Introduction Sui Dynasty 589-618 Reunification Tang Dynasty 618-907 High point in poetry Influenced...

IntroductionSui Dynasty 589-618

Reunification

Tang Dynasty 618-907High point in poetryInfluenced Japan, Korea, Vietnam

Song Dynasty 960-1279Most brilliant age in philosophy since Zhou

Yuan Dynasty 1279-1368Empire

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Move to Reunification

After confusion of Six Dynasties periodPush for re-creation of centralized bureaucratic empire modeled on earlier Han state

First steps taken by Northern Wei 386-534Northern Sino-Turkic state

Moved court to Luoyang

Made Chinese the language of the court

Adopted Chinese dress and surnames

Imposed new land tax


Sui Dynasty 589-618Sui Wendi - d. 605

General of mixed Chinese-Turkish ancestry

Unification and reestablishment of centralized bureaucratic governmentGreat Wall rebuiltGrand Canal constructed

Linked Yellow and Yangtze Rivers

Similar to earlier QinShort-lived military dynasties restored order


Tang Dynasty 618-907First Tang emperor - former Sui provincial governor

Retook Sui capital and renamed it Chang’an

Emperor reconciled conflicting sets of interestsBureaucratic government centralized under himConcessions to the aristocrats

• Tax system• “Equal field system”• Exemptions• Aristocrats as high officials


Governmental Structure

Organization under three organsMilitary Affairs - supervised armies

Censorate - watchdog functions

Council of State - met daily with emperor• Secretariat - drafted policies

• Chancellery - reviewed policies

• State Affairs - carried out policies Six Ministries - core of central government


Empress Wu 626-706Originally concubine for the second emperorBecame empress of third Tang emperor

Poisoned or eliminated all rivalsRegent for her son for seven years

Deposed him and ruled as emperor herselfOnly woman in Chinese history to hold titleMoved court to Luoyang

Fervent Buddhist and built templesScholars of the North Gate


Chang’an of Xuan-Zong

Xuan-Zong - r. 713-756Reformed government financesGrand Canal repairedNew census

Splendor of Chang’anPopulation of one millionTrading centerGreat walls enclosed thirty square miles


Tang Empire

Territorial expansion and contractionThreats from Tibetans, Turks, Mongols

Four tier policy to protect bordersSent armies if all else failed

Alliances with nomads against nomads

Border defense, including Great Wall

Bring enemy into empire as tributary state• Significance of embassies• Access to Tang culture and technology


Rebellion and DeclineProblems with Manchurians, Tibetans, ArabsAn Lushan RebellionOrder restored with aid of Uighur TurksLand reform

Equal field system eliminatedReplaced with fixed quota on each province

More warsBandits and warlordsCollapse in 907


Tang CultureCosmopolitan because of its opennessFlow of Indian art and philosophiesWidespread commercial contactsNew religions - Nestorian Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Judaism, IslamCentral Asian music and musical instrumentsGolden age of Buddhism in China

Spread of temples and monasteriesTemples served as schools, inns, bathhouses


Buddhist SectsTiantai sect was principal in early TangMaitreya - a Buddha of the future

Will appear and create a paradise on earth

Amitabha - Lord of the Pure LandSalvation by reliance on Amitabha

Chan (Zen in Japan)Buddha was a human teacherEnlightenment by each individual’s effortsRegimen of physical labor and meditation


Secular Scholarship

Tang culture marked the reappearance of secular scholarship and letters

Scholarly-bureaucratic complex emerged

Expansive production of poetry

Official history of the previous dynasty

Compilation of dictionaries

Commentaries on Confucian classics

Ghost stories and tales of adventures


Li Bo - 701-762Un-Buddhist, Daoist?Swordsman and carouser

“Bring on the Wine” “Drinking Alone in the Moonlight”

Poetry is clear, powerful, passionateSensitive to beautySense of fantasyLife is brief and universe is large

Along with Du Fu - greatest poets


Du Fu - 712-770

Un-Buddhist, Stoic in nature?

