Manganip, Ivy W.

August 7, 2017
BA-POLSCI SEAGOV1

1. Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) was one of the longest of Chinas major dynasties. In terms
of power and prestige, the Han Dynasty in the East rivalled its almost contemporary Roman
Empire in the West. With only minor interruptions it lasted a span of over four centuries and
was considered a golden age in Chinese history especially in arts, politics and technology. All
subsequent Chinese dynasties looked back to the Han period as an inspiring model of a united
empire and self-perpetuating government.

The Origins of the Han Dynasty

In 202 BCE, Emperor Gaozu, whose given name was Liu Bang, became the first Han emperor
after defeating the last rebellion against him. He had already been king of Han since 206 BCE
(the formal beginning of the Han dynasty). During the previous dynasty, the Qin, Liu Bang had
been a minor official. The Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE) was very short and cruel; by the time it
collapsed, Liu Bang had raised an army and claimed the vacant throne. He was not the only one
in the quest for power, and one of his most important opponents was a general named Xiang
Yu (also known as Xiang Ji). We are told that Xiang Yu captured Liu Bangs father and sent a final
warning to Liu Bang, assuring that his father would be boiled alive unless Liu Bang surrendered.
Liu Bangs answer suggests that he did not get along very well with his father: Send me a cup
of the soup, he replied. In the end, Liu Bangs father was not turned into soup, and Xiang Yu
decided to end his own life by committing suicide in 202 BCE. Some accounts say he was
defeated in battle, while others tells us he was never defeated in battle but was gradually
undermined by the popular support for Liu Bang; Liu Bang was the first Chinese emperor who
was originally a commoner.

Liu Bang established the imperial capital in the city of Changan, located 3 km northwest of
modern Xian, which was chosen due to its strategic importance: it not only had a central
position (all major roads converged in Changan), but it would also become the eastern end of
the Silk Road. The city turned into the political, economic, military, and cultural centre of China
and by 2 CE its population was nearly 250,000. In 195 BCE, upon Liu Bangs death, his empress
L Zhi (also known as L Hou) tried to confiscate the empire for her own family. Her methods
show a firm determination: she murdered several of Liu Bang's sons born to concubines,
mutilated his favourite mistress and had her thrown into a latrine. She also replaced with her
own relatives many of the loyal generals and members of Liu Bangs family who ruled the
fiefdoms. The conflict lasted for 15 years, until finally the Liu Bang clan regained control of the
empire: Emperor Wen, a surviving Liu Bang son, was finally enthroned re-establishing the
broken lineage. The imperial wrath was ruthless: the Lius killed every single member of L Zhis
clan they managed to find.
Achievements During the Han Dynasty During Han times, pulleys and wheelbarrows were used
to move goods. To pulverize ores and grains, they employed the water-powered trip-hammer
and air was pumped into furnaces thanks to the aid of bellows.

The opening of the Silk Road was probably the major economic achievement of the Han
Dynasty.

It was a eunuch named Cai Lun who, around 105 CE, came up with an innovation that would be
invaluable for learning. A screen was dipped into a vat of watery oatmeal-like pulp made of rice
straw and inner tree bark. When the screen was raised, it had a layer of dripping slush on top,
which was later pressed and dried. The end result was a sheet of paper. However, during Han
times, paper was used largely to wrap fish rather than for written documents. Just a few
written paper sheets survived to our days from Han times, mostly found in tombs. Tens of
thousands of written documents have come down to our day, most of them on wooden tablets
and slips of bamboo. Examples include mathematical problems, historical records, poetry,
government records, a massive dictionary, and the oldest surviving large-scale census of all
history, which reports 57,671,400 people in 2 CE. All these documents have been critical in our
fairly good historical knowledge of the Han dynasty.

The largest Chinese historiographic work, known as the Records of the Grand Historian, was
written during the Han Dynasty by Sima Qian, who is referred to as the father of Chinese
historiography. This work is a vast general history of China which covers a period of over 2,000
years, from the mythical times of the Yellow Emperor (the founder of the first Chinese dynasty,
the Xia) to his own time during the reign of Emperor Wu (also known as Wu Di) who reigned
between 141 and 87 BCE.

The opening of the Silk Road was probably the major economic achievement of the Han
Dynasty. Emperor Wu took the initiative to set out on diplomatic missions to various rulers in
Central Asia. This led to the exploration of trade routes that linked Xian to the Levant coast on
the Mediterranean and opened up new roads for merchants. This increased the trade and
economic prosperity of the empire and also led to a constant cultural exchange between
several cultures.

