China Dynasty

Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors

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The actual translation of 帝 ''dì''/''dei⁵'' is a problematic one in that it is most often translated using its modern sense, which did not arise until after the advent of an imperial state under Qin Shi Huang . Its original meaning, and the most likely translation thereof, is that of ''supreme being'', a kind of ''?bermensch'', rather than 'emperor'. The character 帝 originally represented a shaman wearing a liturgical mantle.

The Three Sovereigns

The Three Sovereigns, sometimes known as the ''Three August Ones'', were said to be god-kings or demigods who used their magical powers to improve the lives of their people. Because of their lofty virtue, they lived to a great age and ruled over a period of great peace.

The Three Sovereigns are ascribed various identities in different texts. The ''Records of the Grand Historian'' by Sima Qian, in a chapter added by Sima Zhen, states that they were:

* ;

* ;

* ,

The ''Chunqiu yundou shu'' and ''Chunqiu yuanming bao'' identify them as:

*Fuxi

*Nüwa

*Shennong

Fuxi and Nüwa are respectively the god and goddess, husband and wife credited with being the ancestors of humankind after a devastating flood. The invention of the Primal Arrangement of the Eight Trigrams is attributed to Fuxi. Shennong invented farming and was the first to use herbs for medical purposes.

The I Ching starts like this: “In the old times of King Fuxi’s regime, he observed sky and the stars when he looked upwards, and researched the earth when he looked downwards, and watched the birds and beasts to see how they lived in their environment. He took examples from nearby and far away, and then made 8 Yin Yang signs to simulate the rules of universe...After Fuxi died, Shennong rose. He made Plow and taught people how to grow crops and fish. He invented money and market for the exchange of goods."

The ''Shangshu dazhuan'' and ''Baihu tongyi'' replace Nüwa with Suiren , the inventor of fire. The ''Diwang shiji'' replaces Nüwa with the Yellow Emperor , the supposed ancestor of all Han Chinese people.

The Five Emperors

The Five Emperors were legendary, morally perfect sage-kings. According to the ''Records of the Grand Historian'' they were:

*The Yellow Emperor

* Zhuanxu

* Emperor Ku

*

*

Yao and Shun are also known as the ''Two Emperors'', and, along with Yu the Great , founder of the Xia dynasty, were considered to be model rulers and moral exemplars by Confucians in later Chinese history. The ''Shangshu Xu'' and ''Diwang shiji'' include Shaohao instead of the Yellow Emperor.

The ''Song of Chu'' identifies the Five Emperors as directional gods:

*Shaohao

*Zhuanxu

*Yellow Emperor

*Shennong

*Fuxi

The ''Book of Rites'' equates the Five Emperors with the Five Lineages , which comprise:

*Youchao-shi

*Suiren-shi

*Fuxi

*Nüwa

*Shennong

All these "emperors" were only people with great contributions or famous rulers of tribal unions. From the Bamboo Annals and Classic of History, their positions are known to have been attained by election by other chiefs in the tribal unions. When they die, their children may succeed the positions of the ruler of their own tribe, but not the position of the ruler of the tribal union. Their power is much less than the historical Chinese emperors, generally commencing with the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang , who coined a new term for "Emperor" by combining the titles of "sovereign" and "god-king" who had over the people.

Xia Dynasty

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The Xia were agrarian people, with bronze weapons and pottery. The ruling families used elaborate and dramatic rituals to confirm their power to govern. The rulers often acted as shamans, communicating with spirits for help and guidance.

The Xia Dynasty ca. 2100 BC–1600 BC, of China is the first dynasty to be described in ancient historical records such as ''Records of the Grand Historian'' and ''Bamboo Annals''. Though there is disagreement pertaining to the actual existence of the dynasty, there is archaeological evidence which points to its possible existence. According to historical records, it was preceded by the period of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors and followed by the Shang Dynasty.

History

According to the official history, the Xia Dynasty was founded when abdicated the throne in favor of his minister , whom Shun viewed as the perfect civil servant. Yu was greatly praised by his people for eliminating flooding by organizing the building of canals in all the major rivers. Soon before his death, instead of passing power to the person deemed most capable of rulership, Yu passed power to his son, , setting the precedence for dynastic rule or the Hereditary System. The Xia Dynasty thus began a period of family or clan control.

The of early Chinese history, started by Gu Jiegang in the 1920s, was the first group of scholars within China to seriously question the traditional story of its early history: “the later the time, the longer the legendary period of earlier history... early Chinese history is a tale told and retold for generations, during which new elements were added to the front end” Yun Kuen Lee's criticism of nationalist sentiment in developing an explanation of Three Dynasties chronology focuses on the dichotomy of evidence provided by archaeological versus historical research, in particular the claim that the archaeological is also the historical Xia Dynasty. “How to fuse the archaeological dates with historical dates is a challenge to all chronological studies of early civilization.”

, the last ruler, was said to be a corrupt king. He was overthrown by , the leader of the people from the east.

Archaeological records

Archaeologists have uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs that point to the possible existence of the Xia dynasty at locations cited in ancient Chinese historical texts. There exists a debate as to whether or not Erlitou culture was the site of the Xia dynasty. Radiocarbon dating places the site at ca. 2100 to 1800 BC, providing physical evidence of the existence of a state contemporaneous with and possibly equivalent to the Xia Dynasty as described in Chinese historical works. In 1959, a site located in the city of Yanshi was excavated containing large palaces that some archaeologists have attributed as capital of the Xia Dynasty. Though later historical works mention the Xia dynasty, no written records dated to the Xia period have been found to confirm the name of the dynasty and its sovereigns. At a minimum, the archaeological discoveries marked an evolutionary stage between the late neolithic cultures and the typical Chinese urban civilization of the Shang Dynasty.

Qi as the heirs of Xia

After the defeat of Xia by , the remnants of Xia survived as Qi state until 445 BCE. The Qi state was well recorded in the Oracle script as the one major supporter of the Xia Dynasty.

Mythical opposite of Shang

In her work, ''The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art and Cosmos in Early China'', Sarah Allan noted that many aspects of the Xia are simply the opposite of traits held to be emblematic of the Shang. Classical Chinese historians such as Sima Qian had access to records going only as far back as the Western Zhou Dynasty. The implied dualism between the Shang and Xia, Allan argues, is that while the Shang represent fire or the sun, birds and the east, the Xia represent the west and water. The development of this mythical Xia, Allan argues, is a necessary act on the part of the Zhou Dynasty, who justify their conquest of the Shang by noting that the Shang had supplanted the Xia.

Sovereigns of the Xia Dynasty

Zhou Dynasty

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The Zhou Dynasty was preceded by the Shang Dynasty and followed by the Qin Dynasty in China. The Zhou dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in history—though the actual political and military control of China by the dynasty only lasted during the Western Zhou. During the Zhou, the was introduced to China, while this period of Chinese history produced what many consider the zenith of Chinese bronze-ware making. The dynasty also spans the period in which the written script evolved from the ancient stage as seen in early Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, to the beginnings of the modern stage, in the form of the archaic clerical script of the late Warring States period.

During the Zhou Dynasty, the origins of native Chinese philosophy developed, its initial stages beginning in the 6th century BC. The greatest Chinese philosophers, those who made the greatest impact on later generations of Chinese, were Kong Fuzi , founder of Confucianism, and Laozi, founder of Daoism. Other philosophers, theorists, and schools of thought in this era were Mozi , founder of Mohism, Mengzi , a famous Confucian who expanded upon Kong Fuzi's legacy, Shang Yang and Han Feizi, responsible for the development of ancient Chinese , and Xunzi, who was arguably the center of ancient Chinese intellectual life during his time, even more so than iconic intellectual figures such as Mencius.

Mandate of Heaven

In the Chinese historical tradition, the Zhou defeated the Shang and oriented the Shang system of ancestor worship toward a universalized worship away from the worship of and to that of Tian or "heaven". They legitimized their rule by invoking the Mandate of Heaven, the notion that the ruler governed by divine right but that his dethronement would prove that he had lost the mandate. Such things that proved the ruling family had lost the Mandate were natural disasters and rebellions. The doctrine explained and justified the demise of the and Shang Dynasties and at the same time supported the legitimacy of present and future rulers. The Zhou dynasty was founded by the family and had its capital at Hào . Sharing the language and culture of the Shang, the early Zhou rulers, through conquest and colonization, established a large imperial territory where in states as far as Shandong acknowledged Zhou rulership and took part in elite culture. The spread of Zhou bronzes, though, was concurrent with the continued use of Shang style pottery in the distant regions and these states were the last to recede during the late Western Zhou.

Zhou military

The early Western Zhou supported a strong military split into two major units: “The Six Armies of the West” and “The Eight Armies of Chengzhou”. The armies campaigned in the northern Loess Plateau, modern Ningxia and the Huanghe floodplain. The military prowess of Zhou peaked during the 19th year of 's reign, when the Six Armies were wiped out along with King Zhao on a campaign around the Han River. Early Zhou kings were true commanders-in-chief. They were in constant wars with barbarians on behalf of the fiefs called 'guo', namely, statelet or principality. Charles Hucker noted that Zhou had 14 standing royal armies, with 6 stationed in Haojing, near today's Xian, and 8 armies stationed in the east. Zhou Zhaowang was famous for repeated campaigns in the Yangtze areas and died in his last action. Zhou Muwang was a legendary figure famous for fighting in the west and maybe today's Central Asia where he met and rendezvoused on Kunlun Mountain with so-called Xi Wang Mu, namely, Queen Mother of the West, rumored by some western historians, including Charles Hucker, to be Queen of Sheba. Later kings' campaigns were less effective. King Liwang led 14 armies against barbarians in the south but failed to achieve any victory. King Xuanwang fought the Jiangrong nomads in vain. King Youwang was killed by Quanrong, and capital Haojing was sacked. Although chariots had been introduced to China since the Shang Dynasty, the Zhou period saw the use of massed chariots in battle, a technology imported from Central Asia.

Fengjian

In the West, the Zhou period is often described as feudal because the Zhou's early rule invites comparison with . However, historians debate whether or not this description is valid; the more appropriate term for the Zhou Dynasty's political arrangement would be from the Chinese language itself: the ''Fēngjiàn'' system. The Zhou amalgam of city-states became progressively centralized and established increasingly impersonal political and economic institutions. These developments, which probably occurred in the later Zhou period, were manifested in greater central control over local governments and a more routinized agrarian taxation. Zhou officials were not paid a salary but instead were given semi-regular gifts by the King, which often included land in the Wei River valley. Imperial stability was ensured through marriages between the Zhou court and local lords as well as the installment of Zhou lords into command over distant regions.

Western and Eastern Zhou

Initially the Ji family was able to control the country firmly. In 771 BC, after had replaced his queen with a concubine Baosi, the capital was sacked by the joint force of the queen's father, who was the powerful Marquess of Shen, and a nomadic tribe, the Quanrong. The queen's son was proclaimed the new king by the nobles from the states of , , and the Marquess of Shen. The capital was moved eastward in 722 BC to Luoyang in present-day Henan Province.

Because of this shift, historians divide the Zhou era into the Western Zhou , lasting up until 771 BC, and the Eastern Zhou from up to 256 BC. The beginning year of the Western Zhou has been disputed — 1122 BC, 1027 BC and other years within the hundred years from late 12th century BC to late 11th century BC have been proposed. Chinese historians take 841 BC as the first year of consecutive annual dating of the history of China, based on the ''Records of the Grand Historian'' by Sima Qian. The Eastern Zhou corresponds roughly to two subperiods. The first, from to 481 BC, is called the Spring and Autumn Period, after a famous historical chronicle of the time; the second is known as the Warring States Period , after another famous chronicle and initiated by the partitioning of . The Warring States Period extends slightly past the 256 BC end date of the Eastern Zhou; this discrepancy is due to the fact that the last Zhou king's reign ended in 256, 35 years before the beginning of the Qin dynasty which ended the Warring States period. The Eastern Zhou period is also designated as a period of a . This is a reference to the different schools of historical Chinese intellectual thought. There were four main distinct schools which were the Ru, Mohist, Daoist, and Legalists. These schools of thought contributed to social, philosophical and political change which played a large part in the decline of the Zhou dynasty.

Decline

With the royal line broken, the power of the Zhou court gradually diminished, and the fragmentation of the kingdom accelerated. From Ping Wang onwards, the Zhou kings ruled in name only, with true power lying in the hands of powerful nobles. Towards the end of the Zhou Dynasty, the nobles did not even bother to acknowledge the Ji family symbolically, rebelled and declared themselves to be kings. The dynasty was ended in 256 BC, before Qin Shi Huang's unification of China in 221 BC, when the last king of Zhou died and his sons did not proclaim the nominal titles of King of China.

Agriculture

Agriculture in the Zhou Dynasty was very intensive and in many cases directed by the government. All farming lands were owned by nobles, who then gave their land to their serfs, a situation similar to European feudalism. For example, a piece of land was divided into nine squares in the shape of the character for "water well," jing , with the grain from the middle square taken by the government and that of surrounding squares kept by individual farmers. This way, the government was able to store surplus food and distribute it in times of famine or bad harvest. Some important manufacturing sectors during this period included bronze smelting, which was integral to making weapons and farming tools. Again, these industries were dominated by the nobility who directed the production of such materials.

China's first projects of hydraulic engineering were founded during the Zhou Dynasty, ultimately for means to aid agricultural irrigation. The Prime Minister of , Sunshu Ao, who served King Zhuang of Chu dammed a river to create an enormous irrigation reservoir in modern-day northern Anhui province. For this Sunshu is credited as China's first hydraulic engineer. The later Wei statesman Ximen Bao, who served Marquis Wen of Wei , is the first hydraulic engineer of China to have created a large irrigation canal system. As the main focus of his grandiose project, his canal work eventually diverted the waters of the entire Zhang River to a spot further up the Huang He River.

Gallery of artwork

Zhou dynasty kings

Spring and Autumn Period

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During the Spring and Autumn period, China was ruled by a feudal system. The Zhou dynasty kings held nominal power, but only directly ruled over a small Royal Domain, centered around their capital . They granted fiefdoms over the rest of China to several hundreds of hereditary nobles . These were descendants of members of the Zhou clan, close associates of the founders of the dynasty, or local potentates. The most important feudal princes met during regular conferences, where important matters, such as military expeditions against foreign groups or offending nobles were decided. During these conferences, one prince was sometimes declared hegemon , and given leadership over the armies of all the feudal states.

As the era unfolded, larger more powerful states annexed or claimed suzerainty over smaller ones. By the 6th century BC, most small states had disappeared, and a few large and powerful principalities dominated China. Some southern states, such as Chu and Wu, claimed independence from the Zhou. Wars were undertaken to oppose some of these states . In the state of Jin, six powerful families fought for supremacy, and a series of civil wars resulted in the splitting of Jin into three smaller states by the beginning of the fifth century.

At the same time, the control Zhou kings exerted over feudal princes slowly but inexorably faded. Eventually the nominal Zhou kings lost all real influence, the feudal system crumbled, and the Warring States Period began.

Beginning of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty

After the Zhou capital was sacked by western barbarian tribes, crown prince fled to the east. During the flight from the western capital to the east, the king relied on the nearby lords of , and for protection from barbarians and rebellious lords. He moved the Zhou capital from Zongzhou to Chengzhou in the Yellow River valley.

The fleeing Zhou elite did not have strong footholds in the eastern territories; even the crown prince's coronation had to be supported by those states to be successful. With the Zhou domain greatly reduced, i.e. to Luoyang and nearby areas, the court could no longer support six groups of standing troops . Subsequent Zhou kings had to request help from neighbouring powerful states for protection from raids and for resolution of internal power struggles. The Zhou court would never regain its original authority; instead, it was relegated to being merely a figurehead of the feudal states. Though the king ''de jure'' retained the Mandate of Heaven, ''de facto'' the title held no real power.

Rise of the hegemonies

The first nobility to help the Zhou kings was the Duke Zhuang of Zheng . He was the first to establish the hegemonical system , which was intended to retain the old proto-feudal system. Traditional historians justified the new system as a means of protecting weaker civilized states and the Zhou royalty from the intruding "barbarian" tribes. Located in the south, north, east and west, the barbarian tribes were, respectively, the , Yi, Rong and Di.

The newly powerful states were more eager to maintain aristocratic privileges over the traditional ideology of supporting the weak ruling entity during times of unrest , which was to be widely propagated during imperial China to consolidate power into the ruling family.

Dukes and made further steps in installing the overlordship system, which brought relative stability, but in shorter time periods than before. Annexations increased, favoring the several most powerful states, including , , and . The overlord role gradually drifted from its stated intention of protecting weaker states; the overlordship eventually became a system of hegemony of major states over weaker satellites of Chinese and "barbarian" origin.

The great states used the pretext of aid and protection to intervene and gain advantages over the smaller states during their internal quarrels. Later overlords were mostly derived from these great states. They proclaimed themselves master of their territories, without even recognizing the petty figurehead of Zhou. Establishment of the local administration system , with its officials appointed by the government, gave states better control over the dominion. Taxation facilitated commerce and agriculture more than proto-feudalism.

The three states of , and not only optimized their own strength, but also repelled the southern state of , whose rulers had proclaimed themselves kings. The Chu armies gradually intruded into the Yellow River Basin. Framing Chu as the "southern barbarian", ''Chu Man'', was merely a pretext to warn Chu not to intervene into their respective spheres of influence. Chu intrusion was checked several times in three major battles with increasing violence - the Battle of Chengpu, the Battle of Bi and the Battle of Yanling; this resulted in the restorations of the states of and .

Interstate relations

''See main article: Interstate relations during the Spring and Autumn period.''

During the period a complex system of interstate relations developed. It was partially structured upon the Western Zhou system of feudalism, but elements of realpolitik were emerging. A collection of interstate customary norms and values, which can perhaps be loosely termed international law, was also evident. As the operational and cultural areas of states expanded and intersected, diplomatic encounters increased.

Changing tempo of war

After a period of increasingly exhaustive warfare, Qi, Qin, Jin and Chu finally met for a disarmament conference in 579 BC, where the other states essentially became satellites. In 546 BC, Jin and Chu agreed to yet another truce.

During the relatively peaceful 6th century BC, the two coastal states in today's Zhejiang, and , gradually grew in power. After defeating and banishing King Fuchai of Wu, King Goujian of Yue became the last recognized overlord.

This era of peace was only a prelude to the maelstrom of the Warring States Period. The four powerful states were all in the midst of power struggles. Six elite landholding families waged war on each other in Jin. The Chen family was eliminating political enemies in Qi. Legitimacy of the rulers was often challenged in civil wars by various royal family members in Qin and Chu. Once all these power strugglers firmly established themselves in their dominions, the bloodshed among states would continue in the Warring State Period. The Warring States Period officially started in 403 BC when the three remaining elite families in Jin - Zhao, Wei and Han - partitioned the state; the impotent Zhou court was forced to recognize their authority.

List of overlords, or Ba

''See main article: Five Hegemons ''

Traditionally, the Five Overlords of Spring and Autumn Period include:

*

*Duke Wen of Jin

*King Zhuang of Chu

*Duke Mu of Qin

*Duke Xiang of Song

While some other historians suggest that the Five Overlords include:

*Duke Huan of Qi

*Duke Wen of Jin

*King Zhuang of Chu

*King Fuchai of Wu

*King Goujian of Yue

List of prominent states

The name following the name of the state is the capital .

:Cai 蔡 - Shangcai 上蔡上蔡

:Cao 曹

:Chen ?; - Wanqiu 宛丘; 宛丘

:Chu 楚 - Ying 郢郢

:Hua 滑

:Jin ?

:Lu 鲁 - Qufu 曲阜曲阜

:Qi ? - Linzi ?淄临淄

:Qin 秦 - Xianyang 咸? 咸阳

:Song 宋 - Shangqiu 商丘商丘

:Wei ?

:Wu ? - 姑? 姑苏

:Yan 燕

:Yue 越 - Kuaiji ?稽会稽

:Zheng ? - Xinzheng 新?

List of important figures

Bureaucrats or Officers

:Guan Zhong , statesman and advisor of Duke Huan of Qi and regarded by some modern scholars as the first .

:Baili Xi , famous prime minister of Qin.

:Bo Pi, （伯?）the corrupted bureaucrat under King Helü and played important diplomatic role of - relations.

:文? and Fan Li范蠡, the two advisors and partisans of of his rally against Wu.

:Zi Chan, （子?）leader of self-strengthening movements in

Influential scholars

:Confucius（孔子）, leading figure in Confucianism

:Laozi （老子）or Lao tse, founder of Daoism

:Mozi, known as Motse or "Mocius" to Western scholars, founder of Mohism

Historians

:Confucius（孔子）, the editor of ''Spring and Autumn Annals ''

Engineers

:Mozi（墨子）

:Lu Ban（鲁班）

Wielders

:Ou Ye Zi, literally means Ou the wielder and mentor of the couple Gan Jiang and Mo Ye

Entrepreneurs and Commercial personnel

:Fan Li

Generals, military leaders and authors

:Rang Ju, elder contemporary and ''possibly'' mentor of

:Sun Tzu, （?子）the author of ''The Art of War''

Assassins

:Yao Li, （要离）sent by King Helü to kill Qing Ji（庆忌）.

:Zhuan Zhu,（专渚） sent by He Lu to kill his cousin King Liao

:Mo Xie

List of important events

770 B.C. - the nobility of the Zhou realm supported King Píng of Zhou as the new king of the Zhou Dynasty. King Píng moved the capital to Luòyì . The era of Eastern Zhou, or Spring Autumn, began. King Píng appointed the son of the nobility Yíng Qí to the northwestern part of the Zhou realm. He was named Duke Xiāng of Qin . The kingdom of Qin was born.

763 B.C. - Duke Zhuang of Zheng attacked and destroyed the barbarian kingdom of hú . Duke Zhuang relied on his famous officer Zhài Zhòng .

750 B.C. - Duke Wén of Jin , Jī Chóu , attacked and destroyed the kingdom of Yú Chén Zhou

704 B.C. - Duke of Chǔ , Mǐ Xióng Tōng , saw the weakened power of the King of Zhou as an opportunity to break free from being a tributary state of the Zhou Dynasty and claimed the title of king himself. He announced the kingdom of Chǔ and called himself King Wu of Chu .

701 B.C. - Duke Zhuang of Zheng died. His son Jī Hū succeeded the title of Duke and was known as Duke Zhāo of Zheng . Because Lady Yōng of Song was married to Duke Zhuang of Zheng and had a son named Ji Tū , the King of Song thought that he could extend influence in Zheng by helping to support a new ruler who had relations with Song. Zhài Zhòng , who had the respect and influence in the state of Zheng, was lured and captured by Song and was forced to support Jī Tū as the successor to the throne

Warring States Period

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The Warring States Period, in contrast to the Spring and Autumn Period, was a period when regional warlords annexed smaller states around them and consolidated their rule. The process began in the Spring and Autumn Period, and by the 3rd century BC, seven major states had risen to prominence. These Seven Warring States , were the , the , the , the , the , the and the . Another sign of this shift in power was a change in title: warlords once considered themselves dukes of the Zhou dynasty king; but now the warlords began to call themselves kings , meaning they were equal to the Zhou king.

The Warring States Period saw the proliferation of in China, replacing bronze as the dominant metal used in warfare. Areas such as and were also brought into the Chinese cultural sphere during this time. Different philosophies developed into the Hundred Schools of Thought, including Confucianism , Taoism , and Mohism . Trade also became important, and some merchants had considerable power in politics. Military tactics also changed. Unlike the Spring and Autumn Period, most armies in the Warring States Period made combined use of infantry and cavalry, and the use of chariots gradually fell into disfavor. Thus from this period on, the nobles in China remained a literate rather than warrior class, as the kingdoms competed by throwing masses of soldiers against each other. Arms of soldiers gradually changed from bronze to unified iron arms. Dagger-axes were an extremely popular weapon in various kingdoms, especially for the Qin who produced eighteen-foot long pikes.

This was also around the time the legendary military strategist Sun Tzu wrote ''The Art of War'' which is recognized today as the most influential, and oldest known military strategy guide. Along with this are other military writings that make up the Seven Military Classics of ancient China: 's Six Secret Teachings, The Methods of the Sima, Sun Bin's Art of War, Wu Qi, Wei Liaozi, Three strategies of Huang Shigong, and The Questions and Replies of Tang Taizong and Li Weigong . Once China was unified, these seven military classics were locked away and access was restricted due to their tendency to promote revolution.

Partition of Jin

In the Spring and Autumn Period, the State of Jin was arguably the most powerful state in China. However, near the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, the power of the ruling family weakened, and gradually came under the control of six ministers belonging to six different families . By the beginning of the Warring States Period, after numerous power struggles, there were four families left: the Zhi family, the Wei family, the Zhao family, and the Han family, with the Zhi family being the dominant power in . Zhi Yao , the last head of the Zhi family, attempted a coalition with the Wei family and the Han family to destroy the Zhao family. However, because of Zhi Yao's arrogance and disrespect towards the other families, the Wei family and Han family secretly allied with the Zhao family, and the three families launched a surprise attack at Jinyang, which was besieged by Zhi Yao at the time, and annihilated the Zhi.

In 403 BC, the three major families of , with the approval of the Zhou king, partitioned Jin into three states, which was historically known as 'The Partition of Jin of the Three Families' . The new states were: the State of Han, the State of Zhao, and the State of Wei. The three family heads were given the title of Marquis , and because the three states were originally part of , they are also referred to as the Three Jins . The State of Jin continued to exist with a tiny piece of territory until 376 BC when the rest of the territory was partitioned by the Three Jins.

Change of government in Qi

In 389 BC, the Tian family seized control of the State of Qi, and were given the title of Duke. The old Jiang family's State of Qi continued to exist with a small piece of territory until 379 BC, when it was finally absorbed into Tian family's State of Qi.

Early strife in the Three Jins, Qi, and Qin

In 371 BC, Marquess Wu of Wei died without specifying a successor, causing to fall into an internal war of succession. After three years of civil war, and , sensing an opportunity, invaded . On the verge of conquering , the leaders of and fell into disagreement on what to do with and both armies mysteriously retreated. As a result, King Hui of Wei was able to jump onto the throne of .

In 354 BC, King Hui of Wei initiated a large scale attack at , which some historians believe was to avenge the earlier near destruction of . By 353 BC, was losing the war badly, and one of their major cities — Handan , a city that would eventually become 's capital — was being besieged. As a result, the neighbouring State of Qi decided to help . The strategy used, suggested by the famous tactician Sun Bin , a descendant of Sun Tzu, who at the time was the army advisor, was to attack 's territory while the main army is busy sieging , forcing to retreat. The strategy was a success; the army hastily retreated, and encountered the midway, culminating into the Battle of Guiling where was decisively defeated. The event spawned the idiom "?魏救?/围魏救赵", meaning ''"Surrounding to save "'', which is still used in modern Chinese to refer to attacking an enemy's vulnerable spots in order to relieve pressure being applied by that enemy upon an ally.

In 341 BC, attacked , and interfered again. The two generals from the previous Battle of Guiling met again, and due to the brilliant strategy of Sun Bin, was again decisively defeated at the Battle of Maling .

The situation for took an even worse turn when , taking advantage of series of defeats by , attacked in 340 BC under the advice of famous Qin reformer Shang Yang . was devastatingly defeated and was forced to cede a large portion of its territory to achieve a truce. This left their capital Anyi vulnerable, so was also forced to move their capital to Daliang.

After these series of events, became severely weakened, and the and states became the two dominant states in China.

Shang Yang's reforms in Qin

Around 359 BC, Shang Yang , a minister of the State of Qin, initiated a series of reforms based on the political doctrine of Legalism that transformed from a backward state into one that surpasses the other six states. It is generally regarded that this is the point where started to become the most dominant state in China.

Ascension of the Kingdoms

In 334 BC, the rulers of and agreed to recognize each other as Kings , formalizing the independence of the states and the powerlessness of the Zhou throne since the beginning of the . The King of and the King of joined the ranks of the King of , whose predecessors had been Kings since the Spring and Autumn Period. From this point on, all the other states eventually declare their Kingship, signifying the beginning of the end of the Zhou Dynasty.

In 325 BC, the ruler of declared himself as King.

In 323 BC, the rulers of and declared themselves as King.

In 318 BC, the ruler of , a relatively minor state, declared himself as King.

The ruler of held out until around 299 BC, and was the last to declare himself as King.

Chu expansion and defeats

Early in the Warring States Period, was one of the strongest states in China. The state rose to a new level of power around 389 BC when the King of named the famous reformer Wu Qi to be his prime minister.

rose to its peak in 334 BC, when it gained vast amounts of territory. The series of events leading up to this began when prepared to attack . The King of sent an emissary who persuaded the King of to attack instead. initiated a large scale attack at , but was devastatingly defeated by 's counter-attack. Chu then proceeded to conquer the State of Yue. This campaign expanded the Chu's borders to the coasts of the Pacific Ocean.

The Domination of Qin and the resulting Grand Strategies

Towards the end of the Warring States Period, the State of Qin became disproportionately powerful compared to the other six states. As a result, the policies of the six states became overwhelmingly oriented towards dealing with the Qin threat, with two opposing schools of thought: Hezong , or alliance with each other to repel Qin expansionism; and Lianheng , or alliance with Qin to participate in its ascendancy. There were some initial successes in Hezong, though it eventually broke down. Qin repeatedly exploited the Lianheng strategy to defeat the states one by one. During this period, many philosophers and tacticians travelled around the states recommending the rulers to put their respective ideas into use. These "lobbyists" were famous for their tact and intellect, and were collectively known as Zonghengjia , taking its name from the two main schools of thought.

In 316 BC, conquered the Shu area.

Around 300 BC, Qi was almost totally annihilated by a coalition of five states led by Yue Yi of Yan . Although under General Tian Dan Qi managed to recover their lost territories, it would never be a great power again. Yan was also too exhausted afterwards to be of much importance in international affairs after this campaign.

In 293 BC the Battle of Yique against Wei and Han resulted in victory for Qin. This effectively removed Wei and Han threat to further Qin aspirations.

In 278 BC, Qin attacked Chu and managed to capture their capital city, Ying, forcing the Chu king to move eastwards to Shouchun. This campaign virtually destroyed Chu's military might, although they recovered sufficiently to mount serious resistance against Qin 50 years later.

In 260 BC, the Battle of Changping was fought between Qin and Zhao, resulting in a catastrophic defeat for the latter. Although both sides were utterly exhausted after the titanic clash, Zhao, unlike Qin, could not recover after the event.

In about 50 years Qin superiority was secure, thanks to its powerful military and, in part, constant feuding between the other states.

Military developments

The Warring States Period saw the introduction of many new innovations to the art of warfare in China, such as the use of iron and cavalry.

The various states fielded massive armies of infantry, cavalry and chariots. Complex logistical systems maintained by efficient government bureaucracy, was needed to supply, train, and control such large forces. The size of the armies ranged from tens of thousands to several hundred thousand men.

Iron became more widespread and began to replace bronze. Most armour and weapons of this period were made from iron.

The first official native Chinese cavalry unit was formed in 307 BC by King Wuling of Zhao.

But the war chariot still retained its prestige and importance, despite the tactical superiority of cavalry.

Crossbow was the preferred long range weapon of this period due to many reasons. The crossbow could be mass-produced easily, and mass training of crossbowmen was possible. These qualities made it a powerful weapon against the enemy.

Infantrymen deployed a varieties of weapons, but the most popular was the dagger-axe. The dagger-axe came in various length from 9?18 ft, the weapon comprising a thrusting spear with a slashing blade appended to it.

Zhao's military reforms

In 307 BC, King Wuling of Zhao adopted superior non-Chinese horse-riding clothing to better facilitate cavalry fighting tactics .

Qin's conquest of China

In 230 BC, the State of Qin conquers the State of Han when it, being the weakest state of the total seven Warring States and also being one of the neighbours to the much more stronger Qin and was being continuously assaulted by Qin in earlier years during Warring states period. This went on until Emperor Qin Shi Huang sent the famed general Wang Jian to attack the state of Zhao. King An of Han , frightened by the possibility that the State of Qin was going to target them right after Zhao, immediately sent diplomats to the state of Qin to surrender the entire kingdom without a fight. Although Qin had conquered Han without a fight, it also saved a lot of people from the potential devastation if the State of Han was to resist its massive invasions.

In 225 BC, conquers . The Qin army led a direct invasion into the state of Wei by besieging its capital Kaifeng but soon the Qin army realized that the city walls were too tough to break into and so they devised a new strategy in which they utilized the power of a local river which was linked to the Yellow River. The river was then used to flood the city's walls, causing massive devastation to the city. Upon realizing the situation, King Jia of Wei hurriedly came out of the city and surrendered its city to the Qin army in order to avoid further bloodshed of his people.

In 223 BC, invades . The King of Qin, Ying Zheng, decided to first defeat the strongest state, Chu. However, the first invasion was doomed to utter disaster when northern style Qin troops were defeated by 500,000 Chu troops in the unfamiliar territory of Huaiyang, modern-day northern Jiangsu and Anhui provinces. The Qin general was Li Xing, who was inexperienced.

In 224 BC., the famed conqueror of the state of Zhao, Wang Jian, was recalled to lead a second invasion with 600,000 men. Chu's morale was greatly increased after their success in defeating the seemingly invincible army of Qin the year before. The Chu forces were content to sit back and defend and believed it was Qin's intention to besiege Chu. However, Wang Jian tricked the Chu army by appearing to be idle in his fortifications whilst secretly training his troops to fight in Chu territory. After a year, Chu decided to disband due to inaction. Wang Jian invaded at the best moment with full force to overrun Huaiyang and the remaining Chu forces. Chu lost the initiative and could only sustain local guerrilla-style resistance until it too was fully conquered in 223 BCE. During their peak sizes, both armies of Chu and Qin combined numbered over 1,000,000 troops, more than the massive battle of Changping between Qin and Zhao 35 years before but which the Qin was able to conquer the state of Chu at last.

In 222 BC, conquers and . After the conquest of Zhao the Qin army then turned its attention towards the state of Yan. Realizing the danger & gravity of this situation, Yan Prince Dan had sent an assassin Jing Ke to kill the Qin emperor but this failure only helped to fuel the rage & determination of Qin Shi Huang and he increased the number of troops to conquer the state of Yan.

In 221 BC, conquers . Qi previously did not contribute or helped other states when Qin was conquering the other states and as soon as Qin was aiming for its final target the Qi quickly made the same decision as the Han did some nine years earlier and surrendered all its cites to Qin, completing the unification of China, and ushering in the Qin Dynasty.

Qin Dynasty

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The Qin Dynasty was preceded by the feudal Zhou Dynasty and followed by the Han Dynasty in China. The unification of China in 221 BC under the marked the beginning of Imperial China, a period which lasted until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. The Qin Dynasty left a legacy of a centralized and bureaucratic state that would be carried onto successive dynasties. At the height of its power, the Qin Dynasty had a population of about 40 million people. Also, the massive Terracotta Army at Xi'an was built during the Qin as a royal retinue to guard the First Emperor in the afterlife.

Origins

Before it is referred to as the Qin Dynasty, the Ying were the rulers of the Qin .

According to Sima Qian, the house of Qin traced its origin to Emperor Zhuanxu . One of their ancestors, Dafei received from Emperor Shun the surname Ying. Another ancestor, Feizi served King Xiao of Zhou as the royal horse trainer, was rewarded with a fief in Quanqiu ; the Qin state grew out from this area, and the Qin name itself is believed to have originated, in part,there.

Qin Shi Huangdi

Qin Shi Huangdi imposed the Qin state's centralized, non-hereditary aristocratic system on his new empire in place of the Zhou's one. The Qin Empire relied on the philosophy of . 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. The seal script s from the former state of Qin became the standard for the entire empire. The length of the wheel axle was also unified and expressways standardized to ease transportation throughout the country. To silence criticism of imperial rule, the emperor banished or put to death many dissenting Confucian scholars and confiscated and .

To prevent future uprisings, Qin Shi Huangdi ordered the confiscation of weapons and stored them in the capital. In order to prevent the resurgence of feudal lords, he also destroyed the walls and fortifications that had separated the previous six states. A national conscription was devised: every male between the ages of seventeen and sixty years was obliged to serve one year in the army. Qin aggrandizement was aided by frequent military expeditions pushing forward the frontiers in the north and south. To fend off a barbarian intrusion , the fortification walls built by the various warring states were connected to make a wall; this is usually recognized as the first Great Wall of China, although the present, 4,856- kilometer-long Great Wall of China was largely built or re-built during the Ming Dynasty. A number of public works projects, including canals and bridges, were also undertaken to consolidate and strengthen imperial rule. A lavish tomb for the emperor, complete with a Terracotta Army, was built near the capital Xianyang, a city half an hour from modern Xi'an. These activities required enormous levies of manpower and resources, not to mention repressive measures.

Qin Shi Huangdi's behavior reportedly became increasingly erratic in the later years of his rule. This may have been the result of drinking solutions containing mercury as well as other deadly compounds. Ironically, Shi Huangdi ingested the mixtures in an increasingly desperate search for an elixir that would prolong his life. It has often been speculated that this was at least partially responsible for many of his later acts such as building the .

Campaigns against Xiongnu

When Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi had succeeded in his conquest of all the six warring states in China he began to concentrate its aggression against the nomadic ethnic Xiongnu which had grown into a powerful invading force in the north and started expanding both east and west. Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, sent a 300,000-strong army headed by General Meng Tian to drive the Xiongnu northward for 350 km and built the Great Wall to guard against its invasion.

