SECTION 1

I.          INTRODUCTION

 

• To the ancient Chinese people, the dragon was a respected spirit. Dragons were friendly beasts and brought good luck.
• Dragons were believed to be responsible for the rains that made the fields fertile.
• The Chinese also used the dragon to show the importance of their rivers.

 

II.        THE GEOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT CHINA

 

• Ancient China covered a large area. The climate, soil, landforms, and waterways varied greatly depending on the region.
• The North China Plain is located in East Asia. It is built up of soil deposits from the Huang River.
• The North China Plain and its surrounding highlands, as well as far northern China, have only a brief but intense, summer rainy season caused by monsoon winds. However, the region does not get much rain the rest of the year. As a result, the climate is very dry.
• The climate in the south, in contrast, is warm and wet. Monsoons from the South China Sea bring heavy rains to southern China from March to September. Light rain falls the rest of the year.
• Geographic barriers such as mountains and seas separated China from other lands. As a result, the Chinese had little knowledge of the civilizations of Egypt, Indian, Greece, and Rome.  
• China’s rivers overflowed their banks each spring, bringing fresh, fertile topsoil to the land.
• China’s first farming villages developed along its rivers.
• The Chang is China’s longest river.
• The Huang is the second longest river in China. It is also the muddiest river in the world. It is called the Yellow River because of the loess that its waters carry along.
• The Chinese people also call the Huang China’s Sorrow. It brought life to the land, but it also took life away through destructive floods. 
• To help control the flooding, early Chinese people built dikes along the banks of the Huang. As more loess settled to the bottom of the river, the level of the river rose. Eventually, the river rose high enough to overflow the dikes, causing even more deadly floods.

 

III.       EARLY CIVILIZATION IN CHINA

 

• Early farmers of the North China Plain probably were once nomads who moved from place to place to hunt and gather food.
• Historians don’t know exactly when the first farming settlements developed in the Huang Valley, but it may have been as early as 5000 B.C.
• The Shang dynasty was the first civilization in China. It probably arose sometime around 1760 B.C.
• The Shang people built China’s first cities and produced some of the finest bronze works of ancient China.
• The Shang people also produced the first Chinese writing system. Like Mesopotamia’s cuneiform and our own alphabet, it could be used for different languages. This was helpful for communication because China had many regional languages.
• About 600 years after the founding of the Shang dynasty, a new group named the Zhou emerged. They lived in the Wei Valley to the west of the Shang people.
• The territories of the Zhou and Shang were side by side. Sometimes the two groups lived peacefully and other times they fought over territory. Finally, the Zhou conquered the Shang in 1122 B.C.
• The Zhou dynasty ruled over ancient China for almost 1000 years. This period is divided into two parts—the earlier Western Zhou dynastyand the later Eastern Zhou dynasty.
• During the end of the Eastern Zhou dynasty, a period known as the Warring States began. During that time, small kingdoms fought for control over one another until a new dynasty—the Qin-finally emerged.
• The Chinese believed that the rulers came to power because it was their destiny or fate. The idea was called the Mandate of Heaven and it supported a leader’s right to rule his people.

 

IV.       IMPORTANCE OF THE FAMILY

 

• The family was the center of early Chinese society and was considered to be of far more importance than the individual or the nation. The family was each person’s source of well-being.
• A household in ancient China might contain as many as five generations living together. These closely related people are called an extended family.
• The center of authority was usually the oldest man. He had the most privileges and the most power in the family. When he died, all of his lands were divided among his sons.
• Women were bound by the three obediences: to obey their fathers in youth, their husbands after their marriage, their sons in widowhood.
• In the 300s B.C., Chinese established the practice of using inherited family names along with a personal name. The inherited name was passed down from father to child. In Chinese society, the family name comes first.