It was also during Wu Di's time that China incorporated the whole of modern China proper,
northern Vietnam, Inner Mongolia, southern Manchuria, and most of Korea.

The Sack of Changan

Wang Man was a government official and a member of a powerful family who took control of
the empire by usurping the throne and proclaiming the the beginning of a new dynasty called
Xin, or new, in 9 CE. He took advantage of the fact that since the time Emperor Wu died in 87
BCE, the Han Dynasty had been immersed in various political and social conflicts. The gap
between rich and poor was already a serious problem. Sima Qian reports about this period that
exploiters were busy accumulating wealth and forcing the poor into their hire. The court was
also affected by complicated political turmoil: endless accusations, executions, treason, and
battles were weakening the government.

Wang Man wanted to re-establish the social order by changing the land owning structure: he
decreed that those large estates which had been favoured in the past (and threatened imperial
power), be dissolved and their lands distributed among peasants, an initiative firmly opposed
by the aristocracy. The 14 years of unsuccessful attempts to amend the unfair landownership
pattern, coupled with a terrible flooding of the Yellow River, set the stage for Wang Mans end:
a full-scale peasant rebellion was triggered. The angry mobs of hungry peasant insurgents had
their own identity badge: red paint smeared on their foreheads. The rebels thus were known as
the Red Eyebrows. Wang Man tried to restore order, but late in 23 CE the Red Eyebrows
entered Changan, sacked it, and cut off Wang Mans head. Liu Xiu, a ninth-generation
descendant of Liu Bang, took back control of the empire thus re-establishing the Han lineage.
Liu Xiu led his loyal officials to the city of Luoyang, where the imperial capital was relocated
after the disaster of Changan.

The Han reign in Changan is usually referred to as Western Han or Former Han, while the
period in Luoyang is normally called Eastern Han or Later Han.

The Last Days of the Han Dynasty

By the end of the 1st century CE, one Han emperor after another had died either young or
without a chosen heir. When an emperor died without sons, a close relative, such as his cousin,
was named emperor. In some cases the new ruler was a child or even an infant, in which case
the real power was in the hands of a guardian from the family of the empress, since even infant
rulers had to have an empress. This scenario led to all types of cunning schemes in the court.

A number of different natural calamities such as tremors, floods, and grasshopper plagues took
place during these days and were seen as manifestations of the anger of heaven;
prognosticators concluded that the end of the dynasty was close. The situation finally ran out of
control. Eunuchs turned into an influential group in the bloody political court conflicts, gaining
power and enriching themselves and there was a big protest of thousands of members of the
Confucian academy against the corruption of the government. In 184 CE a very large peasant
uprising known as the Yellow Turban Rebellion (sometimes referred to as the Yellow Scarves
Rebellion) threatened the imperial capital.

A warlord named Dong Zhou seized control of the imperial capital in 190 CE and placed a child,
Liu Xie, as the new ruler. Liu Xie was also a member of the Han family, but real power was in the
hands of Dong Zhou. Dong Zhou killed all the eunuchs and burned Luoyang to the ground.
Battle after battle weakened the imperial order until Liu Xie finally abdicated in 220 CE, the last
year of the Han period. Wars between warlords and states continued and China would have to
wait around 350 years to be unified again.

The Legacy of the Han Dynasty

 The Han Dynasty has influenced the East just like Greece or Rome has influenced the West. The
biggest Chinese historiographic work of antiquity was written during this period. Chinese
calligraphy developed into an art. Confucianism was made the official state ideology during the
time of Emperor Wu Di, who built an academy solely devoted to the works of Confucius. The
philosopher had long been dead, but his disciples managed to preserve his teachings.
Confucianism, favoured by the patronage of the state, gained a strength similar to Buddhism
during the time of Emperor Ashoka or Christianity after Constantine. Thousands of Confucian
academies were built, spreading Confucian ethics across China and most of East Asia and would
dominate Chinese ethics during the centuries to come. Even today, the ethnic Chinese refer to
themselves as Han rem (Han people). Although history tells us, then, that the Han Dynasty
ended in 220 CE, from the examples cited above it is clear that the Han still lives on today in
many different forms.

2. Jin Dynasty

The Jin Dynasty consists of two dynasties, the Western Jin (265 -316) and the Eastern Jin (317 -
420). The Western Jin was founded by Sima Yan with Luoyang as its capital city while the
Eastern Jin was founded by Sima Rui with Jiankang (currently Nanjing) as its capital.