Burning of intellectual books and Confucian burying

Qin Shi Huangdi had allowed the burning of intellectual books and burying Confucians alive when Li Si , his prime minister, had won favor over Chunyu Yue on the matter of commandary-county system, proposed book burning. In 213 BC, on Li Si's urging, Qin Shi Huangdi outlawed all other schools of thought except for Legalism, and he ordered book burning. 346 to 460 Confucians local to Qin capital were buried alive at one time. When Qin Shi Huangdi's elder son, Prince Fusu, encountered the rows of Confucians who were on the way to the burial ground, he went straight to Qin Shi Huangdi pleading for amnesty on behalf of the Confucians. Qin Shi Huangdi rebutted Fusu and further sent his elder son to Shangjun Commandary on the northern border to be with General Meng Tian. Qin Shi Huangdi then played a trick to have various prefectures send over about 700 more Confucians and scholars. All 700 Confucians were stoned to death in a valley, a place later named "valley of Confucian killing".

Second Emperor

During the last trip with his youngest son in 210 BC, Qin Shi Huang died suddenly at Shaqiu prefecture. Huhai, under the advice of two high officials, the Imperial Secretariat Li Si and the chief eunuch Zhao Gao, forged and altered Emperor's will. The faked decree ordered Qin Shi Huang's first son, the heir Fusu to commit suicide, instead naming Huhai as the next emperor. The decree also stripped the command of troops from Marshal Meng Tian — a faithful supporter of Fusu — and sentenced Meng's family to death. ''Zhao Gao'' step by step seized the power of Huhai, effectively making Huhai a puppet emperor. Thus beginning the Qin dynasty decline.

Out of concern for the security of his throne, Huhai killed all his brothers and sisters. At the end, he was killed by Zhao Gao. Thus Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor, has no known descendants. The Second Emperor, Huhai, also has no known descendants.

Within three years of Qin Shi Huangdi's death, widespread revolts by peasants, prisoners, soldiers, and descendants of the nobles of the Six Warring States sprang up all over China. Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, two in a group of about 900 soldiers assigned to defend against the Xiongnu , became the leaders of the first revolution by commoners.

Huhai lived to see the Battle of Julu, the major defeat of the Qin army in the hands of the rebels, which marked the end of the Qin Dynasty.

Third Emperor

In the beginning of October 207 BC, Zhao Gao forced Huhai to commit suicide and replaced him with Fusu's son, Ziying . Note that the title of Ziying was "king of Qin" to reflect the fact that Qin no longer controlled the whole of China. The Chu-Han contention ensued. Ziying soon killed Zhao Gao and surrendered to Liu Bang in the beginning of December 207 BC. But Liu Bang was forced to hand over Xianyang and Ziying to Xiang Yu. Xiang Yu then killed Ziying and burned down the palace in the end of January 206 BC. It is said the fire lasted two months before the inferno died down. A recent archeology survey of the palace ruin determined it to be roughly the size of Manhattan island of New York City. The palace is supported with thousands of pillars made from prehistoric lumbers growing to up to 115 meters high. One single pillar requires a team of a thousand workers a life time to harvest. Due to the weight and scale of each lumber, cutting the lumber can take weeks if not months, transporting from the prehistoric forest to the lumber mill requires certain weather so the river can be flooded to even move the massive lumber down river. The captain of each team is rewarded with imperial rank, their goal in life is to acquire one of these prehistoric lumber for the construction of the palace. It is said each pillar sacrificed the lives of a hundred men. Xiang Yu's controversial action sets the stage for the legendary battles between Xiang Yu, the warrior king and Liu Bang, the people's king. The Qin dynasty came to an end, three years after the death of Qin Shi Huang, and less than twenty years after it was founded.

Although the Qin Dynasty was short-lived, its legalist rule had a deep impact on later dynasties in China. The imperial system initiated during the Qin dynasty set a pattern that was developed over the next two millennia.

Sovereigns of Qin Dynasty

Note: King Zhaoxiang of Qin had already been ruling Qin for 51 years when Qin annihilated the Zhou Dynasty; however the other six warring states were still independent regimes. Historiographers thus used the next year as the official continuation from Zhou Dynasty.

Qin Shi Huang was the first Chinese sovereign to proclaim himself "Emperor", after reunifying China in 221 BC. That year is therefore usually taken as the start of the "Qin Dynasty".

Han Dynasty

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The Han Dynasty followed the Qin Dynasty and preceded the Three Kingdoms in China. The Han Dynasty was ruled by the prominent family known as the Liu clan. The reign of the Han Dynasty, lasting over 400 years, is commonly considered within China to be one of the greatest periods in the history of China. To this day, the ethnic majority of China still refer to themselves as the "".

During the Han Dynasty, China officially became a state and prospered domestically: agriculture, handicrafts and commerce flourished, and the population reached over 55 million people. Meanwhile, the empire extended its political,, and territory over Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Central Asia before it finally collapsed under a combination of domestic and external pressures. It also had a series of military outposts in some of these regions, including Central Asia, Mongolia, and Persia.

The first of the two periods of the dynasty was the Former Han Dynasty or Western Han Dynasty 206 BCE?, seated at Chang'an. The Later Han Dynasty or Eastern Han Dynasty 25?220 CE was seated at Luoyang. The western-eastern Han convention is currently used to avoid confusion with the Later Han Dynasty of the Period of the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms although the former-later nomenclature was used in history texts including Sima Guang's ''Zizhi Tongjian''.

The Han Dynasty was notable also for its military prowess. The empire expanded westward to the Tarim Basin , with military expeditions as far west as beyond the Caspian Sea, making possible a relatively safe and secure caravan and mercantile traffic across Central Asia. The paths of caravan traffic came to be known as the "Silk Road" because the route was used to export Chinese silk. Chinese armies also invaded and annexed parts of northern Korea and northern Vietnam toward the end of the 2nd century BC. The borders near the peripheral territories were often tense with possible conflict with other states. To ensure peace with non-Chinese powers, the Han court developed a mutually beneficial "tributary system". Non-Chinese states were allowed to remain autonomous in exchange for symbolic acceptance of Han overlordship. Tributary ties were confirmed and strengthened through intermarriages at the ruling level and periodic exchanges of gifts and goods.

Emergence

Within the first three months after Qin Dynasty Qin Shi Huang's death at Shaqiu, widespread revolts by peasants, prisoners, soldiers and descendants of the nobles of the sprang up all over China. Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, two in a group of about 900 soldiers assigned to defend against the Xiongnu, were the leaders of the first rebellion. Continuous finally toppled the Qin dynasty in 206 BC. The leader of the insurgents was Xiang Yu, an outstanding military commander without political expertise, who divided the country into 19 feudal states to his own satisfaction.

The ensuing war among those states signified the five years of Chu Han Contention with Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty, as the eventual winner with the help of and Han Xin. Initially, "Han" consisted merely of modern Sichuan, Chongqing, and southern Shaanxi and was a minor humble principality, but eventually grew into an empire; the Han Dynasty was named after the principality, which was itself named after Hanzhong —modern southern Shaanxi, the region centering the modern city of Hanzhong. The beginning of the Han Dynasty can be dated either from 206 BC when the Qin dynasty crumbled and the Principality of Han was established or 202 BC when Xiang Yu committed suicide.

Taoism and feudal system

The new empire retained much of the Qin administrative structure, but retreated somewhat from centralized rule by establishing vassal principalities in some areas for the sake of political convenience. After the establishment of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Gao divided the country into several "feudal states" to satisfy some of his wartime allies, though he planned to get rid of them once he had consolidated his power.

After his death, his successors from to tried to rule China combining methods with the philosophic ideals. During this "pseudo-Taoism era", a stable centralized government over China was established through revival of the agriculture sectors and fragmentations of "feudal states" after the suppression of the Rebellion of the seven states.

Emperor Wu and Confucianism

During the "''Taoism era''", China was able to maintain peace with Xiongnu by paying tribute and marrying princesses to them. During this time, the dynasty's goal was to relieve the society of harsh laws, wars, and conditions from both the Qin Dynasty, external threats from nomads, and early internal conflicts within the Han court. The government reduced taxation and assumed a subservient status to neighboring nomadic tribes. During this era, the government reduced its role in civilian lives and initiating a period of stability known as the ''Rule of Wen and Jing'' , named after the two Emperors of this particular era. However, under , who reigned over one of the most prosperous periods of the Han Dynasty, the Empire was able to reassert its power. At its height, Han China incorporated present day Qinghai, Gansu, and northern Vietnam into its territories. The state mounted military expeditions into Siberian lands beyond Lake Baikal in the northern extremities and established military bases on the shores of the Caspian Sea at its western extremity.

Emperor Wu decided that Taoism was no longer suitable for China and officially declared it a Confucian state; however, like the Emperors of China before him, he combined methods with the ideal. This official adoption of Confucianism led not only to a civil service nomination system, but also compulsory knowledge of Confucian classics among candidates for the imperial bureaucracy, a requirement that lasted up to the establishment of the Republic of China in 1911. Confucian scholars gained prominent status as the core of the civil service.

Government

The bureaucratic system of the Han Dynasty can be divided into two systems, the central and the local. As for the central bureaucrats in the capital, it was organized into a head cabinet of officials called the Three Lords and Nine Ministers . This cabinet was led by the , who was included as one of the . Officials were graded by rank and salary, were appointed to posts based on the merit of their skills rather than aristocratic clan affiliation, and were subject to dismissal, demotion, and transfer to different administrative regions. The local official during the former Han Dynasty was different from that of the later Han Dynasty. As for the former Han, there were two administered levels, the county and the ''xian'' . In the former Han Dynasty the ''xian'' was a subdivision or sub-prefecture of a county. During the Han period, there were about 1,180 of these xian, or sub-prefectures. The entire Han Empire was heavily dependent upon its county governors , as they could decide military policy, economic regulations, and legal matters in the county they presided over. According to historians Ebrey, Walthall, and Palais:

The main tax exacted on the population during Han times was a poll tax, fixed at a rate of 120 government-issued coins for adults.For adults there was also the addition of mandatory labor service for one month out of the year. Besides the poll tax, there was also the administered by county and commandery officials. This was set by the government at a relatively low rate of one-thirtieth of the collected harvest.

With a large amount of revenue in stable times, the Han government was able to fund various public works projects and state infrustructure. In the year 3 CE, a formalized nationwide government school system was established under Emperor Ping of Han, with a central school located in the capital Chang'an and local schools in the prefectures and counties.

As a result of the recorded debate ''The Discourses on Salt and Iron'' about state control over non-renewable resources in China, the state decided to impose government on salt and iron in the 1st century BC. The government monopoly on salt remained a distinctive feature of the Chinese bureaucracy in subsequent dynasties, although it fell out of use at certain times when merchants were allowed to mine it, refine it, and sell it in free trade.

Culture, society, and technology

The intellectual, literary, and artistic endeavors revived and flourished during the Han Dynasty. The Han period produced by birth China's most famous historian, Sima Qian , whose ''Records of the Grand Historian'' provides a detailed chronicle from the time of legendary emperor to that of the . Technological advances also marked this period. One of the great Chinese inventions, paper, dates from the Han Dynasty, largely attributed to the court eunuch Cai Lun . By the 1st century BC, the Chinese had discovered how to forge the highly durable metal of steel, by melting together wrought iron with cast iron. There were great mathematicians, astronomers, statesmen, and technological inventors such as Zhang Heng , who invented the world's first hydraulic-powered armillary sphere. He was also largely responsible for the early development of the style in China. Zhang Heng's work in mechanical gear systems influenced countless numbers of inventors and engineers to follow, such as Ma Jun, Yi Xing, Zhang Sixun, Su Song, etc. Zhang Heng's most famous invention was a seismometer with a swinging pendulum that signified the cardinal direction of earthquakes that struck locations hundreds of kilometres away from the positioned device. There was also continuing development in Chinese philosophy, with figures such as Wang Chong , whose written work represented in part the great intellectual atmosphere of the day. Among his various written achievements, Wang Chong accurately described the water cycle in meteorology. Zhang Heng argued that light emanating from the moon was merely the reflected light that came originally from the sun, and accurately described the reasons for solar eclipse and lunar eclipse as path obstructions of light by the celestial bodies of the earth, sun, and moon.

Military technology in the Han period was advanced by the use of cast iron and steel, which the 1st century engineer Du Shi had made easier by applying the hydraulic power of waterwheels in working the bellows of the blast furnace. The military of the Han Dynasty also engaged in chemical warfare, as written in the ''Hou Han Shu'' for the governor of Ling-ling, Yang Xuan, who fought against a peasant revolt near Guiyang in 178 AD:

There were other notable technological advancements during the Han period. This includes the hydraulic-powered trip hammer for agriculture and iron industry, the winnowing machine for agriculture, and the rotary and of Ding Huan .

Beginning of the Silk Road

From 138 BC, Emperor Wu also dispatched Zhang Qian twice as his envoy to the Western Regions, and in the process pioneered the route known as the Silk Road from Chang'an , through Xinjiang and Central Asia, and on to the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

Following Zhang Qian's embassy and report, commercial relations between China and Central as well as Western Asia flourished, as many Chinese missions were sent throughout the 1st century BC, initiating the development of the Silk Road:

:"The largest of these embassies to foreign states numbered several hundred persons, while even the smaller parties included over 100 members... In the course of one year anywhere from five to six to over ten parties would be sent out." .

China also sent missions to Parthia, which were followed up by reciprocal missions from Parthian envoys around 100 BC:

:"When the Han envoy first visited the kingdom of , the king of Anxi dispatched a party of 20,000 horsemen to meet them on the eastern border of the kingdom... When the Han envoys set out again to return to China, the king of Anxi dispatched envoys of his own to accompany them... The emperor was delighted at this." .

By AD 97 the Chinese general Ban Chao had embarked on a military expedition as far west as the landmass encompassed by present-day Ukraine in pursuit of fleeing Xiongnu insurgents, and returned eastward to establish base on the shores of the Caspian Sea with 70,000 men and established direct military contacts with the Parthian Empire, also dispatching an envoy to Rome in the person of Gan Ying.

Several Roman embassies to China are recounted in Chinese history, starting with a ''Hou Hanshu'' account of a convoy set out by emperor Antoninus Pius that reached the Chinese capital Luoyang in 166 and was greeted by . Good exchanges such as Chinese silk, African ivory, and Roman incense increased the contacts between the East and West.

Contacts with the Kushan Empire led to the introduction of Buddhism to China from India in the first century.

Rise of landholding class

To secure funding for his triumphant campaigns against the Xiongnu, Emperor Wu relinquished land control to merchants and the rich, and in effect legalized the privatization of lands. Land taxes were based on the sizes of fields instead of on income. The harvest could not always pay the taxes completely as incomes from selling harvest were often market-driven and a stable amount could not be guaranteed, especially not after harvest-reducing natural disasters. Merchants and prominent families then lured peasants to sell their lands since land accumulation guaranteed living standards of theirs and their descendants' in the agricultural society of China. Lands were hence accumulating into a new class of landholding families. The Han government in turn imposed more taxes on the remaining independent servants in order to make up the tax losses, therefore encouraging more peasants to come under the landholding elite or the landlords. This could be seen through such examples as the written evidence in the ''Yan Tie Lun'' , written about 80 BC, where the Lord Grand Secretary is quoted in this passage in his support of nationalizing the salt and iron industries:

Ideally the peasants pay the landlords certain periodic amount of income, who in turn provide protection against crimes and other hazards. In fact an increasing number of peasant population in the prosperous Han society and limited amount of lands provided the elite to elevate their standards for any new subordinate peasants. The inadequate education and often complete illiteracy of peasants forced them into a living of providing physical services, which were mostly farming in an agricultural society. The peasants, without other professions for their better living, compromised to the lowered standard and sold their harvest to pay their landlords. In fact they often had to delay the payment or borrow money from their landlords in the aftermath of natural disasters that reduced harvests. To make the situation worse, some Han rulers double-taxed the peasants. Eventually the living conditions of the peasants worsened as they solely depended on the harvest of the land they once owned.

The landholding elite and landlords, for their part, provided inaccurate information of subordinate peasants and lands to avoid paying taxes; to this very end corruption and incompetence of the Confucian scholar gentry on economics would play a vital part. Han court officials who attempted to strip lands out of the landlords faced such enormous resistance that their policies would never be put in to place. In fact only a member of the landholding families, for instance Wang Mang, was able to put his reforming ideals into effect despite failures of his "turning the clock back" policies.

The Han government kept records on people's property to assess taxes. Yet government officials and secretaries weren't the only ones documenting property. In the Han period the prototype of contractual language and privately signed contracts appear for those wishing to keep their own private documents on their property for later use in court if necessary. However, creating signed contracts with documented witnesses and scribes was not in common use until the , while contractual language did not "permeate Chinese life" until the Yuan Dynasty , according to historians Valerie Hansen and Timothy Brook.

Interruption of Han rule

After 200 years, Han rule was interrupted briefly during AD 9?24 by Wang Mang, a reformer and a member of the landholding families. The economic situation deteriorated at the end of Western Han Dynasty. Wang Mang, believing the Liu family had lost the Mandate of Heaven, took power and turned the clock back with vigorous monetary and land reforms, which damaged the economy even further.

Restoration and new golden age

A distant relative of Liu royalty, , prevailed after a number of agrarian rebellions had overthrown Wang Mang's Xin Dynasty, and he reestablished the Han Dynasty in AD 25. He and his son Emperor Ming of Han and grandson Emperor Zhang of Han were generally considered able emperors whose reigns were the prime of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Military speaking, a new golden age also reappeared. In 97, Ban Chao and his troops went as far to reach the Caspian Sea, while this familly also provide notorious generals and historians.

Decrease of administrative fairness and fall of Eastern Han Dynasty

After Emperor Zhang, however, the dynasty fell into states of corruption and political power struggles among three groups of powerful individuals --

eunuchs, empresses' clans, and Confucian scholar-officials. None of these three parties was able to improve the harsh livelihood of peasants under the landholding families. Land privatizations and accumulations on the hands of the elite affected the societies of the Three Kingdoms and the Southern and Northern Dynasties that the landholding elite held the actual driving and ruling power of the country. Successful ruling entities worked with these families, and consequently their policies favored the elite. Adverse effects of the Nine grade controller system or the Nine rank system were brilliant examples.

Taiping Taoist ideals of equal rights and equal land distribution quickly spread throughout the peasantry. As a result, the peasant insurgents of the Yellow Turban Rebellion swarmed the North China Plain, the main agricultural sector of the country. Power of the Liu royalty then fell into the hands of local governors and warlords, despite suppression of the main upraising of Zhang Jiao and his brothers. Three overlords eventually succeeded in control of the whole of China proper, ushering in the period of the Three Kingdoms. The figurehead reigned until 220 when Cao Pi forced his abdication.

Gallery of art

Emperors of Han Dynasty

Xin Dynasty

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The sole emperor of the Xin Dynasty, Wang Mang , was the nephew of . After the death of her step-grandson in 1 BC, Wang Mang rose to power. After several years of cultivating a personality cult, he finally proclaimed himself emperor in . However, while a creative scholar and politician, he was an incompetent ruler, and his capital Chang'an was laid seige by peasant rebels in . He died in the siege, and the Han Dynasty was restored by descendents of the former imperial clan.

Three Kingdoms

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The three kingdoms were , , and . To help further distinguish these states from other historical Chinese states of the same name, historians add a relevant character: Wei is also known as Cáo Wèi , Shu is also known as Shǔ Hàn , and Wu is also known as Dōng Wú or Eastern Wu . The term ''Three Kingdoms'' itself is somewhat a mistranslation, since each state was eventually headed by an emperor who claimed legitimate succession from the Han Dynasty, not by kings. Nevertheless the term has become standard among sinologists.

The earlier, "unofficial" part of the period, from 190 to 220, was marked by chaotic infighting between warlords in various parts of China. The middle part of the period, from 220 and 263, was marked by a more militarily stable arrangement between three rival states, Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu. The later part of this period was marked by the collapse of the tripartite situation: first the destruction of Shu by Wei , then the overthrow of Wei by the , and the destruction of Wu by Jin .

Although relatively short, this historical period has been greatly romanticised in the of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. It has been celebrated and popularised in operas, folk stories, novels and in more recent times, films, television serials, and video games. The best known of these is undoubtedly the ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'', a fictional account of the period which draws heavily on history. The authoritative historical record of the era is Chen Shou's ''Sanguo Zhi'', along with Pei Songzhi's later annotations of the text.

The Three Kingdoms period is one of the bloodiest in Chinese history. A population census in late Eastern Han Dynasty reported a population of approximately 50 million, while a population census in early Western Jin Dynasty reported a population of approximately 16 million.Even after taking into account possible inaccuracies of these census reports, a large percentage of the population was wiped out during the constant wars waged during this period.

Technology advances significantly during this period.

Zhuge Liang invented the wooden ox, suggested to be an early form of the wheelbarrow.

A brilliant mechanical engineer known as Ma Jun, in the Kingdom of Wei, is considered by many to be as brilliant as his predecessor Zhang Heng. He invented a hydraulic-powered, mechanical puppet theatre designed for Emperor Ming of Wei , square-pallet chain pumps for irrigation of gardens in Luoyang, and the ingenious design of the South Pointing Chariot, a non-magnetic directional compass operated by gears.

Collapse of dynastic power

What is traditionally thought of as the beginning of the "unofficial" Three Kingdoms Period is the Yellow Turban Rebellion led by Zhang Jiao in 184. The year long revolt devastated northern China, as Zhang's religious sect, the Way of Peace, battled the weakened Han Empire, whose army was led by He Jin. The Way of Peace was primarily composed of farmers who had suffered greatly under the corrupt government system and thus easily converted by Zhang Jiao to create a "new and peaceful world." The rebellion ended when Zhang Jiao died of illness, but the chaos the rebellion wrought, when combined with the natural disasters that had overrun China in the same period, destabilized the Han Dynasty and doomed it to fall. The rebellion also caused the central government to increase the allowance of military power of the local governments, which is one of the causes of the warring period that followed.

The series of events leading to the collapse of dynastic power and the rise of are extremely complex. The death of in May 189 led to an unstable regency under General-in-chief He Jin and renewed rivalry between the factions of the eunuchs and regular civil bureaucracy. Following the assassination of He Jin, his chief ally the Colonel-Lieutenant of Retainers Yuan Shao led a massacre of the eunuchs in the imperial palaces in Luoyang. This event prompted the invitation of frontier general Dong Zhuo to enter Luoyang from the northwest boundary of China. At the time China faced the powerful barbarians of Qiang tribe to the northwest, and thus Dong Zhuo controlled a large army with elite training. When he brought the army to Luoyang, he was able to easily overpower the existing armies of both sides and took control of the imperial court, ushering in a period of civil war across China.

Dong Zhuo then manipulated the succession so that the future could take the throne in lieu of his elder half-brother. Dong Zhuo, while ambitious, genuinely wished for a more capable emperor. On his way to Luoyang, he encountered a small team of soldiers protecting the two sons of Emperor Ling fleeing the war zone. In the encounter, Dong Zhuo acted arrogantly and threatening, causing the elder half-brother to be paralyzed with fear; the younger brother, future Emperor Xian, responded calmly with authority and commanded Dong Zhuo to protect the royal family with his army to return to the Imperial Court.

While Dong Zhuo originally wanted to re-establish the authority of Han Empire and manage all the political conflict properly, his political capability proved to be much worse than his military leadership. His behaviour grew more and more violent and authoritarian, executing or sending into exile all that opposed him, and showed less and less respect to the Emperor. He ignored all royal etiquette and openly carried weapons into the imperial court frequently. In 190 was formed between nearly all the provincial authorities in the eastern provinces of the empire against Dong Zhuo. The mounting pressure from repeated defeat on the southern frontline against the Sun Jian forces drove the Han Emperor and later Dong Zhuo himself west to Chang'an in May 191.

Dong Zhuo once again demonstrated his political shortcomings by forcing millions of residents of Luoyang to migrate to Chang'an. He then set fire to Luoyang, preventing occupation by his enemies and destroying the biggest city in China at that time. In addition, he ordered his army to slaughter a whole village of civilians. The soldiers beheaded civilians and carried their heads into Chang'an to show off as war trophies, pretending to have had a great victory against his enemies. A year later Dong Zhuo was killed in a coup d'etat by Wang Yun and Lü Bu.

Rise of Cao Cao

In 191, there was some talk among the coalition of appointing , an imperial relative, as emperor, and gradually its members began to fall out. Most of the warlords in the coalition, with a few exceptions, sought the increase of personal military power in the time of instability instead of seriously wishing to restore the Han Dynasty's authority. The Han empire was divided between a number of regional warlords. Yuan Shao occupied the northern area of and extended his power, by taking over his superior Han Fu with trickery and intimidation, north of the Yellow River against Gongsun Zan, who held the northern frontier. Cáo Cāo, directly to Yuan's south, was engaged in a struggle against Yuan Shu and Liu Biao, who occupied respectively the Huai River basin and Middle Yangzi regions. Further south the young warlord Sun Ce, taking over after the untimely death of Sun Jian, was establishing his rule in the Lower Yangzi, albeit as a subordinate of Yuan Shu. In the west, held Yizhou province while Hanzhong and the northwest were controlled by a motley collection of smaller warlords such as Ma Teng of Xiliang, the original post of Dong Zhuo.

Dong Zhuo, confident in his success, was slain by his own adopted son, Lu Bu and his father-in-law Wang Yun. Lu Bu, in turn, was attacked by Dong Zhuo's supporters, Li Jue, Guo Si, Zhang Ji and Fan Chou. Wang Yun and his whole family were executed. Lu fled to , a northern warlord, and remained with him for a time before briefly joining Yuan Shao, but it was clear that Lu Bu was far too independent to serve another.

In August 195, Emperor Xian fled the tyranny of Li Jue at Chang'an and made a year long hazardous journey east in search of supporters. By 196, when he was received by Cao Cao, most of the smaller contenders for power had either been absorbed by larger ones or destroyed. This is an extremely important move for Cao Cao with the suggestion from his primary advisor, Xun Yu, commenting that by supporting the authentic Emperor, Cao Cao would have the formal legal authority to control the other warlords and force them to comply in order to restore the Han dynasty.

Cao Cao, whose zone of control was the precursor to the Kingdom of Wei, had raised an army in the winter of 189. In several strategic movements and battles, he controlled the Dui province and defeated several factions of the Yellow Turban rebels. This earned him the aid of other local militaries controlled by Zhang Miao and Chen Gong, who joined his cause to create his first sizable army. He continued the effort and absorbed approximately 300,000 into his army as well as a number of clan-based military groups particular to the eastern side of Qing province. In 196 he established an imperial court at Xuchang and developed military agricultural colonies to support his army. Although the system imposed a heavy tax for hired civilian farmers , the farmers were more than pleased to be able to work with relative stability and professional military protection in a time of chaos. This was later said to be his second important policy to success.

In 194, Cao Cao went to war with of Xuzhou, whose officers had executed his whole family. Tao Qian received the support of Liu Bei and Gongsun Zan, but even then, it seemed as if Cao Cao's superior forces would overrun Xuzhou entirely. However, Cao Cao received word that Lu Bu had seized Yan province in Cao Cao's absence, and thus, he retreated, putting a halt to hostilities with Tao Qian for the time being. Tao Qian died that same year, leaving his province to Liu Bei. A year later, in 195, Cao Cao managed to drive Lu Bu out of Yan. Lu Bu fled to Xuzhou and was received by Liu Bei, and an uneasy alliance began between the two.

In the south, Sun Ce, then an independent general under the service of Yuan Shu, defeated the warlords of Yangzhou, including Liu Yao, Wang Lang, and Yan Baihu. The speed with which Sun Ce accomplished his conquests led to his nickname, "Little Conqueror" , a reference to the late Xiang Yu. In 197, Yuan Shu, who was at odds with Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, and Liu Bei, felt assured of victory with his subordinate's conquests, and thus declared himself emperor of the Cheng Dynasty. The move, however, was a tactical blunder, as it drew the ire of many warlords across the land, including Yuan Shu's own subordinate Sun Ce, who had advised Yuan Shu not to make such a move. Cao Cao issued orders to Sun Ce to attack Yuan Shu. Sun Ce complied, but first convinced Cao Cao to form a coalition against Yuan Shu, of which Liu Bei and Lu Bu were members. Attacked on all sides, Yuan Shu was defeated and fled into hiding.

Afterwards, Lu Bu betrayed Liu Bei and seized Xuzhou, forming an alliance with Yuan Shu's remnant forces. Liu Bei fled to Cao Cao, who accepted him. Soon, preparations were made for an attack on Lu Bu, and the combined forces of Cao Cao and Liu Bei besieged Xia Pi. Lu Bu's officers deserted him, Yuan Shu's forces never arrived as reinforcements, and he was bound by his own officers Song Xian and Wei Xu and executed along with many of his officers. Thus, the man known as the mightiest warrior in the land was no more.

In 200, Dong Cheng, an officer of the Imperial Court, received a secret edict from the Emperor to assassinate Cao Cao. He collaborated with Liu Bei on this effort, but Cao Cao soon found out about the plot and had Dong Cheng and his co-conspirators executed, with only Liu Bei surviving and fleeing to the Yuan Shao in the north.

After settling the nearby provinces, including a rebellion led by former Yellow Turbans, and internal affairs with the court, Cao Cao turned his attention north to Yuan Shao, who himself had eliminated his northern rival Gongsun Zan that same year. Yuan Shao, himself of higher nobility than Cao Cao, amassed a large army and camped along the northern bank of the Yellow river.

In 200, after winning a decisive battle against Liu Biao at Shaxian and putting down the rebellions of Xu Gong and others, Sun Ce was struck by an arrow and fatally wounded. On his deathbed, he named his younger brother, Sun Quan, as his heir.

Following months of planning, Cao Cao and Yuan Shao met in force at . Overcoming Yuan's superior numbers, Cao Cao decisively defeated him by setting fire to his supplies, and in doing so crippled the northern army. Liu Bei fled to Liu Biao of Jing province, and many of Yuan Shao's forces were destroyed. In 202, Cao Cao took advantage of Yuan Shao's death and the resulting division among his sons to advance north of the Yellow River. He captured in 204 and occupied the provinces of Ji, Bing, Qing and You. By the end of 207, after a lightning campaign against the Wuhuan barbarians, Cao Cao had achieved undisputed dominance of the North China Plain.

Red Cliffs and its aftermath

In 208, Cao Cao marched south with his army hoping to quickly unify the empire. Liu Biao's son Liu Cong surrendered the province of Jing and Cao was able to capture a sizeable fleet at Jiangling. Sun Quan, the successor to Sun Ce in the Lower Yangzi, continued to resist however. His advisor Lu Su secured an alliance with Liu Bei, himself a recent refugee from the north, and Sun Ce's sworn brother Zhou Yu was placed in command of Sun Quan's navy, along with a veteran officer of the Sun family, Cheng Pu. Their combined armies of 50,000 met Cao Cao's fleet and 200,000-strong force at that winter. After an initial skirmish, an attack beginning with a plan to set fire to Cao Cao's fleet was set in motion to lead to a decisive defeat on Cao Cao, forcing him to retreat in disarray back to the north. The allied victory at Red Cliffs ensured the survival of Liu Bei and Sun Quan, and provided the basis for the states of Shu and Wu.

After his return to the north, Cao Cao contented himself with absorbing the northwestern regions in 211 and consolidating his power. He progressively increased his titles and power, eventually becoming the Prince of Wei in 217, a title bestowed upon him by the puppet Han emperor that he controlled. Liu Bei, having defeated the weak Jing warlords Han Xuan, Jin Xuan, Zhao Fan, and Liu Du, entered Yi province and later in 214 displaced Liu Zhang as ruler, leaving his commander Guan Yu in charge of Jing province. Sun Quan, who had in the intervening years being engaged with defenses against Cao Cao in the southeast at Hefei, now turned his attention to Jing province and the Middle Yangzi. Tensions between the allies were increasingly visible. In 219, after Liu Bei successfully seized Hanzhong from Cao Cao and as Guan Yu was engaged in the , Sun Quan's commander-in-chief Lu Meng secretly seized Jing province, and his forces captured and slew Guan Yu.

Three emperors

In the first month of 220, Cao Cao died and in the tenth month his son Cao Pi forced Emperor Xian to abdicate, thus ending the Han Dynasty. He named his state and made himself emperor at Luoyang. In 221, Liu Bei named himself Emperor of Han, in a bid to restore the fallen Han dynasty. In the same year, Wei bestowed on Sun Quan the title of King of Wu. A year later, Shu Han troops declared war on Wu and met the Wu armies at the Battle of Yiling. At Yiling, Liu Bei was disastrously defeated by Sun Quan's commander and forced to retreat back to Shu, where he died soon afterward. After the death of Liu Bei, Shu and Wu resumed friendly relations at the expense of Wei, thus stabilizing the tripartite configuration. In 222, Sun Quan renounced his recognition of Cao Pi's regime and, in 229, he declared himself emperor at Wuchang.

Dominion of the north completely belonged to Wei, whilst Shu occupied the southwest and Wu the central south and east. The external borders of the states were generally limited to the extent of Chinese civilization. For example, the political control of Shu on its southern frontier was limited by the tribes of modern Yunnan and , known collectively as the .

Population

The population could be derived from the official record of Chen Shou's ''Sanguo Zhi''. In terms of manpower, the Wei was by far the largest, retaining more than 660,000 households and 4,400,000 people within its borders. Shu had a population of 940,000, and Wu 2,300,000.The total population of Three Kingdoms is about one-tenth of late Eastern Han Dynasty.

Thus, Wei had more than 58% of the population and around 40% of territory. With these resources, it is estimated that it could raise an army of 440,000 whilst Shu and Wu could manage 100,000 and 230,000. The Wu-Shu alliance against the Wei proved itself to be a militarily stable configuration; the basic borders of the Three Kingdoms remained almost unchanged for more than forty years.

Trade and transport

In economic terms the division of the Three Kingdoms reflected a reality that long endured. Even in the Northern Song, seven hundred years after the Three Kingdoms, it was possible to think of China as being composed of three great regional markets. . These geographical divisions are underscored by the fact that the main communication routes between the three main regions were all man-made: the linking north and south, the hauling-way through the Three Gorges of the Yangzi linking southern China with Sichuan and the gallery roads joining Sichuan with the northwest. The break into three separate entities was quite natural and even anticipated by such political foresight as that of Zhuge Liang .

Consolidation

In 223 Liu Shan rose to the throne of Shu following his father's defeat and death. The defeat of Liu Bei at Yiling ended the period of hostility between Wu and Shu and both used the opportunity to concentrate on internal problems and the external enemy of Wei. For Sun Quan, the victory terminated his fears of Shu expansion into Jing province and he turned to the aborigines of the southeast, whom the Chinese collectively called the "Shanyue" peoples . A collection of successes against the rebellious tribesmen culminated in the victory of 234. In that year Zhuge Ke ended a three year siege of Danyang with the surrender of 100,000 Shanyue. Of these, 40,000 were drafted as auxiliaries into the Wu army. Meanwhile Shu was also experiencing troubles with the indigenous tribes of their south. The Southwestern Nanman peoples rose in revolt against Han authority, captured and looted the city of Yizhou. Zhuge Liang, recognising the importance of stability in the south, ordered the advance of the Shu armies in three columns against the Nanman. He fought a number of engagements against the chieftain Meng Huo, at the end of which Meng submitted. A tribesman was allowed to reside at the Shu capital Chengdu as an official and the Nanman formed their own battalions within the Shu army.

Zhuge Liang's Northern Expeditions

At the end of Zhuge Liang's southern campaign, the Wu-Shu alliance came to fruition and Shu was free to move against the north. In 227 Zhuge Liang transferred his main Shu armies to Hanzhong, and opened up the battle for the northwest with Wei. The next year, he ordered the general Zhao Yun to attack from Ji Gorge as a diversion while Zhuge himself led the main force to Qishan. The vanguard Ma Su, however, suffered a tactical defeat at and the Shu army was forced to withdraw. In the next six years Zhuge Liang attempted several more offensives, but supply problems limited the capacity for success. In 234 he led his last great northern offensive, reaching the Battle of Wuzhang Plains south of the Wei River. Due to the death of Zhuge Liang , however, the Shu army was forced once again to withdraw, but were pursued by Wei. The Shu forces began to withdraw, though Sima Yi sensed Zhuge's passing and ordered an attack. Shu struck back almost immediately, causing Sima Yi to believe it was a trick, thus allowing Shu to withdraw successfully.

Wu and development of the south

In the times of Zhuge Liang's great northern offensives, the state of Wu had always been on the defensive against invasions from the north. The area around Hefei was under constant pressure from Wei after the Battle of Red Cliffs and the scene of many bitter battles. Warfare had grown so intense that many of the residents chose to migrate and resettle south of the Yangzi. After Zhuge Liang's death, attacks on the Huainan region intensified but nonetheless, Wei could not break through the line of the river defenses erected by Wu, which included the Ruxu fortress.

Sun Quan's long reign is regarded as a time of plenty for his southern state. Migrations from the north and the settlement of the Shanyue increased manpower for agriculture, especially along the lower reaches of the Yangzi and in Kuaiji commandery. River transport blossomed, with the construction of the Zhedong and Jiangnan canals. Trade with Shu flourished, with a huge influx of Shu cotton and the development of celadon and metal industries. Ocean transport was improved to such an extent that sea journeys were made to Manchuria and the island of Taiwan. In the south, Wu merchants reached Linyi and Fu'nan . As the economy prospered, so too did the arts and culture. In the Yangzi delta, the first Buddhist influences reached the south from Luoyang.

