Download Honor Code: Name: Bell: Date: Reading Outline Chapter 4.4 and 7.3

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Reading Outline Chapter 4.4 and 7.3
Chapter 4.4 An Empire Unifies China (pgs. 97 – 101)
1.
Philosophy and the Social Order
China’s ancient values of social order, harmony, and respect for authority were put aside toward the end of the
Zhou Dynasty.
a) Confucius Urges Harmony
i) China’s most influential scholar was Confucius. Born in 551 B.C.E., Confucius lived at a time when the
Zhou Dynasty was being torn apart by warring lords.
ii) Confucius believed that social order, harmony, and good government could be restored in China if
society was organized around five basic relationships.
What were the five basic relationships?
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
iii) Three of Confucius’s five relationships were based upon family. Confucius stressed that children should
practice what he called filial piety, or respect for their parents and elders
iv) Impressed by Confucius wisdom, the duke of Lu appointed him Minister of Justice.
v) His students later collected his works in a book called the Analects.
b) Confucian Ideas About Government
i) Confucius laid the groundwork for the creation of bureaucracy, a trained civil service, or those who run
the government.
ii) According to Confucius, a gentleman had four virtues.
iii) Confucianism was never a religion, but it was an ethical system. It became the foundation for Chinese
government and social order.
c) Daoists Seek Harmony
i) Another Chinese thinker named Laozi, who may have lived during the sixth century B.C.E., only the
natural order was important. He said that a universal force called the Dao (tow), meaning “the
Way,” guides all things.
ii) Of all the creatures of nature, according to Laozi, only humans fail to follow the Dao. They argue about
questions of right and wrong, good manners and bad. According to Laozi, such arguments are
pointless.
iii) The philosophy of Laozi came to be known as Daoism. Its search for knowledge and understanding of
nature led Daoism’s followers to pursue scientific studies.
d) Legalists Urge Harsh Rule
i) In sharp contrast to followers of Confucius was a group of practical political thinkers called the Legalist.
ii) Legalist believed that a highly efficient and powerful government was the key to restoring order. They
got their name from their belief that government should use the law to end civil disorder and
restore harmony.
iii) Among the founders of Legalism were Hanfeizi and Li Si.
iv) The Legalist taught that a ruler should provide rich rewards for people who carried out their duties well.
v) The Legalists believed in controlling ideas as well as actions. They suggested that a ruler burn all
writings that might encourage people to think critically about government.
e) I Ching and Yin and Yang
i) People with little interest in these philosophical debates consulted a brood of oracles called I Ching to
answer ethical or practical problems.
ii) The I Ching helped people lead a happy life by dispensing good advice and simple common sense.
iii) Ancient thinkers developed the concept of yin and yang, two powers that together represented the
natural rhythms of life.
iv) Yang represents the masculine qualities in the universe, yin the feminine.
2. The Qin Dynasty
A short-lived dynasty replaced the Zhou Dynasty in the third century B.C.E. It emerged from the western state of
Qin. They 13 – year – old Qin Dynasty ruler who came to the throne in the third century B.C.E. employed
Legalist ideas to subdue warring states and unify his country.
a) A New Emperor Takes Control
i) After ruling for over 20 years, in 221 B.C.E., the Qin ruler assumed the name Shi Huangdi, which means
“First Emperor.” The new emperor begun his reign by halting the internal battles that had sapped
China’s strength.
ii) Shi Huangdi’s armies attacked the invaders north of the Yellow River and south as far as what is now
Vietnam.
iii) His victories doubled China’s size.
iv) To destroy the power of rival warlords, Shi Huangdi instituted a policy called “strengthening the trunk
and weakening the branches.” He commanded all the noble families to live at the capital city under
his suspicious gaze.
b) A Program of Centralization
i) Shi Huangdi’s sweeping program of centralization included the building of a highway network of over
4,000 miles.
ii) He forced peasants to work on roads against their will.
Explain what set uniform standards Shi Huangdi had.
iii) Under Shi Huangdi’s rule, irrigation projects increased farm production. Trade pushed a new class –
merchants – into prominence.
c) Great Wall of China
i) Scholars hated Shi Huangdi for his book burning; poor people hated him for their forced labor in building
a unified wall.
ii) Earlier, Zhou rulers had erected smaller walls to discourage attacks by northern nomads.
iii) Shi Huangdi determined to close the gaps and unify the wall 1,400 miles to the west.
iv) The Great Wall of China arose on the backs of hundreds of thousands of peasants. The wall builders
worked neither for wages nor for love of empire.
v) The Great Wall of China is so huge that it is one of the few human-made features on Earth visible from
space.
d) The Fall of the Qin
i) The Qin Dynasty proved short-lived. Though fully as cruel as his father, Shi Huangdi’s son proved less
able. Peasants rebelled just three years after the second Qin emperor took office.