In 265, as a chancellor of the Kingdom of Wei, Sima Yan forced the last emperor of Wei, Cao
Huan, to turn over his throne. Soon after Sima Yan acceded to the throne, proclaimed himself
Emperor Wu in Luoyang and established the Jin Dynasty. In 280, Sima Yan sent his troops to
attack the Kingdom of Wu and eventually defeated the last kingdom of the Three Kingdoms
Period (220 - 280). The dynasty had unified the whole nation.

However, the state of unification did not last long. With the increase of the military strength,
some nomadic ethnic groups on the frontier began to wage war to contest the central plains
with the Jin Court. After a period of fighting, these groups set up a series of regimes in northern
areas, called 'sixteen kingdoms'.

On the positive side, the process of Han-Chinese assimilation with other minority groups was
greatly progressed. Meanwhile, the propagation of Buddhism in southern and northern areas
became more and more popular. In addition, technological progress in medicine, astronomy
and drafting technique was also notable during that time.

3. Sui Dynasty

In 589 CE, after almost four centuries, China was reunited for the first time since the end of the
Han era. The intervening four hundred years, often referred to as the Six Dynasties Period, was
marked by political struggle and military strife on a level not seen in China in over a millennium.
Yet while many histories describe the Six Dynasties era as a China's version of Europe's "dark
ages," it was also a period of great cultural intermingling. Various Central and Western Asian
peoples settled in the north regions of China, and local populations migrated en masse from
area to area in search of new lands to settle. The various cultural elements introduced during
these four centuries were further unified and Sinicized when the Sui achieved a new unification
of China. This synthesis would reach its culmination in the distinctive culture of the Tang
dynasty, which came to power after the downfall of the second Sui emperor.

Though the Sui dynasty ruled only for approximately thirty years, much was accomplished by
the first emperor Wendi (reigned 581-604), formerly a general for the Northern Zhou dynasty.
Among Wendi's many accomplishments was a restructuring of the government to simplify
internal administration, a revision of the penal code, and a number of public work projects,
including the creation of a complex canal system joining the Yellow, Huai and Yangzi Rivers.
Wendi was also a supporter of Buddhism, and encouraged the spread of the religion
throughout his domain.

Wendi also took steps to protect the frontiers of his new empire. To the north was the domain
of the Yuezhi, a confederacy of nomadic warriors of Turkic heritage. The Yuezhi controlled the
Mongolian steppes from Manchuria to the edge of the Byzantine Empire in the west; internally,
however, the confederacy was undergoing a split into two rival groups, one controlling the
western half of Yuezhi territory and one controlling the eastern. Wendi offered his support to
the Western Yuezhi, and worked to undermine the strength and authority of the Eastern Yuezhi
khan. These political machinations, as well as a reinforced Great Wall and an increase in the
number of troops patrolling the northern borders greatly reduced the threat of attack by the
Eastern Yuezhi. Simultaneous, this policy also allowed for the reopening of the western trade
routes, and once again a prosperous trade relationship with Central and Western Asia was
developed.

Wendi's successor was Yangdi (568-618), who in many ways was even more ambitious than his
father. Yangdi built a second capital at Loyang in the east to complement that constructed by
Wendi at Changan. He oversaw the return of the southernmost regions of China into the
empire, and the addition of the Champa kingdom in Vietnam. Yet it was Yangdi's ambition
(combined with financial mismanagement) that ultimately led to the loss of the empire. His
attempts to meddle in the internal politics of his nomadic neighbors led to the alienation of the
western Yuezhi faction, which wrested away control of the city-states of the Tarim Basin,
formerly under Sui protection.

In 612 Yangdi began a series of campaigns to subdue the Korean kingdom of Koguryo, which
had until then refused to offer tribute. Disastrous flooding compounded the cost of these failed
campaigns, both in terms of resources and human life. Within a few years rebellion broke out
throughout the empire, and in 618 Yangdi was killed by his own attendants. The general Li Yuan
staged an attack on the would-be usurpers, and captured the Sui capital of Changan. There he
proclaimed himself the first emperor of a new dynasty, the Tang, which would rule China for
the next three hundred years.

4.Sui dynasty
Sui dynasty, Wade-Giles romanization Sui, (581618 ce), short-lived Chinese dynasty that
unified the country after four centuries of fragmentation in which North and South China had
gone quite different ways. The Sui also set the stage for and began to set in motion an artistic
and cultural renaissance that reached its zenith in the succeeding Tang dynasty (618907). Its
capital was at Daxing, which, during Tang times, changed its name to Changan (now Xian).