Decline and end of the Three Kingdoms

From the late 230s tensions began to become visible between the imperial Cao clan and the Sima clan. Following the death of Cao Zhen, factionalism was evident between Cao Shuang and the Grand Commander Sima Yi. In deliberations, Cao Shuang placed his own supporters in important posts and excluded Sima, whom he regarded as a threat. The power of the Sima clan, one of the great landowning families of the Han, was bolstered by Sima Yi's military victories. Additionally, Sima Yi was an extremely capable strategist and politician. In 238 he crushed the rebellion of Gongsun Yuan and brought the Liaodong region directly under central control. Ultimately, he outmaneuvered Cao Shuang in power play. Taking advantage of an excursion by the imperial clansmen to the Gaoping tombs, Sima undertook a putsch in Luoyang, forcing Cao Shuang's faction from authority. Many protested to the overwhelming power of the Sima family; notable of which were the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. One of the sages, Xi Kang, was executed as part of the purges after Cao Shuang's downfall.

Fall of Shu

The decreasing strength of the Cao clan was mirrored by the decline of Shu. After Zhuge Liang's death, his position as fell to Jiang Wan, Fei Yi and Dong Yun, in that order. But after 258, Shu politics became increasingly controlled by the eunuch faction and corruption rose. Despite the energetic efforts of Jiang Wei, Zhuge's protege, Shu was unable to secure any decisive achievement. In 263, Wei launched a three-pronged attack and the Shu army was forced into general retreat from Hanzhong. Jiang Wei hurriedly held a position at Jian'ge but he was outflanked by the Wei commander Deng Ai, who force-marched his army from Yinping through territory formerly considered impassable. By the winter of the year, the capital Chengdu fell due to the strategic invasion of Wei by Deng Ai who invaded Chengdu personally. The emperor Liu Shan thus surrendered. The state of Shu had come to an end after forty-three years.

Fall of Wei

Cao Huan succeeded to the throne in 260 after Cao Mao was killed by Sima Zhao. Soon after, Sima Zhao died and his title as Lord of Jin was inherited by his son Sima Yan. Sima Yan immediately began plotting to become Emperor but faced stiff opposition. However, due to advice from his advisors, Cao Huan decided the best course of action would be to abdicate, unlike his predecessor Cao Mao. Sima Yan seized the throne in 264 after forcing Cao Huan's abdication, effectively overthrowing the Wei Dynasty and establishing the successor . This situation was similar to the deposal of of the Han Dynasty by Cao Pi, the founder of the Wei Dynasty.

Fall of Wu

Following Sun Quan's death and the ascension of the young Sun Liang as emperor in 252, the kingdom of Wu went into a period of steady decline. Successful Wei oppression of rebellions in the Huainan region by Sima Zhao and Sima Shi reduced any opportunity of Wu influence. The fall of Shu signaled a change in Wei politics. After Liu Shan surrendered to Wei, Sima Yan , overthrew the Wei emperor and proclaimed his own dynasty of Jin in 264, ending forty-six years of Cao dominion in the north. After Jin's rise, Emperor Sun Xiu of Wu died, and his ministers left the throne to Sun Hao. Sun Hao was a promising young man, but upon ascension he became a tyrant, killing or exiling all who dared oppose him in the court. In 269 Yang Hu, Jin commander in the south, started preparing for the invasion of Wu by ordering the construction of a fleet and training of marines in Sichuan under Wang Jun. Four years later, Lu Kang, the last great general of Wu, died, leaving no competent successor. The planned Jin offensive finally came in the winter of 279. Sima Yan launched five simultaneous offensives along the Yangzi River from Jianye to Jiangling whilst the Sichuan fleet sailed downriver to Jing province. Under the strain of such an enormous attack, the Wu forces collapsed and Jianye fell in the third month of 280. Emperor Sun Hao surrendered and was given a fiefdom to live out his days on. This marked the end of the Three Kingdoms era, and the beginning of a break in the upcoming 300 years of chaos.

The Three Kingdoms in popular culture

Numerous people and affairs have become Chinese legends afterwards, and the most completed and influential version is the historical fiction ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'', written by Luo Guanzhong in Ming dynasty. Today, the fictions about Three Kingdoms are still playing a significant part in Chinese popular culture, even in Japan. Books, TV serials, movies, cartoons, games and musics on this topic are being continuely produced. Only in 2008, two popular films depicting the tales are made: ''Red Cliff '' by John Woo, and Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon by .

Cao Wei

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History

During the decline of the Han Dynasty, the northern part of China was under the control of Cao Cao, the to the last Han emperor . In 213, he was titled the " of Wei" and was given ten cities as his domain. This area was named "Wei". At that time, the southern part of China was already divided into two areas controlled by two warlords . In 216, Cao Cao was promoted to " of Wei".

In March 15 of 220, Cao Cao died and his son Cao Pi succeeded to the title "King of Wei" and the position as Imperial Chancellor. Later that year in December 11, Cao Pi seized the imperial throne and claimed to have founded the Wei Dynasty, but Liu Bei of Shu Han immediately contested his claim to the throne, and Sun Quan of Eastern Wu followed suit in 222.

Wei in 263. Shortly afterwards, in 265, the Wei dynasty was overthrown by its own last Imperial Chancellor, Sima Yan, grandson of Sima Yi, who then founded the .

Culture

Sometime between the late Eastern Han Dynasty and the Cao Wei, appeared, with its first known master being Zhong Yao.

Important figures

* Cao Cao

* Cao Chun

* Cao Fang

* Cao Hong

* Cao Huan

* Cao Mao

* Cao Pi

* Cao Ren

* Cao Rui

* Cao Shuang

* Cao Xiu

* Cao Zhang

* Cao Zhen

* Cao Zhi

* Cheng Yu

* Chen Qun

* Chen Tai

* Deng Ai

* Dian Wei

* Empress Bian

* Empress Bian

* Empress Dowager Bian

* Empress Guo Nüwang

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

* Gao Lan

* Gongsun Yuan

* Guanqiu Jian

* Guo Huai

* Guo Jia

* Hao Zhao

* Jia Xu

* Li Dian

* Man Chong

* Mi Heng

* Pang De

* Sima Shi

*

* Sima Yi

* Sima Zhao

* Wang Lang

* Wang Shuang

* Wen Pin

* Wen Qin

* Wen Yang

* Xiahou Ba

* Xiahou Dun

* Xiahou He

* Xiahou Mao

* Xiahou Shang

* Xiahou Wei

* Xiahou Yuan

* Xu Chu

* Xu Huang

* Xun You

* Xun Yu

* Yang Hu

* Yue Jin

* Yu Jin

* Zhang He

* Zhang Liao

* Zhong Hui

* Zhong Yao

* Zhuge Dan

Sovereigns of Cao Wei

Shu Han

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History

During the decline of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bei, a distant relative of the emperor, gathered together many capable men, and with Zhuge Liang's advice, took parts of Jing province at first, then and Hanzhong. From these territories, he established a place for himself in China during Han's final years. In 219, Lü Meng attacked and conquered Jing province for Sun Quan. Subsequently, Liu Bei's trusted general Guan Yu was executed by Sun Quan. After Cao Pi seized the imperial throne in 220 from and proclaimed the Wei Dynasty, Liu Bei proclaimed himself to be the next Han emperor and the real ruler of China in 221. Although Liu Bei is said to be the founder of the ''Shu Han dynasty'', he himself never claimed to be the founder of a new dynasty; rather, he claimed to continue the heritage of the earlier Han Emperors.

In 222, the first major conflict of the Three Kingdoms period began. Liu Bei initiated an attack of over 40,000 men upon Sun Quan's state of Eastern Wu in the Battle of Yiling to retake Jing province. However, because of a grave tactical mistake, his line of camps was burned to the ground and his already numerically inferior troops were decimated. He survived the attack and fled to Baidicheng, but one year later he became ill and died there. He was succeeded by his son, Liu Shan.

The , Zhuge Liang, made peace with Wu instead of taking revenge. He decided that it was more important to conquer Cao Wei and not only gain the fertile lands of the north but also to topple the Wei government and restore legitimacy to the Shu-Han Dynasty. He made several but failed each time, finally dying of sickness during his sixth attempt to conquer Wei. Jiang Wei, his eventual successor, also tried many times but was pushed back each time.

In 263, Wei took advantage of Shu's weakness and attacked. The brilliant strategies of the Wei generals, Zhong Hui and Deng Ai led to the quick conquest of Hanzhong and the subsequent conquest of the capital Chengdu. Jiang Wei surrendered to Zhong Hui and tried to incite Zhong Hui to rebel against Deng Ai, hoping to revive Shu Han by trying to take advantage of the ensuing chaos and bringing back the Emperor Liu Shan. However, his plan failed and he was killed along with Zhong Hui and Deng Ai by their soldiers. Afterwards, the Emperor Liu Shan was taken to the capital of Wei, Luoyang, where he was given the title Duke of Anle and retired in peace.

However, Shu was not simply a nation of war. During times of peace, Shu began many irrigation and road-building projects designed to improve the economy of Shu. Many of these public works still exist and are widely used. For example, the Nine-Mile Dam is still present near Chengdu in Sichuan province. These works helped improve the economy of Southwest China and can be credited with beginning the history of economic activity in the Sichuan area.

Important figures

* Chen Dao

* Chen Shi

* Chen Shou

*

* Deng Zhi

* Dong Yun

*

*

*

* Fa Zheng

* Fei Yi

* Fu Qian

* Fu Shiren

* Fu Tong

* Guan Ping

* Guan Xing

* Guan Yu

* Huang Zhong

* Jiang Wan

* Jiang Wei

* Jian Yong

* Liao Hua

* Liu Bei

* Liu Feng

* Liu Pi

* Liu Shan

* Ma Chao

* Ma Dai

* Ma Liang

* Ma Su

* Mi Fang

* Mi Zhu

* Pang Tong

* Sun Qian

* Wang Ping

* Wei Yan

* Xiahou Ba

* Xu Shu

* Yan Yan

*

* Zhang Fei

* Zhao Yun

* Zhuge Liang

Rulers of Shu Han 221 – 263

Eastern Wu

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History

During the decline of the Han dynasty, the - a region in the south of the Yangtze River surrounding Nanjing - was under the control of the warlord Sun Quan. Sun Quan succeeded his brother Sun Ce as the lord over the Wu region paying nominal allegiance to Emperor Xian of Han . Unlike his competitors, he did not really have the ambition to be Emperor of China. However, after Cao Pi of Cao Wei and Liu Bei of the Shu Han each declared themselves to be the Emperor, Sun Quan decided to follow suit in 229, claiming to have founded the ''Wu Dynasty''.

Eastern Wu was finally conquered by the first emperor, Sima Yan, in 280. It was the longest-lived of the three kingdoms.

Legacy

Under the rule of Eastern Wu, southern China, regarded in early history as a barbaric "jungle" developed into one of the commercial, cultural, and political centers of China. Within five centuries, during the Five Dynasties and Ten States, the development of Southern China had surpassed that of the north. The achievements of Wu marked the beginning of the cultural and political division between Northern and Southern China that would repeatedly appear in Chinese history well into modernity.

The island of Taiwan may have been first reached by the Chinese during the Three Kingdoms period. Contacts with the native population and the dispatch of officials to an island named "Yizhou" by the Eastern Wu navy might have been to Taiwan, but what Yizhou was is open to dispute; some historians believe it was Taiwan, while others believe it was the Ryūkyū Islands.

Important figures

* Cheng Pu

* Chen Wu

* Ding Feng

* Dong Xi

*

* Empress Teng

* Empress Quan

*

* Gan Ning

* Han Dang

* Huang Gai

* Jiang Qin

* Lady Wu

* Ling Cao

* Ling Tong

* Lu Kai

* Lu Kang

* Lu Su

*

* Lü Dai

* Lü Fan

* Lü Meng

* Pan Zhang

* Sun Ce

* Sun Deng

* Sun Hao

* Sun He

* Sun Jian

* Sun Jing

* Sun Jun

* Sun Kuang

* Sun Lang

* Sun Liang

* Sun Lin

* Sun Quan

* Sun Shao

* Sun Xiu

* Sun Yi

* Taishi Ci

* Wu Jing

* Xu Sheng

* Yu Fan

* Zhang Hong

* Zhang Zhao

* Zhou Tai

* Zhou Yu

* Zhuge Jin

* Zhuge Ke

* Zhu Ran

* Zhu Zhi

* Zu Mao

List of sovereigns

Jin Dynasty

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History

The first of the two periods, the Western Jìn Dynasty , was founded by , better known as Sima Yan. Although providing a brief period of unity after conquering the state of Eastern Wu in 280, the Jìn could not contain the invasion and uprising of nomadic peoples after the devastating War of the Eight Princes. The capital was Luoyang until 311 when was captured by the forces of Han Zhao. Successive reign of lasted four years in Chang'an until its conquest by Han Zhao in 316.

Meanwhile remnants of the Jìn court fled from the north to the south and reestablished the Jìn court at Jiankang, south-east of Luoyang and Chang'an and near modern-day Nanjing, under Prince of Longya. Prominent local families of Zhu, Gan, Lu, and Zhou supported the proclamation of Prince of Langye as of the Eastern Jìn Dynasty when the news of the fall of Chang'an reached the south.

Militaristic authorities and crises plagued the Eastern Jìn court throughout its 104 years of existence. It survived the rebellions of Wang Dun and Su Jun. Huan Wen died in 373 before he could usurp the throne . Battle of Fei turned out to be a victory of Jìn under a short-lived cooperation of Huan Chong, brother of Huan Wen and the Prime Minister Xie An. Huan Xuan, son of Huan Wen, usurped and changed the name of the dynasty to Chu. He was toppled by , who ordered the strangulation of the reinstated but retarded . The last emperor and brother of Emperor An, , was installed in 419. Abdication of Emperor Gong in 420 in favor of Liu Yu, then , ushered in the Liu Song Dynasty and the Southern Dynasties.

Meanwhile North China was ruled by the Sixteen Kingdoms, many of which were founded by the Wu Hu, the non-Han Chinese ethnicities. The conquest of the Northern Liang by the Northern Wei Dynasty in 439 ushered in the Northern Dynasties.

Figure

Sovereigns of Jìn Dynasty

Sixteen Kingdoms

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A less used term, the Period of Sixteen Kingdoms represents this turbulent era from 304 to 439.

Almost all rulers of the kingdoms were part of the Wu Hu ethnicity and claimed to be the emperors and s . The Han Chinese founded the four states: Northern Yan, Western Liang, Former Liang and the . Six Chinese rulers of the Former Liang remained titularly under the government of the Jin Dynasty. The Northern Wei Dynasty is not counted as one of the Sixteen Kingdoms even though it was founded during the Period.

Rulers of each of the Kingdoms are listed in relevant articles.

Southern and Northern Dynasties

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During this period the process of sinicization accelerated among the non-Chinese arrivals in the north and among the aboriginal tribesmen in the south. Many northern Chinese also immigrated to the south. This process was also accompanied by the increasing popularity of Buddhism in both north and south China, along with Daoism gaining influence from the outline of Buddhist scriptures . Although multiple story towers such as guard towers and residential apartments existed in previous periods of China , during this period the distinct Chinese pagoda tower evolved from the stupa, the latter originating from Buddhist traditions of protecting sutras in ancient India.

The south and north developed into a relatively stable equilibrium, due to geographical differences. The flat steppes of the north gave a significant edge to cavalry, while the hilly and mountainous riverlands of the south gave a significant edge to naval warfare. A strong navy on the Yangtze River could protect the south from the north, since cavalry was almost useless in the mountainous riverlands. Likewise, logistical difficulties for the horse-poor south made it difficult to maintain a successful northern campaign. Depending on the relative strengths of the states, the Huai River area and the Sichuan basin were the primary areas of significant territorial changes. This barrier was only overcome by the first of the Sui Dynasty, who built a large invading navy in the Sichuan basin, hence his ability to more easily conquer the south and reunify China.

Despite the political disunity of the times, there were notable technological advances in China. With the invention of the stirrup during the earlier Western Jin Dynasty, not only were cavalry tactics improved immensely, but heavily armored Chinese cavalry also became the norm in this age. Advances in medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and cartography are also noted by historians. The famous Chinese mathematician and astronomer Zu Chongzhi belonged to this age, an intellectual and social product of the elite culture shaped and developed in southern China during this period of time.

The Chinese arts of poetry, calligraphy, painting, and music flourished during this period like never before, as Chinese aristocrats mainly in the south were socially expected to master these as their pastimes. Although the north had its cultural achievements, the south was the place for higher cultural achievement, elitist culture, artistic refinement, and new standards of art that ranked artists according to their various abilities.

The Division

The Southern Dynasties

Although powerful in the conquest of the Wu Kingdom in 280 AD, the was severely weakened after the War of the Eight Princes from 291 to 306 AD. During Emperor Huai of Jin and Emperor Min of Jin, the country was put into grave danger with the invasion of the Xianbei tribe from the north. The sieges and ultimate sacking of Luoyang in the year 311 and Chang'an in the year 316 by invading Xianbei armies almost destroyed the dynasty. However, a scion of the royal house, Prince of Longya, fled south to salvage what was left in order to sustain the empire. Cementing their power in the south, the Jin established modern-day Nanjing as their new capital, renaming the dynasty as the Eastern Jin since the new capital was located southeast of older Luoyang.

It was during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period that southern China was greatly developed from its previous state of early Chinese colonization and settlement. Beforehand, the south was inhabited by small and isolated communities of Chinese in a vast uncolonized wilderness of non-Chinese tribes, starting as a near peripheral frontier and changing into a thriving, urbanized, sinicized region of China. In his book ''Buddhism in Chinese History'', Arthur F. Wright points out this fact by stating:

When we speak of the area of the Yangtze valley and below in the period of disunion, we must banish from our minds the picture of the densely populated, intensively cultivated South China of recent centuries. When the aristocrats of the remnants of the Chin ruling house fled to the Nanking area early in the fourth century, the south contained perhaps a tenth of the population of China. There were centers of Chinese culture and administration, but around most of these lay vast uncolonized areas into which Chinese settlers were slow to move.

Although the Chinese of the Eastern Jin were well-defended from the north by placement of naval fleets along the Yangtze River, there were still various problems faced with building and maintaining military strength. The designation of specific households for military service eventually led to a falling out in their social status, causing widespread desertion of troops on many occasions. Faced with shortage of troop numbers, Jin generals were often sent on campaigns to capture non-Chinese tribesman in the south in order to draft them into the military. The Eastern Jin Dynasty fell not because of external invasion, though, but because the regent Liu Yu seized the throne from Emperor Gong of Jin, becoming Emperor Wu of Liu Song .

The southern dynasties of China were rich in cultural achievement, with flourishing of Buddhism and Daoism, especially with the latter as two new canons of scriptual writings were created for the and its rival the . With Buddhism, the southern Chinese were influenced greatly by the writings of monks such as Huiyuan, who applied familiar Daoist terms in describing Buddhism to other Chinese. The Chinese were in contact and influenced by cultures of India and trading partners farther south, such as the kingdoms of Funan and Champa . The Chinese arts of poetry, calligraphy, painting, and playing of music found greater precedent during this age, as their sophistication and complexity reached new heights. The earlier Cao Zhi, son of Cao Cao, is regarded as one of the greatest poets of his day. His style and deep emotional expression in writing gave influence to later poets of this new age such as Tao Qian , or Tao Yuanming. Even during his lifetime, the written calligraphy of the "Sage of Calligraphy", Wang Xizhi , was prized by many and considered a true form of personal expression like other arts. In regards to painting, this art became highly prized with artists such as Gu Kaizhi , who largely established the tradition of landscape art in classical Chinese painting . Institutions of learning in the south were also renowned, including the Zongmingguan , where the famed Zu Chongzhi had studied. Zu Chongzhi devised the new Daming Calendar in 465 AD, calcuated one year as 365.24281481 days , and calculated the number of overlaps between sun and moon as 27.21223 . Using this number he successfully predicted 4 eclipses during a period of 23 years .

The Jin were supplanted by the Liu Song , the Southern Qi , the Liang Dynasty , and then the Chen Dynasty . The rulers of these shortlived dynasties were military generals who were able to seize power for several decades, but unable to securely pass power of rule onto their heirs to continue their dynasty successfully. Emperor Wu of Liang , however, was the most notable ruler of his age, being a patron of the arts and of Buddhism. An avid poet, Emperor Wu was fond of gathering many literary talents at court, and even held poetry competitions with prizes of gold or silk for those considered the best. The authority of the last official Liang Dynasty ruler, Emperor Jing of Liang, was usurped by one of its own successful military generals, Chen Baxian, crowned as Emperor Wu of Chen in 557 AD. Under the later waning leadership of the Chen Dynasty, the southern Chinese were unable to resist the military power amassed in the north by Yang Jian after he defeated his rival General Weichi Jiong. Once Yang Jian usurped the throne from Emperor Jing of Northern Zhou to crown himself Emperor Wen of Sui, his establishment the Sui Dynasty and the invasion of the south reunified the whole of China.

The Northern Dynasties

In the first half of the Northern Wei Dynasty , the Xianbei steppe tribesmen who dominated northern China kept a policy of strict social distinction between them and their Chinese subjects. Chinese were drafted into the bureaucracy, employed as officials to collect taxes, etc. However, the Chinese were kept out of many higher positions of power. They also represented the minority of the populace where centers of power were located, such as the first Northern Wei capital at Pingcheng in modern-day northern Shanxi province.

Widespread social and cultural transformation in northern China came with Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei , whose father was a Xianbei, but whose mother was Chinese. Although of the Tuoba Clan from the Xianbei tribe, Emperor Xiaowen asserted his dual Xianbei-Chinese identity, renaming his own clan after the Chinese ''Yuan'' . In the year 493 Emperor Xiaowen instituted a new sinification program that had the Xianbei elites conform to many Chinese standards. These social reforms included donning Chinese clothing , learning the Chinese language , applied one-character Chinese surnames to Xianbei families, and encouraged the clans of high-ranking Xianbei and Chinese families to intermarry. Emperor Xiaowen also moved the capital city from Pingcheng to one of China's old imperial sites, Luoyang, which had been the capital during the earlier Eastern Han and Western Jin dynasties. The new capital at Luoyang was revived and transformed, with roughly 150,000 Xianbei and other northern warriors moved from north to south to fill new ranks for the capital by the year 495. Within a couple decades, the population rose to about half a million residents, and was famed for being home to over a thousand Buddhist temples. Defectors from the south, such as Wang Su of the prestigious Langye Wang family, were largely accommodated and felt at home with the establishment of their own Wu quarter in Luoyang . They were even served tea at court instead of yogurt drinks commonly found in the north.

In the year 523, Prince Dongyang of the Northern Wei was sent to Dunhuang to serve as its governor for a term of fifteen years. With the religious force of Buddhism gaining mainstream acceptance in Chinese society, Prince Dongyang and local wealthy families set out to establish a monumental project in honor of Buddhism, carving and decorating Cave 285 of the Mogao Caves with beautiful statues and murals. This promotion of the arts would continue on for centuries at Dunhuang, and is now one of China's greatest tourist attractions.

In that same year of 523 a revolt of several military garrisons was caused by a food shortage far north of Luoyang. After this was suppressed, the government had 200,000 surrendered garrison rebels deployed to Hebei, which proved later to be a mistake when a former garrison officer organized another rebellion in the years 526?527. The Wei court was betrayed by one of their own generals, who had the empress dowager and the young emperor thrown into the Yellow River, while establishing his own puppet ruler to maintain authority. As conflict swelled in the north between successive leaders, Gao Huan took control of the east and Luoyang by 534, while his rival Yuwen Tai took control of the west and the traditional Chinese capital of Chang'an by 535. Eventually, Gao Huan's son Gao Yang forced the Eastern Wei emperor to abdicate in favor of his claim to the throne, establishing the Northern Qi Dynasty . Afterwards, Yuwen Tai's son Yuwen Jue seized the throne of power from Emperor Gong of Western Wei, establishing the Northern Zhou Dynasty . The Northern Zhou Dynasty was able to defeat and conquer Northern Qi in 577, reunifying the north. However, this success was shortlived, as the Northern Zhou was overthrown in 581 by Yang Jian, who became Emperor Wen of Sui. With greater military power and morale, along with convincing propaganda that the Chen Dynasty ruler Chen Shubao was a decadent ruler who had lost the Mandate of Heaven, the Sui Dynasty was able to effectively conquer the south. After this conquest, the whole of China entered a new golden age of reunification under the centralization of the shortlived Sui Dynasty and succeeding Tang Dynasty .

Sui Dynasty

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Despite having a short lifetime, the Sui Dynasty accomplished many things. The Grand Canal was extended north from Hangzhou across the Yangzi to Yangzhou and then northwest to the region of Louyang. The internal administration also improved during this time, which is evident by several things; the building of granaries around the capitals, the fortification of the Great Wall along the northern borders, the reconstruction of the two capitals near the Yellow River, and building of another capital in Yangchow. Confucianism also began to regain popularity, as the nobles gained importance.

The Sui Dynasty (; 581-618 AD and in the undertaking of other construction projects, including the reconstruction of the . Weakened by costly and against Goguryeo which ended with defeat of Sui in the early seventh century, the dynasty disintegrated through a combination of popular revolts, disloyalty, and assassination.

Wendi and the Founding of the Sui Dynasty

When the Northern Zhou Dynasty defeated the Northern Qi Dynasty in 577 AD, this was the culminating moment and ultimate advantage for the northern Chinese to face south. The southern dynasties had lost hope in conquering the north, and the situation of conquest from north-to-south was only delayed in 523 with civil war.

The Sui Dynasty began when 's daughter became the Empress Dowager of Northern Zhou, with her stepson as the new emperor. After crushing an army mutiny in the eastern provinces as the prime minister of Zhou, Wendi took the throne by force and claimed himself to be emperor. In a bloody purge, Wendi had fifty-nine princes of the Zhou royal family eliminated, yet nonetheless was known as the 'Cultured Emperor' . He abolished the anti-Han policies of Zhou and reclaimed his Han surname of Yang. Having won the support of the Confucian scholars that had powered previous Han dynasties , Wendi initiated a series of reforms aimed at strengthening his empire for the war that would reunify China.

In his campaign for southern conquest, Wendi assembled thousands of boats to confront the naval forces of the Chen Dynasty on the Yangtze River. The largest of these ships were very tall, having five layered decks, the capacity of holding 800 passengers, and were outfitted with six 50-foot-long booms that were used to swing and damage enemy ships, or to pin them down so that Sui marine troops could use grapple-and-board techniques. Besides employing Xianbei and Chinese ethnicities for the fight against Chen, Wendi also employed the service of aborigines from southeastern Sichuan, peoples that Sui had recently conquered.

In 588 AD, the Sui had amassed 518,000 troops along the northern bank of the Yangtze River, stretching from Sichuan to the Pacific Ocean. The Chen Dynasty was meanwhile collapsing, and could not withstand such an assault. By 589 AD, Sui troops entered Jiankang and the last emperor of the southern Chen dynasty surrendered. The city was razed to the ground, while Sui troops escorted Chen nobles back north, where the northern aristocrats became fascinated with everything the south had to provide culturally and intellectually.

Although Wendi was famous for bankrupting the state treasury with warfare and construction projects, he made many improvements to infrastructure during his early reign. He established granaries as sources of food and as a means to regulate market prices from the taxation of crops, much like the earlier Han Dynasty.

Buddhism

Buddhism was popular during the Six Dynasties period that preceded the Sui dynasty, spreading from India through Kushan Afghanistan into China during the Late period. Buddhism gained prominence during the period, when central political control was limited. Buddhism created a unifying cultural force that uplifted the people out of war and into the Sui Dynasty. In many ways, Buddhism was responsible for the rebirth of culture in China under the Sui Dynasty.

The Emperor Wen and his empress had converted to Buddhism to legitimate imperial authority over China and the conquest of Chen. Wendi presented himself as a Cakravartin king, a Buddhist monarch that would use military force to defend the Buddhist faith, much like the notion of Jihad in Islam. In the year 601 AD, Emperor Wen had relics of the Buddha distributed to temples throughout China, with edicts that expressed his goals, "all the people within the four seas may, without exception, develop enlightenment and together cultivate fortunate karma, bringing it to pass that present existences will lead to happy future lives, that the sustained creation of good causation will carry us one and all up to wondrous enlightenment". Ultimately, this act was an imitation of the ancient Mauryan Emperor Ashoka of India.

Yangdi

gained the throne after his father's death . He further extended the empire, but, unlike his father, he did not seek to gain support from the nomads. Instead, he restored and the for bureaucrats. By supporting educational reforms, he lost the support of nomads. He also started many expensive construction projects such as the Grand Canal of China. This combined with his failed invasions into Korea , invasions into China from Turkic nomads, and his growing life of decadent luxury at the expense of the peasantry, he lost public support and was assassinated by his own ministers.

Both Wendi and Yangdi sent military expeditions into Vietnam as well, as northern Vietnam had been incorporated into the Chinese empire over 600 years earlier during the Han Dynasty . However, the ancient Kingdom of Champa in southern Vietnam became a major contestant to Chinese invasions to its north. These invasions became known as the Linyi-Champa Campaign . According to Ebrey, Walthall, and Palais:

The Hanoi area was easily recovered from the local ruler in 602, and a few years later the Sui army pushed farther south. When the army was attacked by troops on war elephants from Champa , Sui feigned retreat and dug pits to trap the elephants. The Sui army lured the Champan troops to attack, then used crossbows against the elephants, causing them to turn around and trample their own army. Although Sui troops were victorious, many succumbed to disease, as northern soldiers did not have immunity to tropical diseases such as malaria.

Goguryeo-Sui wars

Arguably, the biggest factor that led to the downfall of Sui Dynasty was the series of massive expeditions into the Korean Peninsula to invade Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. The war that conscripted the most soldiers was caused by Sui Yangdi. The army was so enormous it was actually recorded in historical texts that it took 30 days for all the armies to exit their last rallying point near Shanhaiguan before invading Korea; in one instance, the soldiers--both conscripted and paid-- listed over 3000 warships, 1.15 million infantry, 50,000 cavalry, 5000 artillery, and more. There were just as many supporting laborers, and an exorbitant military budget that included mounds of equipment and rations . The army stretched to "1000 lis , or about 410 kilometers, across rivers and valleys, over mountains and hills."

In all 4 main campaigns, the military conquest ended in failure. Nearly all the Chinese soldiers were defeated by the prominent army leader Eulji Mundeok of Goguryeo. For example, of the 305,000 Chinese troops, only 2,700 returned to China, according to the Book of Tang records, soldiers in summer conquests would return several years later, barely living through the cold and famishing winter. Many died of frostbite and hunger.

Fall

Eventually the resentment for the emperor increased and the wars, coupled with revolts and assassinations, led to the fall of the Sui Dynasty. One great accomplishment was rebuilding the Great Wall of China, but along with other large projects, strained the economy and angered the resentful workforce employed. During the last few years of the Sui Dynasty, the rebellion that rose against it took many of China's able-bodied men from rural farms and other occupations, which damaged the agricultural base and the economy further. Men would deliberately break their limbs in order to avoid military conscription, calling the practice "propitious paws" and "fortunate feet." || Daye 605-618

|-

| || Yang You || 617-618 || Yining 617-618

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| Gongdi || Yang Tong || 618-619 || Huangtai 618-619

|}

Tang Dynasty

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The Tang Dynasty was an preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire. The dynasty was interrupted briefly by the Second Zhou Dynasty when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, becoming the first and only Chinese , ruling in her own right.

The Tang Dynasty, with its capital at Chang'an , the most populous city in the world at the time, is regarded by historians as a high point in civilization—equal to or surpassing that of the earlier Han Dynasty—as well as a golden age of cosmopolitan culture. Its territory, acquired through the military campaigns of its early rulers, was greater than that of the Han period, and rivaled that of the later Yuan Dynasty and Qing Dynasty. The enormous Grand Canal of China, built during the previous Sui Dynasty, facilitated the rise of new urban settlements along its route as well as increased trade between mainland Chinese markets. The canal is to this day the longest in the world. In two censuses of the 7th and 8th centuries, the Tang records stated that the population was about 50 million people. However, even when the central government was breaking down and unable to exact an accurate census of the population in the 9th century, it is estimated that the population in that century had grown to the size of about 80 million people. With its large population base, the Tang was able to raise professional and conscripted armies of hundreds of thousands of troops to contend with powers such as Tibet in dominating Inner Asia and the lucrative trade routes along the Silk Road. to the Tang court, while the Tang also conquered or subdued several regions which it indirectly controlled through . Besides political hegemony, the Tang also exerted a powerful cultural influence over neighboring states such as those in Korea and Japan.

In , the Tang Dynasty was largely a period of progress and stability, except during the An Shi Rebellion and the decline of central authority in the latter half of the dynasty. Like the previous Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty maintained a civil service system by through and recommendations to office. This civil order was undermined by the rise of regional military governors known as jiedushi during the 9th century. flourished and further matured during the Tang era; it is considered the greatest age for Chinese poetry. Two of China's most famous historical poets, Du Fu and Li Bai, belonged to this age, as well as the poets Meng Haoran, Du Mu, and Bai Juyi. Many famous visual artists lived during this era, such as the renowned painters Han Gan, Zhang Xuan, and Zhou Fang. There was a rich variety of compiled by scholars, as well as encyclopedias and books on geography. There were many notable innovations during the Tang, including the development of woodblock printing, the escapement mechanism in horology, the government compilations of ''materia medicas'', improvements in cartography and the application of hydraulics to power air conditioning . The religious and philosophical ideology of Buddhism became a major aspect of Chinese culture, with becoming the most prominent. However, Buddhism would eventually be persecuted by the state and would decline in influence. Although the dynasty and central government were in decline by the 9th century, art and culture continued to flourish. The weakened central government largely withdrew from managing the , but the country's mercantile affairs stayed intact and commercial trade continued to thrive regardless.

History

Establishment

The belonged to the northwest military aristocracy prevalent during the . The mothers of both Emperor Yang of Sui and the founding emperor of Tang were sisters, making these two emperors of different dynasties first cousins. was the Duke of Tang and former governor of Taiyuan when other government officials were fighting off bandit leaders in the collapse of the Sui Empire, caused in part by a . With prestige and military experience, he later rose in rebellion along with his son and his equally militant daughter Princess Pingyang who raised her own troops and commanded them. In 617, Li Yuan occupied Chang'an and acted as regent over of the Sui, relegating Emperor Yang to the position of ''Taishang Huang'', or retired emperor.

Li Yuan ruled until 626 before being forcefully deposed by his son Li Shimin, Prince of Qin. Li Shimin had commanded troops since the age of 18, had prowess with a , , lance, and was known for his effective cavalry charges. Fighting a numerically superior army, he defeated Dou Jiande at Luoyang in the Battle of Hulao on May 28, 621. In a violent elimination of royal family due to fear of assassination, Li Shimin ambushed and killed two of his brothers, Li Yuanji and Crown Prince Li Jiancheng in the Incident at Xuanwu Gate on July 2, 626. Taizong showed to be a capable leader who listened to the advice of the wisest members of his council. This was during the , a khanate that was destroyed after the capture of Jiali Khan Ashini Duobi by the famed Tang military officer Li Jing , who later became a Chancellor of the Tang Dynasty. With this victory, the Turks accepted Taizong as their Khagan, or Great Khan, in addition to his rule as the .

Administration and politics

Initial reforms

Taizong set out to solve internal problems within the government which had constantly plagued past dynasties. Building upon the Sui legal code, he issued that subsequent Chinese dynasties would model theirs upon, as well as neighboring polities in Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. The legal code clearly distinguished different levels of severity in meted punishments when different members of the social and political hierarchy committed the same crime. For example, the severity of punishment was different when a servant or nephew killed a master or an uncle than when a master or uncle killed a servant or nephew. yet there were several revisions in later times, such as during the Song Dynasty .

The Tang had three departments , which were obliged to draft, review, and implement policies respectively. There were also six ministries under the administrations that implemented policy, each of which was assigned different tasks. included the personnel administration, finance, rites, military, justice, and public works—an administrative model which would last until the fall of the Qing Dynasty . Although the founders of the Tang related to the glory of the earlier Han Dynasty , the basis for much of their administrative organization was very similar to the previous Southern and Northern Dynasties. These had their own signature and that of a witness and scribe in order to prove in court that their claim to property was legitimate. Therefore, Emperor Taizong ordered the government agencies in charge of construction to build every visiting official his own private mansion in the capital. The ''mingjing'' was based upon the , and tested the student's knowledge of a broad variety of texts. Candidates were also judged on their skills of deportment, appearance, speech, and level of skill in calligraphy, all of which were subjective criteria that allowed the already wealthy members of society to be chosen over ones of more modest means who were unable to be educated in rhetoric or fanciful writing skills. although having wealth or noble status was not a prerequisite in receiving a recommendation. In order to promote widespread Confucian education, the Tang government established state-run schools and issued standard versions of the Five Classics with selected commentaries. As it turned out, these scholar-officials acquired status in their local communities and in family ties, while they also shared values that connected them to the imperial court. From Tang times until the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, functioned often as intermediaries between the grassroots level and the government. Yet the potential of a widespread examination system was not fully realized until the Song Dynasty, where the merit-driven scholar official largely shed his aristocratic habits and defined his social status through the examination system. As historian Patricia Ebrey states of the Song period scholar-officials:

Nevertheless, the Sui and Tang dynasties institutionalized and set the foundations for the civil service system and this new elite class of exam-drafted scholar-officials.

