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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 First Imperial Period |
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| 秦 |
 (China
Map in Qin Dynasty) |
| Much of what came to constitute China Proper was unified for the
first time in 221 B.C. In that year the western frontier state of
Qin, the most aggressive of the Warring States, subjugated the last
of its rival states. (Qin in Wade-Giles romanization is Ch'in, from
which the English China probably derived.) Once the king of Qin
consolidated his power, he took the title Shi Huangdi (始皇帝 First
Emperor), a formulation previously reserved for deities and the
mythological sage-emperors, and imposed Qin's centralized, nonhereditary
bureaucratic system on his new empire. In subjugating the six other
major states of Eastern Zhou, the Qin kings had relied heavily on
Legalist scholar-advisers. Centralization, achieved by ruthless
methods, was focused on standardizing legal codes and bureaucratic
procedures, the forms of writing and coinage, and the pattern of
thought and scholarship. To silence criticism of imperial rule,
the kings banished or put to death many dissenting Confucian scholars
and confiscated and burned their books (焚书坑儒). |
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| Qin aggrandizement was aided by frequent military expeditions
pushing forward the frontiers in the north and south. To fend off
barbarian intrusion, the fortification walls built by the various
warring states were connected to make a 5,000-kilometer-long great
wall (万里长城). What is commonly referred to as the Great Wall is actually
four great walls rebuilt or extended during the Western Han, Sui,
Jin, and Ming periods, rather than a single, continuous wall. At
its extremities, the Great Wall reaches from northeastern Heilongjiang
(黑龙江) Province to northwestern Gansu (甘肃). A number of public works
projects were also undertaken to consolidate and strengthen imperial
rule. These activities required enormous levies of manpower and
resources, not to mention repressive measures. Revolts broke out
as soon as the first Qin emperor died in 210 B.C. His dynasty was
extinguished less than twenty years after its triumph. The imperial
system initiated during the Qin dynasty, however, set a pattern
that was developed over the next two millennia. |
| 汉 |
 (China
Map in Han Dynasty) |
After a short civil war, a new dynasty, called Han (206 B.C.-A.D.
220), emerged with its capital at Chang'an (长安). The new empire
retained much of the Qin administrative structure but retreated
a bit from centralized rule by establishing vassal principalities
in some areas for the sake of political convenience. The Han rulers
modified some of the harsher aspects of the previous dynasty;
Confucian ideals of government, out of favor during the Qin period,
were adopted as the creed of the Han empire, and Confucian scholars
gained prominent status as the core of the civil service. A civil
service examination system also was initiated. Intellectual, literary,
and artistic endeavors revived and flourished. The Han period
produced China's most famous historian, Sima Qian (司马迁 145-87
B.C.?), whose Shiji (史记 Historical Records) provides a detailed
chronicle from the time of a legendary Xia emperor to that of
the Han emperor Wu Di ( 141-87 B.C.). Technological advances also
marked this period. Two of the great Chinese inventions, paper
and porcelain, date from Han times.
The Han dynasty, after which the members of the ethnic majority
in China, the "people of Han," are named, was notable
also for its military prowess. The empire expanded westward as
far as the rim of the Tarim Basin (in modern Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous
Region), making possible relatively secure caravan traffic across
Central Asia to Antioch, Baghdad, and Alexandria. The paths of
caravan traffic are often called the "silk route" (丝路)
because the route was used to export Chinese silk to the Roman
Empire. Chinese armies also invaded and annexed parts of northern
Vietnam and northern Korea toward the end of the second century
B.C. Han control of peripheral regions was generally insecure,
however. To ensure peace with non-Chinese local powers, the Han
court developed a mutually beneficial "tributary system"
(朝贡). 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.
After 200 years, Han rule was interrupted briefly (in A.D. 9-24
by Wang Mang or 王莽, a reformer), and then restored for another
200 years. The Han rulers, however, were unable to adjust to what
centralization had wrought: a growing population, increasing wealth
and resultant financial difficulties and rivalries, and ever-more
complex political institutions. Riddled with the corruption characteristic
of the dynastic cycle, by A.D. 220 the Han empire collapsed. |
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| Era of Disunity |
| The collapse of the Han dynasty was followed by nearly four centuries
of rule by warlords. The age of civil wars and disunity began with
the era of the Three Kingdoms (Wei, Shu, and Wu, which had overlapping
reigns during the period A.D. 220-80). In later times, fiction and
drama greatly romanticized the reputed chivalry of this period.
Unity was restored briefly in the early years of the Jin dynasty
(A.D. 265-420), but the Jin could not long contain the invasions
of the nomadic peoples. In A.D. 317 the Jin court was forced to
flee from Luoyang and reestablished itself at Nanjing to the south.
The transfer of the capital coincided with China's political fragmentation
into a succession of dynasties that was to last from A.D. 304 to
589. During this period the process of sinicization accelerated
among the non-Chinese arrivals in the north and among the aboriginal
tribesmen in the south. This process was also accompanied by the
increasing popularity of Buddhism (introduced into China in the
first century A.D.) in both north and south China. Despite the political
disunity of the times, there were notable technological advances.
The invention of gunpowder (at that time for use only in fireworks)
and the wheelbarrow is believed to date from the sixth or seventh
century. Advances in medicine, astronomy, and cartography are also
noted by historians. |
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