Friend of Li Bo

Life of hardshipFailed metropolitan exams, poverty

Captured by An Lushan rebels

Poetry is less lyrical and more allusive than Li BoMore compassion for human suffering

Humans are short-lived and nature endures


Song Dynasty 960-1279

Reunified China in 960Northern Song 960-1127

• Capital at Kaifeng

Southern Song 1127-1279• Capital at Hangzhou

Continued changes begun in Tang era in economy, state, society and culture

These changes help explain why China did not lapse into disunity after eventual collapse


Agricultural RevolutionAristocracy weakenedFarmers could buy and sell land

Taxes paid in moneyConscription disappeared

Changes in technologyNew early-ripening rice - double croppingWater control projectsTea, cotton

Appearance of scholar-gentry class


Agriculture: Fast-ripening rice

As Tang and Song armies ventured into Vietnam, they encountered fast-ripening rice

Allowed two crops per year

When introduced into the fertile fields of southern China, fast-ripening rice quickly expanded the food supply

Chinese characters for “rice field”

New Agricultural TechniquesHeavy iron plows

Harnessed oxen and water buffaloes

Enriched soil with manure and composted organic matter

Extensive irrigation systemsReservoirs, dikes, dams, pumps, water wheels

Artificial irrigation greatly increased agricultural production which led to a rapid population expansion

Commercial RevolutionSong economy reached new prosperityEmergence of Yangzi basinNew technology and innovations

Coal and iron-smelting industryPrintingAbacus, gunpowder, textiles, porcelainsLetters of credit and paper money

TradeUrbanization - Kaifeng, Hangzhou


Cities

Increased food supplies encouraged the growth of citiesDuring the Tang Dynasty, the imperial capital of Chang’an was the world’s most populous city

Perhaps two million residents

During the Song Dynasty, the capital of Hangzhou had over a million residents

Southern terminus of the Grand Canal

Economic Exchange: Letters of Credit

Trade grew so rapidly during the Tang and Song era that copper coin shortages developed

Traders began issuing letters of credit (“flying cash”) as an alternative

Enabled merchants to deposit goods or cash at one location and draw the equivalent cash or merchandise somewhere else

Coin from Tang Dynasty

Economic Exchange: Paper Money• The search for

alternatives to cash also led to the invention of paper money

• During the late ninth century, wealthy merchants began accepting cash from their clients and issuing them printed notes that the clients could redeem for merchandise

• Greatly facilitated commercial transactions

Economic Exchange: Tea

Tea trading flourished during Tang and Song era

Tea was compressed into bricks and used as money

Specialization

Increased urbanization brought a host of specialized activities to the cities

Merchants, artisans, metallurgists, printers, chemists, craftsmen, textile workers, performers, restaurateurs, etc

China’s various regions specialized in the cultivation of particular food crops and traded their own products for imports from other regions

The government developed a specialized class of bureaucrats

New Technologies

Song porcelain Cannon ca. 1368

New Technologies: PorcelainTang craftsmen discovered how to produce porcelain which was lighter, thinner, and adaptable to more uses than earlier pottery

Strong enough and attractive enough to serve utilitarian or aesthetic purposes

Tang and Song products gained such a reputation that porcelain is commonly called “chinaware”

Tang Marble Glazed Porcelain Figure

New Technologies: PrintingBecame common in Tang eraEarliest printers used block-printing techniques

Carved a reverse image of an entire page into a wooden block, inked the block, then pressed a sheet of paper on top of it

By the mid-eleventh century, printers began to experiment with movable type

Fashioned dies in the shape of ideographs, arranged them in a frame, inked them, and pressed the frame over paper sheetsSpeeded up the process and allowed printers to make revisions and correctionsFacilitated production and distribution of texts quickly, cheaply, and in large quantities

I Impact of Movable TypeAllowed large production and distribution of

Buddhist texts

Confucian works

Calendars

Agricultural treatises

Popular works

http://idp.bl.uk/chapters/topics/bookbinding/POTHI-S5537-OPEN_L.html

New Technologies: GunpowderDuring the Tang era, Daoist alchemists learned it was dangerous to mix charcoal, saltpeter, sulphur, and arsenic

Military officials saw possibilities

By the tenth-century, the Tang military was using gunpowder in bamboo “fire lances,” a kind of flame thrower and by the eleventh century they had made primitive bombs

Song Government

Age of autocracyEmperors had direct personal control over more offices than Tang predecessorsCentral government better funded

• Monopolies on salt, wine, tea• Commerce as vital source of revenues

Disappearance of the aristocracy• Officials were commoners• Mostly products of the examination system


Examination System50% of officials selected by examinationsStructure of examination process

Regional to Metropolitan to Palace

Nature of examinationsMemorize Confucian classicsInterpret selected passagesWrite in literary styleCompose poems on given themesPropose solutions based on Confucianism


