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    China

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    Marifer Dinero
    China has a long history dating back almost 4,000 years. It was first unified under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BCE. The Qin established bureaucracy and built roads and canals. The Han Dynasty further expanded China's territory and established a civil service. During the Tang period from 618 to 907, China experienced a cultural renaissance and established trade with other regions. The Mongols took control of China in the late 13th century but were later driven out, establishing the native Ming Dynasty in 1368.

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    China

    Uploaded by

    Marifer Dinero
    61 views2 pages
    China has a long history dating back almost 4,000 years. It was first unified under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BCE. The Qin established bureaucracy and built roads and canals. The Han Dynasty further expanded China's territory and established a civil service. During the Tang period from 618 to 907, China experienced a cultural renaissance and established trade with other regions. The Mongols took control of China in the late 13th century but were later driven out, establishing the native Ming Dynasty in 1368.

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    China has a long history dating back almost 4,000 years. It was first unified under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BCE. The Qin established bureaucracy and built roads and canals. The Han Dynasty further expanded China's territory and established a civil service. During the Tang period from 618 to 907, China experienced a cultural renaissance and established trade with other regions. The Mongols took control of China in the late 13th century but were later driven out, establishing the native Ming Dynasty in 1368.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    61 views2 pages

    China

    Uploaded by

    Marifer Dinero
    China has a long history dating back almost 4,000 years. It was first unified under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BCE. The Qin established bureaucracy and built roads and canals. The Han Dynasty further expanded China's territory and established a civil service. During the Tang period from 618 to 907, China experienced a cultural renaissance and established trade with other regions. The Mongols took control of China in the late 13th century but were later driven out, establishing the native Ming Dynasty in 1368.

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    of 2

    9/12/2016 World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras ­ China

    From ABC-CLIO's World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras website


    https://ancienthistory.abc-clio.com/

    CHINA
    One of the largest countries in the world, China spans much of eastern Asia. It
    was uni⤀褅ed under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BCE.

    China's recorded history began almost 4,000 years ago with the founding of the
    Shang dynasty in 1766 BCE, but its entire history is much older. The oldest
    human remains found in China date to 500,000 BCE and came to be known as
    "Peking man" (later Homo erectus). Many anthropologists believe that modern man, Homo sapiens,
    originated about 25,000 years ago in China's Ordos Desert. As the world's oldest civilization, China was also
    the most advanced for 3,000 years and conceived of such developments as irrigation, bronze, domestication
    of animals, grain cultivation, iron, porcelain, the printing press, gunpowder, and standardization of written
    language. Until its level of technology was surpassed by the West in the 19th century, Chinese culture
    epitomized the apex of human achievement. During the Zhou dynasty in the 11th century BCE, China's
    feudal society, which had kept the huge territory stable and controlled, began to break down. Despite the
    country's sophistication, unrest was rampant. The dynasty fell apart during the Era of Warring States from
    403 to 221 BCE, and the empire disintegrated into small kingdoms.

    The Qin dynasty rose to prominence in about 221 BCE and heralded a new period of
    order and lawfulness. That short-lived dynasty reined in the feudal lords and
    established a new form of government—bureaucracy. During the 15-year period that
    the Qin dynasty was in power, the nation's ⤀褅rst real roads and canals were built, and
    construction of the legendary Great Wall of China deterred invaders from the north.
    The Han dynasty furthered China's prosperity from 206 BCE to 220 CE; it incorporated
    more territory, set up a complex civil service, and started the systematic recording of
    the nation's history. Meanwhile, Chinese art and literature burgeoned, and people
    began to take up Buddhism, which had been introduced from India. The ⤀褅rst census in
    2 CE set the population at 57 million. For the next 300 years, China was divided into the Three Kingdoms: the
    Wei, the Shu, and the Wu. However, by 581, the Sui dynasty had succeeded in reunifying the country and
    reinstating a government.

    The Tang period, from 618 to 907, marked a renaissance both in terms of government, which became more
    centralized and developed, and culture, as painting, poetry, and sculpture made major strides. Buddhism
    became even more popular, and the Tangs established lucrative trade relations with the Byzantine Empire
    and Islamic countries. By then, China covered most of Asia's southeastern and central regions. The 10th
    century witnessed a dramatic decline in China's fortunes. Called the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
    period, China su⤀ㄆered war, loss of its northern, central, and Korean territories, and economic hardship.
    Despite the upheaval, printing was invented, paper money emerged, and Chinese porcelain became a much-
    sought-after commodity in Islamic lands.

    The Song dynasty, which dawned in 960, brought a time of peace. Leaders reinstalled central government,
    and the invention of movable type put China at the forefront of world technology. However, the neglected
    northern and western edges of the enormous empire fell prey to invasions by the ⤀褅erce Mongol peoples.
    Those small incursions led in the late 13th century to the warriors taking control of the government in 1279,
    which ended the Song period. The Mongol Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, made Beijing his
    capital when he took the throne in 1293. The founder of the Yuan dynasty, Khan promoted economic

    https://ancienthistory.abc­clio.com/Search/Display/586973?terms=china&sType=quick 1/2
    9/12/2016 World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras ­ China

    prosperity by rebuilding the Da Yunhe canal, lengthening highways, and repairing public grain silos.

    By 1368, the Mongols had been driven out by a groundswell of nationalism, and
    native Chinese established the Ming dynasty that year. The Ming period ushered
    in a period of artistic creativity and a restoration of many traditional Chinese
    practices and institutions. It also witnessed the arrival of the ⤀褅rst European
    traders from Portugal and other countries in the early 16th century. As a result,
    the famous Ming dynasty porcelain entered European markets in 1580. The
    Manchus, non-Chinese nomads from Manchuria, took control of China in 1644 and established the last
    Chinese dynasty—the Qing dynasty.

    ABC-CLIO

    Further Reading

    Capon, Edmund. Tang China: Vision and Splendor of a Golden Age. London: Macdonald Orbis, 1989;
    Debaine-Francfort, Corinne. Discoveries: The Search for Ancient China. New York: Abrams, 1999; Fairbank,
    John K. China: A New History. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992; Gernet,
    Jacques. A History of Chinese Civilization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

    COPYRIGHT 2016 ABC-CLIO, LLC

    This content may be used for non-commercial, classroom purposes only.

    Image Credits

    Tang dynasty statue of horse: Los Angeles County Museum of Art

    Han dynasty emperor bestows honors: Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris/Bridgeman Images

    Great Wall of China: Corel

    Select Citation Style:  MLA

    MLA Citation
    "China." World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras, ABC-CLIO, 2016, ancienthistory.abc-
    clio.com/Search/Display/586973. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.
     
    http://ancienthistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/586973?sid=586973&cid=0&view=print&lang=
    Entry ID: 586973

    https://ancienthistory.abc­clio.com/Search/Display/586973?terms=china&sType=quick 2/2

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