Early Chinese

Civilizations
Mrs. Brahe
World History I
 Objectives
 Explain how geography influenced the
development of civilizations in China
 Identify the characteristics of early
Chinese civilizations
 Explain the political and social structure
 Describe the role of religion
 Discuss the contributions
 Geography of China
 Fertile River Valleys
 Huang He (HWONG-HUH) aka Yellow River
 Stretches across China carrying rich yellow silt
from Mongolia to the Pacific Ocean
 Chang Jiang (CHONG-JYONG)
aka Yangtze River
 Longer than Huang He
 Across central China to the Yellow Sea
 Great food producing area of
ancient world
 Geography of China
 Only 10% of China is suitable for farming
 (compare to 19% of the United States)
 Mostly mountains and deserts on the northern
and western frontiers
 Geographical barriers isolated the Chinese
people
 Contact with others marked with conflict
 North – Chinese protecting precious farmland
 Shang Dynasty
 First dynasty, Xia (SYAH) approx. 4,000 B.C.
 Could compete with Sumer for “first” title
 Little is known, however…
 Second dynasty, Shang
 1750 to 1045 B.C.
 Farming society ruled by warrior aristocracy
 (aristocracy: upper class whose wealth is based on land
and power is passed from one generation to the next)
 Excavation reveals impressive cities with huge city
walls, royal palaces and large royal tombs
 Political Structure
 Realm divided into territories
 Administered by aristocratic warlords
 King appointed and removed
 King’s spiritual beliefs
 Buried with corpses of servants
 Supernatural forces gave advice
 Oracle Bones – priests carved questions in bones, heated
metal rods were stuck into the bone causing cracks, priests
interpreted the cracks as answers from the gods
 Wrote the answers, stored the bones – are a valuable asset
in understanding the Shang period
 Social Structure
 King and his family
 Aided by aristocratic families
 Aristocrats waged war and served as officials
 Were the chief landowners
 Majority of people
 Peasants who farmed the land owned by the
aristocracy
 Small number of merchants, artisans, and
slaves
 Religion and Culture
 Veneration of ancestors (ancestor worship)
 Belief in afterlife
 To this day – may people burn exactly replicas
of physical objects to accompany dead on
journey to next world
 Believed that the spirits of family ancestors
could bring good or evil to living members of
the family
 Shang – mastery of art of bronze casting
 Zhou Dynasty
 Last Shang ruler was a “wicked tyrant”
 Aggressive ruler of the state of Zhou (JOH)
revolted and created a new dynasty
 Zhou Dynasty lasted almost 800 years,
longest of all Chinese dynasties
 1045 B.C. to 256 B.C.
 Zhou political structure
 Same as the Shang – king served by large,
complex bureaucracy, territories/officials
 Mandate of Heaven
 New Theory of Government
 Zhou claimed to rule China because it
possessed the Mandate of Heaven
 Believed that “Heaven” – an impersonal law of
nature – kept order in the universe through the
Zhou king
 Zhou king ruled over all humanity by mandate,
or authority to command, from Heaven
 Chosen because of talent and virtue
 Responsible to rule with goodness and efficiency
 Mandate of Heaven
 Double-edged
 King supposed to rule according to the proper “Way”
called the Dao (DOW)
 His duty to keep the gods pleased
 Protects people from natural disaster, bad harvest
 “Right of Revolution” - if King was ineffective, he could
be overthrown by a new ruler
 Representative of Heaven, but not divine
 Dynastic Cycle
 established, ruled successfully, then began to decline
(rebellions, invasions) collapsed, new dynasty
 Fall of Zhou Dynasty
 Divided into smaller territories
 Evolved into powerful states
 Zhou rulers declined, intellectually & morally
 403 B.C. civil war broke out, beginning the
“Period of the Warring States”
 Nature of warfare had changed
 Iron weapons replaced bronze weapons
 Foot soldiers (infantry) and soldiers on horseback
(cavalry)
 Calvary had powerful crossbows, Chinese invention
of 7th B.C.
 Eventually one warring state – Qin (CHIN) took
control, established dynasty in 221 B.C.
 Life During Zhou Dynasty
 Economic Features
 Peasants worked land owned by a lord but
often had a small area for own use
 Artisans and merchants lived in walled towns
under direct control of local lord
 Merchants did not operate freely but were
considered property of local lord
 Slaves present as well
 Local trade (later distant trade) for items
like salt, iron, cloth and luxuries
Economic and Technical Growth
 Significant growth – 6th to 3rd century B.C.