Religion and politics

From the onset, religion played a role in Tang politics. In his bid for power, Li Yuan had attracted a following by claiming descent from the sage Laozi . People bidding for office would have monks from Buddhist temples pray for them in public in return for cash donations or gifts if the person was to be selected. Before the persecution of Buddhism in the 9th century, Buddhism and Daoism were accepted side by side, and Emperor Xuanzong of Tang invited monks and clerics of both religions to his court. In the previous year of 713, Emperor Xuanzong had liquidated the highly lucrative , which was run by a prominent Buddhist monastery in Chang'an. This monastery collected vast amounts of money, silk, and treasures through multitudes of synonymous people's repentances, leaving the donations on the monastery's premise.

Taxes and the census

The Tang Dynasty government attempted to create an accurate census of the size of their empire's population, mostly for effective taxation and matters of military conscription for each region. The early Tang government established both the grain tax and cloth tax at a relatively low rate for each household under the empire. This was meant to encourage households to enroll for taxation and not avoid the authorities, thus providing the government with the most accurate estimate possible. In the Tang census of the year 754, there were 1,859 cities, 321 , and 1,538 throughout the empire. Although there were many large and prominent cities during the Tang, the rural and agrarian areas comprised the majority of China's population at some 80 to 90 percent. There was also a dramatic migratory shift of the population from , as the North held 75% of the overall population at the dynasty's inception, but by its end was reduced to 50%.

Chinese population size would not dramatically increase until the Song Dynasty period, where the population doubled to 100 million people due to extensive rice cultivation in central and southern China, coupled with rural farmers holding more abundant yields of food that they could easily provide the growing market.

Military and foreign policy

Protectorates and tributaries

The 7th century and first half of the 8th century is generally considered the zenith era of the Tang Dynasty. Emperor Tang Xuanzong brought the to its golden age while the Silk Road thrived, with sway over Indochina in the south, and to the west Tang China was master of the and protector of Kashmir bordering Persia. Turkic nomads addressed the Emperor of Tang China as ''Tian Kehan''. Protectorate Generals were given a great deal of autonomy to handle local crises without waiting for central admission. After Xuanzong's reign, military governors were given enormous power, including the ability to maintain their own armies, collect taxes, and pass their titles on hereditarily. It was commonly recognized as the beginning of the fall of Tang's central government. It was more economically feasible as well, since training new recruits and sending them out to the frontier every three years drained the treasury. Hard-pressed peasants and vagrants were then induced into military service with benefits of exemption from both taxation and corvée labor service, as well as provisions for farmland and dwellings for dependents who accompanied soldiers on the frontier. By the year 742 the total number of enlisted troops in the Tang armies had risen to about 500,000 men. The horse is seen dancing with a cup of wine in its mouth, just how the horses of Emperor Xuanzong were trained to do. To handle and avoid any threats posed by the Turks, the Sui government repaired fortifications and received their trade and tribute missions. As early as the Sui Dynasty the Turks had become a major militarized force employed by the Chinese. When the Khitans began raiding northeast China in 605, a Chinese general led 20,000 Turks against them, distributing Khitan livestock and women to the Turks as a reward. While most of the Tang army was made of fubing Chinese conscripts, the majority of the army led by Turkic generals was of non-Chinese origin, campaigning largely in the western frontier where the presence of fubing troops was low.

Civil war in China was almost totally diminished by 626, along with the defeat in 628 of the Chinese warlord Liang Shidu; after these internal conflicts, the Tang began an offensive against the Turks. In the year 630, Tang armies captured areas of the Ordos Desert, modern-day Inner Mongolia province, and southern Mongolia from the Turks. While the Turks were settled in the Ordos region , the Tang government took on the military policy of dominating the central steppe. Like the earlier Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty conquered and subdued Central Asia during the 640s and 650s. There was a long string of conflicts with Tibet over territories in the Tarim Basin between 670–692 and in 763 the Tibetans even captured the capital of China, Chang'an, for fifteen days amidst the An Shi Rebellion. In fact, it was during this rebellion that the Tang withdrew its western garrisons stationed in what is now Gansu and Qinghai, which the Tibetans then occupied along with the territory of what is now Xinjiang. Hostilities between the Tang and Tibet continued until they signed a formal peace treaty in 821. The terms of this treaty, including the fixed borders between the two countries, are recorded in a bilingual inscription on a stone pillar outside the Jokhang temple in Lhasa.

During the Islamic conquest of Persia , the son of the last ruler of the Sassanid Empire, , fled to Tang China. ultimately reaching Europe by the 12th century. Although they had fought at Talas, on June 11, 758, an Abbasid embassy arrived at Chang'an simultaneously with the Uyghur Turks in order to pay tribute. From even further west, a tribute embassy came to the court of Taizong in 643 from the .

Korea and Japan

In terms of foreign policy to the east, the Chinese had more unsuccessful military campaigns as compared with elsewhere. , Taizong established a military campaign in 644 against the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo in the Goguryeo-Tang Wars. Since the ancient Han and Jin dynasties once had a in ancient northern Korea, the Tang Chinese desired to conquer the region. Allying with the Korean Silla Kingdom, the Chinese fought against Baekje and their allies in the Battle of Baekgang in August of 663, a decisive Tang-Silla victory. The Tang Dynasty navy had at its disposal to engage in naval warfare, these ships described by Li Quan in his ''Taipai Yinjing'' of 759. The Battle of Baekgang was actually a restoration movement by remnant forces of Baekje, since their kingdom was toppled in 660 by a joint Tang-Silla invasion, led by notable Korean general Kim Yushin and Chinese general Su Dingfang. In another joint invasion with Silla, the Tang army severely weakened the Goguryeo Kingdom in the north by taking out its outer forts in the year 645. With joint attacks by Silla and Tang armies under commander Li Shiji , the Kingdom of Goguryeo was destroyed by 668. Although they were formerly enemies, the Tang accepted officials and generals of Goguryeo into their administration and military, such as the brothers Yeon Namsaeng and Yeon Namsan . From 668 to 676, the Tang Empire would control northern Korea. However, in 671 Silla began fighting the Tang forces there. At the same time the Tang faced threats on its western border when a large Chinese army was defeated by the Tibetans on the Dafei River in 670. By 676, the Tang army was driven out of Korea by Unified Silla. Following a revolt of the Eastern Turks in 679, the Tang abandoned its Korean campaigns. The Japanese Emperor Temmu even established his conscripted army on that of the Chinese model, his state ceremonies on the Chinese model, and constructed his palace at on the . Many Chinese Buddhist monks came to Japan to help further the spread of Buddhism as well. Two 7th century monks in particular, Zhi Yu and Zhi You, visited the court of Emperor Tenji , whereupon they presented a gift of a South Pointing Chariot that they had crafted. This 3rd century mechanically-driven directional-compass vehicle was again reproduced in several models for Tenji in 666, as recorded in the ''Nihon Shoki'' of 720. The Japanese monk Enchin stayed in China from 839 to 847 and again from 853 to 858, landing near and setting sail for Japan from Taizhou, Zhejiang during his second trip to China. The Chinese also gradually adopted the foreign concept of stools and chairs as seating, whereas the Chinese beforehand always sat on mats placed on the floor. To the Middle East, the Islamic world coveted and purchased in bulk Chinese goods such as silks, lacquerwares, and porcelain wares. These musical instruments included oboes, flutes, and small lacquered drums from Kucha in the Tarim Basin, and percussion instruments from India such as cymbals.

There was great contact and interest in India as a hub for Buddhist knowledge, with famous travelers such as Xuanzang visiting the South Asian subcontinent. After a 17-year long trip, Xuanzang managed to bring back tons of valuable Sanskrit texts to be translated into . There was also a -Chinese dictionary available for serious scholars and students, while Turkic folksongs gave inspiration to some Chinese poetry. In the interior of China, trade was facilitated by the and the Tang government's rationalization of the greater canal system that reduced costs of transporting grain and other commodities.

Silk Road

The Silk Road was the most important pre-modern Eurasian trade route. During this period of the Pax Sinica, the Silk Road reached its golden age, whereby and merchants benefited from the commerce between East and West. At the same time, the Chinese empire welcomed foreign cultures, making the Tang capital arguably the most cosmopolitan area in the world.

Although the Silk Road from China to the West was initially formulated during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han , it was reopened by the Tang in 639 when Hou Junji conquered the West, and remained open for almost four decades. It was closed after the Tibetans captured it in 678, but in 699, during Empress Wu's period, the Silk Road reopened when the Tang reconquered the Four Garrisons of Anxi originally installed in 640, once again connecting China directly to the West for land-based trade. The Tang captured the vital route through the from Tibet in 722, lost it to the Tibetans in 737, and regained it under the command of the Goguryeo-Korean General Gao Xianzhi. After the An Shi Rebellion ended in 763, the Tang Empire had once again lost control over many of its outer western lands, as the Tibetan Empire largely cut off China's direct access to the Silk Road.

Despite the many western travelers coming into China to live and trade, many travelers, mainly religious monks, recorded the strict border laws that the Chinese enforced. yet it was during the Tang Dynasty that a strong Chinese maritime presence could be found in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, into Persia, Mesopotamia , Arabia, Egypt, Aksum , and Somalia in East Africa. From the same Quraysh tribe of Muhammad, Sa'd ibn Abi-Waqqas sailed from Ethiopia to China during the reign of Emperor Gaozu. He later traveled back to China with a copy of the Quran, establishing , the Mosque of Remembrance, during the reign of . To this day he is still buried in a Muslim cemetery at Guangzhou.

During the Tang Dynasty, thousands of foreigners came and lived in Guangzhou for trade and commercial ties with China, including Persians, Arabs, Hindu Indians, , , , , and of the Near East, and many others. In 748, the Buddhist monk Jian Zhen described Guangzhou as a bustling mercantile center where many large and impressive foreign ships came to dock. He wrote that "many big ships came from Borneo, Persia, Qunglun ...with...spices, pearls, and jade piled up mountain high", as written in the ''Yue Jue Shu'' . After Arab and Persian pirates burned and looted Guangzhou in 758, However, when the port reopened it continued to thrive. In 851 the Arab merchant Suleiman al-Tajir observed the manufacturing of Chinese porcelain in Guangzhou and admired its transparent quality. He also provided description on the mosque at Guangzhou, its granaries, its local government administration, some of its written records, the treatment of travellers, along with the use of ceramics, rice-wine, and tea. However, in another bloody episode at Guangzhou in 879, the Chinese rebel Huang Chao sacked the city, and purportedly slaughtered thousands of native Chinese, along with foreign Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the process. Chao's rebellion was eventually suppressed in 884.

Korean Silla, Manchurian Balhae and Japanese vessels were all involved in the Yellow Sea trade, in which Silla dominated the trade and Japanese vessels ventured into from . After Silla and Japan reopened renewed hostilities in the late 7th century, most Japanese maritime merchants chose to set sail from towards the mouth of the Huai River, the Yangzi River, and even as far south as the Hangzhou Bay in order to avoid Korean ships in the Yellow Sea. In order to sail back to Japan in 838, the Japanese embassy to China procured nine ships and sixty Korean sailors from the Korean wards of Chuzhou and Lianshui cities along the Huai River. It is also known that Chinese trade ships traveling to Japan set sail from the various ports along the coasts Zhejiang and Fujian provinces.

The Tang government and Chinese merchants became interested in by-passing the Arab merchants who dominated the trade of the Indian Ocean, to gain access to thriving trade in the vast oceanic region. Beginning in 785, the Chinese began to call regularly at Sufala on the East African coast in order to cut out Arab middlemen, with various contemporary Chinese sources giving detailed descriptions of trade in Africa. The official and geographer Jia Dan wrote of two common sea trade routes in his day: one from the coast of the Bohai Sea towards Korea and another from Guangzhou through Malacca towards the Nicobar Islands, Sri Lanka and India, the eastern and northern shores of the Arabian Sea to the Euphrates River. In Fustat , Egypt, the fame of Chinese ceramics there led to an enormous demand for Chinese goods, hence Chinese often traveled there, also in later periods such as Fatimid Egypt. From this time period, the Arab merchant Shulama once wrote of his admiration for Chinese seafaring s, but noted that the draft was too deep for them to enter the Euphrates River, which forced them to land small boats for passengers and cargo. Shulama also noted in his writing that Chinese ships were often very large, large enough to carry aboard 600 to 700 passengers each.

Empress Wu and Emperor Xuanzong

Usurpation of Wu Zetian

Although she entered Emperor Gaozong's court as the lowly consort Wu Zhao, Wu Zetian would rise to the highest seat of power in 690, establishing the short-lived latter Zhou Dynasty. Empress Wu's rise to power was achieved through cruel and calculating tactics. For example, she allegedly killed her own baby girl and blamed it on Gaozong's empress so that the empress would be demoted. When Empress Wu's eldest son and crown prince began to assert his authority and announce his support for issues that were opposed to Empress Wu's ideas, he suddenly died in 675. Many suspected he was poisoned by Empress Wu. Although the next heir apparent kept a lower profile, in 680 he was accused by Wu of plotting a rebellion and was banished . After only six weeks on the throne in 683, was deposed by Empress Wu after his attempt to appoint his wife's father as chancellor.

In order to legitimize her rule in a religious sense, she circulated a document known as the ''Great Cloud Sutra'', which predicted that a reincarnation of the Maitreya Buddha would be a female monarch who would dispel illness, worry, and disaster from the world. She even introduced numerous revised to , which were reversed back to the originals only after her death. Arguably the most important part of her legacy was diminishing the power of the northwest aristocracy, allowing people from other clans and regions of China to become more representative in Chinese politics and government.

Rise of Xuanzong

There were many prominent women at court during and after Wu's reign, including Shangguan Wan'er , a female poet, writer, and trusted official in charge of Wu's private office. In 706 the wife of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, , convinced her husband to staff government offices with his sister and her daughters, and in 709 requested that he grant women the right to bequeath hereditary privileges to their sons . This was finally ended when Princess Taiping's coup failed in 712 and Emperor Ruizong abdicated to Emperor Xuanzong.

During the 44 year reign of Emperor Xuanzong, the Tang Dynasty was brought to its height, a golden age, a period of low economic inflation, as well as a toning down of the excessively lavish lifestyle of the imperial court. Xuanzong bowed to the consensus of his ministers on policy decisions and made efforts to fairly staff government ministries with different political factions. After 737 most of Xuanzong's confidence rested in his long-standing chancellor Li Linfu, who championed a more aggressive foreign policy employing non-Chinese generals that would cement the conditions for a massive rebellion against Xuanzong.

Decline

Rebellion and catastrophe

The Tang Empire was at its height of power up until the middle of the 8th century, when the An Shi Rebellion destroyed the prosperity of the empire. An Lushan was a half-, half- Tang commander since 744, had experience fighting the of Manchuria with a victory in 744, yet most of his campaigns against the Khitans were unsuccessful. He was given great responsibility in Hebei, which allowed him to rebel with an army of more than one hundred thousand troops. The Uyghur khan was greatly excited at this prospect, and even married his own daughter to the Chinese diplomatic envoy once he arrived, yet the Uyghur khan would in turn receive a Chinese princess as his bride. So significant was this loss that half a century later ''jinshi'' examination candidates were required to write an essay on the causes of the Tang's decline. Although An Lushan was killed by one of his eunuchs in 757, After the An Shi Rebellion, the autonomous power and authority accumulated by the jiedushi in Hebei went beyond the central government's control. After a series of rebellions between 781 and 784 in today's Hebei, Shandong, Hubei and Henan provinces, the government had to officially acknowledge the jiedushi's hereditary ruling without accreditation. The Tang government relied on these governors and their armies for protection and to suppress locals that would take up arms against the government. In return, the central government would acknowledge the rights of these governors to maintain their army, collect taxes and even to pass on their title to heirs. As time passed on these military governors slowly phased out the prominence of civil officials drafted by exams, and became more autonomous from central authority.

With the central government collapsing in authority over the various regions of the empire, it was recorded in 845 that bandits and river pirates in parties of 100 or more began plundering settlements along the Yangtze River with little resistance. The Chinese belief in the Mandate of Heaven granted to the ailing Tang was also challenged when natural calamities occurred, forcing many to believe the Heavens were displeased and that the Tang had lost their right to rule. Then in 873 a disastrous harvest shook the foundations of the empire, in some areas only half of all agricultural produce being gathered, and tens of thousands faced famine and starvation. yet the Tang government in the 9th century was nearly helpless in dealing with any calamity.

Rebuilding and recovery

Although these natural calamities and rebellions stained the reputation and hampered the effectiveness of the central government, the early 9th century is nonetheless viewed as a period of recovery for the Tang Dynasty. The government's withdrawal from its role in managing the economy had the unintended effect of stimulating trade, as more markets with less bureaucratic restrictions were opened up. By 780, the old grain tax and labor service of the 7th century was replaced by a semiannual tax paid in cash, signifying the shift to a money economy bolstered by the merchant class. Cities in the Jiangnan region to the south, such as Yangzhou, Suzhou, and Hangzhou prospered the most economically during the late Tang period. Even after the power of the central government was in decline since the mid 8th century, it was still able to function and give out imperial orders on a massive scale. The ''Tangshu'' compiled in the year 945 recorded that in 828 the Tang government issued a decree that standardized irrigational square-pallet chain pumps in the country:

The last great ambitious ruler of the Tang Dynasty was Emperor Xianzong of Tang , his reign period aided by the fiscal reforms of the 780s, including the government monopoly on the salt industry. He also had an effective well trained imperial army stationed at the capital led by his court eunuchs; this was the Army of Divine Strategy, numbering 240,000 in strength as recorded in 798. Between the years 806 and 819, Emperor Xianzong conducted seven major military campaigns to quell the rebellious provinces that had claimed autonomy from central authority, managing to subdue all but two of them. Under his reign there was a brief end to the hereditary jiedushi, as Xianzong appointed his own military officers and staffed the regional bureaucracies once again with civil officials. Although the rebellion was defeated by the Tang, it never recovered from that crucial blow, weakening it for the future military powers to take over. There were also large groups of bandits, in the size of small armies, that ravaged the countryside in the last years of the Tang, who smuggled illicit salt, ambushed merchants and convoys, and even besieged several walled cities. In 907, after almost 300 years in power, the dynasty was ended when this military governor, Zhu Wen , deposed the last emperor of Tang, Emperor Ai of Tang, and took the throne for himself. He established his Later Liang Dynasty, which thereby inaugurated the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. A year later, the deposed Emperor Ai was poisoned to death by Zhu Wen.

Although cast in a negative light by many for usurping power from the Tang, Zhu Wen turned out to be a skilled administrator. Emperor Taizu of Later Liang was also responsible for the building of a large seawall, new walls and roads for the burgeoning city of Hangzhou, which would later become the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. Many outdoor sports and activities were enjoyed during the Tang, including archery, hunting, horse polo, cuju football, cockfighting, and even tug of war. Government officials were granted vacations during their tenure in office. Officials were granted 30 days off every three years to visit their parents if they lived 1000 miles/1609 km away, or 15 days off if the parents lived more than 167 miles/268 km away . Between the years 628 and 758, the imperial throne bestowed a total of sixty-nine grand carnivals nationwide, granted by the emperor in the case of special circumstances like important military victories, abundant harvests after a long drought or famine, the granting of , the installment of a new crown prince, etc. For special celebration in the Tang era, lavish and gargantuan-sized feasts were sometimes prepared, as the imperial court had staffed agencies to prepare the meals. This included a prepared feast for 1,100 elders of Chang'an in 664, a feast for 3,500 officers of the Divine Strategy Army in 768, and a feast for 1,200 women of the palace and members of the imperial family in the year 826. A court official in the 8th century allegedly had a serpentine-shaped structure called the 'Ale Grotto' built with 50,000 bricks on the groundfloor that each featured a drinking bowl for his friends to drink from.

Chang'an, the Tang capital

Although Chang'an was the site for the capital of the earlier Han and Jin dynasties, after subsequent destruction in warfare, it was the Sui Dynasty model that comprised the Tang era capital. The roughly-square dimensions of the city had six miles of outer walls running east to west, and more than five miles of outer walls running north to south. During the Heian period, the city of Heian kyō of Japan like many cities was arranged in the checkerboard street grid pattern of the Tang capital and in accordance with traditional geomancy following the model of Chang'an. Some city wards were literally filled with open public playing fields or the backyards of lavish mansions for playing horse polo and cuju football.

The Tang capital was the largest city in the world at its time, the population of the city wards and its outlying suburbs reaching 2 million inhabitants. Exotic green-eyed, blond-haired serving wine in agate and amber cups, singing, and dancing at taverns attracted customers. If a foreigner in China pursued a Chinese woman for marriage, he was required to stay in China and was unable to take his bride back to his homeland, as stated in a law passed in 628 to protect women from temporary marriages with foreign envoys.

Chang'an was the center of the central government, the home of the imperial family, and was filled with splendor and wealth. However, incidentally it was not the economic hub during the Tang Dynasty. The city of Yangzhou along the and close to the Yangtze River was the greatest economic center during the Tang era. Yangzhou was the headquarters for the Tang's government monopoly on salt, and the greatest industrial center of China; it acted as a midpoint in shipping of foreign goods that would be organized and distributed to the major cities of the north.

There was also the secondary capital city of Luoyang, which was the favored capital of the two by . In the year 691 she had more than 100,000 families from around the region of Chang'an move to populate Luoyang instead. An artificial lake used as a transshipment pool was dredged east of Chang'an in 743, where curious northerners could finally see the array of boats found in southern China, delivering tax and tribute items to the imperial court.

Literature

The Tang period was a golden age of Chinese literature and . There are over 48,900 poems penned by some 2,200 Tang authors that have survived until modern times. Perfecting one's skills in the composition of poetry became a required study for those wishing to pass imperial examinations, while poetry was also heavily competitive; poetry contests amongst esteemed guests at banquets and courtiers of elite social gatherings was common in the Tang period. Poetry styles that were popular in the Tang included and , with the renowned Tang poet Li Bai famous for the former style, and Tang poets like and famous for their use of the latter. Jintishi poetry, or regulated verse, is in the form of eight-line stanzas or seven s per line with a fixed pattern of tones that required the second and third couplets to be antithetical . Tang poems in particular remain the most popular out of every historical era of China. This great emulation of Tang era poetry began in the Song Dynasty period, as it was Yan Yu who asserted that he was the first to designate the poetry of the High Tang era as the orthodox material with "canonical status within the classical poetic tradition." a man who would not be viewed as such in his own era of poetic competitors, and branded by his peers as an anti-traditional rebel. Below is an example of Du Fu's poetry, ''To My Retired Friend Wei'' . Like many other poems in the Tang it featured the theme of a long parting between friends, which was often due to officials being frequently transferred to the provinces:

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''人生不相見， It is almost as hard for friends to meet''

''動如參與商。 As for the morning and evening stars.''

''今夕復何夕， Tonight then is a rare event,''

''共此燈燭光。 Joining, in the candlelight,''

''少壯能幾時， Two men who were young not long ago''

''鬢髮各已蒼。 But now are turning grey at the temples.''

''訪舊半為鬼， To find that half our friends are dead''

''驚呼熱中腸。 Shocks us, burns our hearts with grief.''

''焉知二十載， We little guessed it would be twenty years''

''重上君子堂。 Before I could visit you again.''

''昔別君未婚， When I went away, you were still unmarried;''

''兒女忽成行。 But now these boys and girls in a row''

''怡然敬父執， Are very kind to their father's old friend.''

''問我來何方。 They ask me where I have been on my journey;''

''問答乃未已， And then, when we have talked awhile,''

''兒女羅酒潁

There were other important literary forms besides poetry during the Tang period. There was Duan Chengshi's ''Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang'', an entertaining collection of foreign legends and hearsay, reports on natural phenomena, short anecdotes, mythical and mundane tales, as well as notes on various subjects. The exact literary category or classification that Duan's large informal narrative would fit into is still debated amongst scholars and historians.

Short story fiction and tales were also popular during the Tang, one of the more famous ones being ''Yingying's Biography'' by Yuan Zhen , which was widely circulated in his own time and by the Yuan Dynasty became the basis for plays in Chinese opera. Timothy C. Wong places this story within the wider context of Tang love tales, which often share the plot designs of quick passion, inescapable societal pressure leading to the abandonment of romance, followed by a period of . Wong states that this scheme lacks the undying vows and total self-commitment to love found in Western romances such as ''Romeo and Juliet'', but that underlying traditional Chinese values of inseparableness of self from one's environment served to create the necessary fictional device of romantic tension.

There were large encyclopedias published in the Tang. The ''Yiwen Leiju'' encyclopedia was compiled in 624 by the chief editor Ouyang Xun as well as Linghu Defen and Chen Shuda . The encyclopedia ''Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era'' was fully compiled in 729 by Gautama Siddha , an ethnic Indian astronomer, astrologer, and scholar born in the capital Chang'an.

such as Jia Dan wrote accurate descriptions of places far abroad. In his work written between 785 and 805, he described the sea route going into the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and that the medieval s had erected 'ornamental pillars' in the sea that acted as lighthouse beacons for ships that might go astray. Confirming Jia's reports about lighthouses in the Persian Gulf, Arabic writers a century after Jia wrote of the same structures, writers such as al-Mas'udi and al-Muqaddasi. The Tang Dynasty Chinese diplomat Wang Xuance traveled to Magadha during the 7th century. Afterwards he wrote the book ''Zhang Tianzhu Guotu'' , which included a wealth of geographical information.

Many histories of previous dynasties were compiled between 636 and 659 by court officials during and shortly after the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang. These included the ''Book of Liang'', ''Book of Chen'', ''Book of Northern Qi'', ''Book of Zhou'', ''Book of Sui'', ''Book of Jin'', ''History of Northern Dynasties'' and the ''History of Southern Dynasties''. Although not included in the official ''Twenty-Four Histories'', the ''Tongdian'' and ''Tang Huiyao'' were nonetheless valuable written historical works of the Tang period. The ''Shitong'' written by Liu Zhiji in 710 was a meta-history, as it covered the history of Chinese historiography in past centuries until his time. The ''Great Tang Records on the Western Regions'', compiled by Bianji, recounted the journey of Xuanzang, the Tang era's most renowned Buddhist monk.

The Classical Prose Movement was spurred large in part by the writings of Tang authors Liu Zongyuan and Han Yu . This new prose style broke away from the poetry tradition of the 'piantiwen' style begun in the ancient Han Dynasty. Although writers of the Classical Prose Movement imitated 'piantiwen', they criticized it for its often vague content and lack of colloquial language, focusing more on clarity and precision to make their writing more direct. This ''guwen'' style can be traced back to Han Yu, and would become largely associated with orthodox Neo-Confucianism.

Religion and philosophy

Since ancient times, the Chinese believed in that incorporated many deities. The Chinese believed that the afterlife was a reality parallel to the living world, complete with its own bureaucracy and afterlife currency needed by dead ancestors. This is reflected in many short stories written in the Tang about people accidentally winding up in the realm of the dead, only to come back and report their experiences. Buddhist monasteries were also engaged in the economy, since their land property and serfs gave them enough revenues to set up mills, oil presses, and other enterprises. Although the monasteries retained 'serfs', these monastery dependents could actually own property and employ others to help them in their work, including their own slaves.

The prominent status of Buddhism in Chinese culture began to decline as the dynasty and central government declined as well during the late 8th century to 9th century. Buddhist convents and that were exempt from state taxes beforehand were targeted by the state for taxation. In 845 Emperor Wuzong of Tang finally shut down 4,600 Buddhist monasteries along with 40,000 temples and shrines, forcing 260,000 Buddhist monks and nuns to return to life; this episode would later be dubbed one of the Four Buddhist Persecutions in China. Although the ban would be lifted just a few years after, Buddhism never regained its once dominant status in Chinese culture. This situation also came about through new revival of interest in native Chinese philosophies, such as Confucianism and Daoism. Han Yu —who Arthur F. Wright stated was a "brilliant polemicist and ardent "—was one of the first men of the Tang to denounce Buddhism. Nonetheless, gained popularity amongst the educated elite. There were also many famous Chan monks from the Tang era, such as Mazu Daoyi, Baizhang, and Huangbo Xiyun. The sect of Pure Land Buddhism initiated by the Chinese monk Huiyuan was also just as popular as Chan Buddhism during the Tang.

Rivaling Buddhism was Daoism, a native Chinese philosophical and religious belief system that found its roots in the book of the '''' and the ''Zhuangzi''. The ruling Li family of the Tang Dynasty actually claimed descent from the ancient Laozi. Although they never achieved their goals in either of these futile pursuits, they did contribute to the discovery of new metal alloys, porcelain products, and new dyes.

The Tang Dynasty also officially recognized various foreign religions. The Assyrian Church of the East, otherwise known as the , was given recognition by the Tang court. In 781, the Nestorian Stele was created in order to honor the achievements of their community in China. A Christian monastery was established in Shaanxi province where the Daqin Pagoda still stands, and inside the pagoda there is Christian-themed artwork. Although the religion largely died out after the Tang, it was revived in China following the Mongol invasions of the 13th century.

Tang women

Women's social rights and social status during the Tang era were incredibly liberal-minded for the medieval period. However, this was largely reserved for urbane women of elite status, as men and women in the rural countryside labored hard in their different set of tasks; with wives and daughters responsible for more domestic tasks of weaving textiles and rearing of silk worms, while men tended to farming in the fields. The head mistresses of the bordellos in the of the capital Chang'an acquired large amounts of wealth and power. Their high-class courtesans, who very much resembled Japanese geishas, Although they were renowned for their polite behavior, the courtesans were known to dominate the conversation amongst elite men, and were not afraid to openly castigate or criticize prominent male guests who talked too much or too loudly, boasted too much of their accomplishments, or had in some way ruined dinner for everyone by rude behavior . In example of the latter, the foreign horse-riding sport of polo from Persia became a wildly popular trend amongst the Chinese elite, as women often played the sport . A law was passed in 671 which attempted to force women to wear hats with veils again in order to promote decency, but these laws were ignored as some women started wearing caps and even no hats at all, as well as men's riding clothes and boots, and tight-sleeved bodices.

There were some prominent court women after the era of Empress Wu, such as Yang Guifei , who had Emperor Xuanzong appoint some of her friends and cronies in important ministerial and martial positions. During the Tang Dynasty, tea was synonymous with everything sophisticated in society. The Tang poet Lu Tong devoted most of his poetry to his love of tea. The 8th century author Lu Yu even wrote a treatise on the art of drinking tea, called the ''Classic of Tea'' . Tea was also enjoyed by Uyghur Turks; when riding into town, the first places they visited were the tea shops. during the Tang Dynasty the Chinese were using wrapping paper as folded and sewn square bags to hold and preserve the flavor of tea leaves. and in 851 an Arab Muslim traveler commented on how the Tang era Chinese were not careful about cleanliness because they did not wash with water when going to the bathroom; instead, he said, the Chinese simply used paper to wipe with. The Ming Dynasty Song Yingxing noted that rice was not counted amongst the five grains from the time of the legendary and deified Chinese sage Shennong into the 2nd millenniums BC, because the properly wet and humid climate in southern China for growing rice was not yet fully settled or cultivated by the Chinese. The various meats that were consumed included pork, chicken, , sea otter, bear , and even bactrian camels. Some foods were also off-limits, as the Tang court encouraged people not to eat beef , and from 831 to 833 Emperor Wenzong of Tang even banned the slaughter of cattle on the grounds of his religious convictions to Buddhism. From the trade overseas and over land, the Chinese acquired golden peaches from Samarkand, s, pistachios, and figs from Persia, pine seeds and ginseng roots from Korea, and mangoes from Southeast Asia. In China, there was a great demand for sugar; during the reign of Harsha over North India, Indian envoys to Tang China brought two makers of sugar who successfully taught the Chinese how to cultivate sugarcane. Cotton also came from India as a finished product from Bengal, although it was during the Tang that the Chinese began to grow and process cotton, and by the Yuan Dynasty it became the prime textile fabric in China. The emperor had large ice pits located in the parks in and around Chang'an for preserving food, while the wealthy and elite had their own smaller ice pits. Each year the emperor had laborers carve 1000 blocks of ice from frozen creeks in mountain valleys, each block with the dimension of 0.91 m by 0.91 m by 1.06 m . With so many books coming into circulation for the general public, literacy rates could improve, along with the lower classes being able to obtain cheaper sources of study. Therefore, there was more lower class people seen entering the Imperial Examinations and passing them by the later Song Dynasty. Although the later Bi Sheng's movable type printing in the 11th century was innovative for his period, woodblock printing that became widespread in the Tang would remain the dominant until the more advanced printing press from Europe became widely accepted and used in East Asia. The first use of the playing card during the Tang Dynasty was an auxiliary invention of the new age of printing.

Clockworks and timekeeping

Technology during the Tang period was built also upon the precedents of the past. The mechanical gear systems of Zhang Heng and Ma Jun gave the Tang engineer, astronomer, and monk Yi Xing a great source of influence when he invented the world's first clockwork escapement mechanism in 725. This was used alongside a clock and waterwheel to power a rotating armillary sphere in representation of astronomical observation. Yi Xing's device also had a mechanically-timed bell that was struck automatically every hour, and a drum that was struck automatically every quarter hour; essentially, a striking clock. Yi Xing's astronomical clock and water-powered armillary sphere became well known throughout the country, since students attempting to pass the imperial examinations by 730 had to write an essay on the device as an exam requirement. However, the most common type of public and palace timekeeping device was the inflow clepsydra, improved in about 610 by the Sui Dynasty engineers Geng Xun and Yuwen Kai when they provided a steelyard balance that allowed seasonal adjustment in the pressure head of the compensating tank and could then control the rate of flow for different lengths of day and night.

Mechanical delights and automatons

There were many other technically impressive mechanical inventions during the Tang era. This included a 0.91 m tall mechanical wine server of the early 8th century that was in the shape of an artificial mountain, carved out of iron and rested on a lacquered-wooden tortoise frame. This intricate device used a hydraulic pump that siphoned wine out of metal -headed faucets, as well as tilting bowls that were timed to dip wine down, by force of gravity when filled, into an artificial lake that had intricate iron leaves popping up as trays for placing party treats. while Ma Jun in the 3rd century had an entire mechanical puppet theater operated by the rotation of a waterwheel. This weight-and-lever mechanism was exactly like Heron's penny slot machine. Another device included one by Wang Ju, whose "wooden otter" could allegedly catch fish; Needham suspects a of some kind was employed here. In addition to compiling pharmacopeias, the Tang fostered learning in medicine by upholding imperial medical colleges, state examinations for doctors, and publishing forensic manuals for physicians. Authors of medicine in the Tang include Zhen Qian and Sun Simiao , the former who first identified in writing that patients with diabetes had an excess of sugar in their urine, and the latter who was the first to recognize that diabetic patients should avoid consuming alcohol and starchy foods. As written by Zhen Qian and others in the Tang, the thyroid glands of sheep and pigs were successfully used to treat goiters; thyroid extracts were not used to treat patients with goiter in the West until 1890.

Structural engineering

In the realm of technical Chinese architecture, there were also government standard building codes, outlined in the early Tang book of the ''Yingshan Ling'' . Fragments of this book have survived in the ''Tang Lü'' , while the Song Dynasty architectural manual of the ''Yingzao Fashi'' by in 1103 is the oldest existing technical treatise on Chinese architecture that has survived in full. The Tang chancellor Xu Jingzong was also known for his map of China drawn in the year 658. However, the only type of map that has survived from the Tang period are star charts. Despite this, come from the ancient ; maps from the 4th century BC that were excavated in 1986.

Alchemy, gas cylinders, and air conditioning

The Chinese of the Tang period employed complex chemical formulas for an array of different purposes, often found through experiments of alchemy. These included a waterproof and dust-repelling cream or varnish for clothes and weapons, fireproof cement for glass and porcelain wares, a waterproof cream applied to silk clothes of underwater divers, a cream designated for polishing bronze mirrors, and many other useful formulas. The vitrified, translucent ceramic known as porcelain was invented in China during the Tang, although many types of glazed ceramics preceded it.

Ever since the Han Dynasty , the Chinese had drilled deep boreholes to transport natural gas from to stoves where cast iron evaporation pans boiled brine to extract salt. During the Tang Dynasty, a gazetteer of Sichuan province stated that at one of these 182 'fire wells', men collected natural gas into portable bamboo tubes which could be carried around for dozens of km and still produce a flame. These were essentially the first gas cylinders; Robert Temple assumes was used for this device. In 747, Emperor Xuanzong had the Cool Hall built in the imperial palace, which the ''Tang Yulin'' describes as having water-powered fan wheels for air conditioning as well as rising jet streams of water from fountains. During the subsequent Song Dynasty, written sources mentioned the air conditioning rotary fan as even more widely used.

Historiography

The first classic work about the Tang is the ''Book of Tang'' by Liu Xu et al of the , who redacted it during the last years of his life. This was edited into another history in order to distinguish it, which was a work by the Song historians Ouyang Xiu , Song Qi , et al of the Song Dynasty . Both of them were based upon earlier annals, yet those are now lost. Both of them also rank among the ''Twenty-Four Histories'' of China. One of the surviving sources of the ''Book of Tang'', primarily covering up to 756, is the ''Tongdian'', which Du You presented to the emperor in 801. The Tang period was again placed into the enormous universal history text of the ''Zizhi Tongjian'', edited, compiled, and completed in 1084 by a team of scholars under the Song Dynasty Chancellor Sima Guang . This historical text, written with 3 million Chinese characters in 294 volumes, covered the history of China from the beginning of the Warring States until the beginning of the Song Dynasty .

