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Sui, Tang and Song China
Highest Point of
Traditional China
Sui Dynasty: Reestablishing
Unity in China
• United Han
Territory
• North Turkic Forces
• Central Asia Turkic
and Tibetan Forces
• South Vietnam and
Taiwan
Sui Dynasty
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581-618
Founded by Yang Juan
Becomes Wen Di
Capital Changan
Sui Dynasty
• Son Yang Di
• Harsh Rule
• Centralized powerful state
Religion
• Buddhism
– Stupas
• Confucianism
• Daoism
Achievements
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Grand Canal 610 (Yang Di)
600 miles
Rice (tax)
Great Wall 607 (Shi
Huang Di)
The Grand Canal
Tang Dynasty: Golden Age of
Chinese Culture
• Greatest Expansion
(Empress Wu Zhao)
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Mongolia- North
Vietnam- South
Korea- East
Kashmir- West
• Reopened Silk Road
Silk Road
• Connects Asia to the
Middle East
• Export - Silk,
porcelain, Jade,
bronze, tea
• Import – glass, rugs,
horses, precious
metals, cotton,
spice, medicine
• Technology and
Religion
Military Strength
• 618 Li Shi Min
• Father Li Yuan ruled til
626
• Dai Zong
• Controlled generals
Mid-Tang—
Age of Powerful Women
• Empress Wu Zetian Wu Zhoa)
• Took charge after husband had stroke
in 660
• 690 proclaimed herself emperor
Foot binding
• Broken toes by age of 3
Foot binding
• For upper
class
girls—
status
symbol
and new
custom
Foot binding in Tang
Confucianism
• 551-497 BCE
• Bureaucracy – civil service
• Scholarship important
Chinese Arts/Religion
• Xuan Zong arts reach zenith
– Daoist
– Harmony with nature
– Poetry – Li Bo
• Confucianism, Buddhism and
Daoism flourished
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Buddhism threatened
Xenophobia
Monastaries not taxed
Wu Zong (841-847) purged
Buddhism
Daily Life
• Scholar class became new ruling elite
• Equal-field system limited power or
rural aristocracy
• Land reform gave some peasants a
chance to gain wealth
• Yang Guifei
• Forgets to rule
• General An Lushan
Cost of Rebellion
• Uighurs (a Turkish
people) stop rebellion
• Looted the capital
• suppressed in 763
• keep meeting the
ridiculous demands
of the Uighurs
The Song Dynasty: Rise of
Meritocracy
• Unity threatened
• Threatened by
Mongols, Jurchens
and Khitans (north)
Southern Domination
• 60 years of civil war
“Five Dynasties”
• Zhao Kuang Yin – Tai
Zu emperor in 960
• Capital Kaifeng
captured 1126 by
Jurchen
• Hangzhou - Southern
Capital
Government by Meritocracy
• Based on Confucian traditions
– Dominated by wealthy (education
expensive)
– Recommendations
– Talent sought from all ranks
Civil-Service Examination
• “Ladder of the Clouds”
• 4 levels included
poetry, gov’t,
administration,
calligraphy
• Start at 23 – few pass
• Became officials, poets
and historians 
Buddhism
• Chan (Japan, Zen)
– Enlightenment through
zazen (meditation)
– Appealed to elite
– Appealed to monks
(simplicity)
• Pure Land
– Appealed to lay people
Zen Buddhist Monk
Merchant Class
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Tax commerce!
Faster growing rice from Cambodia
Junks (ships) overseas trade
Invention of printing
– Paper money