 

SECTION 2

I.          THE LIFE OF CONFUCIUS

 

• Confucius was the most famous and important of the early Chinese thinkers. The Chinese called him Kong Foo Zi, or “Master Kong.”
• Confucius was born in 551 B.C. to a noble but poor family of the North China Plain. He loved learning and after failing to advance to an important government office, he decided to try teaching.
• Confucius charged students a fee to take a class. He taught them his views of life and government.
• “From the very poorest upward…none has ever come to me without receiving instruction. I only instruct a student who bursts with eagerness. “
• Confucius searched for a ruler who would follow his teachings, but he could not find one. He died in 479 B.C. at age 73 believing that his life had been a failure. 

 

II.         THE TEACHINGS OF CONFUCIUS

 

• Confucius did not claim to be an original thinker; instead, he sought to pass on the forgotten teachings of wise people from an earlier age.
• Confucius himself never wrote down his teachings. Instead, his students gathered a collection of his sayings after his death. These writings made up a system of beliefs or values known as Confucianism.
• Confucius lived during a time of frequent warfare in China. Powerful rulers seemed more interested in gaining power than in ruling wisely.
• Confucius hoped to persuade these rulers to change their ways and bring peace and order to China.
• Confucius believed that if people could be taught to behave properly toward one another, order and peace would result and society would prosper.
• Confucius said that people ought to respect the people above and below them and treat others justly.
• Confucius said that people in authority must set a good example.
• Confucius summarized his ideas about relationships in a simple way: “Do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself.”
• Although Confucianism is a philosophy, it has also functioned as a religion for many people who practiced Confucianism alongside their existing religious traditions.
• Ancient China was home to many kinds of religious beliefs and practices. Most Chinese believed life should be lived in harmony with nature. Happiness came from living a balanced life.
• A religious philosophy known as Taoism was based on the writings of Laozi, a Chinese thinker who lived in the 500s B.C. The Taoists loved nature and they believed in living simple and selfless lives. 

 

III. THE INFLUENCE OF CONFUCIUS

 

   •   The teachings of Confucius came to have a major effect on the Chinese government.

•       Before the ideas of Confucius took hold, government posts were generally given to the sons of powerful people. Afterward, candidates for    
        government jobs had to pass official examinations that were based on the teachings of Confucius.

•       The examinations did not open government jobs to everyone. Candidates still had to know how to read. Many talented but poor men learned to read
         and rose to high government positions.

 

SECTION 3

1. I.                   INTRODUCTION

 

•    In 1974, several farmers were digging a well northern China. Six feet down, they found some terra cotta, a reddish type of pottery. Another five feet down, they unearthed the terra cotta head of a man.

•    Later, archaeologists discovered more than 6,000 life-sized soldiers and horses along with wood and bronze chariots and metal weapons. It was a terra cotta army that for more than 2,000 years had kept watch at the tomb of China’s first emperor, Shi Huangdi.

•    With his underground army, Shi Huangdi had plans to rule a second empire in the afterlife.

 

1. II.                THE QIN DYNASTY

 

• Shi Huangdi’s dynasty lasted only two generations, but that was still a huge accomplishment. Before that time, China was divided into seven warring kingdoms. Shi Huangdi conquered these kingdoms to unify China.
• Shi Huangdi’s original name was Zhou Zheng. He ruled the Qin people who lived along China’s western border. By 221 B.C. Zheng had extended his rule over most of the land that makes up modern-day China.
• When Zheng established the Qin dynasty, he took the name Shi Huangdi, meaning first emperor.
• Because Qin is sometimes spelled Chin, the name China comes from the Qin dynasty.
• Shi Huangdi sought to strengthen China through strong and harsh rule and protect the new empire from its enemies.
• Throughout history, nomads had attacked China along its vast northern border. Shi Huangdi ordered the largest construction project in Chinese history, the building of the Great Wall of China.
  • Previous rulers had built walls along the border; Shi Huangdi decided to connect them.
  • He ordered farmers from their fields and merchants from their stores to form an army of hundreds of thousands of workers who labored for about ten years to construct the wall.
  • To help put down rebellion within the empire, Shi Huangdi put thousands of farmers to work building roads that would enable his armies to rush to the scene of any uprisings.
  • Shi Huangdi killed or imprisoned any local rulers who opposed him.
  • Shi Huangdi divided all of China into districts with a local government run by the emperor’s trusted advisors.