Wu Zetian

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Wu Zetian were disrespectful of Lady Yang, and Lady Yang bore grudge for this. Emperor Taizong gave her the name Mei , meaning "delicate." According to her own account during her reign later while rebuking the Ji Xu, there was an occasion during the time she was Emperor Taizong's concubine when she impressed Emperor Taizong with her fortitude:

Consort Wu did not have any children with Emperor Taizong. It was said that on one occasion, when Emperor Taizong's crown prince saw her, he was shocked by her beauty. After Emperor Taizong died in 649, Li Zhi became emperor , and she and the other imperial consorts who did not have children went to Ganye Temple and became Buddhist nuns.

As Emperor Gaozong's concubine

On an anniversary of Emperor Taizong's death, Emperor Gaozong went to Ganye Temple to offer incense, and when he and Consort Wu saw each other, both of them wept -- and were seen by Emperor Gaozong's wife . At that time, Emperor Gaozong did not favor Empress Wang, and much favored his concubine ; further, Empress Wang did not have any children, and Consort Xiao had one son and two daughters . Empress Wang, seeing that Emperor Gaozong was still impressed by Consort Wu's beauty, hoped that the arrival of a new concubine would divert the emperor from Consort Xiao, and therefore secretly told Consort Wu to stop shaving her hair and, at a later point, welcomed her to the palace. Wherever the truth lies, by the early 650s Consort Wu was a concubine of Emperor Gaozong, and she was titled ''Zhaoyi'' , i.e. the highest ranking of the nine concubines of the second rank. Consort Wu soon overtook Consort Xiao in her favor from Emperor Gaozong. In 652, she gave birth to her first child, a son named Li Hong. In 653, she gave birth to another son, . (Later, after she became empress, she would bear two more sons , and one daughter . For the time being, however, neither of these sons were in contention to be Emperor Gaozong's heir, as Emperor Gaozong had, pursuant to requests of officials instigated by Empress Wang and her uncle, the chancellor , created his oldest son Li Zhong, whose mother Consort Liu was of lowly birth and whose gratitude Empress Wang expected. By 654, both Empress Wang and Consort Xiao had lost favor with Emperor Gaozong, and the former romantic rivals joined forces against Consort Wu, but to no avail, and as a sign of his love to Consort Wu, in 654 he conferred posthumous honors on her father Wu Shihuo.

Also in 654, shortly after Consort Wu gave birth to a daughter, the daughter died. Empress Wang was allegedly seen near the child's room by eyewitnesses, and Emperor Gaozong suspected that she killed the child out of jealousy. She was unable to clear herself in Emperor Gaozong's eyes. In anger, Emperor Gaozong considered deposing Empress Wang and replacing her with Consort Wu, but wanted to make sure that the chancellors would support this, and so visited the house of his uncle Zhangsun Wuji, the leader among chancellors, with Consort Wu, awarding him with much treasure, but when he brought up the topic that Empress Wang was sonless , Zhangsun repeatedly found ways to divert the conversation, and subsequent visits by Consort Wu's mother Lady Yang and the official Xu Jingzong, who was allied with Consort Wu, to seek support from Zhangsun were also to no avail.

As Empress Consort

In 656, per advice of Xu Jingzong, Emperor Gaozong deposed Li Zhong to be the Prince of Liang, while creating Li Hong, then carrying the title of Prince of Dai, to be crown prince. but which some historians thought might be slow-poisoning by Empress Wu, and he began to have Empress Wu make rulings on the petitions by the officials. It was said that Empress Wu had quick reactions and understood both literature and history, and therefore was making correct rulings. Thereafter, her authority began to rival Emperor Gaozong's. Thereafter, at imperial meetings, she would sit behind a curtain behind Emperor Gaozong, and they became referred to by the public as the "Two Holy Ones" .

Around the new year 675, Empress Wu submitted 12 suggestions -- the chief of whom were that Laozi , to whom the Tang imperial clan traced its ancestry), should have his work Tao Te Ching be added to the required reading for imperial university students, and that a three-year mourning period should be observed for a mother's death in all cases. Emperor Gaozong praised her for her suggestions and adopted them.

As Empress Dowager

Immediately, Emperor Zhongzong showed signs of disobeying Empress Dowager Wu -- including an insistence on making his father-in-law Wei Xuanzhen ''Shizhong'' and giving a mid-level office to his wet nurse's son -- despite stern opposition by the chancellor Pei Yan, at one point remarking to Pei:

In 686, Empress Dowager Wu offered to return imperial authorities to Emperor Ruizong, but Emperor Ruizong, knowing that she did not truly intend to do so, declined, and she continued to exercise imperial authority. Meanwhile, she created copper mailboxes outside the imperial government to encourage the people of the realm to secretly report on others, as she suspected many officials of opposing her. Under these beliefs of hers, secret police officials, including Suo Yuanli, , and Lai Junchen, began to rise in power and began to carry out systematic false accusations, tortures, and executions of individuals.

As Empress Regnant

Traditional Chinese order of succession did not allow a woman to ascend the throne, but Wu Zetian was determined to quash the opposition, and the use of the secret police did not subside, but continued, after her taking the throne. However, while her organization of the civil service system was criticized for its laxity of the promotion of officials, Wu Zetian was considered capable of evaluating the performance of the officials once they were in office. The Song Dynasty historian Sima Guang, in his ''Zizhi Tongjian'', commented:

Early reign

Shortly after Wu Zetian took the throne, she elevated the status of Buddhism to be above Taoism, officially sanctioning the religion by building temples named Dayun Temple in each prefecture belonging to the capital regions of the two capitals Luoyang and Chang'an, and also created nine senior monks dukes. She also enshrined seven generations of Wu ancestors at the imperial ancestral temple, although she also continued to offer sacrifices to the three emperors of Tang . Wu Zetian tried to allay the situation by making peace with Ashina Mochuo at fairly costly terms -- the return of Tujue people who had previously submitted to Zhou and providing Ashina Mochuo with seeds, silk, tools, and iron. In summer 697, Ashina Mochuo launched another attack on Khitan's base of operations, and this time, after his attack, Khitan forces collapsed, and Sun was killed in flight, ending the Khitan threat.

Around 698, Wu Chengsi and another nephew of Wu Zetian's, Wu Sansi the Prince of Liang, were repeatedly making attempts to have officials persuade Wu Zetian to create one of them crown prince -- again citing the reason that an emperor should pass the throne to someone of the same clan. However, Di Renjie, who by now had become a trusted chancellor, was firmly against the idea and instead proposed that Li Zhe be recalled. He was supported in this by fellow chancellors Wang Fangqing and Wang Jishan, as well as Wu Zetian's close advisor Ji Xu, who further persuaded the Zhang brothers to support the idea as well. In spring 698, Wu Zetian agreed and recalled Li Zhe from exile. Soon, Li Dan offered to yield the crown prince position to Li Zhe, and Wu Zetian created Li Zhe crown prince, and soon changed his name back to Li Xiǎn and then Wu Xian.

Despite her old age, however, Wu Zetian continued to be interested in finding talented officials and promoting them, and individuals that she promoted in her old age included, among others, Cui Xuanwei and Zhang Jiazhen., killing Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, and then had Changsheng Hall , where Wu Zetian was residing, surrounded. They then reported to her that the Zhang brothers had been executed for treason, and then forced her to yield the throne to Li Xian. On February 21, an edict was issued in her name that made Li Xian regent, and on February 22, an edict was issued in her name passing the throne to Li Xian. On February 23, Li Xian formally retook the throne, and the next day, Wu Zetian, under heavy guard, was moved to the subsidiary palace Shangyang Palace , but was nevertheless honored with the title of Empress Regnant Zetian Dasheng . Tang Dynasty was restored, ending Zhou. She died on December 16,

Second Zhou Dynasty

): Jan. 22 - Oct. 21, 695

Tiāncèwànsuì : Oct. 22, 695 - Jan. 19, 696

Wànsuìdēngfēng : Jan. 20 - Apr. 21, 696

Wànsuìtōngtiān : Apr. 22, 696 - Sept. 28, 697

Shéngōng : Sept. 29 - Dec. 19, 697

Shènglì : Dec. 20, 697 - May 26, 700

Jiǔshì : May 27, 700 - Feb. 14, 701

Dàzú : Feb. 15 - Nov. 25, 701

Cháng'ān : Nov. 26, 701 - Jan. 29, 705

Shénlóng : Jan. 30 - Mar. 3, 705

|}

Chancellors during reign

* Cen Changqian

* Wu Chengsi

* Xing Wenwei

* Wu Youning

* Fu Youyi

* Shi Wuzi

* Zong Qinke

* Le Sihui

* Ren Zhigu

* Ge Fuyuan

* Ouyang Tong

* Pei Xingben

* Di Renjie

* Yang Zhirou

* Li Youdao

* Yuan Zhihong

* Cui Shenji

* Cui Yuanzong

* Li Zhaode

* Yao Shu

* Li Yuansu

*

* Lou Shide

* Wei Juyuan

* Lu Yuanfang

* Doulu Qinwang

* Su Weidao

* Wang Xiaojie

* Wei Shifang

* Yang Zaisi

* Du Jingjian

* Zhou Yunyuan

* Sun Yuanheng

* Wang Fangqing

* Li Daoguang

* Wang Jishan

* Zong Chuke

* Wu Sansi

* Yao Chong

* Li Jiao

* Ji Xu

* Wei Yuanzhong

* Zhang Xi

* Wei Anshi

* Li Huaiyuan

* Gu Cong

* Li Jiongxiu

* Zhu Jingze

* Tang Xiujing

* Wei Sili

* Cui Xuanwei

* Zhang Jianzhi

* Fang Rong

* Wei Chengqing

* Yuan Shuji

Personal information

* Father

** Wu Shihuo , Duke Ding of Ying, later further successively posthumously honored as the Duke of Zhou, the Prince of Taiyuan, Emperor Zongxiaotai, and Emperor Xiaominggao

* Mother

** Lady Yang , Wu Shihuo's second wife, honored as the Lady of Rong, Lady of Zuan, Lady of Wei, and finally Lady Zhonglie of Lu, later further successively posthumously honored with titles corresponding to Wu Shihuo's

* Husband

** Emperor Gaozong of Tang

* Major known lovers

** Huaiyi, né Feng Xiaobao , the Duke of Liang then the Duke of E

** Shen Nanqiu , imperial physician

** Zhang Yizhi, the Duke of Heng

** Zhang Changzong, the Duke of Ye

* Children

** Li Hong , originally the Prince of Dai , later the Crown Prince , posthumously honored Emperor Xiaojing with the temple name Yizong

** , name changed to Li De 672, changed back to Li Xián 674), originally the Prince of Lu , later the Prince of Pei , later the Prince of Yong , later the Crown Prince , later demoted to commoner rank , posthumously initially honored the Prince of Yong, later honored Crown Prince Zhanghuai

** Li Xiǎn , name changed to Li Zhe 677, changed back to Li Xiǎn 698, changed to Wu Xian 700, changed back to Li Xian 705, initially the Prince of Zhou , later the Prince of Ying , later the Crown Prince , later Emperor Zhongzong of Tang , later demoted to Prince of Luling , later the Crown Prince , later emperor again

** Li Dan , né Li Xulun , name changed to Li Lun 669, changed again to Li Dan 678, changed again to Wu Lun 690, changed again to Wu Dan 698, changed back to Li Dan 705, originally the Prince of Yin , later the Prince of Yu , later the Prince of Ji , later the Prince of Xiang , later the Prince of Yu , later Emperor Ruizong of Tang , later demoted to Crown Prince , later demoted to Prince of Xiang , later emperor again

** Unnamed princess

** Princess Taiping

Titles carried, in chronological order

* ''Cairen'' 637-649

* ''Zhaoyi'' 650?-655

* Empress 655-683

** Also known as ''Tianhou'' 674-683

* Empress dowager 683-690

** Also known as ''Shengmu Shenhuang'' 688-690

* Emperor 690-705

** ''Shengshen Huangdi'' 690-693

** ''Jinlun Shengshen Huangdi'' 693-694

** ''Yuegu Jinlun Shengshen Huangdi'' 694-695

** ''Jinlun Shengshen Huangdi'' 695

** ''Tiance Jinlun Dasheng Huangdi'' 695-705

** ''Zetian Dasheng Huangdi'' 705

* Posthumous empress titles

** ''Zetian Dasheng Huanghou'' 705-710

** ''Tianhou'' 710

** ''Dasheng Tianhou'' 710-712

** ''Tianhou Shengdi'' 712

** ''Shenghou'' 712-716

** ''Zetian Huanghou'' 716-749

** ''Zetian Shunsheng Huanghou''

Books

* Empress Wu Zetian in Fiction and in History: Female Defiance in Confucian China by Dora Shu-fang Dien explores the life of Empress Wu Zetian and the ways women found to participate in public life, despite the societal constraints of dynastic China.

* Wu: The Chinese Empress Who Schemed, Seduced and Murdered Her Way to Become a Living God by Jonathan Clements.

* The noted French author Shan Sa, born in Beijing, wrote a biographical novel called "Impératrice" based on Empress Wu's life. It has been translated into English as "Empress" and Japanese as ''Jotei: Waga na wa Sokuten Bukō'' .

* A fictionalized Wu Zetian appears in Eleanor Cooney & Daniel Alteri's mystery novel "Deception: A Novel of Mystery and Madness in Ancient China"

*Lady Wu, written by Lin Yutang, combines thoroughly researched historical data and storytelling to weave a sensually vicious portrayal of the woman who would be Emperor.

* A fiction novel, titled ''The Walking Boy'', by Lydia Kwa was published in 2005 by Key Porter Books, Canada.

Notes and references

* ''Book of Tang'', vol. 6.

* ''New Book of Tang'', vols. 4, 76.

* ''Zizhi Tongjian'', vols. , , , , , , , , , , .

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period

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Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms was an era of political upheaval in China, beginning in the Tang Dynasty and ending in the . During this period, five dynasties quickly succeeded one another in the north, and more than 12 independent states were established, mainly in the south. However, only ten are traditionally listed, hence the era's name, "Ten Kingdoms." Some historians, such as Bo Yang, count 11, including and , but not Northern Han, viewing it as simply a continuation of Later Han.

The Five Dynasties:

* Later Liang Dynasty

* Later Tang Dynasty

*

*

* Later Zhou Dynasty

The Ten Kingdoms: , Wuyue, , , Southern Han, Former Shu, Later Shu, Jingnan, Southern Tang, Northern Han.

Other regimes: , , Chengde Jiedushi , Yiwu Jiedushi, Dingnan Jiedushi, Wuping Jiedushi, Qingyuan Jiedushi, , , , .

Background

Towards the end of the Tang Dynasty, the imperial government granted increased powers to the ''jiedushi'', the regional military governors. The weakened the imperial government's authority, and by the early 10th century the jiedushi, who commanded ''de facto'' independence, were not subject to the authority of the imperial government. Thus, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms ensued.

The following were important jiedushi:

North China

* at Bianzhou , precursor to Later Liang Dynasty

* Li Keyong and Li Cunxu at Taiyuan , precursor to Later Tang Dynasty

* Liu Rengong and Liu Shouguang at Youzhou , precursor to

* Li Maozhen at Fengxiang , precursor to

* Luo Shaowei at Weibo

* Wang Rong at Zhenzhou

* Wang Chuzhi at Dingzhou

South China

* Yang Xingmi at Yangzhou , precursor to

* Qian Liu at Hangzhou , precursor to Wuyue

* Ma Yin at Tanzhou , precursor to

* Wang Shenzhi at Fuzhou , precursor to

* at Guangzhou , precursor to Southern Han

* at Chengdu , precursor to Former Shu

Northern China

Later Liang Dynasty

During the Liang Dynasty, the warlord held the most power in northern China. Although he was originally a member of Huang Chao's rebel army, he took on a crucial role in suppressing the Huang Chao Rebellion. For this function, he was awarded the Xuanwu Jiedushi title. Within a few years, he had consolidated his power by destroying neighbours and forcing the move of the imperial capital to Luoyang , which was within his region of influence. In 904, he executed and made his 13-year-old son a subordinate ruler. Three years later, he induced the boy emperor to abdicate in his favour. He then proclaimed himself emperor, thus beginning the Later Liang Dynasty.

After his death, his son ruled. Zhū Zhèn, a cowardly man who disdained responsibility, left the kingdom to avoid kingship.

Later Tang Dynasty

During the Tang Dynasty, rival warlords declared independence in their governing provinces — not all of whom recognized the emperor's authority. Li Cunxu and Liu Shouguang fiercely fought the regime forces to conquer northern China; Li Cunxu succeeded. He defeated Liu Shouguang in 915, and declared himself emperor in 923; within a few months, he brought down the Later Liang regime. Thus began the Later Tang Dynasty—the first in a long line of conquest dynasties. After reuniting much of northern China, Cunxu conquered Former Shu in 925, a regime that had been set up in Sichuan.

Later Jin Dynasty

The Later Tang Dynasty had a few years of relative calm, followed by unrest. In 934, Sichuan again asserted independence. In 936, , a jiedushi from Taiyuan, was aided by the Manchurian Khitan Empire in a rebellion against the dynasty. In return for their aid, Shi Jingtang promised annual tribute and 16 prefectures in the Youyun area to the Khitans. The rebellion succeeded; Shi Jingtang became emperor in this same year.

Not long after the Jin Dynasty's founding, the Khitans regarded the emperor as a proxy ruler for China proper. In 943, they declared war on this kingdom, and within three years seized the capital, Kaifeng—thus marking the end of Later Jin Dynasty. But, although they had conquered vast regions of China, they were unable or unwilling to control those regions and retreated from them early in the next year.

Later Han Dynasty

To fill the power vacuum, the ''jiedushi'' Liu Zhiyuan entered the imperial capital in 947, and proclaimed the advent of the , establishing a third successive dynasty. This was the shortest of the five dynasties; following a coup in 951, General Guo Wei, a Han Chinese, was enthroned, thus beginning the Later Zhou Dynasty. However, Liu Chong, a member of the Later Han imperial family, established a rival Northern Han regime in Taiyuan, and requested Khitan aid to defeat Later Han.

Later Zhou Dynasty

After the death of Guo Wei in 951, his adopted son Chai Rong succeeded the throne and began a policy of expansion and reunification. In 954, his army defeated combined Khitan and Northern Han forces, ending their ambition of toppling the Later Zhou dynasty. Between 956 and 958, forces of Later Zhou conquered much of Southern Tang, the most powerful regime in southern China, which ceded all the territory north of the Yangtze River in defeat. In 959, Chai Rong attacked the Khitan Empire in an attempt to recover territories ceded during the Later Jin Dynasty. After many victories, he succumbed to illness.

In 960, the general Zhao Kuangyin staged a coup and took the throne for himself, founding the Northern Song Dynasty. This is the official end of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. During the next two decades, Zhao Kuangyin and his successor defeated the other remaining regimes in China proper, conquering Northern Han in 979, and reunifying China completely in 982.

Northern Han

Though considered one of the ten kingdoms, the Northern Han was based in the traditional stronghold of Shanxi. It was created after the last of three dynasties created by Shatuo Turks fell to the Han-governed Later Zhou Dynasty in 951. With the protection of the powerful , the Northern Han maintained nominal independence until the Song Dynasty wrested it from the Khitan in 979.

Southern China: The Ten Kingdoms

Unlike the dynasties of northern China, which succeeded one other in rapid succession, the regimes of southern China were generally concurrent, each controlling a specific geographical area. These were known as "The Ten Kingdoms".

Wu

The Kingdom of was established in modern-day Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi provinces. It was founded by Yang Xingmi, who became a Tang Dynasty military governor in 892. The capital was initially at Guangling and later moved to Jinling . The kingdom fell in 937 when it was taken from within by the founder of the Southern Tang.

Wuyue

The Kingdom of Wuyue was the longest-lived and among the most powerful of the southern states. Wuyue was known for its learning and culture. It was founded by Qian Liu, who set up his capital at Xifu . It was based mostly in modern Zhejiang province but also held parts of southern Jiangsu. Qian Liu was named the Prince of Yue by the emperor in 902; the Prince of Wu was added in 904. After the fall of the Tang Dynasty in 907, he declared himself king of Wuyue. Wuyue survived until the eighteenth year of the Song Dynasty, when Qian Shu surrendered to the expanding dynasty.

Min

The Kingdom of Min was founded by Wang Shenzhi, who named himself the Prince of Min in 909 after the fall of the Tang Dynasty. It was not until his son formally declared himself the Emperor of Min in 933 that Shenzhi was posthumously named as the founding emperor. It was located in Fujian with its capital at Changle . One of Shenzhi’s sons proclaimed the independent state of Yin in the northeast of Min territory. The Southern Tang took that territory after the Min asked for help. Despite declaring loyalty to the neighboring Wuyue, the Southern Tang finished its conquest of Min in 945.

Southern Han

The Southern Han was founded in Guangzhou by Liu Yan. His father, Liu Yin, was named regional governor by the court. The kingdom included Guangdong and most of Guangxi.

Chu

The was founded by Ma Yin with the capital at Changsha. The kingdom held Hunan and northeastern Guangxi. Ma was named regional military governor by the court in 896, and named himself the Prince of Chu with the fall of the Tang Dynasty in 907. This status as the Prince of Chu was confirmed by the Later Tang Dynasty in 927. The Southern Tang absorbed the state in 951 and moved the royal family to its capital in Nanjing, although Southern Tang rule of the region was temporary, as the next year former Chu military officers under the leadership of seized the territory. In the waning years of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the region was ruled by Zhou Xingfeng.

Jingnan

The smallest of the southern states, Jingnan , was founded by Gao Jichang. It was based in Jiangling and held two other districts southwest of present-day Wuhan in Hubei. Gao was in the service of the Later Liang Dynasty . Gao’s successors claimed the title of King of Nanping after the fall of the Later Liang in 924. It was a small and weak kingdom, and thus tried to maintain good relations with each of the Five Dynasties. The kingdom fell to advancing armies of the Song Dynasty in 963.

Former Shu

The Kingdom of was founded after the fall of the Tang Dynasty by Wang Jian, who held his court in Chengdu. The kingdom held most of present-day Sichuan, western Hubei, and parts of southern Gansu and Shaanxi. Wang was named military governor of western Sichuan by the court in 891. The kingdom fell when his incompetent son surrendered in the face of an advance by the Later Tang Dynasty in 925.

Later Shu

The Later Shu is essentially a resurrection of the previous Shu state that had fallen a decade earlier to the Later Tang Dynasty. Because the was in decline, Meng Zhixiang found the opportunity to reassert Shu’s independence. Like the Former Shu, the capital was at Chengdu and it basically controlled the same territory as its predecessor. The kingdom was ruled well until forced to succumb to armies in 965.

Southern Tang

The Southern Tang was the successor state of as took the state over from within in 937. Expanding from the original domains of , it eventually took over Yin, Min, and Chu, holding present-day southern Anhui, southern Jiangsu, much of Jiangxi, Hunan, and eastern Hubei at its height. The kingdom became nominally subordinate to the expanding Song Dynasty in 961 and was invaded outright in 975, when it was formally absorbed into the Song Dynasty.

Transitions between kingdoms

Although more stable than northern China as a whole, southern China was also torn apart by warfare. quarrelled with its neighbours, a trend that continued as Wu was replaced with Southern Tang. In the 940s and underwent internal crises which Southern Tang handily took advantage of, destroying Min in 945 and Chu in 951. Remnants of Min and Chu, however, survived in the form of Qingyuan Jiedushi and Wuping Jiedushi for many years after. With this, Southern Tang became the undisputedly most powerful regime in southern China. However, it was unable to defeat incursions by the Later Zhou Dynasty between 956 and 958, and ceded all of its land north of the Yangtze River.

The Northern Song Dynasty, established in 960, was determined to reunify China. Jingnan and were swept away in 963, Later Shu in 965, Southern Han in 971, and Southern Tang in 975. Finally, Wuyue and gave up their land to Northern Song in 978, bringing all of southern China under the control of the central government.

List of Sovereigns

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

**Sovereigns in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period**
Temple Names	Posthumous Names	Personal Names	Period of Reign	s and their according range of years
Five Dynasties
''* note the naming convention: name of dynasty + temple name or posthumous name , which makes ''後漢高祖
Later Liang Dynasty 後梁 ''Hòu Liáng'' 907-923
Tài Zǔ 太祖	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	朱溫	907-912	Kāipíng 開平 Qiánhuà 乾化
Did not exist	Mò Dì 末帝	朱瑱	913-923	Qiánhuà 乾化 Zhēnmíng 貞明 Lóngdé 龍德
Later Tang Dynasty 後唐 ''Hòu Táng'' 923-936
Zhuāng Zōng 莊宗	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	李存勗	923-926	Tóngguāng 同光
Míng Zōng 明宗	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	李嗣源 ''or'' Lǐ Dǎn 李亶	926-933	Tiānchéng 天成 Chángxīng 長興
Did not exist	Mǐn Dì 節閔帝	李從厚	933-934	Yìngshùn 應順
Did not exist	Mò Dì 末帝	李從珂	934-936	Qīngtài 清泰
後晉 ''Hòu Jìn'' 936-947
Gāo Zǔ 高祖	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	石敬瑭	936-942	Tiānfú 天福
Did not exist	Chū Dì 出帝	石重貴	942-947	Tiānfú 天福 Kāiyùn 開運
後漢 ''Hòu Hàn'' 936-947
Gāo Zǔ 高祖	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	劉知遠	947-948	Tiānfú 天福 Qiányòu 乾祐
Did not exist	Yǐn Dì 隱帝	劉承祐	948-950	Qiányòu 乾祐
Later Zhou Dynasty 後周 ''Hòu Zhōu'' 951-960
Tài Zǔ 太祖	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	郭威	951-954	Guǎngshùn 廣順 Xiǎndé 顯德
Shì Zōng 世宗	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	柴榮	954-959	Xiǎndé 顯德
Did not exist	Gōng Dì 恭帝	柴宗訓	959-960	Xiǎndé 顯德
Ten Kingdoms
''note the naming convention: use the personal names unless otherwise stated''
Wuyue Kingdom 吳越 904-978
Tài Zǔ 太祖	Wǔsù Wáng 武肅王	錢鏐	904-932	Tiānbǎo 908-923 Bǎodà 923-925 Bǎozhèng 925-932
Shìzōng	Wénmù Wáng 文穆王	錢元瓘	932-941	Did not exist
Chéngzōng 成宗	Zhōngxiàn Wáng 忠獻王	錢佐	941-947	Did not exist
Did not exist	Zhōngxùn Wáng 忠遜王	錢倧	947	Did not exist
Did not exist	Zhōngyì Wáng 忠懿王	錢俶	947-978	Did not exist
Kingdom 閩 909-945 including Kingdom 殷 943-945
Tàizǔ 太祖	Zhōngyì Wáng 忠懿王	王審知	909-925	Did not exist
Did not exist	Did not exist	王延翰	925-926	Did not exist
Tàizōng 太宗	Huìdì 惠帝	王延鈞	926-935	Lóngqǐ 933-935 Yǒnghé 935
Kāngzōng	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	王繼鵬	935-939	Tōngwén 936-939
Jǐngzōng	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	王延羲	939-944	Yǒnglóng 939-944
Did not exist	Tiāndé Dì	王延政	943-945	Tiāndé 943-945
Jingnan 荊南 or Nanping 南平 Kingdom 906-963
Did not exist	Wǔxìn Wáng 武信王	高季興	909-928	Did not exist
Did not exist	Wénxiàn Wáng 文獻王	高從誨	928-948	Did not exist
Did not exist	Zhēnyì Wáng 貞懿王	高寶融	948-960	Did not exist
Did not exist	Shìzhōng 侍中	高寶勗	960-962	Did not exist
Did not exist	Did not exist	高繼沖	962-963	Did not exist
Kingdom 楚 897-951
Did not exist	Wǔmù Wáng 武穆王	馬殷	897-930	Did not exist
Did not exist	Héngyáng Wáng 衡陽王	馬希聲	930-932	Did not exist
Did not exist	Wénzhāo Wáng 文昭王	馬希範	932-947	Did not exist
Did not exist	Fèi Wáng 廢王	馬希廣	947-950	Did not exist
Did not exist	Gōngxiào Wáng 恭孝王	馬希萼	950	Did not exist
Did not exist	Did not exist	馬希崇	950-951	Did not exist
Kingdom 吳 904-937
Tài Zǔ 太祖	Xiàowǔ Dì 孝武帝	楊行密	904-905	Tiānyòu 904-905
Liè Zōng 烈宗	Jǐng Dì 景帝	楊渥	905-908	Tiānyòu 905-908
Gāo Zǔ 高祖	Xuān Dì 宣帝	楊隆演	908-921	Tiānyòu 908-919 Wǔyì 919-921
Did not exist	Ruì Dì 睿帝	楊溥	921-937	Shùnyì 921-927 Qiánzhēn 927-929 Dàhé 929-935 Tiānzuò 935-937
Southern Tang Kingdom 南唐 937-975
''Convention'' for this kingdom only '': Nan Tang + posthumous names.'' Hòu Zhǔ was referred to as Lǐ Hòuzhǔ 李後主.
Xiān Zhǔ 先主 or Liè Zǔ 烈祖	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	李昪	937-943	Shēngyuán 937-943
Zhōng Zhǔ 中主 or Yuán Zōng 元宗	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	李璟	943-961	Bǎodà 943-958 Jiāotài 958 Zhōngxīng 958
後主	Wǔ Wáng 武王	Lǐ Yù 李煜	961-975	Did not exist
Southern Han Kingdom 南漢 917-971
Gāo Zǔ 高祖	Tiān Huáng Dà Dì 天皇大帝	劉龑	917-925	Qiánhēng 917-925 Báilóng 925-928 Dàyǒu 928-941
Did not exist	Shāng Dì 殤帝	劉玢	941-943	Guāngtiān 941-943
Zhōng Zōng 中宗	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	劉晟	943-958	Yìngqián 943 Qiánhé 943-958
Hòu Zhǔ 後主	Did not exist	劉鋹	958-971	Dàbǎo 958-971
Bei Han Kingdom 951-979
Shi Zu\|世祖 shi4 zu3	Shen Wu Di\|神武帝 shen2 wu3 di4	Liu Min\|劉旻 liu3 min2	951-954	Qianyou 951-954
Rui Zong\|睿宗 rui4 zong1	Xiao He Di\|孝和帝 xiao4 he2 di4	Liu Cheng Jun\|劉承鈞 liu3 cheng2 jun1	954-970	Qianyou 954-957 Tianhui 957-970
Shao Zhu\|少主 shao4 zhu3	Did not exist	Liu Ji En\|劉繼恩 liu3 ji4 en1	970	Did not exist
Did not exist	Ying Wu Di\|英武帝 ying1 wu3 di4	Liu Ji Yuan\|劉繼元 liu3 ji4 yuan2	970-982	Guangyun 970-982
Qian Shu Kingdom 907 - 925
Gao Zu\|高祖 gao1 zu3	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	Wang Jian\|王建 wang2 jian4	907-918	Tianfu 907 Wucheng 908-910 Yongping 911-915 Tongzheng 916 Tianhan 917 Guangtian 918
Hou Zhu\|後主 hou4 zhu3	Did not exist	Wang Yan\|王衍 wang2 yan3	918-925	Qiande 918-925 Xiankang 925
Hou Shu Kingdom 934 - 965
Gao Zu\|高祖 gao1 zu3	Too tedious thus not used when referring to this sovereign	Meng Zhi Xiang\|孟知祥 meng4 zhi1 xiang2	934	Mingde 934
Hou Zhu\|後主 hou4 zhu3	Did not exist	Meng Chang\|孟昶 meng4 chang3	938-965	Mingde 934-938 Guangzheng 938-965

Other regimes

**Local independent regimes during Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period but traditionally not counted in the Ten Kingdoms**
Name of Posts	Personal Names	Period on post
Wuping jiedu\|節度 950-963
Wuping jiedushi\|武平節度使 Wǔpíng jíedùshǐ	Liú Yán\|劉言	950-953
Wuping jiedushi\|武平節度使 Wǔpíng jíedùshǐ	Wáng Kuí\|王逵 or Wáng Jìnkuí\|王進逵	953-956
Wuping jiedushi\|武平節度使 Wǔpíng jíedùshǐ	Zhōu Xíngféng\|周行逢	956-962
Wuping jiedushi\|武平節度使 Wǔpíng jíedùshǐ	Zhōu Bǎoquán\|周保權	962-963
Qingyuan jiedu\|節度 945-978
Qingyuan jiedushi\|清源節度使 Qīngyuán jíedùshǐ	Liú Cóngxiào\|留從效	945-962
Qingyuan jiedushi\|清源節度使 Qīngyuán jíedùshǐ	Liú Shàozī\|留紹鎡	962
Qingyuan jiedushi\|清源節度使 Qīngyuán jíedùshǐ	Zhāng Hànsī\|張漢思	962-963
Qingyuan jiedushi\|清源節度使 Qīngyuán jíedùshǐ	Chén Hóngjìn\|陳洪進	963-978

Popular culture

* The 2006 Chinese film by director Feng Xiaogang is set in this period. However, it has no historical accuracy, nor does it claim to have any.

Song Dynasty

2008-09-04T01:04:00.003-07:00

The Song Dynasty was a ruling in China between 960–1279 CE; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese polity to establish .

The population of China doubled in size during the 10th and 11th centuries. This growth came through expanded rice cultivation in central and southern China, the use of early-ripening rice from southeast and southern Asia, and the production of abundant food surpluses. Within its borders, the Northern Song Dynasty had a population of some 100 million people. After two decades of sporadic warfare, Kublai Khan's armies conquered the Song Dynasty in 1279. China was once again unified, under the Yuan Dynasty, which was a division of the vast Mongol Empire.

Social life during the Song was vibrant; social elites gathered to view and trade precious artworks, the populace intermingled at public festivals and private clubs and cities had lively entertainment quarters. The spread of literature and knowledge was enhanced by the earlier innovation of woodblock printing and the 11th century innovation of . There were numerous intellectual pursuits, while pre-modern technology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished in the Song. The spinning wheel appears in one of its earliest representations.

Philosophers such as and Zhu Xi reinvigorated Confucianism with new commentary, infused with ideals, and emphasized a new organization of classic texts that brought out the core doctrine of Neo-Confucianism. Although the institution of the had existed since the Sui Dynasty, it became much more prominent in the Song period, and was a leading factor in the shift of an aristocratic elite to a bureaucratic elite. Although exam-drafted scorned any emphasis or favor shown to the growing merchant class and those of petty commercial vocations, commercialism was nonetheless heavily embedded into Song culture and society.

Key industries were controlled by the government under strict , while private industry and businesses produced goods and services not officially monopolized by the state. The Song court received tributary missions from foreign countries while scholar-officials, tenant landlords, merchants, and other wealthy individuals invested money in the booming overseas trade and shipbuilding industry. Independent, state-sponsored, and state-employed architects, engineers, carpenters, and craftsmen erected thousands of bridges, , temple halls, palace halls, , shops and storefronts, and other buildings throughout the empire.

History

Northern Song

Emperor Taizu of Song unified China through military conquest during his reign, ending the upheaval of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. In Kaifeng, he established a strong central government over the empire. He ensured administrative stability by promoting the system of drafting state bureaucrats by skill and merit and promoted projects that ensured efficiency in communication throughout the empire. One such project was the creation by s of detailed maps of each province and city which were then collected in a large atlas. He also promoted groundbreaking science and technological innovations by supporting such works as the clock tower designed and built by the engineer Zhang Sixun.

The Song court upheld foreign relations with , , , the Kara-Khanid Khanate of Central Asia, and other countries that were also trade partners. However, it was China's closest neighboring states who would have the biggest impact upon its domestic and foreign policy. From its inception with the first emperor Taizu, the Song Dynasty alternated between warfare and diplomacy with the ethnic s of the Liao Dynasty in the northeast and with the Tanguts of the Western Xia Dynasty in the northwest. The Song Dynasty used military force in an attempt to quell the Liao Dynasty and recapture the Sixteen Prefectures, a territory under Khitan control that was traditionally considered to be part of the Chinese domain. However, Song forces were repulsed by the Liao forces who engaged in aggressive yearly campaigns into northern Song territory until 1005 when the signing of the Shanyuan Treaty ended these northern frontier border clashes. The Chinese were forced to pay heavy tribute to the Khitans, although the paying of this tribute did little damage to the overall Song economy since the Khitans were heavily dependent upon importing massive amounts of goods from the Song Dynasty. More significantly, the Song state recognized the Liao state as its diplomatic equal. The Song Dynasty managed to win several military victories over the Tanguts in the early 11th century, culminating in a campaign led by the polymath scientist, general, and statesman Shen Kuo . However, this campaign was ultimately a failure due to a rival military officer of Shen disobeying direct orders, and the territory gained from the Western Xia was eventually lost. There was also a significant war fought against the L& of Vietnam from 1075 to 1077 over a frontier border dispute and the Song's severing of commercial relations with the & kingdom. After Lý forces inflicted heavy damages in a raid of Guangxi, the Song commander Guo Kui led a combined force from China, the Khmer Empire, and Champa that penetrated as far as Thăng Long . However, heavy losses on both sides prompted the Lý commander Thường Kiệt to make peace overtures, allowing both sides to withdraw from the war effort; captured territories held by both Song and Lý were mutually exchanged in 1082, along with prisoners of war.