Chapter 7.3 Han Emperors in China (pgs. 181 – 187)
1. The Han restore Unity to China
a) The Founding of the Han Dynasty
i) Two powerful leaders emerged: Xiang Yu was an aristocratic general who was willing to allow the
warlords to keep their territories if they would acknowledge him as their feudal lord.
ii) Liu Bang was one of Xiang Yu’s generals.
iii) Liu Bang turned against Xiang Yu and the two fought , Liu Bang won and declared himself the first
emperor of the Han Dynasty. The Han Dynasty , which ruled China for more than 400 years, is
divided into two periods. The Han Dynasty so influenced China that even today many Chinese call
themselves “people of the Han.”
iv) Liu Bang followed Shi Huangdi’s policy of establishing centralized government, in which a central
authority controls the running of a state.
How did Liu Bang win popular support?
b) The Empress Lü
i) When Liu Bang died in 195 B.C.E., his son became emperor – in name only. The real ruler was his
mother, Empress Lü.
ii) Although Lü was not Liu Bang’s only wife, she had powerful friends at court who helped her seize power.
How did Empress Lü’s power end what did the people do to her family?
iii) Such plots occurred often throughout the Han Dynasty. Traditionally, the emperor chose the favorite
among his wives as the empress and appointed one of her sons as successor.
c) The Martial Emperor
i) Wudi, who reigned from 141 B.C.E. to 87 B.C.E., held the throne longer than any other Han emperor. He
is called the martial emperor because he adopted the policy of expanding the Chinese empire
through war.
Who were Wudi’s first set of enemies? Describe them.
ii) The early Han emperors tried to buy off the Xiongnu by sending them thousands of pounds of silk, rice,
alcohol, and money.
2. A Highly Structured Government
Just as Han emperors tried to control the people they conquered, they exerted vast control over the Chinese
themselves. Because the Chinese considered their emperor to be semidivine, they accepted his exercise of
power.
a) Structures of Han Government
i) The Chinese emperor relied on a complex bureaucracy to help him rule.
ii) To raise money, the government relied heavily on taxes. Like the farmers in India, Chinese peasants
owed parts of their yearly crops to the government.
iii) Besides taxes, the peasants owed the government a month’s worth of labor or military service every
year. With this source of labor, the Han emperors built roads, canals, and irrigation ditches.
b) Confucianism, the Road to Success
i) Wudi’s government employed more than 130,000 people. The bureaucracy included 18 different ranks
of civil service jobs – government jobs that civilians obtained by taking examinations.
Why did Wudi begin to actively favor his Confucian scholars on the court?
3. Han Technology, Commerce, and Culture
a) Technology Revolutionizes Chinese Life
i) Advances in technology influenced all aspects of Chinese life. Paper was invented in C.E. 105. Before
that, books were usually written on silk. Paper was cheaper so books became more readily
available, which helped spread education in China.
ii) Other technological advances included a color harness that made it possible for horses to pull heavy
loads.
iii) The Chinese perfected a plow that was more efficient because it had two blades, improved iron tools,
and invented the wheelbarrow.
b) Agriculture Versus Commerce
Why did the Chinese people consider agriculture the most important and honored occupation?
i)
The government established monopolies on the mining salt, the forging of iron, the minting of coins, and
the brewing of alcohol.
ii) A monopoly occurs when a group has exclusive control over the production and distribution of certain
goods.
iii) As contact with people from other lands increased, the Chinese realized how valuable their silk was and
item of trade. Because of this, the techniques of silk production became a closely guarded state
secret.
c) Unifying Chinese Culture
i) As the Han empire expanded its trade networks, the Chinese began to learn about the foods, animals,
and fashions that were common in foreign lands.
ii) TO unify the empire, the Chinese government encouraged assimilation, or the process of making these
conquered peoples part of Chinese culture. To accomplish this, the government sent farmers to
settle newly colonized areas.
iii) Several writers also helped unify Chinese culture by recording China’s history.
Who is called the “Grand Historian”? Describe him.
d) Wives, Nuns, and Scholars
i) Although Ban Zhao gained fame as a historian, most women during the Han Dynasty led quiet lives at
home.
ii) Confucian teaching dictated that women were to devote themselves to their families. They were
supposed to obey their parents in childhood and their husbands and husband’s parents after they
married.
4. Rebellion and Restorations
One of the main problems was an economic imbalance caused by customs that allowed the rich to gain more
wealth at the expense of the poor.
a) The Rich Take Advantage of the Poor
i) According to customs, a family’s land was divided equally among all of the father’s male heirs.
ii) With such small plots of land, farmers had a hard time raising enough food to sell or even to feed the
family. Because of this, small farmers often went into debt and had to borrow money from large
landowners, who charged very high interest rates. If the farmer couldn’t pay back the debt, the
landowner took possession of the farmer’s land.
b) Wang Mang Overthrows the Han
i) From about 32 B.C.E. until 9 C.E., one inexperienced emperor replaced another. Chaos reigned in the
palace, and with peasants revolts, unrest spread across the land as well.
ii) In 9 C.E., Wang Mang took the imperial title for himself and overthrew the Han, thus ending the first half
of the Han Dynasty known as the Former Han.
How did Wang Mang try to bring the country under control?
c) The Later Han Years
i) With peace restored to China, the first decades of the Later Han Dynasty were quite prosperous.
ii) The government sent soldiers and merchants westward to regain control of posts along the Silk Road.
iii) But this expansion couldn’t make up for social, political, and economic weaknesses within the empire
itself.
iv) By 220, the Later Han Dynasty had disintegrated into three rival kingdoms.