History
According to Chinese tradition, the Chinese people originated in
the Huang He (Hwang Ho or Yellow River) valley. The legends tell of a creator,
P'an Ku, who was succeeded by a series of heavenly, terrestrial, and human
sovereigns. Archaeological evidence is scant, although remains of Homo erectus,
found near Beijing, have been dated back 460,000 years. Rice was grown in
eastern China circa 5500 bc, and about five centuries later an agricultural
society developed in the Huang He valley. There is strong evidence of two
so-called pottery cultures, the Yang-shao culture (circa 3950- circa 1700 bc),
and the Lung-shan culture (circa 2000- circa 1850 bc).
The Earliest
Dynasties
Tradition names the Hsia (circa 1994- circa 1766 bc) as the
first hereditary Chinese dynasty, which ended only when a Hsia ruler fell into
debauchery, mistreated his people, and was overthrown. However, there is no
archaeological record to confirm this story; the Shang is the earliest dynasty
for which reliable historical evidence exists.
The Shang Dynasty (C.
1766-c. 1027 BC)
The Shang dynasty ruled the territory of the present-day
north-central Chinese provinces of Henan (Ho-nan), Hubei (Hupeh), and Shandong
(Shantung) and the northern part of Anhui (An-hui). The capital, from about 1384
bc on, was situated at Anyang near the northern border of Henan. The economy was
based on agriculture. Millet, wheat, barley, and, possibly, some rice were
grown. Silkworms were cultivated, and pigs, dogs, sheep, and oxen were raised.
The Shang was an aristocratic society. At the head was a king who presided over
a military nobility. Territorial rulers were appointed by him and compelled to
support him in military endeavors. Between this aristocratic class and the
commoners was a literate priestly class that kept the records of government and
was responsible for divination. Shang people worshiped their ancestors and a
multitude of gods, the principal of whom was known as Shang Ti, the Lord on
High.
The account of the fall of the Shang dynasty that appears in
traditional Chinese histories follows closely the story of the fall of the Hsia.
The last Shang monarch, a cruel and debauched tyrant, was overthrown by a
vigorous king of Chou, a state in the Wei River valley. Situated on the
northwestern fringes of the Shang domain, the culture of Chou was a blend of the
basic elements of Shang civilization and certain of the martial traditions
characteristic of the non-Chinese peoples to the north and west.
The
Chou Dynasty (C. 1027-256 BC)
Chinese civilization was gradually extended
over most of China proper north of and including the Yangtze Valley under the
Chou dynasty. The broad expanse of this area and the primitive state of overland
communications made it impossible for the Chou to exercise direct control over
the entire region. They therefore delegated authority to vassals, each of whom
ordinarily ruled a walled town and the territory surrounding it. The hierarchy
of these feudal-like states was headed by the lord, whose position was
hereditary. Below him were hereditary fighting men, and, lowest in the social
scale, the peasants and domestic slaves. In time these vassal states became more
and more autonomous.
Chou society was organized around agricultural
production. The land was ideally divided into square tracts, each of which was
subdivided into nine square plots forming an equilateral grid. The eight outer
plots were assigned to eight peasant families, who pooled their efforts and
resources to cultivate the center plot for the support of the ruling class. The
extent to which this system of land distribution was employed is uncertain, but
later dynasties thought it the most equitable manner of apportioning land.
Religious practices corresponded to the hierarchical social system. The
Chou believed that heaven gave a mandate to rule, which sanctioned the political
authority of the kings. The Chou kings sacrificed to the Lord on High, now
called T'ien ("Heaven"), and to their ancestors. The lords of the states
sacrificed to local nature and agricultural deities, as well as to their
ancestors. Individual families offered sacrifices to their ancestors. If
sacrifices were neglected, misfortunes and calamities were expected to result.
The Eastern Chou
The Chou kings were able to maintain effective
control over their domain until finally, in 770 bc, several of the states
rebelled and together with non-Chinese forces routed the Chou from their capital
near the site of present-day Xi'an (Sian). Subsequently, the Chou established a
new capital to the east, at Loyang. Although they were now safer from barbarian
attack, the Eastern Chou could no longer exercise much political or military
authority over the vassal states, many of which had grown larger and stronger
than the Chou. As custodians of the mandate of heaven, however, the Chou
continued the practice of confirming the right of new lords to rule their lands
and thus remained titular overlords until the 3d century bc. From the 8th to the
3d century bc rapid economic growth and social change took place against a
background of extreme political instability and nearly incessant warfare. During
these years China entered the Iron Age. The iron-tipped, ox-drawn plow, together
with improved irrigation techniques, brought higher agricultural yields, which,
in turn, supported a steady rise in population. The growth in population was
accompanied by the production of much new wealth, and a new class of merchants
and traders arose. Communication was improved by an increase in horseback
riding.