The first Sui emperor, Yang Jian, known by his posthumous name Wendi, was a high official of
the Bei (Northern) Zhou dynasty (557581), and, when that reign dissolved in a storm of plots
and murders, he managed to seize the throne and take firm control of North China; by the end
of the 580s he had won the West and South and ruled over a unified China. The Wendi emperor
established uniform institutions of government throughout the country and raised a corps of
skilled and pragmatic administrators. He reestablished Confucian rituals last used in
government by the Han dynasty. He sought and won the support of men of letters, and he
fostered Buddhism. He promulgated a penal code and administrative laws that were simpler,
fairer, and more lenient than those of the predecessor Bei Zhou. He conducted a careful census,
a practice long lost in chaos, and simplified the taxation. He made his army into a system of
militias that was self-supporting when the country was not at war.

The relations of the Sui with the Turks in the west deteriorated; and, when wars in Korea to
exact tribute failed, the short regime collapsed in a welter of rebellions. Yangdi was murdered
by a member of his entourage in 618, and his successor, Gongdi, reigned less than a year.

The architecture of the Sui was dominated by the great Yuwen Kai, who in nine months
designed a vast capital city at Daxing that was six times the size of present-day Xian at the
same site. Its palace had a rotating pavilion accommodating 200 guests. Painters came from
throughout the country seeking patronage at the Sui court. The dynasty established a pattern
of patronizing the arts that was later embraced by the Tang rulers. Because of the brevity of the
Sui reign and the consonance of its arts with those of the Tang, the arts of the two dynasties are
often treated together.

5.Tang Dynasty

The Tang dynasty was founded by Li Yuan, a military commander who proclaimed himself
emperor in 618 after suppressing a coup staged by the attendants-turned-assassins of the Sui
emperor, Yangdi (reigned 614-618). While Gaozu (Li Yuan's reign name) was the first of the
Tang emperors, it was under his son Taizong (reigned 624-649) that the Tang dynasty
consolidated its power and began to achieve a domestic peace that would last for virtually
unbroken for three centuries, interrupted only by the nine-year-long An Lushan rebellion (755-
763).

The Sui dynasties unified China under indigenous Chinese rule for the first time since the end of
the Han period, and the Tang inherited this legacy. Yet unlike the Sui emperors, Taizong was of
part Turkic ancestry, born and raised on the frontier, so he was intimately familiar with the
problem of nomadic raiders who were pressing on the Tang northern borders. By 630 Taizong
had defeated the first eastern Trkic nomads and resettled them north of the Ordos in Inner
Mongolia. Other Central Asian peoples and minor kingdoms in northwestern China submitted
to the Tang court, naming Taizong and his heirs their "supreme Khan." This brought the
important Hexi corridor and Gobi oases under imperial Chinese control, and Taizong enlisted
garrisons of Turkic and Central Asian soldiers to protect the trade routes, facilitating a renewed
flow of trade goods transported by Central Asian, Indian and Near Eastern merchants, who also
brought along with them their religion and their culture.

The Tang era is considered a golden age of sorts in the annals of Chinese history, marked as a
period of unprecedented military and political dominance of the Asian continent. It is also
notable for its great material prosperity, high artistic and cultural achievement, and a level of
interest and tolerance regarding foreign cultures and religions that made Chang-an, the Tang
capital, the most cosmopolitan city in the world. Thousands of foreigner merchants and artisans
lived in Chang-an and other large cities of the empire, while followers of Buddhism,
Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Islam and Nestorianism worshipped according to their own
customs in temples, mosques or churches, some of which were built with finances donated by
the Tang court.

Foreign envoys were regular visitors to the Tang court, carrying gifts and tribute of Trkic,
Uighur, Tocharian, Sogdian and Iranian origin. Another breed of diplomatic envoy were the
Buddhist clerics who traveled to China from India, Central Asia, Korea and Japan to both study
and teach at famed temples. These clerics were often greeted at court, and in the same
manner, Chinese Buddhist priests journeyed to the centers of religious learning (such as
Dunhuang) that had developed in the Tarim Basin, where they interacted with clerics of many
faiths. Other priests, such as the famed Xuanzang, traveled all the way to India in search of
scriptures from the land of Buddhism's birth.