 

1. III.             UNIFYING ECONOMY AND CULTURE

 

• Shi Huangdi was not content to unify the government of China. He also

wanted the many peoples of his united kingdom to have one economy and

one culture.

• Shi Huangdi declared that one currency be used throughout China. This made it easier for one region of China to trade goods with another.
• Shi Huangdi also ordered the creation of common weights and measures, an improved system of writing, and a law code.
• Shi Huangdi also tried to control the thoughts of his people. In 213 B.C., he outlawed the ideas of Confucius and other important thinkers. Instead he required that people learn the philosophies of Qin scholars.
• The Qin believed in legalism, the idea that people should be punished for bad behavior and rewarded for good behavior. Good behavior meant that people worked to serve the government and the emperor.
• Shi Huangdi commanded that all the books in China be burned except those about medicine, technology, and farming. When hundreds of scholars protested the order, Shi Huangdi had them killed.
• Shi Huangdi’s death in 210 B.C.  was followed by four years of chaos and civil war that ended in the murder of his son.
• Power then passed to Shi Huangdi’s grandson, but rebellion broke out and he could not hold China together.
• The dynasty that was supposed to last for 10,000 generations lasted for only fifteen years.

 

 

 

IV.  THE HAN DYNASTY

 

• One of the rebels who helped overthrow the Qin dynasty was a ruler named Liu Bang.
• By 202 B.C., Liu Bang won out over his rivals and became the first emperor of a newChinese dynasty, the Han.
  • Liu Bang created a stable government that was less harsh than Shi Huangdi’s.
  • The Han dynasty lasted about 400 years, and because they realized that they needed educated people to work in the government, they set up the civil service system based on Confucianism to meet that need.
  • In 140 B.C., Liu Bang’s great-grandson, Wudi, came to power, and under his rule the Han dynasty reached its greatest power.
  • About fifteen years old when he took the throne, he ruled for more than fifty years.
    • Wudi’s main interests were war and military matters. In fact, his name means “Warrior Emperor.”
    • He made improvements to the Great Wall and strengthened the army.
    • By the end of Wudi’s reign, Chinese rule stretched west into Central Asia, east into present-day northern and central Korea, and south into present-day Vietnam.
    • Wudi died in 87 B.C. China’s stability and prosperity continued under later Han emperors, but over time, the empire began to weaken.
    • A series of very young emperors ruled the empire.
    • Roads and canals fell into disrepair.
    • As the rule of the emperors weakened, warlords gained power. The last Han

emperor was kept in power by one such warlord named Cao Pei.

• At first, Cao Pei tried to control the empire through the emperor. In  A.D. 220, he declared an end to the Han dynasty and set up his own Wei dynasty.
• However, the Wei empire had control only over parts of northern China, and when it broke up after about fifty years, China broke up into a number of smaller kingdoms.

 

SECTION 5

1. I.                   THE SILK ROAD

 

•  The Emperor Wudi’s conquests in the west brought the Chinese into contact with

the people of Central Asia.

•  Trade with the Central Asians introduced the Chinese to such new foods as grapes,

walnuts, and garlic. In turn, Chinese goods and ideas passed to the peoples living

in the West.

•  This exchange gave rise to the Silk Road, a major trade route that ran all the way

from China to the Mediterranean Sea.

•  The Silk Road was a series of roads covering more than 4,000 miles that followed

a challenging route through mountainous country and desert land.

•  The Silk Road passed through Persia (present-day Iran) and Mesopotamia before

it finally turned north to the city of Antioch in present-day Turkey. From there,

traders shipped goods across the Mediterranean Sea to Rome, Greece, Egypt, and

other lands that bordered the Mediterranean.

•  Few travelers ever journeyed the length of the Silk Road. Generally, goods were

passed from trader to trader as they crossed Asia. With each trade the prices went

up, and so by the time they arrived at the end of their journey, they were very

expensive.