Economic integration enabled rulers to exercise control over
greater expanses of territory. States situated on the outer fringes of the
Chinese cultural zone expanded at the expense of their less advanced non-Chinese
neighbors, and, in expanding, invigorated and diversified their own cultures
through selective borrowing from the non-Chinese civilizations. It was from
non-Chinese in the northwest, for example, that the Chinese of the border areas
first adopted the use of mounted cavalry units. For the states in the heartland
of the North China Plain, expansion meant aggression against other states that
shared the same basic civilization, and the uniformity of culture among the
states tended to promote cultural stagnation. By the 6th century bc seven
powerful states surrounded the few smaller, relatively weak ones on the North
China Plain.
With the decline of the political authority of the Chou
dynasty and the emergence of the powerful peripheral states, interstate
relations became increasingly unstable. During the 7th and 6th centuries bc,
brief periods of stability were achieved by organizing interstate alliances
under the hegemony of the strongest member. By the late 5th century bc, however,
the system of alliances had proved untenable, and Chou China was plunged into a
condition of interstate anarchy. The era is known as the Period of the Warring
States (403-221 bc).
The Golden Age of Chinese Philosophy
The
intellectual response to the extreme instability and insecurity produced the
political formulas and philosophies that shaped the growth of the Chinese state
and civilization during the next two millennia. The earliest and by far the most
influential of the philosophers of the period was K'ung Fu-tzu, or Confucius, as
he is known in the West. The educated son of a minor aristocratic family of the
state of Lu (in present-day Shandong), Confucius represented the emergent class
of administrators and advisers that now were needed to help the ruling
aristocracy deal with the complicated problems of domestic administration and
interstate relations. In essence, Confucius's proposals called for a restoration
of the political and social institutions of the early Chou. He believed that the
sage rulers of that period had worked to create an ideal society by the example
of great personal virtue. Therefore he attempted to create a class of virtuous
and cultivated gentlemen who could take over the high positions of government
and lead the people through their personal example.
The doctrines of
Taoism, the second great school of philosophy during the Period of the Warring
States, are set forth in the Tao-te Ching (Classic of the Way and Its Virtue),
which is attributed to the semihistorical figure Lao-tzu, and in the works of
Chuang-tzu (flourished 4th century bc). The Taoists disdained the intricately
structured system that the Confucians favored for the cultivation of human
virtue and establishment of social order. At the political level Taoism
advocated a return to primitive agricultural communities, in which life could
follow the most natural course. Government policy should be one of extreme
laissez-faire, permitting a spontaneous response to nature by the people.
A third school of political thought that flourished during the same
period and subsequently exercised a lasting influence on Chinese civilization
was legalism. Reasoning that the extreme disorders of their day called for new
and drastic measures, the legalists advocated the establishment of a social
order based on strict and impersonal laws governing every aspect of human
activity. To enforce such a system they desired the establishment of a powerful
and wealthy state, in which the ruler would have unquestioned authority. The
legalists urged the socialization of capital, establishment of government
monopolies, and other economic measures designed to enrich the state, strengthen
its military power, and centralize administrative control.
Creation of
the Empire
During the 4th century bc, the state of Ch'in, one of the
newly emergent peripheral states of the northwest, embarked on a program of
administrative, economic, and military reform suggested by a leading legalist
theoretician. At the same time the vestigial power of the Chou grew ever weaker
until the regime collapsed in 256 bc. A generation later, the Ch'in had
subjugated the other warring states.
The Ch'in Dynasty
(221-206
bc). In 221 bc, the king of Ch'in proclaimed himself Shih Huang Ti, or first
emperor of the Ch'in dynasty. The name China is derived from this dynasty.
With the assistance of a shrewd legalist minister, the First Emperor
welded the loose configuration of quasi-feudal states into an administratively
centralized and culturally unified empire. The hereditary aristocracies were
abolished and their territories divided into provinces governed by bureaucrats
appointed by the emperor. The Ch'in capital, near the present-day city of Xi'an,
became the first seat of imperial China. A standardized system of written
characters was adopted, and its use was made compulsory throughout the empire.