During the 11th century, political rivalries thoroughly divided members of the court due to the ministers' differing approaches, opinions, and policies regarding the handling of the Song's complex society and thriving economy. The idealist Fan Zhongyan was the first to receive a heated political backlash when he attempted to make such reforms as improving the recruitment system of officials, increasing the salaries for minor officials, and establishing sponsorship programs to allow a wider range of people to be well educated and eligible for state service. After Fan was forced to step down from his office, Wang Anshi became chancellor of the imperial court. With the backing of Emperor Shenzong of Song , Wang Anshi severely criticized the educational system and state bureaucracy. Seeking to resolve what he saw as state corruption and negligence, Wang implemented a series of reforms called the New Policies. These involved land tax reform, the establishment of several government monopolies, the support of local militias, and the creation of higher standards for the Imperial examination to make it more practical for men skilled in statecraft to pass. The reforms created political factions in the court with Wang Anshi's New Policies Group , or the 'Reformers' in one camp, opposed by the ministers in the 'Conservative' faction led by the historian and Chancellor Sima Guang in the other. As one faction supplanted another in the majority position of the court ministers, it would demote rival officials and exile them to govern remote frontier regions of the empire. The Song official Tong Guan advised the reigning Emperor Huizong of Song to form an alliance with the Jurchens and their joint military campaign toppled and completely conquered the Liao Dynasty by 1125. However, the poor performance and military weakness of the Song army was observed by the Jurchens, who immediately broke the alliance with the Song and launched an invasion into Song territory in 1125 and another in 1127 when the Jurchens managed to capture not only the Song capital at Kaifeng, but the retired emperor Huizong and the succeeding Emperor Qinzong of Song as well as most of his court. To protect and support the multitudes of ships sailing for maritime interests into the waters of the East China Sea and Yellow Sea , Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea, it was a necessity to establish an official standing navy. The Song Dynasty therefore established China's first permanent navy in 1132, With a permanent navy, the Song were prepared to face the naval forces of the Jin on the Yangtze River in 1161, in the Battle of Tangdao and the Battle of Caishi. During these battles the Song navy employed swift naval crafts armed with aboard the decks that launched gunpowder bombs. the Song Dynasty forces were victorious in both battles due to the destructive power of the bombs and the rapid assaults by paddle wheel ships. The strength of the navy was heavily emphasized after that. A century after the navy was founded it had grown in size to 52,000 fighting marines. Financial matters were made worse by the fact that many wealthy, land-owning families—some which had officials working for the government—used their social connections with those in office in order to obtain tax-exempt status.

Although the Song Dynasty was able to hold back the Jin, a new considerable foe came to power over the steppe, deserts, and plains north of the Jin Dynasty. The Mongols, led by Genghis Khan , initially invaded the Jin Dynasty in 1205 and 1209, engaging in large raids across its borders, and in 1211 an enormous Mongol army was assembled to invade the Jin. The Jin Dynasty was forced to submit and pay tribute to the Mongols as vassals; when the Jin suddenly moved their capital city from Beijing to Kaifeng, the Mongols saw this as a revolt. Under the leadership of & , both the Jin Dynasty and Western Xia Dynasty were conquered by Mongol forces. Mongke's death and succession crisis prompted Hulagu Khan to pull the bulk of Mongol forces out of the Middle East where they were poised to fight the . Although Hulagu was allied with Kublai Khan, his forces were unable to help in the assault against the Song, due to Hulagu's war with the Golden Horde.

Although Mongke died, Kublai continued the assault against the Song, gaining a temporary foothold on the southern banks of the Yangzi. Kublai made preparations to take Ezhou, but a pending civil war with his brother Ariq B& — a rival claimant to the Mongol Khaganate — forced Kublai to move with the bulk of his forces back north. In Kublai's absence, the Song forces were ordered by Chancellor Jia Sidao to make an opportune assault, and succeeded in pushing the Mongol forces back to the northern banks of the Yangzi. There were minor border skirmishes until 1265, when Kublai won a significant battle in Sichuan. From 1268 to 1273, Kublai blockaded the Yangzi River with his navy and , the last obstacle in his way to invading the rich Yangzi River basin. By 1276, most of the Song Chinese territory had been captured by Yuan forces. On Kublai's orders carried out by his commander Bayan, the rest of the former imperial family of Song were unharmed; the deposed was given the title 'Duke of Ying' but was eventually exiled to Tibet where he took up a monastic life.

Society and culture

The Song Dynasty was an era of administrative sophistication and complex social organization. Some of the largest cities in the world were found in China during this period . People enjoyed various social clubs and entertainments in the cities, and there were numerous schools and temples to provide the public with education and religious services. The central government employed thousands of postal workers of various ranks and responsibilities to provide service for post offices and larger postal stations. In rural areas, farming peasants either , paid rents as tenant farmers, or were serfs on large estates.

Although women were on a lower social tier than men , they enjoyed many social and legal privileges and wielded considerable power at home and in their own small businesses. As Song society became more and more prosperous and parents on the bride's side of the family provided larger for her marriage, women naturally gained many new legal rights in ownership of property. There were many notable and well-educated women and it was a common practice for women to educate their sons during their earliest youth. The mother of the scientist, general, diplomat, and statesman Shen Kuo taught him essentials of military strategy.

Religion in China during this period had a great effect on people's lives, beliefs and daily activities, and Chinese literature on spirituality was popular. The major deities of Daoism and Buddhism, and the many deities of Chinese folk religion were worshiped with sacrificial offerings. Tansen Sen asserts that more from India traveled to China during the Song than in the previous Tang Dynasty . With many ethnic foreigners traveling to China to conduct trade or live permanently, there came many foreign religions; religious minorities in China included , the Kaifeng Jews, and .

The populace engaged in a vibrant social and domestic life, enjoying such public festivals as the Lantern Festival or the Qingming Festival. The were entertainment quarters in the cities provided a constant array of amusements. There were puppeteers, acrobats, theater actors, sword swallowers, snake charmers, , singers and musicians, prostitutes, and places to relax including tea houses, restaurants, and organized banquets. People attended social clubs in large numbers; there were tea clubs, exotic food clubs, antiquarian and art collectors' clubs, horse-loving clubs, poetry clubs and music clubs. was very popular amongst the elite and general populace, although Classical Chinese—not —was spoken by actors on stage. The four largest drama theatres in Kaifeng could hold audiences of several thousand each. There were also notable domestic pastimes, as people at home enjoyed activities such as the go board game and the xiangqi board game.

Civil service examinations and the gentry

During this period greater emphasis was laid upon the civil service system of recruiting officials; this was based upon degrees acquired through competitive , in an effort to select the most capable individuals for governance. Selecting men for office through proven merit . The civil service system became institutionalized on a small scale during the and dynasties, but by the Song period it became virtually the only means for drafting officials into the government. The advent of widespread printing helped to widely circulate Confucian teachings and to educate more and more eligible candidates for the exams. Robert Hartwell and Robert P. Hymes criticized this model, stating that it places too much emphasis on the role of the nuclear family and demonstrates only three paternal ascendants of exam candidates while ignoring the demographic reality of Song China, the significant proportion of males in each generation that had no surviving sons, and the role of the extended family. At the beginning of the dynasty, government posts were disproportionately held by two elite social groups: a founding elite who had ties with the founding emperor and a semi-hereditary professional elite who used long-held clan status, and marriage alliances to secure appointments. By the late 11th century, the founding elite became obsolete while political partisanship and factionalism at court undermined the marriage strategies of the professional elite, which dissolved as a distinguishable social group and was replaced by a multitude of gentry families.

Due to China's enormous population growth and the body of its appointed scholar-officials being accepted in limited size , the larger scholarly would now take over grassroots affairs on the vast local level. Excluding the scholar-officials in office, this elite social class consisted of exam candidates, examination degree-holders not yet assigned to an official post, local tutors, and retired officials. These learned men, degree-holders, and local elites supervised local affairs and sponsored necessary facilities of local communities; any local magistrate appointed to his office by the government relied upon the cooperation of the few or many local gentry elites in the area. This limited role of government officials was a departure from the earlier Tang Dynasty , when the government strictly regulated commercial markets and local affairs; now the government withdrew heavily from regulating commerce and relied upon a mass of local gentry to perform necessary duties in local communities. while the homes of prominent landholders attracted a variety of courtiers including artisans, artists, educational tutors, and entertainers. Despite the disdain for trade, commerce, and the merchant class exhibited by the highly cultured and elite exam-drafted scholar-officials, commercialism played a prominent role in Song culture and society.

Law, justice, and forensic science

The Song retained most of the legal code of the earlier Tang Dynasty, the basis of traditional Chinese law up until the modern era. Roving sheriffs maintained law and order in the municipal juridsictions and occasionally ventured into the countryside. Official magistrates overseeing court cases were not only expected to be well-versed in written law but also to promote morality in society. Due to costly court expenses and immediate jailing of those accused of criminal offenses, people in the Song preferred to settle disputes and quarrels privately, without the court's interference. The physician and judge known as Song Ci wrote a pioneering work of forensic science on the examination of corpses in order to determine cause of death and to prove whether death resulted from murder, suicide, or accidental death. Song Ci stressed the importance of proper coroner's conduct during autopsies and the accurate recording of the inquest of each autopsy by official clerks.

Military and methods of warfare

Although the scholar-officials viewed as lower members in the hierarchic social order, a person could gain status and prestige in society by becoming a high ranking military officer with a record of victorious battles. At its height, the Song military had one million soldiers Song cavalry employed a slew of different weapons, including halberds, swords, bows, spears, and 'fire lances' that discharged a gunpowder blast of flame and shrapnel.

Military strategy and military training were treated as science that could be studied and perfected; soldiers were tested in their skills of using weaponry and in their athletic ability. The troops were trained to follow signal standards to advance at the waving of banners and to halt at the sound of bells and drums.

The Song navy was of great importance during the consolidation of the empire in the 10th century; during the war against the Southern Tang state the Song navy employed tactics such as defending large floating pontoon bridges across the in order to secure movements of troops and supplies. There were large naval ships in the Song that could carry 1,000 soldiers aboard their decks, while the swift-moving were viewed as essential fighting ships in any successful naval battle.

In a battle on January 23, 971, a mass of arrow fire from Song Dynasty crossbowmen decimated the war elephant corps of the Southern Han army. This defeat not only marked the eventual submission of the Southern Han to the Song Dynasty, but also the last instance where a war elephant corps was employed as a regular division within a Chinese army. However, only a handful of these military treatises have survived, which includes the ''Wujing Zongyao'' written in 1044. It was the first known book to have listed formulas for gunpowder; it gave appropriate formulas for use in several different kinds of gunpowder bombs. It also provided detailed description and illustrations of double-piston pump flamethrowers, as well as instructions for the maintenance and repair of the components and equipment used in the device.

Arts, literature, and philosophy

The visual arts during the Song Dynasty were heightened by new developments such as advances in landscape and portrait painting. The gentry elite engaged in the arts as accepted pastimes of the cultured scholar-official, including , composing , and writing . The poet and statesman Su Shi and his associate Mi Fu enjoyed antiquarian affairs, often borrowing or buying art pieces to study and copy. Although an early form of the local geographic gazetteer existed in China since the 1st century, the matured form known as "treatise on a place", or ''fangzhi'', replaced the old "map guide", or ''tujing'', during the Song Dynasty.

The imperial courts of the emperor's palace were filled with his entourage of court painters, calligraphers, poets, and storytellers. was a renowned artist as well as a patron of the arts. A prime example of a highly venerated court painter was Zhang Zeduan who painted an enormous panoramic painting, ''Along the River During the Qingming Festival''. Emperor Gaozong of Song initiated a massive art project during his reign, known as the ''Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute'' from the life story of Cai Wenji . This art project was a diplomatic gesture to the Jin Dynasty while he negotiated for the release of his mother from Jurchen captivity in the north.

In , Chinese Buddhism had waned in influence but it retained its hold on the arts and on the charities of monasteries. Buddhism had a profound influence upon the budding movement of Neo-Confucianism, led by and Zhu Xi . while Buddhist metaphysics had a deep impact upon the pre–Neo-Confucian doctrine of Cheng Yi. The philosophical work of Cheng Yi in turn influenced Zhu Xi. Although his writings were not accepted by his contemporary peers, Zhu's commentary and emphasis upon the Confucian classics of the Four Books as an introductory corpus to Confucian learning formed the basis of the Neo-Confucian doctrine. By the year 1241, under the sponsorship of , Zhu Xi's Four Books and his commentary on them became standard requirements of study for students attempting to pass the civil service examinations. The East Asian countries of Japan and Korea also adopted Zhu Xi's teaching, known as the Shushigaku of Japan, and in Korea the Jujahak . Buddhism's continuing influence can be seen in painted artwork such as Lin Tinggui's '' Laundering''. However, the ideology was highly criticized and even scorned by some. The statesman and historian Ouyang Xiu called the religion a "curse" that could only be remedied by uprooting it from and replacing it with Confucian discourse. Buddhism would not see a true revival in Chinese society until the Mongol rule of the Yuan Dynasty, with Kublai Khan's sponsorship of Tibetan Buddhism and Drog& as the leading lama. The sect of Nestorianism — which had entered China in the Tang era — would also be revived in China under Mongol rule.

Cuisine and apparel

The food that one consumed and the clothes that one wore in Song China were largely dictated by one's status and social class. The main food staples in the diet of the lower classes remained rice, pork, and salted fish; Pant trousers were the acceptable form of attire for farming peasants, soldiers, artisans, and merchants, although wealthy merchants chose to flaunt more ornate clothing and male blouses that came down below the waist.

Women in the Song period wore long dresses, blouses that came down to the knee, skirts and jackets with long or short sleeves, while women from wealthy families could wear purple around their shoulders.

There is a multitude of existing restaurant and tavern menus and listed entrées for feasts, banquets, festivals, and carnivals during the Song period, all of which reveal a very diverse and lavish diet for those of the upper class. In their meals they could choose from a wide variety of meats, including shrimp, geese, duck, mussel, shellfish, fallow deer, hare, partridge, pheasant, francolin, quail, fox, badger, clam, crab, and many others. Dairy products were absent from Chinese cuisine and culture altogether, beef was rarely consumed since the was a valuable draft animal, and dog meat was absent from the diet of the wealthy, although the poor could choose to eat dog meat if necessary . People also consumed s, raisins, jujubes, pears, plums, apricots, pear juice, lychee-fruit juice, honey and ginger drinks, pawpaw juice, spices and seasonings of Sichuan pepper, ginger, pimento, soy sauce, , sesame oil, salt, and vinegar. The common diet of the poor was pork, salted fish, and rice.

Economy, industry, and trade

The economy of the Song Dynasty was one of the most prosperous and advanced economies in the medieval world. Song Chinese invested their funds in and in multiple sailing vessels at a time when monetary gain was assured from the vigorous overseas trade and indigenous trade along the and Yangzi River. Prominent merchant families and private businesses were allowed to occupy industries that were not already government-operated . Both artisans and merchants formed guilds which the state had to deal with when assessing taxes, requisitioning goods, and setting standard worker's wages and prices on goods.

The iron industry was pursued by both private entrepreneurs who owned their own smelters as well as government-supervised smelting facilities. The Song economy was stable enough to produce over a hundred million kg of iron product a year. Large scale deforestation in China would have continued if not for the 11th century innovation of the use of coal instead of charcoal in blast furnaces for smelting cast iron. Much of this iron was reserved for military use in crafting weapons and armoring troops, but some was used to fashion the many iron products needed to fill the demands of the growing indigenous market. The iron trade within China was furthered by the building of new canals which aided the flow of iron products from production centers to the large market found in the capital city.

The annual output of minted copper currency in 1085 alone reached roughly six billion coins. The most notable advancement in the Song economy was the establishment of the world's first government issued paper-printed money, known as . The size of the workforce employed in paper money factories was large; it was recorded in 1175 that the factory at Hangzhou employed more than a thousand workers a day. Foreigners, in turn, had an impact on the Chinese economy. For example, many West Asian and Central Asian Muslims went to China to trade, becoming a preeminent force in the import and export industry, while some were even appointed as officers supervising economic affairs. Sea trade with the Southeast Pacific, the Hindu world, the Islamic world, and the East African world brought merchants great fortune and spurred an enormous growth in the shipbuilding industry of Song-era Fujian province. However, there was risk involved in such long overseas ventures. To reduce the risk of losing money on maritime trade missions abroad, the historians Ebrey, Walthall, and Palais write:

investors usually divided their investment among many ships, and each ship had many investors behind it. One observer thought eagerness to invest in overseas trade was leading to an outflow of copper cash. He wrote, 'People along the coast are on intimate terms with the merchants who engage in overseas trade, either because they are fellow-countrymen or personal acquaintances... money to take with them on their ships for purchase and return conveyance of foreign goods. They invest from ten to a hundred strings of cash, and regularly make profits of several hundred percent'.

Technology, science, and engineering

Gunpowder warfare

Advancements in weapons technology enhanced by Greek fire and gunpowder, including the evolution of the early flamethrower, explosive grenade, firearm, cannon, and land mine, enabled the Song Chinese to ward off their militant enemies until the Song's ultimate collapse in the late 13th century. The ''Wujing Zongyao'' manuscript of 1044 was the first book in history to provide formulas for gunpowder and their specified use in different types of bombs. While engaged in a war with the Mongols, in the year 1259 the official Li Zengbo wrote in his ''Kozhai Zagao, Xugaohou'' that the city of Qingzhou was manufacturing one to two thousand strong iron-cased bomb shells a month, dispatching to Xiangyang and Yingzhou about ten to twenty thousand such bombs at a time. In turn, the invading Mongols employed northern Chinese soldiers and used these same type of gunpowder weapons against the Song Chinese. By the 14th century the firearm and cannon could also be found in Europe, India, and the Islamic Middle East, during the early age of gunpowder warfare.

Measuring distance and mechanical navigation

As early as the Han Dynasty , when the state needed to effectively measure distances traveled throughout the empire, the Chinese relied on the mechanical odometer device. The Chinese odometer came in the form of a wheeled-carriage, its inner gears functioning off the rotated motion of the wheels, and specific units of distance — the Chinese — marked by the mechanical striking of a drum or bell for auditory alarm. The specifications for the 11th century odometer was written by Chief Chamberlain Lu Daolong, who is quoted extensively in the historical text of the ''Song Shi'' . In the Song period, the odometer vehicle was also combined with another old complex mechanical device known as the South Pointing Chariot. This device, originally crafted by Ma Jun in the 3rd century, incorporated a that allowed a figure mounted on the vehicle to always point in the southern direction, no matter how the vehicle's wheels' turned about. The device concept of the differential gear for this navigational vehicle is now found in all modern automobiles in order to apply the equal amount of torque to wheels rotating at different speeds.

Polymaths, inventions, and astronomy

Polymath figures such as the statesmen Shen Kuo and Su Song embodied advancements in all fields of study, including biology, botany, zoology, geology, minerology, mechanics, horology, astronomy, , archeology, mathematics, cartography, optics, art criticism, and more. Shen theorized that geographical over time. He created a theory of land formation involving concepts accepted in modern geomorphology. He performed optical experiments with camera obscura just decades after Ibn al-Haytham was the first to do so. He also improved the designs of astronomical instruments such as the widened astronomical , which allowed Shen Kuo to fix the position of the pole star .

Su Song was best known for his horology treatise written in 1092, which described and illustrated in great detail his hydraulic-powered, 12 m tall clock tower built in Kaifeng. The clock tower featured large astronomical instruments of the armillary sphere and celestial globe, both driven by an escapement mechanism . In addition, Su Song's clock tower featured the world's first endless power-transmitting chain drive, an essential mechanical device found in many practical uses throughout the ages, such as the bicycle. Su's tower featured a rotating gear wheel with 133 clock jack manikins who were timed to rotate past shuttered windows while , and presenting announcement plaques. In his printed book, Su published a celestial atlas of five star charts. These star charts feature a cylindrical projection similar to Mercator projection, the latter being a cartographic innovation of Gerardus Mercator in 1569.

Mathematics and cartography

There were many notable improvements to Chinese mathematics during the Song era. The book published in 1261 by the mathematician Yang Hui provided the earliest Chinese illustration of Pascal's triangle, although it was described earlier around 1100 by Jia Xian. Yang Hui also provided rules for constructing combinatorial arrangements in magic squares, provided theoretical proof for Euclid's forty-third proposition about parallelograms, and was the first to use negative coefficients of 'x' in quadratic equations. Yang's contemporary Qin Jiushao was the first to introduce the into Chinese mathematics; before this blank spaces were used instead of zeros in the system of counting rods. He is also known for working with Chinese remainder theorem, Heron's formula, and astronomical data used in determining the winter solstice. In his ''Mathematical Treatise in Nine Sections'' , Qin also expressed the Horner scheme long before it was named after William George Horner .

Geometry and surveying were essential mathematics in the realm cartography and precision map-making. The date to the 4th century BCE, yet it was not until the time of Pei Xiu that topographical elevation, a formal system, and use of a standard graduated scale of distances was applied to terrain maps. In the Song period, Shen Kuo was the first to create a raised-relief map, while his other maps featured a uniform graduated scale of 1:900,000. Furthermore, the world's oldest known terrain map in printed form comes from the edited encyclopedia of Yang Jia in 1155, which displayed western China without the formal grid system that was characteristic of more professionally-made Chinese maps. Although gazetteers had existed since 52 CE during the Han Dynasty and gazetteers accompanied by illustrative maps since the Sui Dynasty, the illustrated gazetteer became much more common in the Song Dynasty, when the foremost concern was for illustrative gazetteers to serve political, administrative, and military purposes.

Movable type printing

The innovation of movable type printing was made by the artisan Bi Sheng , first described by the scientist and statesman Shen Kuo in his ''Dream Pool Essays'' of 1088. Movable type enhanced the already widespread use of thousands of documents and volumes of written literature, consumed eagerly by an increasingly literate public. The advancement of printing had a deep impact on education and the scholar-official class, since more books could be made faster while mass-produced, printed books were cheaper in comparison to laborious handwritten copies. The enhancement of widespread printing and print culture in the Song period was thus a direct catalyst in the rise of social mobility and expansion of the educated class of scholar elites, the latter which expanded dramatically in size from the 11th to 13th centuries. The wealthy printing patron Hua Sui of the Ming Dynasty established China's first metal movable type in 1490. In 1638 the Beijing Gazette switched their printing process from woodblock to movable type printing. Yet it was during the Qing Dynasty that massive printing projects began to employ movable type printing. This includes the printing of sixty six copies of a 5,020 volume long encyclopedia in 1725, the ''Gujin Tushu Jicheng'' , which necessitated the crafting of 250,000 movable type characters cast in bronze. By the 19th century the European style printing press replaced the old Chinese methods of movable type, while traditional woodblock printing in modern East Asia is used sparsely and for aesthetic reasons.

Hydraulic engineering and nautics

There were considerable advancements in hydraulic engineering and nautical technology during the Song Dynasty. The 10th century invention of the pound lock for canal systems allowed different water levels to be raised and lowered for separated segments of a canal, which significantly aided the safety of canal traffic and allowed for larger barges to pass through. There was the Song era innovation of for ships that allowed possible damage to the without sinking. There Song Chinese used crossbeams to brace the ribs of ships in order to strengthen them in a skeletal like structure. Arguably the most important nautical innovation of the Song period was the introduction of the mariner's compass for navigation at sea. The magnetic compass was first written of by Shen Kuo in his ''Dream Pool Essays'' of 1088, as well as in his ''Pingzhou Table Talks'' published in 1119.

Structural engineering and architecture

Architecture during the Song period reached new heights of sophistication. Authors such as Yu Hao and Shen Kuo wrote books outlining the field of architectural layouts, craftsmanship, and structural engineering in the 10th and 11th centuries, respectively. Shen Kuo preserved the written dialogues of Yu Hao when describing technical issues such as slanting struts built into pagoda towers for diagonal wind bracing. Shen Kuo also preserved Yu's specified dimensions and units of measurement for various building types. The architect , who published the ''Yingzao Fashi'' in 1103, greatly expanded upon the works of Yu Hao and compiled the standard building codes used by the central government agencies and by craftsmen throughout the empire. He addressed the standard methods of construction, design, and applications of moats and fortifications, stonework, greater woodwork, lesser woodwork, wood-carving, turning and drilling, sawing, bamboo work, tiling, wall building, painting and decoration, brickwork, glazed tile making, and provided proportions for formulas in masonry. In his book, Li provided detailed and vivid illustrations of architectural components and cross-sections of buildings. These illustrations displayed various applications of corbel brackets, cantilever arms, mortise and tenon work of tie beams and cross beams, and diagrams showing the various building types of halls in graded sizes. He also outlined the standard units of measurement and standard dimensional measurements of all building components described and illustrated in his book.

Grandiose building projects were supported by the government, including the erection of towering Buddhist Chinese pagodas and the construction of enormous bridges . Many of the pagoda towers built during the Song period were erected at heights that exceeded ten stories. Some of the most famous are the Iron Pagoda built in 1049 during the Northern Song and the Liuhe Pagoda built in 1165 during the Southern Song, although . The tallest is the Liaodi Pagoda of Hebei built in the year 1055, towering 84 m in total height. Some of the bridges reached lengths of 1220 m , with many being wide enough to allow two lanes of cart traffic simultaneously over a waterway or ravine. The government also oversaw construction of their own administrative offices, palace apartments, city fortifications, ancestral temples, and Buddhist temples.

The professions of the architect, craftsman, carpenter, and structural engineer were not seen as professionally equal to that of a Confucian scholar-official. Architectural knowledge had been passed down orally for thousands of years in China, in many cases from a father craftsman to his son. Structural engineering and architecture schools were known to have existed during the Song period; one prestigious engineering school was headed by the renowned bridge-builder Cai Xiang in medieval Fujian province.

Besides existing buildings and technical literature of building manuals, portraying cityscapes and other buildings aid modern-day scholars in their attempts to reconstruct and realize the nuances of Song archicture. Song Dynasty artists such as Li Cheng, Fan Kuan, Guo Xi, Zhang Zeduan, Emperor Huizong of Song, and Ma Lin painted close-up depictions of buildings as well as large expanses of cityscapes featuring , halls and s, , and distinct Chinese city walls. The scientist and statesman Shen Kuo was known for his relating to architecture, saying that it was more important for an artist to capture a wholistic view of a landscape than it was to focus on the angles and corners of buildings.

There were also pyramidal tomb structures in the Song era, such as the Song imperial tombs located in Gongxian, Henan province. About 100 km from Gongxian is another Song Dynasty tomb at Baisha, which features "elaborate facsimiles in brick of Chinese timber frame construction, from door lintels to pillars and pedestals to bracket sets, that adorn interior walls." Flanking the avenues leading to these tombs of officials, tomb guardians, animals, and mythological creatures.

Archaeology

In addition to the Song gentry's antiquarian pursuits of art collecting, scholar-officials during the Song became highly interested in retrieving ancient relics from sites, in order to revive the use of ancient vessels in ceremonies of state ritual. Scholar-officials of the Song period claimed to have discovered ancient bronze vessels that were created as far back as the Shang Dynasty which bore the . Some attempted to recreate these bronze vessels by using imagination alone, not by observing tangible evidence of relics; this practice was criticized by Shen Kuo in his work of 1088. On the unreliability of historical works written after the fact, scholar-official Zhao Mingcheng stated "...the inscriptions on stone and bronze are made at the time the events took place and can be trusted without reservation, and thus discrepancies may be discovered." Historian R.C. Rudolph states that Zhao's emphasis on consulting contemporary sources for accurate dating is parallel with the concern of the German historian Leopold von Ranke , The Song scholar Hong Mai heavily criticized what he called the court's "ridiculous" archaeological catalogue ''Bogutu'' compiled during the Huizong reign periods of Zheng He and Xuan He . Hong Mai obtained old vessels from the Han Dynasty and compared them with the descriptions offered in the catalogue, which he found so inaccurate he stated he had to "hold my sides with laughter." Hong Mai pointed out that the erroneous material was the fault of Chancellor Cai Jing , who prohibited scholars from reading and consulting the written histories.

Western Xia

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The Western Xia Dynasty or the Tangut Empire was a state that existed from 1038 up to 1227 in what are now the northwestern of Gansu, Shaanxi, and Ningxia. It was established in the 11th century by Tangut tribes. Occupying the area along the trade route between Central Asia and the West, the Tangut were neighbors to Northern China, which was ruled by Song Dynasty and later the .

Name

The Tanguts called their own state "phiow¹-bjij²-lhjij-lhjij²" which translates as "The Great State of the White and the Lofty" .

Since it was located in the west, the Chinese name is Xi-Xia , literally "Western Xia", and thus that name is often used in Sinological literature. The English name "Tangut" comes from the name for the country, ''Tangghud'' , a cognate of the Chinese name '''' , which in Chinese refers to the ethnic group identified with the political entity of the Western Xia.

Foundations

After coming under military pressure from the some Tangut tribes submitted to China under in 799. The Tanguts who submitted were moved to the Ordos region near Ningxia, whereas those who stayed accepted Tibetan political dominance and became known in Chinese as Mi-yao.

The Tanguts remained loyal to the Tang during the revolt of Huang Chao but established de-facto independence when Tang fell in 906. They retained their de-facto independence throughout the Five Dynasties period. During this period, their chieftain had the title of Dingnan Jiedushi and nominally remained under the Five Dynasties. Emperor Mingzong of Later Tang made an unsuccessful attempt to conquer Dingnan in 932 after believing incorrectly that Dingnan was about to enter an alliance with .

The foundation of a Tangut state as such goes back to the year 982 under Li Deming . However, it would not be until 1038 that the Tangut chieftain , Li Deming's son, who also ordered the creation of a Tangut writing system and the translation of Chinese classics into Tangut, named himself emperor of Da Xia, and demanded of the emperor recognition as an equal. The Song court accepted the recognition of Li Yuanhao as 'governor', but not '', a title considered exclusive to the Song emperor. After intense diplomatic contacts, in 1043 the Tangut state accepted the recognition of the Song emperor as emperor in exchange for annual tribute, which implied tacit recognition on the part of the Song of the military power of the Tangut.

Early history

After Jingzong's death, Yizong became the emperor at the age of two. His mother became the regent and during Yizong's reign, Liao Dynasty launched an invasion of Western Xia, causing Western Xia to submit to Liao Dynasty as a vassal state. After Yizong's death, Huizong was put under house arrest by his mother, and she attacked Song Dynasty. The attack was a failure, and Huizong took back power from his mother. After Chongzong became emperor, his grandmother became regent again and launched invasion of Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty. Again, both campaigns ended in defeat and Chongzong took direct control of Western Xia. He ended wars with both Liao and Song and focused on domestic reform.

In 1115, Jurchen Jin Dynasty was set up and Liao emperor fled to Western Xia in 1123. Chongzong submitted to the Jin demand of the Liao emperor and Western Xia became a vassal state of Jin. After Jin Dynasty destroyed Northern Song Dynasty, Western Xia attacked and took several thousands square miles of land from Northern Song. Immediately following Renzong's coronation, many natural disasters occurred and Renzong worked to stabilize the economy.

The Tanguts and the Mongols

After Renzong's death, Huanzong came into power and Western Xia's power began to fail. Corruption was widespread and the economy began to falter. Western Xia also began to come under attack by Mongol Empire.

The Mongol Empire campaigned six times against the Tanguts .

In 1206, Xiangzong initiated a coup d'état against Huanzong and killed him, installing himself as emperor. In 1207 Li An-ch'uan submitted to the Mongols, and gave his daughter to Genghis Khan in marriage. Xiangzong then began a decade-long campaign against Jin Empire, significantly weakening both empires. Also during Xiangzong's reign, corruption rose to new heights, and normal peasants were very poor. The Western Xia army was also untrained and ill-equipped. Xiangzong abdicated after Shenzong started a coup d'état and seized power, and Xiangzong died in the same year, 1211.

The Mongols asked their allies and tributaries for military aid in the campaign against the Islamic countries in 1216. Although the Tangut emperor Shenzong was willing, his court and in particular his general Aša-gambu recommended against it. When Genghis Khan returned from his campaign the new emperor Xianzong pled with him, but the general Aša-gambu challenged Genghis Khan. The emperor Xianzong died during the fighting and was succeeded by Modi , the last of the Tangut rulers. Modi sued for peace, which was accepted, but he was then executed by Tolui, the son of Genghis Khan, and the Tangut state was fully incorporated into Mongolian administration.

Rulers of Western Xia

文帝

|Lǐ Qiánshùn 李乾順

|1086-1139

|-

| 仁宗

|Shèngzhēndì 聖禎帝

|Lǐ Rénxiào 李仁孝

|1139-1193

|-

| 桓宗

|Zhāojiǎndì 昭簡帝

|Lǐ Chúnyòu 李純佑

|1193-1206

|-

| 襄宗

|Jìngmùdì 敬穆帝

|Lǐ Ānquán 李安全

|1206-1211

|-

| 神宗

|Yīngwéndì 英文帝

|Lǐ Zūnxū 李遵頊

|1211--1223

|-

| 獻宗

|none

|Lǐ Déwàng 李德旺

|1223--1226

|-

| 末帝

|none

|Lǐ Xiàn 李晛

|1226-1227

|}

Liao Dynasty

2008-09-04T01:03:00.001-07:00

The Liao Dynasty , 907-1125, also known as the Khitan Empire , was an empire in northern China that ruled over the regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, and parts of northern China proper. It was founded by the Yelu clan of the Khitan people in the same year as Tang Dynasty collapsed , even though its first ruler, Yelü Abaoji, did not declare an era name until 916.

Although it was originally known as the Empire of the Khitan, the Emperor Yelü Ruan officially adopted the name "Liao" in 947 . The name "Liao" was dropped in 983, but readopted in 1066. Another name for China in English, Cathay, is derived from the name Khitan. This is also the origin of the Russian word for China, Китай or Kitay, and that of several other East European languages.

The Liao Empire was destroyed by the Jurchen of the in 1125. However, remnants of its people led by Yelü Dashi established 1125-1220, also known as Kara-Khitan Khanate, which survived until the arrival of Genghis Khan's unified Mongolian army.

History

Pre-Empire history

Since the Khitan had no written script until the eleventh century, we have to rely primarily upon Chinese records of their early history, which are quite scant prior to the seventh century, though the earliest mention of their existence dates to the fourth century.

The Khitan lived on the eastern slopes of the Greater Khingan Mountain range, within the eastern portions of present-day Inner Mongolia. The area is ideal for the raising of cattle and horses, which was the basic source of wealth for the Khitan people. Their culture evolved over the course of centuries, influenced by both conflict and cultural interaction with their neighbors, both nomadic and sedentary. It was also common for Khitan to intermarry with people from neighboring steppe tribes.

During the Tang Dynasty-era in China, it is known that the Khitan were subservient to the who had their capital set in the Mongolian Plateau before their move westward in the 840s. Initial expansion was to the west in the Mongolian plains, filling the power vacuum created by the departure of the Uyghurs. Other steppe peoples residing in the region were the Shiwei, Xi and Tartars. The remaining Uyghurs fled west in the face of the Khitan advance.

Over the course of time, the Khitan had made some important observations. They noticed how the Uyghurs had coerced the Tang Dynasty to pay them tribute. They also saw the fearsome effect steppe cavalry used by the Shatuo Turks, the Kyrgyz, and the Uyghurs had against Chinese military forces. Khitan leaders also apparently made the observation that to become sedentary themselves would mean that they would have to compete with the Chinese on their terms, something in which the Khitan would have no hope of success. They knew that they must have access to the resources of China without losing the culture and/or identity that was a critical component of their steppe culture.

Rise of Abaoji

From the 750s, a clan using the surname Yaolian had held the title of , holding a monopoly on power for more than one hundred fifty years. They had full relations with the Tang Dynasty court. The first Yaolian khan even had the imperial surname of Li bestowed upon him, though no one in the steppe bothered with it. Yaolian khans wavered from alliance with the Tang Dynasty to joining in with coalitions against it. During this period of time, only the Yaolian clan used a surname among the .

Chinese records refer to eight tribes of Khitan. The most powerful of these tribes was the Yila Tribe. Abaoji was born into this tribe in 872. The Yila Tribe did not use Chinese trappings such as surnames at this time in history, though they did have close relations with China, focusing on their struggle with northeastern ''jiedushi'' of the Tang Dynasty.

Abaoji was elected to be the chieftain of the Yila Tribe in 901. Two years later, he was named “yuyue”, the commander of all Khitan military forces. The Yila Tribe had close relations with the Shatuo Turks. Li Keyong was a partially-sinified Shatuo Turk who was the ''jiedushi'' of northern Shanxi. In 905, Abaoji brought a force of 70,000 cavalry to Datong and swore a blood brotherhood with Li Keyong, a relationship that was to shape the region long after both of their deaths.

The Khitan chose their Great Khan, or ''khaghan'', at triennial councils. A Yaolian had been chosen at each of these councils since the 750s. However, Abaoji’s successes resulted in his rising status among the Khitan. Seeing him as being worthy, even the Yaolian assented to his election as Great Khan of the Khitan in 907.

