|
Chinese
The Chinese civilization believed in mythology that Pangu was the
creator of the universe and made a succession of some legendary
sage-emperors and culture heroes. They also believed that Huang Di, Yao,
and Shun taught the ancient Chinese to communicate Moreover, to find
sustenance, clothing, and shelter. Thousands of archaeological finds an
apparent cradle of Chinese civilizations that provide evidence about the
Shang Dynasty, in Huang He or Henam Valley. From the Evidence, they
found in Huange He of the Henam they believed that from 1700 to 1027
B.C. the Shang dynasty was believed to be founded by a rebel leader who
overthrew the last Xia ruler. Their civilization was based on
agriculture, augmented by hunting and animal husbandry. The most
important event that happed was the development of a writing system.
They found Chinese writing on tortoise shells and flat cattle bones. The
last Shang a chieftain of a frontier tribe called Zhou, which has
settled, overthrew ruler In the Wei Valley. The Zhou dynasties capital
was at Hao, near the city of Xin. The Zhou dynasty lasted longer than
any other dynasty, from 027 to 221 B.C, in 771 B.C. The Zhou court was
hacked and its k king was killed by invading barbarians who were allied
with the rebel lords. Then the capital was moved eastward to Luoyang or
Henan Province. Because of this shift, the historians divided the Zhou
era into the Western Shou and Eastern Zhou. The eastern Zhou divides
into two sub periods. The first, from 770 to 476 B.C., is called the
spring and Autumn Period. So many different philosophies developed
during the late spring and autumn and early warring states periods, the
ear is often known as that the Hundred Schools of Thought. From the
Hundred schools of thought came with the many of the great classical
writings on which the Chinese practices were to be based for the next
two and one-half millennia.
China Proper was unified for the first time in 221 B.C. In that year,
the frontier state Of Qin, the most aggressive of the warring states,
subjugated the last of its rival states. Once the king of Qin
consolidated his power, he took the name for the First Emperor In
subjugating the six other major states of the Eastern Zhou; The Qin
kings have been relied heavily on legalist scholar-advisers.
Centralization, achieved by ruthless
Methods, was focused on standardizing legal codes, and bureaucratic
procedures, the forms of writing and coinage, and the pattern of thought
and scholarship. To silence the criticism of the imperial rule, the
kings would kill to any dissenting Confucian Scholars, confiscated, and
burned their books. Qin aggrandizement was aided by frequent military
expeditions pushing forward the frontiers in the north and the South. In
order to fend of the Barbarians, The fortification walls built by the
warring States were connected to make a 5,000-kilometer, long great wall
or called the Great Wall of China. The Great Wall of China is reaches
from the northeastern Heilongjiang Province to the Northwestern Gansu.
Wars began after the first Qin emperor died in 210B.C. His dynasty was
passed on for less than 20 years. However, The Qin dynasty lasted for
more than two millennia. After a short civil war, a new dynasty, called
the Han emerged with its capital at Chang’an.
The new empire had retained many of the Qin administrative structure buy
retreated a bit from the centralized rule by establishing vassal
principalities in some of the areas for the sake of political
convenience. The Han rulers modified some of the harsher aspects from
the previous dynasty; confusions ideals of government, out of favor
during the Qin period, were adopted as the creed of the Han Empire, and
Confucian scholars gained prominent statues and the core of civil
service. A civil service examination system also was initiated.
Intellectual, literary, and artistic endeavors revived and flourished.
The Han dynasty produced China’s most famous historian, Sima Qian, whose
historical record provided a detailed chronicle from the legendary Xia
emperor to the Han Emperor We Di. Technological advances also happened
in this period. Two of the important Chinese inventions, Paper and
porcelain, were believed to be dated from the Han period. The Han
Dynasty, which was the members of the ethnic majority in China, the
people of Han was notable for its military prowess. The empire expanded
westward as far as the Rim of the Tarim Basin, making it possible to
relatively secure caravan traffic across Central Asia to Antioch,
Baghdad, and Alexandria. The paths of the caravan traffic are often
called the
‘silk
route’
because the route used to export Chinese silk to the Roman Empire.
Chinese armies also invaded annexed parts of Northern Vietnam and
Northern Korea, toward the end of the second century B.C. When the Han’s
were in control of peripheral regions, it was generally insecure,
however. To insure peace with non-Chinese local powers, the Han courts
develop a system called the ‘tributary
system’.
Now, non-Chinese states were allowed to remain autonomous in exchange
For a symbolic acceptance of the Han over lordship. Tributary ties were
confirmed and strengthened through intermarriages at the ruling level
and periodic exchanges of Gifts and goods. After 200 years, a reformer
and the restored for another 200 years interrupted the Han rulers. Then
the Han rulers however were unable to adjust what centralization and
brought a growing population, increasing wealth and resultant financial
difficulties and rivalries, and even more complex political
institutions. With more of the corruption characteristic of the dynastic
cycle, by A.D. 220 the Han Empire collapsed.
|