To promote internal trade and economic integration the Ch'in standardized
weights and measures, coinage, and axle widths. Private landholding was adopted,
and laws and taxation were enforced equally and impersonally. The quest for
cultural uniformity led the Ch'in to outlaw the many contending schools of
philosophy that had flourished during the late Chou. Only legalism was given
official sanction, and in 213 bc the books of all other schools were burned,
except for copies held by the Ch'in imperial library.
Shih Huang Ti also
attempted to push the perimeter of Chinese civilization far beyond the outer
boundaries of the Chou dynasty. In the south his armies marched to the delta of
the Red River, in what is now Vietnam. In the southwest the realm was extended
to include most of the present-day provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou (Kweichow), and
Sichuan (Szechwan). In the northwest his conquests reached as far as Lanzhou
(Lanchow) in present-day Gansu (Kansu) Province; and in the northeast, a portion
of what today is Korea acknowledged the superiority of the Ch'in. The center of
Chinese civilization, however, remained in the Huang He valley. Aside from the
unification and expansion of China, the best-known achievement of the Ch'in was
the completion of the Great Wall.
The foreign conquests of the Ch'in and
the wall building and other public works were accomplished at an enormous cost
of wealth and human life. The ever increasing burden of taxation, military
service, and forced labor bred a deep-seated resentment against the Ch'in rule
among the common people of the new empire. In addition, the literate classes
were alienated by government policies of thought control, particularly the
burning of books. The successor of Shih Huang Ti came under the domination of a
wily palace eunuch. A power struggle ensued, crippling the central
administration, and the indignant population rose in rebellion.
The
Earlier Han Dynasty
(206 bc-ad 8). From the turbulence and warfare that
marked the last years of the Ch'in dynasty, there arose a rebel leader of humble
origin, Liu Pang (see Kao Tsu). Crushing other contenders for the throne, Liu
Pang proclaimed himself emperor in 206 bc. The Han dynasty, which he
established, was the most durable of the imperial age. The Han built on the
unified foundation laid by the Ch'in, modifying the policies that had resulted
in the downfall of the Ch'in. Burdensome laws were abrogated, taxes were sharply
reduced, and a policy of laissez-faire was adopted in an effort to promote
economic recovery. At first Liu Pang granted hereditary kingdoms to some of his
allies and relatives, but by the middle of the 2d century bc most of these
kingdoms had been eliminated, and almost all Han territory was under direct
imperial rule.
One of the most important contributions of the Han was
the establishment of Confucianism as the official ideology. In an attempt to
provide an all-inclusive ideology of empire, however, the Han incorporated ideas
from many other philosophical schools into Confucianism, and employed popular
superstitions to augment and elaborate the spare teachings of Confucius. In
staffing the administrative hierarchy inherited from the Ch'in, the Han emperors
followed the Confucian principle of appointing men on the basis of merit rather
than birth. Written examinations were adopted as a means of determining the best
qualified people. In the late 2d century bc an imperial university was
established, in which prospective bureaucrats were trained in the five classics
of the Confucian school.
The Earlier Han reached the zenith of its power
under Emperor Wu Ti, who reigned from 140 to 87 bc. Almost all of what today
constitutes China was brought under imperial rule, although many areas,
particularly south of the Yangtze, were not thoroughly assimilated. Chinese
authority was established in southern Manchuria and northern Korea. In the west,
the armies of Wu Ti battled a tribe known as the Hsiung-nu, who were possibly
related to the Huns, and penetrated to the valley of the Jaxartes River (the
present-day Syr Darya in Kazakhstan). In the south the island of Hainan was
brought under Han control, and colonies were established around the Xi Jiang
(Hsi Chiang) delta and in Annam and Korea.
Wu Ti's expansionist policies
consumed the financial surpluses that had been accumulated during the
laissez-faire administrations of his predecessors and necessitated a restoration
of legalist policies to replenish the state treasuries. Taxes were increased,
government monopolies revived, and the currency debased. Hardships suffered by
the peasants were aggravated by the growth in population, which reduced the size
of individual landholdings at a time when taxes were increasing. During the 1st
century bc, conditions worsened further. On several occasions the throne was
inherited by infants, whose mothers often filled government posts with
unqualified members of their own family. Factionalism and incompetence weakened
the imperial government. Great landholding families in the provinces challenged
the tax-collecting authority of the central government and acquired a kind of
tax-exempt status. As the number of tax-free estates grew, the tax base of the
government shrank, and the burden borne by the taxpaying peasants became more
and more onerous. Agrarian uprisings and banditry reflected popular
discontentment.
The Hsin Dynasty
(ad 8-23). During this period of
disorder an ambitious courtier, Wang Mang, deposed an infant emperor, for whom
he had been acting as regent, and established the short-lived Hsin dynasty. Wang
Mang attempted to revitalize the imperial government and relieve the plight of
the peasant. He moved against the big tax-free estates by nationalizing all land
and redistributing it among the actual cultivators. Slavery was abolished.
Imperial monopolies on salt, iron, and coinage were strengthened, and new
monopolies were established. The state fixed prices to protect the peasants from
unscrupulous merchants and provided low-interest state loans to those needing
capital to begin productive enterprises. So great was the resistance of the
powerful propertied classes, however, that Wang Mang was forced to repeal his
land legislation. The agrarian crisis intensified, and matters were made worse
by the breakdown of major North China water-control systems that had been
neglected by the fiscally weakened government. A large-scale rebellion broke out
in northern China under the leadership of a group known as the Red Eyebrows.
They were soon joined by the large landholding families, who finally succeeded
in killing Wang Mang and reestablishing the rule of the Han dynasty.
The
Later Han
(25-220). Administrative weakness and inefficiency plagued the
Later Han dynasty from the very beginning. As under the Earlier Han, the central
government became demoralized by the appointment of incompetent maternal
relatives of infant emperors. With the help of court eunuchs, subsequent
emperors were able to get rid of these incompetents, but only at the cost of
granting equally great influence to the eunuchs. As a result, the government was
again torn by factionalism. Between 168 and 170 warfare erupted between the
eunuchs and the bureaucrats, who felt that the eunuchs had usurped their
rightful position of influence in government. By 184 two great rebellions, led
by Taoist religious groups, had also broken out. For two decades the Yellow
Turbans, as one of the sects was called, ravaged Shandong and adjacent areas,
and not until 215 was the great Han general Ts'ao Ts'ao (155-220) able to pacify
the other group, the Five Pecks of Rice Society in Sichuan.
Period of
Disunion
The Han Empire began to fall apart as the large landholding
families, taking advantage of the weakness of the imperial government,
established their own private armies. Finally, in 220 the son of Ts'ao Ts'ao
seized the throne and established the Wei dynasty (220-65). Soon, however,
leaders with dynastic aspirations sprang up in other parts of the country. The
Shu dynasty (221-63) was established in southwestern China, and the Wu dynasty
(222-80) in the southeast. The three kingdoms waged incessant warfare against
one another. In 265 Ssu-ma Yen (died 290), a powerful general of the Wei
dynasty, usurped that throne and established the Western Tsin, or Chin, dynasty
(265-317) in North China. By 280 he had reunited the north and south under his
rule. Soon after his death in 290, however, the empire began to crumble. One
important reason for this internal weakness was the influence of the principal
landholding families. They made their power felt through the nine-grade
controller system, by which prominent individuals in each administrative area
were given the authority to rank local families and individuals in nine grades
according to their potential for government service. Because the ranking was
arbitrarily decided by a few important persons, it frequently reflected the
wishes of the leading families in the area rather than the merit of those being
ranked.
The non-Chinese tribes of the north, which the Han had fought to
a standstill along the border, seized the opportunity afforded by the weakness
of the government to extend their search for pastoral lands into the fertile
North China Plain. Invasions began in 304, and by 317 the tribes had wrested
North China from the Tsin dynasty. For almost three centuries North China was
ruled by one or more non-Chinese dynasties, while the south was ruled by a
sequence of four Chinese dynasties, all of which were centered in the area of
the present-day city of Nanjing (Nanking). None of the non-Chinese dynasties was
able to extend control over the entire North China Plain until 420, when the
Northern Wei dynasty (386-534) did so.
During the second half of the 5th
century the Northern Wei adopted a policy of Sinification. The agricultural area
of North China was administered bureaucratically, as it had been by earlier
Chinese dynasties, and military service was imposed on the tribesmen.
