Download Chapter 5 - Early Societies in East Asia

Early
Chinese
Civilizations
Geography of China
Mountains
and deserts
served as
barriers that
separated
Chinese
people from
other Asian
people.
Shang Dynasty
Religious beliefs:
• rulers believed they could
communicate with the gods to
get help with their affairs
• strong belief in life after death
• human sacrifice
• spirits of ancestors could bring
good or evil
Zhou Dynasty
Mandate of
Heaven:
• belief that kings
received their
authority to
command, or
mandate, from
Heaven
• it was the king’s
duty to keep the
gods happy, failure
to do so would lead
to decline and new
dynasty would take
over
Dao: The
proper “Way”
Chinese Philosophies
Confucianism:
• Concerned with
human behavior-proper
way to behave was in
accordance with the
Dao
•View of the Dao-Duty
and humanity
Duty
• Five Constant Relationships-parent and child,
husband and wife, older and younger siblings,
older and younger friends, and ruler and
subjects
• All people had to subordinate their own
interests to the broader needs of the family and
the community.
• “Work Ethic”-If each individual worked hard
to fulfill his or her duties, then the affairs of
society as a whole would prosper as well.
Humanity
• a sense of compassion and empathy for
others
• “Do not do unto others what you would
not wish done to yourself”
• “Measure the feelings of others by one’s
own”
• “Within the four seas all men are
brothers”
Daoism:
• inaction rather than
action
• The best way to act in
harmony with the
universal order is to
act spontaneously and
let nature take its
course by not
interfering with it.
Legalism:
• “School of Law”
• proposed that
human beings were
evil by nature
• believed a strong
ruler is required to
create an orderly
society
Qin Dynasty
Changes in Chinese Politics:
• Legalism was adopted as the
regime’s philosophy
• anyone who opposed the
regime was punished or
executed
• centralized state
Great Wall of China
• created to protect
against nomadic
invaders from the
north
• linked existing walls
together to create
“The Wall of Ten
Thousand Li”
• present wall was
ordered 1,500 years
after the first Qin
Emperor
Han Dynasty
New developments in technology:
• advances in textile manufacturing
• water mills for grinding grain
• iron casting
• steel paper
• rudders
• fore-and-aft rigging for ships
Purpose of the terra-cotta figures: they were a re-creation
of Qin Shihuangdi’s imperial guard and were meant to be
with the emperor on his journey to the next world