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Chinese Culture and History
Learn more about Chinese culture and history, China culture backgrounnd, China 5,000 years civilization, Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Chinese people, historical story, historical background |
The Dawn of China |
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| Chinese civilization, as described in mythology, begins with Pangu
(盘古), the creator of the universe, and a succession of legendary
sage-emperors and culture heroes (among them are Huang Di 黄帝, Yao,
and Shun) who taught the ancient Chinese to communicate and to find
sustenance, clothing, and shelter. |
| 夏 |
| The first prehistoric dynasty is said to be Xia (夏), from about
the twenty-first to the sixteenth century B.C. Until scientific
excavations were made at early bronze-age sites at Anyang (安阳 ),
Henan (河南 ) Province, in 1928, it was difficult to separate myth
from reality in regard to the Xia. But since then, and especially
in the 1960s and 1970s, archaeologists have uncovered urban sites,
bronze implements, and tombs that point to the existence of Xia
civilization in the same locations cited in ancient Chinese historical
texts. At minimum, the Xia period marked an evolutionary stage between
the late neolithic cultures and the typical Chinese urban civilization
of the Shang dynasty. |
| 周 |
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| Thousands of archaeological finds in the Huang He (黄河 ), Henan
Valley (河南 ) --the apparent cradle of Chinese civilization--provide
evidence about the Shang (商) dynasty, which endured roughly from
1700 to 1027 B.C. The Shang dynasty (also called the Yin (殷) dynasty
in its later stages) is believed to have been founded by a rebel
leader who overthrew the last Xia ruler. Its civilization was based
on agriculture, augmented by hunting and animal husbandry. Two important
events of the period were the development of a writing system, as
revealed in archaic Chinese inscriptions found on tortoise shells
and flat cattle bones (commonly called oracle bones or 甲骨文), and
the use of bronze metallurgy. A number of ceremonial bronze vessels
with inscriptions date from the Shang period; the workmanship on
the bronzes attests to a high level of civilization.
A line of hereditary Shang kings ruled over much of northern
China, and Shang troops fought frequent wars with neighboring
settlements and nomadic herdsmen from the inner Asian steppes.
The capitals, one of which was at the site of the modern city
of Anyang, were centers of glittering court life. Court rituals
to propitiate spirits and to honor sacred ancestors were highly
developed. In addition to his secular position, the king was the
head of the ancestor- and spirit-worship cult. Evidence from the
royal tombs indicates that royal personages were buried with articles
of value, presumably for use in the afterlife. Perhaps for the
same reason, hundreds of commoners, who may have been slaves,
were buried alive with the royal corpse. |
| 周 |
(China Map in Zhou Dynasty) |
| The last Shang ruler, a despot according to standard Chinese accounts,
was overthrown by a chieftain of a frontier tribe called Zhou (周),
which had settled in the Wei (渭) Valley in modern Shaanxi (陕西 )
Province. The Zhou dynasty had its capital at Hao (镐), near the
city of Xi'an (西安 ), or Chang'an ( 长安), as it was known in its heyday
in the imperial period. Sharing the language and culture of the
Shang, the early Zhou rulers, through conquest and colonization,
gradually sinicized, that is, extended Shang culture through much
of China Proper north of the Chang Jiang (长江 or Yangtze River).
The Zhou dynasty lasted longer than any other, from 1027 to 221
B.C. It was philosophers of this period who first enunciated the
doctrine of the "mandate of heaven" (tianming or 天命),
the notion that the ruler (the "son of heaven" or 天子)
governed by divine right but that his dethronement would prove that
he had lost the mandate. The doctrine explained and justified the
demise of the two earlier dynasties and at the same time supported
the legitimacy of present and future rulers.
The term feudal has often been applied to the Zhou period because
the Zhou's early decentralized rule invites comparison with medieval
rule in Europe. At most, however, the early Zhou system was proto-feudal
(封建制度), being a more sophisticated version of earlier tribal organization,
in which effective control depended more on familial ties than
on feudal legal bonds. Whatever feudal elements there may have
been decreased as time went on. The Zhou amalgam of city-states
became progressively centralized and established increasingly
impersonal political and economic institutions. These developments,
which probably occurred in the latter Zhou period, were manifested
in greater central control over local governments and a more routinized
agricultural taxation.
In 771 B.C. the Zhou court was sacked, and its king was killed
by invading barbarians who were allied with rebel lords. The capital
was moved eastward to Luoyang (洛阳 ) in present-day Henan (河南)
Province. Because of this shift, historians divide the Zhou era
into Western Zhou (1027-771 B.C.) and Eastern Zhou (770-221 B.C.).
With the royal line broken, the power of the Zhou court gradually
diminished; the fragmentation of the kingdom accelerated. Eastern
Zhou divides into two subperiods. The first, from 770 to 476 B.C.,
is called the Spring and Autumn Period (春秋时代 ), after a famous
historical chronicle of the time; the second is known as the Warring
States Period (475-221 B.C. 战国时代) |
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