Ancient China

1st BGU
 The way you tell a story…
● The first modern State
● Centralized government
● Bureaucracy
● Lasted in the same form for about 3000 years
● First people to write history
● Confucius wrote the Shu Jing (Classic of History)
 History of China
● Conveniently divided into Dynasties
○ It’s a Dynasty first: if you are ruled by a King
○ In China’s case the King is called Emperor
○ They have to come from a continuous ruling family
○ As long as there is a boy there is an heir.
● Dynasties can end:
○ When there’s no male heir (almost never happened)
○ When the Emperor is overthrown by force (this happened to all
families)
Dynasties:
 How did it work for so long?

• Starts with the Zhou Dynasty

• They create it to remove the Shang from power
• Before the Zhou, China had no concept of Heaven

• Tian
• High god: Shangdi

• They start by saying the Shang were in power and were able to defeat
the Xia because the Xia had lost the Mandate of Heaven
 Mandate of Heaven
• A family remained in power as long as Heaven wanted it.
• This family had to have a proper heavenly behavior

• Of course, this can not be fact checked!

• So, the Zhou tells the story that the Xia had lost the favor of
Heaven because they held orgies in Ming Tiao (capital)

• So, the Shang were able to remove them from power because
Heaven does not like orgies.
 Now…
● This also offers a vision of moral behavior that is the corner stone of
Confusianism (we will see that later)

 The Zhou then go on to tell that the Shang now have lost the Mandate
of Heaven because the Shang Emperor is said to like to eat his
enemies and Heaven does not like cannibalism anymore than orgies.

 This way of changing Dynasties would last until the final Dynasty
ruled In 1911 when the Communist Party appeared.
First homework: