yangzi
River valley available to residents of the northern
regions
– China’s rivers generally flow east to west so an
artificial waterway had to be built to facilitate trade
between north and south
Economic Exchange: The Grand
Canal
• Linked Hangzhou in the south
with Chang’an in the west and
Zhou (near modern Beijing) in
the north
• Almost 1,240 miles, reportedly
forty paces wide, with roads
running parallel to the
waterway on either side
• Integrated the economies of
northern and southern China
which established an
economic foundation for
political and cultural unity
Economic Exchange: Letters of
Credit
• Trade grew so rapidly during the Tang and
Song era that copper coin shortages
developed
– Traders began issuing letters of credit (“flying
cash”) as an alternative
– Enabled merchants to deposit goods or cash at
one location and draw the equivalent cash or
merchandise somewhere else
Coin from Tang Dynasty
Economic Exchange: Paper Money
• The search for
alternatives to cash also
led to the invention of
paper money
• During the late ninth
century, wealthy
merchants began
accepting cash from
their clients and issuing
them printed notes that
the clients could redeem
for merchandise
• Greatly facilitated
commercial transactions
Economic Exchange: Tea
• Tea trading
flourished
during Tang
and Song era
• Tea was
compressed
into bricks
and used as
money
Social Hierarchy: Centralization
• Tang society revolved around centralized
imperial rule
• Early successes based on
– Well-articulated transportation and
communication network (Grand Canal)
– Equal-field system
– Bureaucracy of merit
Social Hierarchy: Equal-field
System
• Governed allocation of agricultural land
• Ensured equal distribution of land to avoid the
concentration of landed property that had
caused social problems during the Han Dynasty
• Land was allotted to individuals and their
families according to the land’s fertility and the
recipient’s needs
• About one-fifth of the land became the
hereditary possession of the recipients, while
the rest was available for redistribution
Social Hierarchy: Bureaucracy of
Merit
• Rulers recruited government officials from the
ranks of candidates who had progressed
through the Confucian educational system
• Merit was based on performance on the imperial
civil service examinations
• Some powerful families were able to use their
influence, but most officeholders won their posts
on the basis of intellectual ability
• Talented class of bureaucrats were generally
loyal to the dynasty and worked to strengthen
and preserve the state
Social Hierarchy: Song
Bureaucracy
• Song rulers mistrusted the military so they
placed more emphasis on civil administration
– Scholar bureaucrats proved to have limited military
expertise and Song was vulnerable to military
aggression
• Song increased centralization and built an
enormous bureaucracy
– Devoured China’s surplus production and strained the
treasury
• Efforts to raise taxes led to two peasant
rebellions
New Technologies: Printing
Book printing ca. 868
New Technologies: Printing
• Became common in Tang era
• Earliest printers used block-printing techniques
– Carved a reverse image of an entire page into a
wooden block, inked the block, then pressed a sheet
of paper on top of it
• By the mid-eleventh century, printers began to
experiment with movable type
– Fashioned dies in the shape of ideographs, arranged
them in a frame, inked them, and pressed the frame
over paper sheets
– Speeded up the process and allowed printers to make
revisions and corrections
– Facilitated production and distribution of texts quickly,
cheaply, and in large quantities
Impact of Movable Type
• Allowed large
production and
distribution of
–
–
–
–
–
Buddhist texts
Confucian works
Calendars
Agricultural treatises
Popular works
New Technologies: Gunpowder
• During the Tang era, Daoist
alchemists learned it was
dangerous to mix charcoal,
saltpeter, sulphur, and arsenic
– Military officials saw
possibilities
• By the tenth-century, the Tang
military was using gunpowder in
bamboo “fire lances,” a kind of
flame thrower and by the
eleventh century they had made
primitive bombs
Art and Writing
• The ruling and elite
classes of the Tang
and Song Dynasties
were major
supporters of Chinese
painting.
– Sought elaborate and
ornate art with political
and educational
significance
– Stressed realism
Art and Writing
• Eighth Century was a
golden age in Chinese
poetry
• Du Fu (712-770 A.D.) is
often considered China’s
greatest poet
• Other great poets of the
Tang era were Wang Wei
(699 – 761) and
Li Bo (701 – 762)
Passing the Night at
Headquarters
Clear autumn at headquarters,
wu-tung trees cold beside
the well;
I spend the night alone in the
river city, using up all of the
candles.
Sad bugle notes sound
through the long night as I talk
to myself;
glorious moon hanging in midsky but who looks?
Next Lesson
• Greece and
Alexander the Great