Chinese-style clothing and customs were adopted, and Chinese was made the
official language of the court. The tribal chieftains, pushed beyond their
endurance by the Sinification policies, rebelled, and in 534 the dynasty
toppled. For the next 50 years, North China was again ruled by non-Chinese
dynasties.
The Reestablished Empire
China was reunited under the
rule of the Sui dynasty (589-618). The first Sui emperor was Yang Chien
(541-604), a military servant who usurped the throne of the non-Chinese Northern
Chou in 581. During the next eight years he completed the conquest of South
China and established his capital at Changan (now Xi'an). The Sui revived the
centralized administrative system of the Han and reinstated competitive
examinations for the selection of officials. Although Confucianism was
officially endorsed, Taoism and Buddhism were also acknowledged in formulating a
new ideology for the empire. Buddhism, which had been brought to China from
India during the Later Han dynasty and the ensuing period of disunion,
flourished, as did foreign religious groups such as the Nestorian Christians.
The brief Sui reign was a time of great activity. The Great Wall was
repaired at an enormous cost in human life. A canal system, which later formed
the Grand Canal, was constructed to carry the rich agricultural produce of the
Yangtze delta to Loyang and the north. Chinese control was reasserted over
northern Vietnam and, to a limited degree, over the Central Asian tribes to the
north and west. A prolonged and costly campaign against a kingdom in southern
Manchuria and northern Korea, however, ended in defeat. With its prestige
seriously tarnished and its population impoverished, the Sui dynasty fell in 618
to domestic rebels led by Li Yuan (reigned 618-26).
The T'ang
Dynasty
(618-906). Founded by Li Yuan, the T'ang dynasty was an era of
strength and brilliance unprecedented in the history of Chinese civilization.
The system of civil service examinations for recruitment of the bureaucracy was
so well refined at that time that its basic form survived into the 20th century.
The organs of the imperial and local governments were restructured and amplified
to provide a centralized administration, and an elaborate code of administrative
and penal law was enacted. The T'ang capital at Changan was a center of culture
and religious toleration. Foreign trade was conducted with Central Asia and the
West over the caravan routes, and merchants from the Middle East plied their
seaborne trade through the port of Guangzhou. Under the T'ang, Chinese influence
was extended over Korea, southern Manchuria, and northern Vietnam. In the west,
by means of alliances with Central Asian tribes, the T'ang controlled the Tarim
Basin and eventually made their influence felt as far as present-day
Afghanistan.
Administrative System
The economic and military
strength of the T'ang Empire was founded on a system of equal land allotments
made to the adult male population. The per capita agricultural tax paid by the
allotment holders was the greatest source of government income, and the periodic
militia service required of them was the basis of T'ang military power.
Difficulties arose, however, for the government continued to honor tax-free
estates and made large grants of land to those whom it favored. As a result of
population growth, by the 8th century individual allotment holders inherited
greatly reduced plots of land, but the annual per capita tax remained the same.
Peasants fled their allotments, thereby reducing government income and depleting
the armed forces. Frontier areas could no longer be protected by militia forces.
A system of commanderies was established along the borders, and defense was
entrusted to non-Chinese troops and commanders.
An Lu-shan's
Rebellion
The early T'ang rulers, including the Empress Wu (reigned
683-705), a former imperial concubine, were generally able monarchs. The
brilliant emperor Hsüan Tsung (reigned 712-56), however, became enamored of the
courtesan Yang Kuei-fei (died 756), a woman much younger than he, and neglected
his duties. Yang was allowed to place her friends and relatives in important
positions in the government. One of Yang's favorites was the able general An
Lu-shan, who quarreled with Yang's brother over control of the government,
precipitating a revolt in 755. Peace was not restored until 763 and then only by
means of alliances that the T'ang formed with Central Asian tribes. After the
rebellion of An Lu-shan, the central government was never again able to control
the military commanderies on the frontiers. Some commanderies became hereditary
kingdoms and regularly withheld tax returns from the central government. The
commandery system spread to other areas of China proper, and by the 9th century
the area effectively under central government control was limited to Shaanxi
(Shensi) Province.
A great cultural flowering occurred during the later
years of the T'ang. The poets Li Po, Tu Fu, and Po Chü-i and the prose master
Han Yü (768-824) appeared at a time when the process of political decline had
already begun. The printing of books promoted cultural unity.
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