•     The Silk Road got its name from silk, a valuable cloth made only in China from

silkworms.

• The arrival of silk in Europe created great excitement. Wealthy Romans prized

Chinese silk and were willing to pay high prices for it. And wealthy people in China would pay well for glass, horses, ivory, woolens, and linen cloth from Rome.

•     More than goods traveled the road.  New ideas did too. Missionaries from India

traveled to China along the road and brought Buddhism with them.

 

 

1. II.                TRADITION AND LEARNING

 

•   Han rulers found that during troubled times in the past, many people had lost

respect for their traditions. As a way of bringing back this respect, rulers

encouraged people to return to the teachings of Confucius.

•   Rulers of the Han and later dynasties also required members of the civil service

to be educated in Confucian teachings.

•   The arts and scholarship flourished under the Han dynasty. Expressive poetry

reflected Chinese culture and Chinese scholars put together the first dictionary

of the Chinese language.

•   Until the time of the Han dynasty, the Chinese people had little knowledge of

their own history. They knew only myths.

•   The scholar SimaQian spent his life writing a history of China from mythical

times to the reign of the Wudi. SimaQian’s work, called Historical Records, is a

major source of information about ancient China.

 

1. III.             HAN TECHNOLOGY

 

•    Because the Han government was stable, the Chinese could turn their attention to improving their society. During the Han dynasty, China became the most advanced civilization in the world.

•    During the Han dynasty, the Chinese invented many practical devices that did not reach Europe until centuries later.

•    Advances in the arts included: silk weaving, bronze working, architecture, poetry and history, and jade carving.

•    Advances in medicine included: acupuncture, the treatment of disease using needles; herbal remedies, the use of plants in the practice of medicine; circulatory system, the discovery that blood travels through the body.

•    Advances in technology included paper made from wood pulp, iron plows for breaking up soil, a rudder to steer a ship, compass, wheelbarrow, and a seismoscope, a device that registers the occurrence of earthquakes.

•    The Chinese first used wooden scrolls and bones to keep records. Later they wrote messages and even whole books on silk. Then around A.D. 105, the Chinese recorded one of their greatest achievements: the invention of paper.

•    Early paper was made from materials such as tree bark, hemp, and old rags. The materials were soaked in water, beaten into pulp, and dried flat on a mold screen.

•    After several centuries, the use of paper spread across Asia and into Europe. Eventually, paper replaced papyrus from Egypt as the material for scrolls and books.

•    The Han dynasty came to an end in the A.D. 200s, but its accomplishments were not forgotten.  Today people in China still call themselves “the children of Han.’ 

SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION

 

• People in China today still refer to themselves as “Children of Han” for many reasons. Under the Han dynasty the following developments occurred: the establishment of a civil service system that employed men educated in Confucian teachings; advancements in the arts, scholarship, and history; technological advancements, including the development of iron tools and irrigation systems; numerous inventions, including paper, the compass, and herbal medicines; respect for family and tradition. Because of the lasting impact of many of these accomplishments, many modern Chinese might consider themselves to be “the Children of Han.”

 

• China’s physical geography affected the development of its early civilization by isolating it from other civilizations. Natural barriers created by the Himalaya Mountains and the deserts and high plateaus prevented the ancient Chinese from interacting with other nearby civilizations. Moreover, the rivers provided topsoil for farming and enabled the early Chinese to give up their nomadic existence and establish settlements.

 

 

• The philosophy of Confucius had a deep and lasting impact on life in ancient Chinese society. This occurred for many reasons. Initially, Confucius lived in a period of great political instability. Leaders were continually fighting for power and disrupting the lives of the ordinary people. The ancient Chinese looked to Confucius because of his emphasis on showing respect, which recalled life in an earlier, more peaceful period. Also, Confucianism emphasized order in relationships, beginning with the family and spreading to society at large. Confucius’ teachings also had an impact on Chinese government since they were used as the basis of the civil service examinations that determined who would and would not be hired for government jobs.