Liao administrative system

Abaoji introduced a revolutionary new system of governing both nomadic and sedentary populations simultaneously. His concept was to divide the empire into two sections called Chancelleries. The Northern Chancellery consisted of nomadic steppe peoples, including the and conquered steppe tribes. The Southern Chancellery, by contrast, included territories incorporated into Khitan domains that was populated by Chinese and the people of Balhae.

The Northern Chancellery was run on a steppe military model. Abaoji was known as the Great Khan of the Northern Chancellery. The entire steppe population was constantly mobilized, ready for military action should it be required. The Khitan language, for which scripts were devised in 920 and 925, was the official language of the Northern Chancellery. The Xiao family, the consort family to the new imperial family, would govern the North.

The Southern Chancellery was run on a civil model. Here Abaoji served as an emperor more in line with the Chinese model of leadership. The vast majority of the administrative work was done by the sedentary populations themselves under the leadership of Abaoji’s family, who at some point adopted the surname Yelü. was the official administrative language of the region. The Southern Chancellery even adopted the Tang practice of competitive civil service examinations to staff the various bureaucracies of government required to govern a large sedentary population. However, due to suspicions over this overtly Chinese system, initially small numbers of ''jinshi'' degree holders were actually appointed to government posts. Loyalty, a holdover of common steppe practices, was still a more important means of appointment, even in the Southern Chancellery.

Despite the brilliance of this administrative innovation, it most certainly did not meet with universal approval from the Khitan elite. They believed, with some justification, that the development of a Chinese-style imperial system would seriously harm their interests within Khitan society. Thus, many elite, including those in Abaoji’s own family, rebelled against his rule. This persisted for nine years.

In 916, Abaoji began his attempt to institute another stabilizing innovation, borrowing the Chinese notion of primogeniture. He named his eldest son, Prince Bei, heir apparent, a first in the history of the Khitan. However, despite Abaoji’s support for this system, it never really took hold until the end of the tenth century.

In 918, the government occupied a newly constructed walled-city that would serve as the Liao capital. Called 上京 , it not only served as the administrative center of the new empire, it also included a commercial district called the Chinese city 漢城 . The city was built on a site hallowed by the Khitan people at the headwaters of the Shira Muren River.

More than thirty walled cities were built, including four additional capitals that served as subsidiary capitals for the four other regions of the empire. An Eastern Capital was built near present-day Liaoyang. After the Sixteen Prefectures were absorbed into the empire, a was built near Datong while the was constructed on the site of present-day Beijing. There was also a . These cities were not only capitals of their respective regions, they also served as centers of commerce, and provided considerable wealth for the Liao Dynasty.

Succession issues

Abaoji had named his eldest son, Prince Bei, heir apparent in 918. However, his widow, Empress Dowager Yingtian, was more of a traditionalist than her husband Thus, she did not so readily accept the notion of primogeniture. She believed that her second son, Deguang, would have made a more appropriate Khitan emperor because he displayed the traditional traits deemed appropriate to steppe leadership. He was declared the successor to Abaoji while Prince Bei retained his title. Prince Bei later went to China, where he was assassinated in 936.

Succession issues were not solved upon Deguang’s death in 947. Empress Dowager Yingtian, favoring her third son, immediately denounced her grandson, who was in line to become the third Liao emperor. However, Prince Lihu was seen by all as being wholly inappropriate to be the leader of the Khitan. Civil war loomed, but did not materialize as the court failed to support Yingtian on this occasion. Her grandson became emperor .

Succession did not return to Prince Bei’s line (as intended by Abaoji in 918, until 969 with the death of Muzong and the accession of Yelu Longxu as Emperor Jingzong. Succession would remain in this line until the fall of the Liao Dynasty in 1125. Despite this misleading stability, there were still numerous succession challenges to the end of the dynasty.

Law in the Liao

Law in the Liao Dynasty was applied differently in the Northern and Southern Chancelleries. The Northern Chancellery, governed by the Xiao consort clan, retained a distinctive Khitan-steppe character.

The Yelu clan, who governed the Southern Chancellery, were considerably more sinified in character. Initially, justice was not delivered in an even-handed fashion to the Chinese inhabitants of the empire. This is reported to having changed from 989. Beginning in 994, Khitans having committed one of ten grave crimes would be punished according to Chinese law. This is indicative of a transition from “ethnic law” to “territorial law.”

Chinese acculturation

The level of sinification of the Khitan people has been debated. While it is clear that the ruling Yelu clan had been sinified to some extent, the bulk of the Khitan people seems to have resisted Chinese acculturation. The above resistance to the idea of primogeniture among the Khitan elite is only one indication of a resistance to Chinese acculturation.

One of the stated purposes of the division of the empire between a Northern Chancellery and a Southern Chancellery is to create different forms of government for the steppe peoples in the north, which maintained steppe norms of society and government, and for the sedentary peoples in the south, which used mostly Chinese methods of governance.

Abaoji, who himself spoke Chinese and was familiar with Chinese culture, did not speak Chinese in front of his subjects. He revealed to Later Tang Dynasty envoy Yao Kun before his own death that he did not wish the Khitan people to lose the edge that they enjoyed as a nomadic people. He did not want them to become “soft” like the Chinese.

Another indication of resistance to acculturation is the Chinese notion of the use of surnames, a notion of which is a measure in the minimization of potential incestuous contacts. For a century and a half under the Yaolian clan, only the imperial clan used a surname. Only after Abaoji ascended to the position of Great Khan, did his clan as well as the Xiao consort clan adopt surnames, though the exact time is a matter of some debate. It may have taken place either before or after Abaoji’s death. The issue arose again in 1074 when a proposal to have all Khitan use surnames was refused by the emperor as being too Chinese. It was believed that it was result in a radical reordering in Khitan society seen as undesirable.

Status of women

Women in the steppe societies typically had a greater range of rights and responsibilities than they had in the sedentary societies to the south. Upper class women were free to remarry after the death of their husbands. Empresses were genuinely regarded as co-rulers with their husbands. They were also included in the religious and ritual life of society.

However, with these increased rights also came responsibilities. Women likely had to bear more of the hard work to maintain daily life as the men were often out hunting or preparing for war. They were competent in many forms of labor and had to come with hardship in a way their sedentary counterparts were not exposed to.

The traditional practice of being required to marry the husband of ones elder sister when she died was ended by imperial decree in 940, though it was not outlawed.

Literacy

The Khitan were initially an illiterate society. In 920, Abaoji ordered the creation of a script that came to be known as the Khitan large-script. While it apparently incorporated elements of Chinese writing, the two are not mutually intelligible and still has not been deciphered to this day by linguists.

In 925, the appearance of an envoy to Liao spurred the call to create a new script based on the alphabetic principles of the Uyghur script. This Khitan small-script was simpler to use than the previous one. It has been partially deciphered by linguistic experts, and it is hoped recent discoveries near Datong will aid in its being completely deciphered.

Chinese writing was used in the administration of the Southern Chancellery, but its use was restricted to the Khitan elite. Abaoji and subsequent emperors of Liao did not allow widespread use of Chinese for fear that it would result in excessive cultural compromise. It was also feared that it would strengthen any Chinese dissent towards Liao-Khitan hegemony while the Northern Song Dynasty to the south was still a considerable foe.

Religion

Buddhism

Though the founding emperor Abaoji ordered the construction of Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist temples, successive emperors embraced Buddhism. A noticeable increase in devotion to Buddhism can be traced to the reign of . Within a century, local government offices report that there 360,000 monks and nuns in 1078, representing about ten percent of the population. Even if exaggerated, it is clear that Buddhism was an integral part of Liao life.

Some use the adoption of Buddhism as additional evidence to argue for sinification, however, the Khitan seem to have regarded Buddhism as a non-Chinese religion as they realized that the practiced it as well.

The Liao were more committed to Buddhist studies than their Song neighbors. A complete edition of the Tripitaka about 1075 with a print quality that far exceeds that of its Song contemporaries. This was used by the Koreans to produce their own version of the Tripitaka by 1082.

Traditional religion

Still, most still adhered to an animistic religion where the sun was worshiped. Thus, the emperor faced the east, where the sun rises, rather than the south as Chinese emperors did. Because the Khitan gave ritual priority to the left, the north was given priority to the south

Foreign Relations

Chinese dynasties

From the rise of Abaoji to the fall of the Liao Dynasty in 1125, a total of six dynasties ruled northern China. First were the Five Dynasties, which ruled northern China in succession from 907 to 960. Then, there was the Song Dynasty which succeeded the Later Zhou Dynasty in 960, and within two decades, was able to incorporate the southern kingdoms into its realm, unifying nearly all of traditional Chinese lands.

Later Tang

The Later Tang Dynasty was founded by the Shatuo Turks in 923 after its founder, Li Cunxu, the son of Abaoji’s blood brother Li Keyong, had overthrown the Later Liang Dynasty. However, relations between the two were deteriorating, largely because of Khitan incursions into Hebei, taking booty and captives.

Li Cunxu had died in 926. Despite the general deterioration in relations, the Later Tang Dynasty sent an envoy by the name of Yao Kun to the Liao Dynasty. When he arrived, however, Abaoji was on campaign, completing the conquest of the sedentary kingdom of Balhae Abaoji’s appetite for expansion had apparently not been sated by the conquest of Balhae, because he sent a demand for cession of the Sixteen Prefectures, which made up the border region between the two empires. However, Abaoji died on September 6, temporarily removing attention from the Sixteen Prefectures.

Later Jin

The Later Tang Dynasty weakened in the 930s. When Shi Jingtang revolted, the Liao sent a large army through the passes at Shanxi to assist. In return for assistance in his revolt, the new , Shi ceded the Sixteen Prefectures to the Liao.

Han Chinese and Shatuo Turks living in Later Jin territories chafed at the subordinate position they had in relation to the Liao. This led the Later Jin court to begin to display independence from the Liao. Consequently, the Khitan attacked as far as Kaifeng, where they stole maps archives, water clocks, musical instruments, and copies of , and kidnapped craftsmen and scholars. They then decided to move further into the present day provinces of Hebei and Shanxi. However, faced with the difficulties of governing a large sedentary population, the Liao emperor changed his mind about being emperor of China and decided to return to the Southern Capital. On the return in 947, the emperor died.

These events led to the collapse of the Later Jin Dynasty, and with the power vacuum left when the Liao emperor’s death, the short-lived Later Han Dynasty was founded.

Later Zhou

The Later Zhou Dynasty struck at Liao positions in 958 in an attempt to regain the Sixteen Prefectures. After successfully taking two prefectures in Hebei, sprung into action, leading a Khitan cavalry force to the Southern Capital the following year. Military confrontation was averted with the death of the Later Zhou emperor.

Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty succeeded the Later Zhou Dynasty, the last of the Five Dynasties, in 960. Initially, the Song Dynasty court focused on reunifying the Chinese realm by incorporating the remaining southern kingdoms left over from the Ten Kingdoms period in the south. However, once Wuyue was brought into the fold in 978, began to focus on the north.

Two major issues caused relations between the Liao and the Song to sour. One was the continued Liao occupation of the Sixteen Prefectures. The other was Liao support for the Northern Han kingdom, the remnant of the Later Han Dynasty that was toppled in 950.

led the conquest of the Northern Han in 979. Then, he led an ill-advised invasion of the Sixteen Prefectures. The result was a resounding Liao victory, forcing the Song emperor to retreat in disgrace.

Song tried to take advantage of a fifteen-year-old Liao emperor by launching a three-pronged invasion in 986. The Song were decisively defeated on all three fronts. The Song court then resumed diplomatic contact with the Liao.

The Liao invaded the Song Dynasty in 1004, and stopped just north of Shanyuan, about 100 miles north of the Song capital of Kaifeng. The Song emperor met them with a force. The Treaty of Shanyuan was worked out in January, 1005. The Song Dynasty was required to pay an annual tribute to the Liao. The treaty also stipulated that the two imperial families address one another using familial terms. The tribute was increased and extended to Xi Xia when the Liao and Tanguts threatened further invasion in 1042.

Goryeo

When the Khitan conquered the kingdom of Balhae, the border with Korea had been pushed to the Yalu River. Korea itself was undergoing significant transformations at the same time. Goryeo was founded in 918, and eventually unified the entire Korean Peninsula. The Silla kingdom, which had ruled the entire peninsula since the seventh century, fell in 935.

In 993, the Khitan invaded Goryeo's northwest border with 800,000 troops. The Khitan withdrew and ceded territory to the east of the Yalu River when Goryeo agreed to end its alliance with Song Dynasty China. However, Goryeo continued to communicate with Song, having strengthened its position by building fortresses in the newly gained northern territories.

In 1010, Emperor Shengzong of Liao led a massive invasion with 400,000 men, commanding the troops himself. He easily defeated the resisting army of General Gang Jo, who was executed by the Khitans. However, Gang Gam-chan urged to escape from the palace, and not to surrender to the invading Liao troops. King Hyeonjong followed Gang Gam-chan's advice, and managed to escape from the burning capital. A Korean insurgency began to harass the Khitan forces. Eventually, Shengzong ordered a withdrawal of the entire Khitan force; the Khitans lost the war, and didn't gain anything. Thus another bloody war between two nations was foreshadowed, as both sided remained hostile to each other. After the war, Gang was promoted as the Minister of Government Administration.

In 1018, General Xiao Baiya of Liao invaded Goryeo with 100,000 men. This time, many officials urged to king to enter a peace negotiation, since the damage from the 2nd Koryo-Khitan War was so great and Goryeo was not able to recover from the damage. However Gang again urged the king to fight the Khitans, since the Khitan force was much smaller than the previous invasions. Gang volunteered to be deputy commander-in-chief of the Goryeo army, at the age of 71. He led about 200,000 men toward the Goryeo-Liao border. The first battle of the war was the , which was won by General Gang by blocking a stream and then destroying the dam when the Khitans were mid-way through crossing. Many Khitans drowned, but General Xiao did not give up hope of capturing the capital, , and continued to march southward. Later Xiao realized that the mission was impossible to achieve, and decided to retreat. General Gang knew that the Khitan army would withdraw from the war, and waited for them at the fortress of Kwiju, where he encountered retreating Khitans in 1019. . Discouraged and starving, the Khitans lost in a battle there. Following his victories in Third Goryeo-Khitan War, peace among three Asian empires temporarily settled; Goryeo established a long-term friendly relationship with Liao.

Other contact

From the time of the empire's creation all the way to its decline, the Liao Dynasty was recognized by Korea. The Khitan were also in contact with Japan and the Abassid empire, and the court of Baghdad once asked for a Khitan princess for marriage. These relations established the Khitans all across the steppes, before the . Commercial activity allowed the Khitans to make their name known beyond the Pamirs and in Europe.

Decline

By the mid 11th century, the Khitan had lost their morale and started adopting a defensive attitude towards their neighbors. This was in part due to the influence of Buddhism and the fact that they had absorbed much of Chinese culture, which had an effect on their manners. Around the 12th century, the empire's slow decline sped up as a result of succession problems, natural disasters, and the positive progress of the Jurchen in the northeast. More pressure was put on the Khitan when the Jurchens & Song made an alliance against them and in 1124-1125, the Khitan Empire collapsed.

Emigration

After the fall of the empire, a part of the Khitan nobility led by Yelü Dashi emigrated to the of Xinjiang, and with their help created the . This was a Turko-Mongol kingdom that was very sinicized. The kingdom allowed Buddhism and Nestorian Christianity to flourish. Its capital was at Balasaghun, south of Lake Balkhash and extended to the areas of Kashgar and Samarkand. The kingdom enjoyed a victory over the Seljuk Turks near Samarkand in 1141 and remained stable until it was destroyed by Genghis Khan in 1218.

Liao Dynasty 907-1125

**Liao Dynasty 907-1125**
Temple Names	Posthumous Names	Born Names	Period of Reigns	Era Names and their according range of years
''Convention: "Liao" + temple name except Liao Tianzuodi who is referred using "Liao" + posthumous name''
	Shen Tian Huangdi	Yelü Abaoji	907-926	Shence 916-922 Tianzan 922-926 Tianxian 926
	Xiao Wu Huangdi	Yelü Deguang	926-947	Tianxian 927-938 Huitong 938-947 Datong 947
	Tian Shou Huangdi	Yelü Ruan	947-951	Tianlu 947-951
		Yelü Jing	951-969	Yingli 951-969
		Yelü Xian	969-982	Baoning 969-979 Qianheng 979-982
	Wen Wu Da Xiao Xuan Huangdi	Yelü Longxu	982-1031	Qianheng 982 Tonghe 983-1012 Kaitai 1012-1021 Taiping 1021-1031
	Xiao Zheng Huangdi	Yelü Zongzhen	1031-1055	Jingfu 1031-1032 Chongxi 1032-1054
		Yelü Hongji	1055-1101	Qingning 1055-1064 Xianyong 1065-1074 Taikang or Dakang 1075-1084 Da'an 1085-1094 Shouchang or Shoulong 1095-1101
		Yelü Yanxi	1101-1125	Qiantong 1101-1110 Tianqing 1111-1120 Baoda 1121-1125

Yuan Dynasty

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The Yuan Dynasty, which lasted from 1279-1368 A.D., was the first of only two times that the entire area of China was ruled by foreigners, in this case, the Mongols. During the Yuan Dynasty, China was part of the Mongol Empire. Genghis Khan led the Mongols in their defeat of much of China, however, it was his grandson, Kublai Khan who became the emperor and founder of the Yuan dynasty. The Mongols were able to conquer China due to their superior military capabilities.

The Yuan Dynasty (; pinyin: Yuáncháo; was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongols, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. In , the Yuan Dynasty followed the and preceded the Ming Dynasty. It was also a khanate of the Mongol Empire, considered one of the four major divisions of the empire. The dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, although Kublai Khan had his grandfather Genghis Khan placed on the official record as the founder of the dynasty or Taizu . While the emperors of the Yuan Dynasty ruled as Emperor of China, Kublai Khan had also claimed the title of , i.e. supremacy over the other Mongol khanates ; however this claim was only really recognized by the Il-Khanids.

History

Kublai Khan and Ariq Böke

In 1259 the Great Khan M& died while Kublai Khan, his brother, was campaigning against the and Ariq B&, his other brother commanded the Mongol homelands. After Möngke's demise, Ariq Böke decided to attempt to make himself Khan. Hearing of this, Kublai aborted his Chinese expedition and had himself elected as Khan in April of 1260. Still, Ariq Böke had his supporters and was elected as a rival khan to Kublai at Karakorum, then the capital of Mongol Empire. The brothers then engaged in a series of battles, ending with Ariq Böke's capture in 1264. Kublai held him prisoner until he died two years later. The khans of the Golden Horde and of the Chagatai Khanate did not recognize Kublai Khan as the Great Khan. The conflict between Kublai Khan and the khanates in Central Asia led by Kaidu had lasted for a few decades, until the beginning of the 14th century, when both of them had died. , another brother of Kublai khan, ruled his Ilkhanate and paid homage to the Great Khan but actually established a separate khanate, and after 's enthronement in 1295, Kublai's successor sent him a Chinese seal reading "王府定國理民之寶" in Chinese script, which formally gave him the authority to establish a country and govern its people. The other khanates made peace with the Yuan in 1304 and paid tributes afterwards till mid 14th century, but the four major successor khanates never came again under one rule.

Rule of Kublai Khan

After winning the war against Ariq Böke, Kublai Khan began his reign over his khanate with great aspirations and self-confidence — in 1266 he ordered the construction of his new capital at the modern city of Beijing. The city had been called Zhongdu during the , and in 1272 it came to be known as in Chinese, Daidu to the Mongols, and Khanbalikh to the Turks. Kublai began his drive against the who were finally defeated in 1279. In 1271 he established the Yuan Dynasty, which would proceed to be the first non-Han dynasty to rule all of China. Its official title, Da Yuan , originates from ''I Ching'', "大哉乾元" . Yuan is the first dynasty in China to use Da in its official title.

In 1272, Dadu officially became the capital of the Yuan Dynasty. In 1279, Guangzhou was conquered by the Yuan army led by the Chinese general Zhang Hongfan in Battle of Yamen, which marks the end of the Southern Song and the onset of China under the Yuan. During Kublai Khan's reign he was put under pressure by many of his advisers to further expand the sphere of influence of the Yuan through the traditional tributary system. However, the attempts to establish such tributary relationships were rebuffed and expeditions to , , , and , would all later fail. Nevertheless, and Champa later recognized the supremacy of the Yuan.

Kublai Khan's early rule involved widespread plunder. As if expecting to lose the country, the Mongols attempted to remove as much money and resources as was possible. The Mongol conquest never affected China's trade with other countries. In fact the Yuan Dynasty strongly supported the Silk Road trade network, allowing the transfer of Chinese technologies to the west. Though many reforms were made during Kublai Khan's life, and despite his notable warming to the populace, the Yuan was a relatively short lived dynasty.

Kublai Khan began to serve as a true emperor, reforming much of China and its institutions, a process that would take decades to complete. For example, he consolidated his rule by centralizing the government of China — making himself an . He reformed many other governmental and economic institutions, especially the tax system. Although the Yuan rulers sought to govern China through traditional institutions, using Han Chinese bureaucrats, they were not up to the task initially. The Hans were discriminated against politically. Almost all important central posts were monopolized by Mongols, who also preferred employing non-Hans from other parts of the Mongol domain in those positions for which no Mongol could be found. Hans were more often employed in non-Chinese regions of the empire. In essence, society was divided into four classes in order of privilege: Mongols, "Color-eyed" , Han , and Southerners . During his lifetime, Kublai Khan built the capital of the Yuan, , which is present-day Beijing, and made the summer capital. He also improved the agriculture of China, extending the Grand Canal, highways and public granaries. Marco Polo described his rule as benevolent: relieving the populace of taxes in times of hardship; building hospitals and orphanages; distributing food among the abjectly poor. He also promoted science and religion.

He issued paper banknotes in 1273. The Yuan bureaucrats made paper bills from the mulberry bark paper. Yuan was the first dynasty in China to use paper currency completely as the circulating medium.

Like other emperors of non-Han dynasties, Kublai Khan considered himself a legitimate Chinese emperor. While he had claimed nominal supremacy over the rest of the Mongol Empire, his interest was clearly in China, along with the areas in its traditional tributary system. From the beginning of his reign, the other three khanates of the Mongol Empire became de facto independent and only one recognized him as Khagan. By the time of Kublai Khan’s death in 1294, the Mongol Empire had broken up into four separate khanates, with Yuan Dynasty being one of them.

Early rulers after Kublai

Succession was a problem for the Yuan Dynasty, later causing much strife and internal struggle. This emerged as early as the end of Kublai's reign. His original choice was his son, Zhenjin — but he died before Kublai in 1285. Thus, Zhenjin's son ruled as for approximately 10 years following Kublai's death . Chengzong decided to maintain and continue much of the work begun by his grandfather. However, the corruption in the Yuan Dynasty began during the reign of Chengzong.

became Emperor of China after the death of Chengzong. Unlike his predecessor, he did not continue Kublai's work, but largely rejected it. During his short reign , China fell into financial difficulties, partly due to bad decisions made by Wuzong. By the time he died, China was in severe debt and the Yuan Dynasty faced popular discontent.

The fourth Yuan emperor, is seen as the last competent emperor. He stood out among the Mongol rulers of China as an adopter of mainstream , to the discontent of some Mongol elite. He had been mentored by Li Meng, a Confucian academic. He made many reforms, including the liquidation of the Department of State Affairs , which resulted in the execution of 5 of the highest ranking officials. Starting in 1313 imperial examinations were reintroduced for prospective officials, testing their knowledge on significant historical works. Also, he codified much of the law.

Impact

A rich cultural diversity developed during the Yuan Dynasty. The major cultural achievements were the development of drama and the novel and the increased use of the . The political unity of China and much of central Asia promoted trade between East and West. The Mongols' extensive West Asian and European contacts produced a fair amount of cultural exchange.

Western musical instruments were introduced to enrich the Chinese performing arts. From this period dates the conversion to Islam, by Muslims of Central Asia, of growing numbers of Chinese in the northwest and southwest. Nestorianism and Roman Catholicism also enjoyed a period of toleration. Buddhism flourished, although Taoism endured certain persecutions in favor of Buddhism from the Yuan government. Confucian governmental practices and examinations based on the , which had fallen into disuse in north China during the period of disunity, were reinstated by the Yuan court, probably in the hope of maintaining order over Han society. Advances were realized in the fields of travel literature, cartography, geography, and scientific education.

Certain Chinese innovations and products, such as purified saltpetre, printing techniques, porcelain, playing cards and medical literature, were exported to Europe and Western Asia, while the production of thin glass and cloisonné became popular in China.

The first recorded travels by Europeans to China and back date from this time. The most famous traveler of the period was the Marco Polo, whose account of his trip to "Cambaluc," the capital of the Great Khan, and of life there astounded the people of Europe. The account of his travels, ''Il milione'' , appeared about the year 1299.

The Yuan undertook extensive public works. Road and water communications were reorganized and improved. To provide against possible famines, were ordered built throughout the empire. The city of Beijing was rebuilt with new palace grounds that included artificial lakes, hills and mountains, and parks. During the Yuan period, Beijing became the terminus of the Grand Canal of China, which was completely renovated. These commercially oriented improvements encouraged overland and maritime commerce throughout Asia and facilitated direct Chinese contacts with Europe. Chinese travelers to the West were able to provide assistance in such areas as hydraulic engineering. Contacts with the West also brought the introduction to China of a major food crop, sorghum, along with other foreign food products and methods of preparation.

Downfall

Civil unrest

The last years of the Yuan Dynasty were marked by struggle, famine, and bitterness among the populace. The dynasty was, significantly, one of the shortest-lived dynasties in the history of China, covering just a century, 1271 to 1368. In time, Kublai Khan's successors lost all influence on other Mongol lands across Asia, while the Mongols beyond the Middle Kingdom saw them as too Chinese. Gradually, they lost influence in China as well. The reigns of the later Yuan emperors were short and were marked by intrigues and rivalries. Uninterested in administration, they were separated from both the army and the populace. China was torn by dissension and unrest; outlaws ravaged the country without interference from the weakening Yuan armies.

ruled for just two years ; his rule ended in a coup at the hands of five princes. They placed on the throne, and, after an unsuccessful attempt to calm the princes, he also succumbed to regicide. The last of the nine successors of Kublai Khan, , fled north to Shangdu from Dadu in 1368 after the approach of the forces of the Míng Dynasty , founded by Zhu Yuanzhang in the south. He had tried to regain Dadu, which eventually failed; he died in Yingchang two years later . Yingchang was seized by the Ming shortly after his death.

Basalawarmi established a separate pocket of resistance to the Ming in Yunnan and Guizhou, but his forces were decisively defeated by the Ming in 1381.

Northern Yuan

The Yuan remnants retreated to Mongolia after the fall of Yingchang to the Ming in 1370, where the Yuan Dynasty was formally carried on. It was called the Northern Yuan by Chinese and Mongols. According to Chinese political orthodoxy, there could be only one legitimate dynasty, and so the Ming and the Northern Yuan denied each other's legitimacy, although the Ming did consider the previous Yuan which it had succeeded a legitimate dynasty. Chinese historians generally regard the Míng Dynasty as the legitimate dynasty.

The Ming army pursued the Northern Yuan forces into Mongolia in 1372, but were defeated by the latter under and Kokhtemur. They tried again in 1380, ultimately winning a decisive victory over Northern Yuan in 1388. About 70,000 Mongols were taken prisoner, and was sacked in 1380. Eight years later, the Northern Yuan throne was taken over by , a descendant of , instead of the descendants of Kublai Khan. The following centuries saw a succession of Chinggisid rulers, many of whom were mere figureheads put on the throne by those warlords who happened to be the most powerful. Periods of conflict with the Ming Dynasty intermingled with periods of peaceful relations with border trade. In 1402, & abolished the name Yuan Dynasty; he was however defeated by & in 1403.

In the 17th century, the Mongols came under the influence of the Manchu. In 1634, Ligdan Khan, last Mongol khan of the Borjigin dynasty, died on his way to Tibet. His son, Ejei Khan, surrendered to the Manchu and gave the great seal of the Yuan Emperor to its ruler, Hong Taiji. As a result, Hong Taiji established the Qing Dynasty as the successor of the Yuan Dynasty in 1636.

Administrative Divisions

The territory of the Yuan Dynasty was divided into the Central Region and places under control of various provinces or the Xuanzheng Institute .

The Central Region, consisting of present-day Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, the south-eastern part of present-day Inner Mongolia and the Henan areas to the north of the Yellow River, was considered the most important region of the dynasty and directly governed by the Secretariat at Dadu; similarly, another top-level administrative department called the Xuanzheng Institute governed the whole of modern-day Tibet and a south-east part of Turkestan.

There were 11 provinces in Yuan Dynasty.

#Gansu Province with Zhangye District as its capital. Under this came the whole of present-day Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region , south-eastern Gansu, and part of north-eastern Amdo.

#Henan Jiangbei Province with Kaifeng District as its capital. Under this came the Henan areas to the south of the Yellow River, Jiangsu, Fujian and the north-eastern part of Jiangxi.

#Huguang Province with Wuhan of the present-day Hubei Province as its capital. Under this came a part of south-east Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, most of Guizhou, and parts of south-western Guangdong.

#Jiangxi Province with Nanchang as its capital. Under this came Jiangxi and Guangdong.

#Liaoyang Province with present-day Liaoyang District in Liaoning Province as its capital. Under this came north-east China and the northern part of Korea.

#Lingbei Province with Karakoram as its capital. Under this province came the present-day Mongolia, northern Inner Mongolia and southern Siberia.

#Shaanxi Province with Xi'an as its capital. Under this came the majority of present-day Shaanxi Province, the south-western part of Inner Mongolia, south-eastern Gansu, north-western Sichuan, and a small part of Amdo.

#Sichuan Province with Chengdu at its capital. Under this came most of Sichuan and parts of south-western Shaanxi.

#Yunnan Province with Kunming as its capital. Under this came Yunnan and parts of western Guizhou.

#Zhejiang Province with Hangzhou as its capital. Under this came Jiangsu and Anhui areas to the south of the Yangtze River, Zhejiang, Fujian, and a small area in the north-east of Jiangxi.

#Zhendong Province with Kaesong of present-day Korea as its capital. It was a special institution originally set up to deal with the war with Japan, with the king of Goryeo as its head.

Below the level of the province, the largest political division was the circuit , followed by prefectures operating under a prefect and subprefectures under a subprefect. The lowest political division was the county overseen by a magistrate. This government structure at the provincial level was later copied by the and dynasties.

Ming Dynasty

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The Ming dynasty began in 1368, and lasted until 1644 A.D. Its founder was a peasant, the third of only three peasants ever to become an emperor in China. He is known as Hongwu Emperor, and led the revolt against the Mongols and the Yuan Dynasty. He was constantly worried about conspiracies against himself, and despite the many moral homilies he gave, favored violence in dealing with any one suspected of plotting against him or associated with the conspirators. The capital was originally located in Nanjing but the third emperor moved the capital to Beijing.

The Ming Dynasty , or Empire of the Great Ming , was the ruling of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic s , before falling to the rebellion led in part by Li Zicheng and soon after replaced by the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. Although the Ming capital Beijing fell in 1644, remnants of the Ming throne and power survived until 1662.

Ming rule saw the construction of a vast and a standing army of one million troops. Although private maritime trade and official tribute missions from China had taken place in previous dynasties, the tributary fleet under the Muslim eunuch admiral Zheng He in the 15th century surpassed all others in sheer size. There were enormous projects of construction, including the restoration of the and the and the establishment of the Forbidden City in Beijing during the first quarter of the 15th century. Estimates for the population in the late Ming era vary from 160 to 200 million. The University of Calgary states that "the Ming created one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history."

attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities in a rigid, immobile system that would have no need to engage with the commercial life and trade of urban centers. His rebuilding of China's agricultural base and strengthening of communication routes through the militarized courier system had the unintended effect of creating a vast agricultural surplus that could be sold at burgeoning markets located along courier routes. Rural culture and commerce became influenced by urban trends. The upper echelons of society embodied in the were also affected by this new consumption-based culture. In a departure from tradition, merchant families began to produce examination candidates to become and adopted cultural traits and practices typical of the gentry class. Parallel to this trend involving social class and commercial consumption were changes in social and political philosophy, bureaucracy and governmental institution, and even arts and literature.

By the 16th century the Ming economy was stimulated by maritime trade with the , , and . China became involved in a new global trade of goods, plants, animals, and food crops known as the Columbian Exchange. Trade with and the Japanese brought in massive amounts of silver, which then replaced copper and paper banknotes as the common medium of exchange in China. During the last decades of the Ming the flow of silver into China was greatly diminished, thereby undermining state revenues and indeed the entire Ming economy. This damage to the economy was compounded by the effects on agriculture of the incipient Little Ice Age, natural calamities, crop failure, and sudden epidemics. The ensuing breakdown of authority and people's livelihoods allowed rebel leaders such as Li Zicheng to challenge Ming authority.

History

Founding

Revolt and rebel rivalry

The -led Yuan Dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. Alongside institutionalized ethnic discrimination against Han Chinese that stirred resentment and rebellion, other explanations for the Yuan's demise included overtaxing areas hard-hit by crop failure, inflation, and massive flooding of the Yellow River as a result of the abandonment of irrigation projects.

A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the in 1351. The Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a penniless peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352, but soon gained a reputation after marrying the foster daughter of a rebel commander. In 1356 Zhu's rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, which he would later establish as the capital of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang cemented his power in the south by eliminating his arch rival and rebel leader Chen Youliang in the Battle of Lake Poyang in 1363. After the dynastic head of the Red Turbans suspiciously died in 1367 while hosted as a guest of Zhu, the latter made his imperial ambitions known by sending an army toward the Yuan capital in 1368. The last Yuan emperor fled north to Shangdu and Zhu declared the founding of the Ming Dynasty after razing the Yuan palaces of Khanbaliq to the ground.

Reign of the Hongwu Emperor

Hongwu immediately set to rebuilding state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long , as well as new palaces and government halls. Hongwu organized a military system known as the ''weisuo'', which was similar to the of the Tang Dynasty . The goal was to have soldiers become self-reliant farmers in order to sustain themselves while not fighting or training. The system of the self-sufficient agricultural soldier, however, was largely a farce; infrequent rations and awards were not enough to sustain the troops, and many deserted their ranks if they weren't located in the heavily-supplied frontier. He halted the in 1373 after complaining that the 120 scholar-officials who obtained a ''jinshi'' degree were incompetent ministers. After the examinations were reinstated in 1384, With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyi Wei, a network of secret police drawn from his own palace guard. They were partly responsible for the loss of 100,000 lives in several purges over three decades of his rule.

South-Western Frontier

In 1381, the Ming Dynasty annexed the areas of the southwest that had once been part of the Kingdom of Dali. By the end of the 14th century, some 200,000 military colonists settled some 2,000,000 ''mu'' of land in what is now Yunnan and Guizhou. Roughly half a million more Chinese settlers came in later periods; these migrations caused a major shift in the ethnic make-up of the region, since more than half of the roughly 3,000,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty were non-Han peoples. After the scholar and philosopher Wang Yangming suppressed another rebellion in the region, he advocated joint administration of Chinese and local ethnic groups in order to bring about in the local peoples' culture. and in return granted Tibetan tribute-bearers with gifts.]]

Scholarship outside China generally regards Tibet as having been independent during the Ming Dynasty, whereas historians in China today take an opposing point of view. The ''''— the official history of the Ming Dynasty compiled much later in 1739—states that the Ming established itinerant commanderies overseeing Tibetan administration while also renewing titles of ex-Yuan Dynasty officials from Tibet and conferring new princely titles on leaders of . However, Turrell V. Wylie states that censorship in the ''Mingshi'' in favor of bolstering the Ming emperor's prestige and reputation at all costs obfuscates the nuanced history of Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming era. Helmut Hoffman states that the Ming upheld the facade of rule over Tibet through periodic missions of "tribute emissaries" to the Ming court and by granting nominal titles to ruling lamas, but did not actually interfere in Tibetan governance. Wang Jiawei and Nyima Gyaincain disagree, stating that Ming China had sovereignty over Tibetans who did not inherit Ming titles, but were forced to travel to Beijing to renew them. Melvyn C. Goldstein writes that the Ming had no real administrative authority over Tibet since the various titles given to Tibetan leaders already in power did not confer authority as earlier Mongol Yuan titles had; according to him, "the Ming emperors merely recognized political reality." Some scholars argue that the significant religious nature of the relationship of the Ming court with Tibetan lamas is underrepresented in modern scholarship. Others underscore the commercial aspect of the relationship, noting the Ming Dynasty's insufficient amount of horses and the need to maintain the with Tibet. Scholars also debate on how much power and influence—if any—the Ming Dynasty court had over the ''de facto'' successive ruling families of Tibet, the Phagmodru , Rinbung , and Tsangpa .

The Ming initiated sporadic armed intervention in Tibet during the 14th century, while at times the Tibetans also used successful armed resistance against Ming forays. Patricia Ebrey, Thomas Laird, Wang Jiawei, and Nyima Gyaincain all point out that the Ming Dynasty did not garrison permanent troops in Tibet, unlike the former Mongol Yuan Dynasty. By the late 16th century, the Mongols proved to be successful armed protectors of the Yellow Hat Dalai Lama after their increasing presence in the Amdo region, culminating in Güshi Khan's .

