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Part 1: Ancient China (Shang and
Zhou Dynasties)
Part 2: Resurgent China (Tang
and Song)
Lsn 4
Part 1: Ancient China (Shang and
Zhou Dynasties)
Theme: The importance of rivers and the
advantage of technology
Lsn 4
Importance of Rivers
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
Characteristics of a Civilization
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Intensive agricultural techniques
Specialization of labor
Cities
A social hierarchy (We’ll discuss mandate of heaven in
more detail in Lsn 14)
Organized religion and education (We’ll cover
Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism in Lsn 14)
Development of complex forms of economic exchange
Development of new technologies
Advanced development of the arts. (This can include
writing.)
Agriculture
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
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
Specialization
Bronze storage jar from Zhou Dynasty
Silk making
Specialization
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Bronzesmiths
Jewelers
Jade workers
Embroiderers
Manufacturers of silk textiles
– Silkworms are fed mulberry leaves, they molt
and spin cocoons, then workers boil the
cocoons to produce the raw silk.
Religion and Education
Bronze wine vessel used for rituals to
honor ancestors during Shang Dynasty
Religion
• Ancient China did not have an organized
religion or official priesthood
• Did not recognize a personal supreme
deity who intervened in human affairs or
took a special interest in human behavior
• Did speak of an impersonal heavenly
power– tian (“heaven”)– that was
responsible for bestowing and removing
the mandate of heaven on rulers
Religion
• Instead, the patriarchal head of the family
presided over rites and ceremonies
venerating ancestor’s spirits
– Believed that the spirits of ancestors passed
into another realm of existence from which
they had the power to support and protect
their surviving families if the families
demonstrated the proper respect and
ministered to the spirit’s needs
Economic Exchange
Cowrie shells used as money
Economic Exchange
• Somewhat limited by the mountain ranges and
deserts that stood between China and India
and southwest Asia
– Shipbuilding emerged during Zhou era and
facilitated trade
• Evidence of
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Cowrie shells from Burma and the Maldives
Military technology from Mesopotamia
Jade from central Asia
Tin from Malay
New Technologies
Silk making
New Technologies: Silk
• During the Zhou era, the Chinese
discovered how to make silk from the
cocoons of silkworms.
– Silk would become China’s most valuable
export, eventually linking them with most of
the world through trade.
– We’ll talk more about this in Lesson 23 on the
Silk Roads
New Technologies: Bookbinding
• Chinese
artisans learned
how to bind
together long, thin
strips of wood or
bamboo to make
books
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
New Technologies
• 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
Art and Writing
Writing on
bamboo strips
Bronze from
Sang Dynasty
Writing
• Oracle bones show that the earliest form
of Chinese writing was the pictograph
• Pictographs were combined into ideograph
to represent complex or abstract notions
– The combination of “mother” and “child”
renders “good”
• Unlike most other languages, written
Chinese did not include an alphabetic or
phonetic component
Book of Songs
• Collection of 331
poems from the Zhou
era
• Represent a variety of
subjects
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Political themes
Ritualistic hymns
Life
Love and friendship
Family
Work and play
Burning of Books
• Many works were lost
when Qin came to
power in 221 B.C.
and ordered all books
on poetry, history, and
philosophy burned for
fear they would
inspire doubts about
his government or
encourage an
independence of mind
Writing: Oracle Bones
• Principle instrument used
by fortune tellers in Ancient
China
• Diviners inscribed a
question on a broad bone
such as a tortoise shell and
placed it in a fire
– The fortune teller used
the cracks that
developed to divine the
question’s answer
Part 2: Resurgent China (Tang
and Song)
Theme: Centralization
Lsn 4
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
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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
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
flourishes
during Tang
and Song era
•Tea was
compressed
into bricks
and used as
money
Specialization
Agricultural Regional Areas of Specialization
Specialization
• Increased urbanization brought a host of
specialized activities to the cities
– Merchants, artisans, metallurgists, printers, chemists,
craftsmen, textile workers, performers, restaurateurs,
etc
• China’s various regions specialized in the
cultivation of particular food crops and traded
their own products for imports from other regions
• The government developed a specialized class
of bureaucrats
Social Hierarchy
Emperor
Xuanzong of
Tang China
Song examination
candidate dreaming of the
rewards of academic
success
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
Religion and Education
Buddha from Tang Dynasty
Religion and Education
• Buddhist merchants visited China as early as the
second century B.C.
• Found a popular following in Tang and Song
China
• Emphasized high standards of morality,
intellectual sophistication, and a promise of
salvation
• We’ll talk more about Buddhism during Lesson 9
(Buddhism and Hinduism) and Lesson 23 (the
Silk Roads)
New Technologies
Song porcelain
Canon ca. 1368
New Technologies: Porcelain
• Tang craftsmen discovered
how to produce porcelain
which was lighter, thinner,
and adaptable to more uses
than earlier pottery
– Strong enough and attractive
enough to serve utilitarian or
aesthetic purposes
• Tang and Song products
gained such a reputation that
porcelain is commonly called
“chinaware”
Tang Marble Glazed
Porcelain Figure
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
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
Poet Li Bo
Poet Du Fu
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?
Impact of Movable Type
• Allowed large
production and
distribution of
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Buddhist texts
Confucian works
Calendars
Agricultural treatises
Popular works
Next Lesson
• Mayans and Incas