Social Hierarchy: Song BureaucracySong rulers mistrusted the military so they placed more emphasis on civil administration

Scholar bureaucrats proved to have limited military expertise and Song was vulnerable to military aggression

Song increased centralization and built an enormous bureaucracy

Devoured China’s surplus production and strained the treasury

Efforts to raise taxes led to two peasant rebellions Wang Anshi unsuccessfully

attempted socioeconomic reforms during the Song era

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wang_Anshi.jpg

Song CulturePreconditions for rich Song culture

Rising economy, more schools, higher literacy, spread of printing

More narrowly Chinese than TangSong culture less aristocratic and Buddhist

Greatest age in pottery and porcelainsGreat age in history

Sima Guang 1019-1086Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government


Song PhilosophySecond only to Zhou in philosophyZhu Xi - 1130-1200

Studied Confucianism, Buddhism, DaoismJoined Confucianism to certain Buddhist and native metaphysical elementsDeepening its social and political ethics

His Confucianism the standard for examinationsMade religion or metaphysics serve philosophy

“Great ultimate” and “quiet sitting”


Art and Writing

• The ruling and elite classes of the Tang and Song Dynasties were major supporters of Chinese painting. – Sought elaborate and

ornate art with political and educational significance

– Stressed realism

Art and Writing

• Eighth Century was a golden age in Chinese poetry

• Du Fu (712-770 A.D.) is often considered China’s greatest poet

• Other great poets of the Tang era were Wang Wei (699 – 761) andLi Bo (701 – 762)

Passing the Night at Headquarters

Clear autumn at headquarters,wu-tung trees cold beside the well;

I spend the night alone in the river city, using up all of the candles.

Sad bugle notes sound through the long night as I talk to myself;

glorious moon hanging in mid-sky but who looks?

Song Poetry and Painting

Poetry some of China’s bestSu Dungpo - 1037-1101

• Painter, calligrapher, wrote commentaries• Social control through morality

Painting and calligraphy equally appreciated

Varied types of paintingLandscape was crowning achievement

• Small human figures in vast natural universe• Vision of an inner reality


Rise of the Mongol Empire

Mongols a nomadic people north of ChinaYurts, clans, shamansExtraordinary horsemen

Temujin - 1167-1227Genghis Khan (Jenghiz or Chinggis)

• United Mongol tribes• Reorganized military forces

Nomadic cavalry and compound bow Pledges of personal loyalty


Mongol Expansion

Great Khans in ChinaGenghis Khan captured Beijing in 1227Originally mainly interested in plunderNew dynasty in 1271 - YuanSouthern China falls in 1279

Chagatai Khans in Central AsiaGolden Horde in RussiaIlkhans in Persia


Yuan Dynasty 1271-1368

Kublai KhanGrandson of Genghis Khan

Moved capital from Karakorum to Beijing

Founded Yuan dynasty in 1271

Mixture of cultural elementsChinese custom of hereditary succession

Beijing - Cambulac - “the city of the khan”• Chinese segregated in adjoining walled city

Summer palace at Shangdu (Xanadu)


Yuan Governmental StructureCivil administration highly centralized

Move towards absolutism

Military service a monopoly of MongolsClassification in appointing civil officials

Highest - MongolsSecond - Persians, Turks, other non-ChineseThird - northern ChineseLowest - southern Chinese

Mongols took an easier examination


Foreign Impact and CultureDiplomacy and trade brought contactPersia and Arab world especially important

Arab communities in GunagzhouCamel caravans carrying silk

Printing, gunpowder spread to western AsiaMarco Polo

Served Kublai Khan as official, 1275-1292A Description of the WorldIncreased European interest in geography


Religion and the MongolsMongol toleration of religionsNestorian Christianity

Mother of Kublai Khan was Nestorian

Papal missionsTibetan Buddhism most favoredChinese Buddhism also flourishedIslam made greatest gains

Established in Central Asia and western China

Confucianism regarded as religion


Decline of the Yuan DynastyRapid decline after Kublai KhanDifferent khanates separated by religion and culture

Mongols thought Great Khans too ChineseChinese viewed Yuan as foreign oppressors

Heavy taxesCorrupt officialsWhite Lotus and other rebellionsRise of warlords and eventual collapse


Introduction Sui Dynasty 589-618 Reunification Tang Dynasty 618-907 High point in poetry Influenced...

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