Reversal of Hongwu's policies

Imposing standards and relocations

According to historian Timothy Brook, the Hongwu Emperor attempted to immobilize society by creating rigid, state-regulated boundaries between villages and larger townships, discouraging trade and travel in society not permitted by the government. Hongwu attempted to instill austere values by imposing uniform dress codes, standard methods of speech, and standard style of writing that did not flaunt the skills of the highly educated. His suspicion for the educated elite matched his disdain for the commercial elites, imposing inordinately high taxes upon the hotbed of powerful merchant families in the region of Suzhou in Jiangsu. To keep track of the merchants' activities, Hongwu forced them to register all of their goods once a month. One of his main goals as ruler was to permanently curb the influence of merchants and landlords, yet several of his policies would eventually encourage them to amass more wealth.

Hongwu's oppressive system of massive relocation and the desire to escape his harsh taxes encouraged many to become itinerant retailers, peddlers, or migrant workers finding tenant landowners who would rent them space to farm and labor on. By the mid Ming era, emperors had abandoned Hongwu's relocation scheme and instead trusted local officials to document migrant workers in order to bring in more revenue.

Self-sufficient agriculture, surplus, and urban trends

Hongwu revived the agricultural sector to create self-sufficient communities that would not rely on commerce, which he assumed would remain only in urban areas. Yet the surplus created from this revival encouraged rural farmers to make profits by first selling their goods at thoroughfares; by the mid Ming era they began selling their goods in regional urban markets. As the countryside and urban areas became more connected through commerce, households in rural areas began taking on traditionally urban specializations, such as production of silk and cotton textiles. By the late Ming there was a growing concern amongst conservative Confucians that the metaphorical delicate fabric holding together the communal social order was being undermined by country rustics accepting every manner of urban life and decadence.

The rural farmer was not the only social group affected by growing commercialization of Chinese society; it also heavily influenced the landholding gentry that traditionally produced scholar-officials for civil service. The scholar-officials were traditionally held as frugal individuals who deterred themselves from arrogance in the wealth garnered from a prestigious career; they were known even to walk from their country homes into the city where they were employed. By the time of the Zhengde Emperor , officials chose to be hauled around in luxurious and began purchasing lavish homes in affluent urban neighborhoods instead of living in the countryside.

Fusion of the merchant and gentry classes

In the first half of the Ming era, scholar-officials would rarely mention the contribution of merchants in society while writing their local gazetteer; officials were certainly capable of funding their own public works projects, a symbol of their virtuous political leadership. However, by the second half of the Ming era it became common for officials to solicit money from merchants in order to fund their various projects, such as building bridges or establishing new schools of Confucian learning for the betterment of the gentry. From that point on the gazetteers began mentioning merchants and often in high esteem, since the wealth produced by their economic activity produced resources for the state as well as increased production of books needed for the education of the gentry. Merchants began taking on the highly-cultured, connoisseur's attitude and cultivated traits of the gentry class, blurring the lines between merchant and gentry and paving the way for merchant families to produce scholar-officials. The roots of this social transformation and class indistinction , but it became much more pronounced in the Ming. Writings of family instructions for lineage groups in the late Ming period display the fact that one no longer inherited his position in the categorization of the four occupations : , , , and .

Courier network and commercial growth

Hongwu believed that only government couriers and lowly retail merchants should have the right to travel far outside their home town. The shipwrecked Korean Choe Bu remarked in 1488 how the locals along the eastern coasts of China did not know the exact distances between certain places, which was virtually exclusive knowledge of the and courier agents. This was in stark contrast to the late Ming period, when merchants not only traveled further distances to convey their goods, but also bribed courier officials to use their routes and even had printed geographical guides of commercial routes that imitated the couriers' maps.

Merchants, an open market, and silver

only surviving piece of furniture from the "Orchard Factory" set up in Beijing in the early Ming Dynasty. Decorated in dragons and , it was made during the era . The imperial workshops in the Ming era were overseen by a eunuch bureau. The government followed this guideline by the mid Ming era when it allowed merchants to take over the state monopoly of salt production. This was a gradual process where the state supplied northern frontier armies with enough grain by granting merchants licenses to trade in salt in return for their shipping services. The state realized that merchants could buy salt licenses with silver and in turn boost state revenues to the point where buying grain was not an issue. Hongwu was unaware of economic inflation even as he continued to hand out multitudes of banknotes as awards; by 1425, paper currency was worth only 0.025% to 0.014% its original value in the 14th century. The value of standard copper coinage dropped significantly as well due to counterfeit minting; by the 16th century, new maritime trade contacts with Europe provided massive amounts of imported silver, which increasingly became the common medium of exchange. As far back as 1436, the southern grain tax had been partially commuted to payments in silver. In 1581 the Single Whip Reform installed by Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng finally assessed taxes on the amount of land paid entirely in silver.

Reign of the Yongle Emperor

Rise to power

Hongwu's grandson Zhu Yunwen assumed the throne as the Jianwen Emperor after Hongwu's death in 1398. In a prelude to a three-year-long civil war beginning in 1399, Jianwen became engaged in a political showdown with his uncle Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan. Jianwen was aware of the ambitions of his princely uncles, establishing measures to limit their authority. The militant Zhu Di, given charge over the area encompassing Beijing to watch the Mongols on the frontier, was the most feared of these princes. After Jianwen arrested many of Zhu Di's associates, Zhu Di plotted a rebellion. Under the guise of rescuing the young Jianwen from corrupting officials, Zhu Di personally led forces in the revolt; the palace in Nanjing was burned to the ground, along with Zhu Di's nephew Jianwen, his wife, mother, and courtiers. Zhu Di assumed the throne as the Yongle Emperor ; his reign is universally viewed by scholars as a "second founding" of the Ming Dynasty since he reversed many of his father's policies.

New capital and a restored canal

Yongle demoted Nanjing to a secondary capital and in 1403 announced the new capital of China was to be at his power base in Beijing. Construction of a new city there lasted from 1407 to 1420, employing hundreds of thousands of workers daily.

After laying dormant and dilapidated for decades, the was restored under Yongle from 1411–1415. The impetus for restoring the canal was to solve the perennial problem of shipping grain north to Beijing. Shipping the annual 4,000,000 ''shi'' was made difficult with an inefficient system of shipping grain through the East China Sea or by several different inland canals that necessitated the transferring of grain onto several different barge types in the process, including shallow and deep water barges. Yongle commissioned some 165,000 workers to dredge the canal bed in western Shandong and built a series of fifteen canal locks. The reopening of the Grand Canal had implications for Nanjing as well, as it was surpassed by the well-positioned city of Suzhou as the paramount commercial center of China.

Although Yongle ordered episodes of bloody purges like his father—including the execution of Fang Xiaoru who refused to draft the proclamation of his succession—Yongle had a different attitude about the scholar-officials. He had a selection of texts compiled from the - school of Confucianism—or Neo-Confucianism—in order to assist those who studied for the civil service examinations. This was opposed by the Confucian establishment while it served to bolster the importance of eunuchs and military officers whose power depended upon the emperor's favor. The first voyage from 1405 to 1407 contained 317 vessels with a staff of 70 eunuchs, 180 medical personnel, 5 astrologers, and 300 military officers commanding a total estimated force of 26,800 men.

The enormous tributary missions were discontinued after the death of Zheng He, yet his death was only one of many culminating factors which brought the missions to an end. Yongle had in 1407, but Ming troops were pushed out in 1428 with significant costs to the Ming treasury; in 1431 the new Lê Dynasty of Vietnam was recognized as an independent tribute state. Yongle's moving of the capital from Nanjing to Beijing was largely in response to the court's need of keeping a closer eye on the Mongol threat in the north. Scholar-officials also associated the lavish expense of the fleets with eunuch power at court, and so halted funding for these ventures as a means to curtail further eunuch influence.

Tumu Crisis and the Ming Mongols

The Mongol leader Esen Tayisi launched an invasion into Ming China in July of 1449. The chief eunuch encouraged to personally lead a force to face the Mongols after a recent Ming defeat; marching off with 50,000 troops, Zhengtong left the capital and put his half-brother Zhu Qiyu in charge of affairs as temporary regent. In the battle that ensued on September 8, his force of 50,000 troops were decimated by Esen's army and Zhengtong was captured and held in captivity by the Mongols—an event known as the Tumu Crisis. After Zhengtong's capture, Esen's forces plundered their way across the countryside and all the way to the suburbs of Beijing. Following this was another plundering of the Beijing suburbs in November of that year by local bandits and Ming Dynasty soldiers of Mongol descent who dressed as invading Mongols. Many Han Chinese also took to brigandage soon after the Tumu incident.

The Mongols held the Zhengtong Emperor for ransom. However, this scheme was foiled once Zhengtong's younger brother assumed the throne as the Jingtai Emperor ; the Mongols were also repelled once Jingtai's confidant and defense minister Yu Qian gained control of the Ming armed forces. Holding Zhengtong in captivity was a useless bargaining chip for the Mongols as long as another sat on his throne, so they released him back into Ming China. Zhengtong retook the throne as the Tianshun Emperor .

Tianshun's reign was a troubled one and Mongol forces within the Ming military structure continued to be problematic. On August 7, 1461, the Chinese general Cao Qin and his Ming troops of Mongol descent out of fear of being next on his purge-list of those who aided Jingtai's succession. Mongols serving the Ming military also became increasingly circumspect as the Chinese began to heavily distrust their Mongol subjects after the Tumu Crisis. Cao's rebel force managed to set fire to the western and eastern gates of the and killed several leading ministers before his forces were finally cornered and he was forced to commit suicide.

The Mongol threat to China was at its greatest level in the 15th century, although periodic raiding continued throughout the dynasty. Like in the Tumu Crisis, the Mongol leader Altan Khan invaded China and raided as far as the outskirts of Beijing. Interestingly enough, the Ming employed troops of Mongol descent to fight back Altan Khan's invasion, as well as Mongol military officers against Cao Qin's abortive coup. The Mongol incursions prompted the Ming authorities to construct the Great Wall from the late 15th century to the 16th century; John Fairbank notes that "it proved to be a futile military gesture but vividly expressed China's siege mentality."

Isolation to globalization

Illegal trade, piracy, and war with Japan

In 1479, the vice president of the Ministry of War burned the court records documenting Zheng He's voyages; it was one of many events signalling China's shift to an inward foreign policy. Shipbuilding laws were implemented that restricted vessels to a small size; the concurrent decline of the Ming navy allowed the growth of piracy along China's coasts.

Trade and contact with Europe

Although Jorge & was the first to land on Lintin Island in the Pearl River Delta in May of 1513, it was Rafael Perestrello—a cousin of the famed Christopher Columbus—who became the first European explorer to land on the southern coast of mainland China and trade in Guangzhou in 1516, commanding a vessel with a crew from a Malaysian junk that had sailed from Malacca. The Portuguese sent a large subsequent expedition in 1517 to enter port at Guangzhou and open formal trade relations with Chinese authorities. During this expedition the Portuguese attempted to send an inland delegation in the name of Manuel I of Portugal to the court of the Ming emperor Zhengde; instead the diplomatic mission languished in a Chinese jail and died there. Simão de Andrade, brother to ambassador Fern&, had also stirred Chinese speculation that the Portuguese were kidnapping Chinese children to eat them; Simão had purchased kidnapped children as slaves who were later found in Diu, India. In 1521, Ming Dynasty naval forces fought and repulsed Portuguese ships at Tuen Mun, where some of the first culverins were introduced to China. Despite initial hostilities, by 1549 the Portuguese were sending annual trade missions to Shangchuan Island.

From China the major exports were silk and porcelain. The Dutch East India Company alone handled the trade of 6 million porcelain items from China to Europe between the years 1602 to 1682. Antonio de Morga , a official in Manila, listed an extensive inventory of goods that were traded by Ming China at the turn of the 17th century, noting there were "rarities which, did I refer to them all, I would never finish, nor have sufficient paper for it". After noting the variety of silk goods traded to Europeans, Ebrey writes of the considerable size of commercial transactions:

After the Chinese had banned direct trade by Chinese merchants with Japan, the Portuguese filled this commercial vacuum as intermediaries between China and Japan. The Portuguese bought Chinese silk and sold it to the Japanese in return for Japanese-mined silver; since silver was more highly valued in China, the Portuguese could then use Japanese silver to buy even larger stocks of Chinese silk.

Although the bulk of imports to China were silver, the Chinese also purchased New World crops from the Spanish Empire. This included sweet potatoes, maize, and peanuts, foods that could be cultivated in lands where traditional Chinese staple crops—wheat, millet, and rice—couldn't grow, hence facilitating a rise in the population of China. In the Song Dynasty , rice had become the major staple crop of the poor; after sweet potatoes were introduced to China around 1560, it gradually became the traditional food of the lower classes.

Decline

Reign of the Wanli Emperor

The financial drain of the Imjin War in Korea against the Japanese was one of the many problems—fiscal or other—facing Ming China during the reign of the Wanli Emperor . In the beginning of his reign, Wanli surrounded himself with able advisors and made a conscientious effort to handle state affairs. His Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng built up an effective network of alliances with senior officials. However, there was no one after him skilled enough to maintain the stability of these alliances;

Officials aggravated Wanli about which of his sons should succeed to the throne; he also grew equally disgusted with senior advisors constantly bickering about how to manage the state. Annoyed by all of this, Wanli began neglecting his duties, remaining absent from court audiences to discuss politics, lost interest in studying the , refused to read petitions and other state papers, and stopped filling the recurrent vacancies of vital upper level administrative posts.

The eunuch Wei Zhongxian dominated the court of the Tianqi Emperor and had his political rivals tortured to death, mostly the vocal critics from the faction of the "". He ordered temples built in his honor throughout the Ming Empire, Meanwhile, Philip IV of Spain began cracking down on illegal smuggling of silver from and across the towards China, in favor of shipping American-mined silver directly from Spain to Manila. In 1639, the new regime of Japan shut down most of its foreign trade with European powers, causing a halt of yet another source of silver coming into China. However, the greatest stunt to the flow of silver came from the Americas, while Japanese silver still came into China in limited amounts. Some scholars even assert that the price of silver rose in the 17th century due to a falling demand for goods, not declining silver stocks.

These events occurring at roughly the same time caused a dramatic spike in the value of silver and made paying taxes nearly impossible for most provinces. People began hoarding precious silver as there was progressively less of it, forcing the ratio of the value of copper to silver into a steep decline.

In this early half of the 17th century, famines became common in northern China because of unusual dry and cold weather that shortened the growing season; these were effects of a larger ecological event now known as the Little Ice Age. Famine, alongside tax increases, widespread military desertions, a declining relief system, and natural disasters such as flooding and inability of the government to properly manage irrigation and flood-control projects caused widespread loss of life and normal civility.

Fall of the Dynasty

Rise of the Manchu

A remarkable tribal leader named Nurhaci , starting with just a small tribe, rapidly gained control over all the Manchurian tribes. During the Imjin War he offered to lead his tribes in support of the Ming and Joseon army. This offer was declined, but he was granted honorific Ming titles for his gesture. Recognizing the weakness in the Ming authority north of their border, he took control over all of the other unrelated tribes surrounding his homeland. Succeeding generals proved unable to eliminate the Manchu threat.

Unable to attack the heart of Ming directly, the Manchu instead bided their time, developing their own artillery and gathering allies. They were able to enlist Ming government officials and generals as their strategic advisors. A large part of the Ming Army deserted to the Manchu banner. In 1632, they had conquered much of Inner Mongolia, Huang Taiji also adopted the Chinese imperial title '''' instead of , took the Imperial title , and changed the ethnic name of his people from Jurchen to Manchu. The agreement soon broke down when a local magistrate had thirty-six of his fellow rebels executed; Li's troops retaliated by killing the officials and continued to lead a rebellion based in Rongyang, central Henan province by 1635. By the 1640s, an ex-soldier and rival to Li—Zhang Xianzhong —had created a firm rebel base in Chengdu, Sichuan, while Li's center of power was in Hubei with extended influence over Shaanxi and Henan.

Seizing opportunity, the Manchus crossed the Great Wall after the Ming border general Wu Sangui opened the gates at Shanhai Pass. This occurred shortly after he learned about the fate of the capital and an army of Li Zicheng marching towards him; weighing his options of alliance, he decided to side with the Manchus. The Manchu army under the Manchu Prince Dorgon and Wu Sangui approached Beijing after the army sent by Li was destroyed at Shanhaiguan; the Prince of Shun's army fled the capital on the fourth of June. On June 6 the Manchus and Wu entered the capital and proclaimed the young Shunzhi Emperor ruler of China.

Scattered Ming remnants still existed after 1644, including those of Koxinga. Despite the loss of Beijing and the death of the emperor, Ming power was by no means totally destroyed. Nanjing, Fujian, Guangdong, Shanxi, and Yunnan were all strongholds of Ming resistance. However, there were several pretenders for the Ming throne, and their forces were divided. Each bastion of resistance was individually defeated by the Qing until 1662, when the last real hopes of a Ming revival died with the Yongli emperor, . Despite the Ming defeat, smaller loyalist movements continued until the proclamation of the Republic of China.

Government

Province, prefecture, subprefecture, county

The Ming emperors took over the provincial administration system of the Yuan Dynasty, and the thirteen Ming provinces are the precursors of the modern provinces. Throughout the Song Dynasty, the largest political division was the . However, after the in 1127, the Song court established four semi-autonomous regional command systems based on territorial and military units, with a detached service secretariat that would become the provincial administrations of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. At the provincial level, the Yuan central government structure was copied by the Ming; the bureaucracy contained three provincial commissions: one civil, one military, and one for surveillance. Below the level of the were operating under a prefect, followed by under a subprefect. Finally, the lowest unit was the overseen by a magistrate. Thus a whole level of administration was cut out and only partially rebuilt by subsequent rulers. By 1430 these ''xunfu'' assignments became institutionalized. By the late Ming Dynasty, there were central government officials delegated to two or more provinces as supreme commanders and viceroys, a system which reigned in the power and influence of the military by the civil establishment. The Grand Secretariat drew its members from the Hanlin Academy and were considered part of the imperial authority, not the ministerial one . The Secretariat was a coordinating agency, whereas the Six Ministries—which were Personnel, Revenue, Rites, War, Justice, and Public Works—were direct administrative organs of the state. The Ministry of Personnel was in charge of appointments, merit ratings, promotions, and demotions of officials, as well as granting of honorific titles. The Ministry of Revenue was in charge of gathering census data, collecting taxes, and handling state revenues, while there were two offices of currency that were subordinate to it. The Ministry of Rites was in charge of state ceremonies, rituals, and sacrifices; it also oversaw registers for Buddhist and Daoist priesthoods and even the reception of envoys from tributary states. The Ministry of War was in charge of the appointments, promotions, and demotions of military officers, the maintenance of military installations, equipment, and weapons, as well as the courier system. The Ministry of Justice was in charge of judicial and penal processes, but had no supervisory role over the Censorate or the Grand Court of Revision. The Ministry of Works was in charge of government construction projects, hiring of artisans and laborers for temporary service, manufacturing government equipment, the maintenance of roads and canals, standardization of weights and measures, and the gathering of resources from the countryside. Female servants were organized into the Bureau of Palace Attendance, Bureau of Ceremonies, Bureau of Apparel, Bureau of Foodstuffs, Bureau of the Bedchamber, Bureau of Handicrafts, and Office of Staff Surveillance. The offices were in charge of providing fuel, music, paper, and baths. There were also civil service offices to oversee the affairs of imperial princes.

Personnel

Scholar-officials

After the reign of Hongwu—who from 1373 to 1384 staffed his bureaus with officials gathered through recommendations only—the scholar-officials who populated the many ranks of bureaucracy were recruited through a rigorous that was first established by the Sui Dynasty . Theoretically the system of exams allowed anyone to join the ranks of imperial officials ; in reality the time and funding needed to support the study in preparation for the exam generally limited participants to those already coming from the landholding class. However, the government did exact provincial quotas while drafting officials. The expansion of the enhanced the spread of knowledge and number of potential exam candidates throughout the provinces. For young schoolchildren there were printed multiplication tables and primers for elementary vocabulary; for adult examination candidates there were mass-produced, inexpensive volumes of Confucian classics and successful examination answers.

As in earlier periods, the focus of the examination was classical Confucian texts, while the bulk of test material centered on the Four Books outlined by Zhu Xi in the 12th century. Ming era examinations were perhaps more difficult to pass since the 1487 requirement of completing the "eight-legged essay", a departure from basing essays off progressing literary trends. While provincial graduates who were appointed to office were immediately assigned to low-ranking posts like the county graduates, those who passed the palace examination were awarded a ''jinshi'' degree and assured a high-level position. In 276 years of Ming rule and ninety palace examinations, the number of doctoral degrees granted by passing the palace examinations was 24,874. If they were graded as superior then they were promoted, if graded adequate then they retained their ranks, and if graded inadequate they were demoted one rank. In extreme cases, officials would be dismissed or punished. The Chief Instructor on the prefectural level was classified as equal to a second-grade county graduate. They outnumbered officials by four to one; Charles Hucker estimates that they were perhaps as many as 100,000 throughout the empire.

Eunuchs, princes and generals

Eunuchs during the Ming Dynasty gained unprecedented power over state affairs. One of the most effective means of control was the secret service stationed in what was called the Eastern Depot at the beginning of the dynasty, later the Western Depot.

Princes and descendants of the first Ming emperor were given nominal military commands and large land estates without title. These estates were not feudatories, the princes did not serve any administrative function, and it was only during the reign of the first two emperors that they partook in military affairs. By contrast, princes in the Han and Jin Dynasties had been installed as local kings. Although princes served no organ of state administration, princes, consorts of imperial princesses, and ennobled relatives did staff the Imperial Clan Court, which took care of the imperial genealogy. However, military officers had less prestige than officials. This was due to their hereditary service and Confucian values that dictated those who chose the profession of violence over the cultured pursuits of knowledge . Although seen as less prestigious, military officers were not excluded from taking civil service examinations and after 1478 the military even held their own examinations to test military skills. In addition to taking over the established bureaucratic structure from the Yuan period, the Ming emperors established the new post of the travelling military inspector. In the early half of the dynasty, men of noble lineage dominated the higher ranks of military office; this trend was reversed during the latter half of the dynasty as men from more humble origins eventually displaced them.

Society and culture

Literature and arts

As in earlier dynasties, the Ming Dynasty saw a flourishing in the arts, whether it was , , , , or . Carved designs in lacquerwares and designs glazed onto porcelain wares displayed intricate scenes similar in complexity to those in painting. These items could be found in the homes of the wealthy, alongside embroidered silks and wares in , ivory, and cloisonné. The houses of the rich were also furnished with rosewood furniture and feathery latticework. The writing materials in a scholar's private study, including elaborately carved brush holders made of stone or wood, were all designed and arranged ritually to give an aesthetic appeal. However, there were guides to help the wary new connoisseur; in Liu Tong's book printed in 1635, he told his readers various ways to spot a fake and authentic pieces of art. He revealed that a bronzework could be authenticated if one knew how to judge its sheen; porcelain wares from the Yongle era could be judged authentic by their thickness.

There was a great amount of literary achievement in the Ming Dynasty. The travel literature author Xu Xiake published his ''Travel Diaries'' in 404,000 written , with information on everything from local to mineralogy. The first reference to the publishing of private newspapers in Beijing was in 1582; by 1638 the Beijing Gazette switched from using to movable type printing. The new literary field of the moral guide to business ethics was developed by the late Ming period, for the readership of the merchant class. Although short story fiction was popular as far back as the Tang Dynasty , and the work of contemporaneous authors such as Xu Guangqi, Xu Xiake, and Song Yingxing were often technical and encyclopedic, the Ming era witnessed the development of the fictional novel. While the gentry elite were educated enough to fully comprehend the language of Classical Chinese, those with rudimentary education—such as women in educated families, merchants, and shop clerks—became a large, potential audience for literature and performing arts that employed Vernacular Chinese. The ''Jin Ping Mei''—published in 1610—is considered by some to be the fifth great novel of pre-modern China, in reference to the Four Great Classical Novels. Two of these novels, the ''Water Margin'' and ''Journey to the West'' were products of the Ming Dynasty. To complement the work of fictional novels, the theater scripts of playwrights were equally imaginative. One of the most famous plays in Chinese history, ''The Peony Pavilion'', was written by the Ming playwright Tang Xianzu , with its first performance at the Pavilion of Prince Teng in 1598.

In contrast to Xu Xiake, who focused on technical aspects in his travel literature, the Chinese poet and official Yuan Hongdao used travel literature to express his desires for individualism as well as autonomy from and frustration with Confucian court politics. Yuan desired to free himself from the ethical compromises which were inseparable from the career of a scholar-official. Yuan Hongdao and his two brothers—Yuan Zongdao and Yuan Zhongdao —were the founders of the Gong'an School of letters. This highly individualistic school of poetry and prose was criticized by the Confucian establishment for its association with intense sensual lyricism, which was also apparent in Ming vernacular novels such as the ''Jin Ping Mei''.

There were many famous visual artists in the Ming period, including Ni Zan, Shen Zhou, Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming, Qiu Ying, Dong Qichang, and many others. They drew upon the techniques, styles, and complexity in painting achieved by their Song and Yuan predecessors, but added some new techniques and styles. Well-known Ming artists could make a living simply by painting, due to the high costs they demanded for their artworks and the great demand by the highly cultured community to collect precious works of art. The artist Qiu Ying was once paid 2.8 kg of silver to paint a long handscroll for the occasion of an eightieth birthday celebration for the mother of a wealthy patron.

Religion

For thousands of years the beliefs in ancestor worship and practices of the ancestral cult were key features of Chinese civilization. The Chinese believed in a host of deities in what is termed as Chinese folk religion. Other religious denominations in the Ming included the ancient native ideology of Daoism and foreign originated Buddhism, although distinct Chinese Buddhism had long since developed.

Christianity had existed in China since at least the Tang Dynasty , yet the late Ming period saw the first arrival of from Europe such as Matteo Ricci and Nicolas Trigault. There were also other denominations including the and Franciscans.

Ricci worked with the Chinese mathematician, astronomer, and agronomist Xu Guangqi to translate the Greek mathematical work ''Euclid's Elements'' into Chinese for the first time in 1607. The Chinese were impressed with European knowledge in astronomy, calendrical science, mathematics, hydraulics, and geography. Most European monks presented themselves more as educated elites than religious figures, in an effort to gain trust and admiration from the Chinese. However, most Chinese were suspicious and even outright critical of Christianity due to Chinese beliefs and practices that did not coincide with the Christian faith.

Besides Christianity, the Kaifeng Jews had a long history in China; Ricci discovered this when he was contacted by one of them in Beijing and learned of . Islam in China had existed since the early 7th century ; there were several prominent figures—including Zheng He—who were Muslim. The Hongwu Emperor also employed Muslim commanders in his army, such as Chang Yuqun, Lan Yu, Ding Dexing, and Mu Ying.

Philosophy

Wang Yangming's Confucianism

During the Ming Dynasty, the doctrines of the Song Dynasty scholar-official Zhu Xi and Neo-Confucianism were embraced by the court and the Chinese literati at large. However, total conformity to a single mode of thought was never a reality in the intellectual sphere of society. There were some in the Ming who—like Su Shi of the Song—were rebels at heart and were not abashed to criticize the mainstream dogmatic modes of thought. Leading a new strand of Confucian teaching and philosophy was the scholar-official Wang Yangming , whose critics said that his teachings were contaminated by .

In analyzing Zhu Xi's concept of "the extension of knowledge" , Wang realized that universal principles were concepts espoused in the minds of all. Breaking from the mold, Wang said that anyone, no matter what socioeconomic status or background, could become as wise as the ancient sages Confucius and Mencius, and that the writings of the latter two were not the source of truth, but merely guides that could have flaws if carefully examined. In Wang's mind, a peasant who had many experiences and drew natural truths from these was more wise than an official who had carefully studied the Classics but had not experienced the real world in order to observe what was true. Yet these "dangerous ideas" of educating women had long been embraced with mothers giving their children primary education, as well as courtesans who were as literate and similarly trained in calligraphy, painting, and poetry as their male hosts.

In opposition to the liberal views of Wang Yangming were the conservative officials in the censorate—a governmental institution with the right and responsibility to speak out against malfeasance and abuse of power—and the senior officials of the Donglin Academy, which was reestablished in 1604. These conservatives wanted a revival of orthodox Confucian ethics. Conservatives such as Gu Xiancheng argued against Wang Yangming's idea of innate moral knowledge, stating that this was simply a legitimization for unscrupulous behavior such as greedy pursuits and personal gain. Schools, descent groups, religious associations, and other local voluntary organizations were increasing in number and allowing more contact between educated men and local villagers. Not only was the blurring of town and country evident, but also of socioeconomic class in the traditional four occupations, since artisans sometimes worked on farms in peak periods and farmers often traveled into the city to find work during times of dearth. Male catamites fetched a higher price than female concubines since pederasty with a teenage boy was seen as a mark of elite status, regardless of sodomy being repugnant to sexual norms. Public bathing became much more common than in earlier periods. Urban shops and retailers sold a variety of goods such as to burn at ancestral sacrifices, specialized luxury goods, headgear, fine cloth, teas, and others. In the north traveling by horse and carriage was most common, while in the south the myriad of rivers, canals, and lakes provided cheap and easy water transport. Although the south had the characteristic of the wealthy landlord and tenant farmers, there were on average many more owner-cultivators north of the Huai River due to harsher climate, living not far above subsistence level.

Science and technology

Compared to the flourishing of , the Ming Dynasty perhaps saw fewer advancements in science and technology compared to the pace of discovery in the Western world. In fact, key advances in Chinese science in the late Ming were spurred by contact with Europe. In 1626 Johann Adam Schall von Bell wrote the first Chinese treatise on the telescope, the ''Yuanjingshuo'' ; in 1634 the last Ming acquired the telescope of the late Johann Schreck . The model of the solar system was rejected by the Catholic missionaries in China, but Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei's ideas slowly trickled into China starting with the Polish Jesuit Michael Boym in 1627, Adam Schall von Bell's treatise in 1640, and finally Joseph Edkins, Alex Wylie, and John Fryer in the 19th century. Catholic Jesuits in China would promote theory at court, yet at the same time embrace the system in their writing; it was not until 1865 that Catholic missionaries in China sponsored the heliocentric model as their Protestant peers did. Although Shen Kuo and Guo Shoujing had laid the basis for in China, another important work in Chinese trigonometry would not be published again until 1607 with the efforts of Xu Guangqi and Matteo Ricci. Ironically, some inventions which had their origins in ancient China were reintroduced to China from Europe during the late Ming; for example, the .

The Chinese calendar was in need of reform since it inadequately measured the solar year at 365¼ days, giving an error of 10 min and 14 sec a year or roughly a full day every 128 years. Although the Ming had adopted Guo Shoujing's ''Shoushi'' calendar of 1281, which was just as accurate as the Gregorian Calendar, the Ming Directorate of Astronomy failed to periodically readjust it; this was perhaps due to their lack of expertise since their offices had become hereditary in the Ming and the Statutes of the Ming prohibited private involvement in astronomy. It should be noted that this was the same Zhu Zaiyu who discovered the system of tuning known as equal temperament, a discovery made simultaneously by Simon Stevin in Europe. In addition to publishing his works on music, he was able to publish his findings on the calendar in 1597. This was described in full length by the Divisional Director of the Ministry of Works, Xiao Xun, who also carefully preserved details on the architecture and layout of the Yuan Dynasty palace. However, both Ricci and Trigault were quick to point out that 16th century European clockworks were far more advanced than the common time keeping devices in China, which they listed as water clocks, incense clocks, and "other instruments...with wheels rotated by sand as if by water." Chinese records—namely the ''Yuan Shi''—describe the 'five-wheeled sand clock', a mechanism pioneered by Zhan Xiyuan which featured the scoop wheel of Su Song's earlier astronomical clock and a over which a pointer circulated, similar to European models of the time. This sand-driven wheel clock was improved upon by Zhou Shuxue who added a fourth large gear wheel, changed gear ratios, and widened the orifice for collecting sand grains since he criticized the earlier model for clogging up too often.

The Chinese were intrigued with European technology, but so were visiting Europeans of Chinese technology. In 1584, Abraham Ortelius featured in his atlas ''Theatrum Orbis Terrarum'' the peculiar Chinese innovation of , just like . also mentioned this a year later—noting even the designs of them on Chinese silken robes—while Gerardus Mercator featured them in his atlas, John Milton in one of his famous poems, and Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest in the writings of his travel diary in China.

The encyclopedist Song Yingxing documented a wide array of technologies, metallurgic and industrial processes in his ''Tiangong Kaiwu'' encyclopedia of 1637. This includes mechanical and hydraulic powered devices for agriculture and irrigation, nautical technology such as vessel types and snorkeling gear for pearl divers, the annual processes of sericulture and weaving with the loom, metallurgic processes such as the crucible technique and quenching, manufacturing processes such as for roasting iron pyrite in converting sulphide to oxide in sulfur used in gunpowder compositions—illustrating how ore was piled up with coal briquettes in an earthen furnace with a still-head that sent over sulfur as vapor that would solidify and —and the use of gunpowder weapons such as a naval mine ignited by use of a rip-cord and .

Focusing on agriculture in his ''Nongzheng Quanshu'', the agronomist Xu Guangqi took an interest in irrigation, fertilizers, famine relief, economic and textile crops, and empirical observation of the elements that gave insight into early understandings of chemistry.

There were many advances and new designs in gunpowder weapons during the beginning of the dynasty, but by the mid to late Ming the Chinese began to frequently employ European-style artillery and firearms. The ''Huolongjing'', compiled by Jiao Yu and Liu Ji sometime before the latter's death on May 16, 1375 , featured many types of cutting-edge gunpowder weaponry for the time. This includes hollow, gunpowder-filled , land mines that used a complex trigger mechanism of falling weights, pins, and a steel wheellock to ignite the train of fuses, naval mines, fin-mounted winged rockets for aerodynamic control, multistage rockets propelled by booster rockets before igniting a swarm of smaller rockets issuing forth from the end of the missile , and hand cannons that had up to .

Li Shizhen —one of the most renowned and physicians —belonged to the late Ming period. In 1587, he completed the first draft of his ''Bencao Gangmu'', which detailed the usage of over 1,800 medicinal drugs. Although it purportedly was invented by a Daoist hermit from Mount Emei in the late 10th century, the process of inoculation for smallpox patients was in widespread use in China by the reign of the Longqing Emperor , long before it was applied anywhere else. In regards to oral hygiene, the ancient Egyptians had a primitive toothbrush of a twig frayed at the end, but the Chinese were the first to invent the modern in 1498, although it used stiff pig hair.

Population

still debate the actual population figures for each era in the Ming Dynasty. The historian Timothy Brook notes that the Ming government census figures are dubious since fiscal obligations prompted many families to underreport the number of people in their households and many county officials to underreport the number of households in their jurisdiction. Children were often underreported, especially female children, as shown by skewed population statistics throughout the Ming. for example, the Daming Prefecture in reported a population of 378,167 males and 226,982 females in 1502. The government attempted to revise the census figures using estimates of the expected average number of people in each household, but this did not solve the widespread problem of tax registration.

The number of people counted in the census of 1381 was 59,873,305; however, this number dropped significantly when the government found that some 3 million people were missing from the tax census of 1391. Even though underreporting figures was made a capital crime in 1381, the need for survival pushed many to abandon the tax registration and wander from their region, where Hongwu had attempted to impose rigid immobility on the populace. The government tried to mitigate this by creating their own conservative estimate of 60,545,812 people in 1393. Brook states that the population figures gathered in the official censuses after 1393 ranged between 51 and 62 million, while the population was in fact increasing.

Xuande Emperor, ; he stated in 1428 that his populace was dwindling due to palace construction and military adventures, but in fact the population was rising under him, a fact noted by Zhou Chen—Governor of —in his 1432 report to the throne about widespread itinerant commerce. Using the gazetteers, Brook estimates that the overall population under the Chenghua Emperor was roughly 75 million, The and emperors lessened the penalties against those who had fled their home region, while the Jiajing Emperor finally had officials register migrants wherever they had moved or fled in order to bring in more revenues. Fairbank estimates that the population was perhaps 160 million in the late Ming Dynasty, while Brook estimates 175 million,

Name of Posts	Personal Names	Period on post
Wuping jiedu\|節度 950-963
Wuping jiedushi\|武平節度使 Wǔpíng jíedùshǐ	Liú Yán\|劉言	950-953
Wuping jiedushi\|武平節度使 Wǔpíng jíedùshǐ	Wáng Kuí\|王逵 or Wáng Jìnkuí\|王進逵	953-956
Wuping jiedushi\|武平節度使 Wǔpíng jíedùshǐ	Zhōu Xíngféng\|周行逢	956-962
Wuping jiedushi\|武平節度使 Wǔpíng jíedùshǐ	Zhōu Bǎoquán\|周保權	962-963
Qingyuan jiedu\|節度 945-978
Qingyuan jiedushi\|清源節度使 Qīngyuán jíedùshǐ	Liú Cóngxiào\|留從效	945-962
Qingyuan jiedushi\|清源節度使 Qīngyuán jíedùshǐ	Liú Shàozī\|留紹鎡	962
Qingyuan jiedushi\|清源節度使 Qīngyuán jíedùshǐ	Zhāng Hànsī\|張漢思	962-963
Qingyuan jiedushi\|清源節度使 Qīngyuán jíedùshǐ	Chén Hóngjìn\|陳洪進	963-978