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Ancient China Study Guide
Name_____________________
HISTORY
*The Qin dynasty gave China its name. Yu the Floodqueller invented flood control.
* The Mongolian invaders, or Huns, came across the Northern desert to attack China.
*During the Tang Dynasty, Empress Wu was China’s first and only woman ruler. She murdered
most of her political rivals, but also allowed women into the civil service, encouraged agriculture,
and reduced taxes.
*Emperor Qin’s tomb is home to over 7000 terra cotta warriors, as well as being fabled to contain
booby traps and extensive labyrinths inside.
*When Marco Polo visited China, he wrote about black stones that burned like wood. Europeans
thought he was telling lies, but eventually found out he was talking about coal!
*Confucius was an ancient Chinese philosopher who started the religion of Confucianism.
*The first Chinese hunted for food on the North China Plain.
*Emperor Qin Shi Huang gave China its name.
*Many inventions began in Ancient China. Four of most important of these inventions are paper,
gunpowder, writing, and the compass.
*Emperor Qin a Ruthless Tyrant or Great Ruler?
Ruthless Tyrant?
*Burned books
*Buried people alive if he didn’t like their ideas
*Forced people to build his Great Wall, where
over a million people died!
*collected lots of taxes
Great Ruler?
*Unified China
*built roads and canals to help people travel
*protected China with the Great Wall
*standardized money, laws, and writing
CHINESE SOCIETY
*From most important to least important, China’s society was structured in this order:
1. Emperor
2. Civil Servants
3. Peasants
4. Merchants
5. Soldiers
6. Servants
*The Emperor of China had no guarantee that he or she would be Emperor until his or her death. If
somebody else took over, then they could lose the Mandate of Heaven that made them Emperor.
*Farmers in Ancient China lived a simple life, although they had few work animals so people did
most of the work. Sometimes they were so poor, they had to sell family members to pay their taxes.
Even so, the farmers were highly valued in Chinese society, even more than shopkeepers. They were
considered the ‘Backbone of Chinese culture’.
* A new Dynasty began every time a new family took over power through revolution or conquest.
*The civil servants in Ancient China could read and write. They worked for the Emperor to collect
taxes, create laws, oversee building projects, and run the government.
*Farmers were the most important person in Chinese society, because they grew food to feed China’s
huge population, allowing Chinese civilization to develop the arts, trades, technology, and education.
Peasants, therefore, were more important than merchants in Ancient China.
THE GREAT WALL
*Soldiers, criminals, and disobedient writers were used to help build the Great Wall of China.
*One main example of a man-made barrier in China, which helped to protect China from the
Mongolian invaders, is the Great Wall of China.
*A person could see the Great Wall of China from Mars, with a telescope.
*This amazing wall is called “China’s longest graveyard’, because over a million people died while
they were building it.
GEOGRAPHY
*The Steppes, or grasslands, of Northern China were very easy to cross, so this is where the Ancient
Chinese first started to build sections of the Great Wall.
*The mountain range that borders China is called the Himalayas.
*The Pacific Ocean borders China.
*The South China Sea borders the south of China.
*Today, China is the third largest country in area, after Russia and Canada.
*The two deserts separate China from the rest of the world are the Takla Makan Desert and the Gobi
Desert.
*The Yellow River, also known as “China’s Sorrow”, is also called the Huang River.
*The benefits of linking China’s rivers with man-made canals were:
*People could send grain by boat to the emperor to pay their taxes
*The armies could move quickly and easily to problems
*Ordinary people could visit distant friends and relatives
*Four natural barriers that protect China are the deserts (Gobi and Takla Makan), the jungles, the
Pacific Ocean, and the Himalayas.
LEGENDS
*“Gung Hay Fat Choy” means “Happy New Year” in Chinese.
*The Water Sprinkling Festival’s legend says that a fire demon kidnapped some girls, and when they
cut off his head, it rolled around, starting fires, which they had to put out with fire.
*The Fireworks Festival has many activities, including scrambling for fireworks, bird fights and
eating red eggs.
*The Lantern Festival is celebrated with a parade of beautiful lanterns carried by children.
*The Dragon Boat Festival celebrates the life and death of a poet, Qu Yuan. People have dragon
boat races where they throw rice dumplings to feed the fish so they won’t eat Qu Yuan’s body.
*Bun Hills Festival is celebrated by climbing huge hills made of buns, and grabbing as many buns as
possible to collect good luck.
*The Grave sweeping Festival was a chance for the Chinese people to tidy up the graves of their
ancestors.
*The New Year’s festival was celebrated with lucky money, fireworks, and the kitchen god.
Remember to study your map of China!