 Irrigation early 6th century
 Mid 6th century iron plowshares = more land to
farm
 Population up to 50 million people at the end
of Zhou
 Trade and manufacturing
 SILK! All the way to
Athens, Greece…
 Family in Ancient China
 Almost sacred quality of entire social order
 Filial piety: duty of family members to subordinate
their needs and desires to those of the male head of
the family
 system in which every family member has a place
 Central to Confucianism
 Male supremacy
 Traditional role – provide food, work in fields, warriors,
scholars, government ministers
 Women raised kids and worked in home (court…)
 Chinese Written Language
 Pictographic and
Ideographic
 Form a picture of the
object to be represented
 Characters given a sound
when pronounced
 Later phonetic meanings
given to some symbols
 Evolved over 400 years,
never abandoned original
format
 Chinese Philosophies
 Between 500 and 200 B.C.
 3 major schools of thought about the nature of
human beings and the universe emerged
 Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism
 Focused on immediate world and how to
create a stable order
 (unlike Hinduism and Buddhism – conserved
about freeing the human soul from the cycle
of rebirth/reincarnation)
 Confucianism
 Confucius/Kongfuzi (KOONG FOO DZUH)
 Born 551 B.C. in China
 Upset by violence and moral decay
 Traveled China to persuade political leaders to
follow his ideas (pretty unsuccessful)
 Followers documented his sayings in the
Analects
 Until 20th century almost every Chinese student
studied these sayings
 Provided a basic set of ideas to keep order
 Confucianism
 Political and ethical philosophy, not
spiritual
 Useless to speculate on spiritual questions
 Focus on ordering the affairs of the world - if
act in harmony with the world, will prosper
 Human behavior is key
 Behave in accordance with the Dao (Way)
 Two elements to Dao
 Duty and Humanity
 Confucianism
 Duty (according to the Dao, the Way)
 All should subordinate their own interests to the
needs of family and the community
 Governed by the Five Constant Relationships: parent
and child, husband and wife, older sibling and
younger sibling, older friend and younger friend, and
ruler and subject
 Each person in a relationship has a duty to the other
 Parents loving towards children, children revere parents
 Husband fulfill duties, wives should be obedient
 Older siblings kind, younger siblings respectful…
 Obvious family importance!
 Everyone does their duty – whole world prospers!
 Confucianism
 “If there is righteousness in the heart,
there will be beauty in the character. If
there is beauty in the character, there will
be harmony in the home. If there be
harmony in the home, there will be order in
the nation. If there be order in the nation,
there will be peace in the world.”
~ Confucius
 Confucianism
 Humanity (according to the Dao, the Way)
 Sense of compassion and empathy for others
 Like the Christian idea “Do unto others as you would
have others do unto you.” – instead it is “Do not do
unto others what you would not want done to
yourself.” ~ Confucius
 Tolerate others…
 Values of the “Golden Age” of the Zhou
 Revolutionary idea – government officials should
be ruled by merit, not noble birth
 Later – civil service examinations
 Daoism
 System of ideas based on teachings
of Laozi (LOW DZUH)
 Contemporary of Confucius (if existed!)
 Ideas outlined in Tao Te Ching (The Way of the Dao)
 Also does not concern itself with underlying meaning
of the universe but focuses on proper behavior
 Differs from Confucianism
 True way to follow the will of Heaven is not action but
inaction (unlike emphasis on duty of humans to work
hard and improve life here on Earth)
 Act in harmony with universal order by acting
spontaneously and letting nature take its course by
not interfering
 Daoism
 “Without going outside, you may
know the whole world.
Without looking through the window,
you may see the ways of heaven.
The farther you go, the less you know.
Thus the sage [wise man] knows
without traveling;
He sees without looking;
He works without doing.”
 Daoism
 “The universe is sacred.
You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it, you will ruin it.
If you try to hold it, you will lose it.”
 Legalism
 Proposed that humans are evil by nature
 Will only follow the correct path if forced to by harsh
laws and punishments
 Argued for a system of impersonal laws
 Strong ruler was required to create an orderly society
 Disagreed with Confucius “Lead the people by virtue
and restrain them by the rules of good taste, and the
people will have a sense of shame, and moreover will
be become good.”
 People are not capable of being good
 Only the fear of harsh punishment would keep order
 Ruler did not have to show compassion for the needs
of the people
 Phew!
 That’s it for the Early Chinese Civilizations…

 Chapter 3: India and China notes DONE!