Tang aristocratic and affluent society was strongly influenced by foreign music and arts. Central
Asian musicians and dancers were highly appreciated both in the Tang court as well as on the
popular level. Aromatic dishes made from expensive imported ingredients and spices were
served to the wealthy, accompanied by wine made from grapes. Chinese women set their hair
in the Uighur manner, while fashionable men adopted Trkic leggings, tight-fitted bodices and
headgear.1 This peaceful and profitable relationship between Chinese and foreign residents of
Tang's largest cities continued until friction arose between foreign traders and Chinese
merchants in the late eight century. This friction slowly escalated in the form of increasing
resentment and suspicion of the expatriate tradesmen living in the Chang-an and other urban
centers, until laws were passed in 836 that forbade extraneous social contact between Chinese
and foreigners. In 845 the Tang court's liberal policies towards religion were reversed, and all
foreign religions were outlawed.2

This disintegration of good will between Chinese and non-native populations coincided with
weakening of imperial Tang political dominance in Central Asia. The beginnings of this decline
are commonly dated to the year 751, when Tang forces were destroyed by an army composed
of allied Trkic and Arab forces at Atlach on the Talas River (west of Lake Balkash in modern
Kazakhstan). A few years later in 755, a rebellious army of 150,000 frontier troops led by
General An Lushan would take the city of Jojun (modern Beijing) in the northeastern region of
the empire. It took the Tang military eight years to crush the rebellion, and the empire never
fully recovered. Over the next century, both peasant revolts and foreign incursions increased,
while more autonomous power was passed to provincial rulers as the centralized Tang state
slowly collapsed. Though a Tang emperor occupied the throne until 907, by the 890s most of
the empire was in the hands of independent and ambitious military leaders. By the time of the
Tang collapse the empire had split into ten kingdoms, and would remain fragmented until its
reunification under the Song dynasty.

6. Song Dynasty

Song dynasty, Wade-Giles romanization Sung, (9601279), Chinese dynasty that ruled the
country during one of its most brilliant cultural epochs. It is commonly divided into Bei
(Northern) and Nan (Southern) Song periods, as the dynasty ruled only in South China after
1127.

The Bei Song was founded by Zhao Kuangyin, the military inspector general of the Hou (Later)
Zhou dynasty (last of the Five Dynasties), who usurped control of the empire in a coup.
Thereafter, he used his mastery of diplomatic maneuvering to persuade powerful potential
rivals to exchange their power for honours and sinecures, and he proceeded to become an
admirable emperor (known as Taizu, his temple name). He set the nation on a course of sound
administration by instituting a competent and pragmatic civil service; he followed Confucian
principles, lived modestly, and took the countrys finest military units under his personal
command. Before his death he had begun an expansion into the small Ten Kingdoms of
southern China.

Taizus successors maintained an uneasy peace with the menacing Liao kingdom of the Khitan
to the north. Over time, the quality of the bureaucracy deteriorated, and when the Juchen
(Chinese: Nzhen, or Ruzhen)tribes from the North who overthrew the Liaoburst into the
northern Song state, it was easy prey. The Juchen took over the North and established a
dynasty with a Chinese name, the Jin. But they were unable to take those regions of Song
territory south of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang).

In the South, the climate and the beautiful surroundings were the setting for the Nan Song
dynasty established (1127) by the emperor Gaozong. He chose a capital he called Linan
(present-day Hangzhou) and set about maintaining defenses against the hostile North and
restoring imperial authority in the hinterland. Gaozong was a conscious admirer and emulator
of the highly successful approach of the Han dynasty to the management of civil service, and
the empires bureaucrats long functioned well. In due course, however, the dynasty began to
decline. But the eventual fall of the Song dynasty was neither sudden nor a collapse upon itself
such as had ended several of its predecessors. The Mongols, under Genghis Khan, began their
move on China with an assault on the Jin state in the North in 1211. After their eventual success
in the North and several decades of uneasy coexistence with the Song, the Mongolsunder
Genghis Khans grandsonsadvanced on the Song forces in 1250. The Song forces fought on
until 1276, when their capital fell. The dynasty finally ended in 1279 with the destruction of the
Song fleet near Guangzhou (Canton).

During the Song period, commerce developed to an unprecedented extent; trade guilds were
organized, paper currency came into increasing use, and several cities with populations of more
than 1,000,000 flourished along the principal waterways and the southeast coast. Widespread
printing of the Confucian Classics and the use of movable type, beginning in the 11th century,
brought literature and learning to the people. Flourishing private academies and state schools
graduated increasing numbers of competitors for the civil service examinations. The
administration developed a comprehensive welfare policy that made this one of the most
humane periods in Chinese history. In the works of the 12th-century philosophers Zhu Xi and Lu
Jiuyuan, Neo-Confucianism was systematized into a coherent doctrine.

The Song dynasty is particularly noted for the great artistic achievements that it encouraged
and, in part, subsidized. The Bei Song dynasty at Bianjing had begun a renewal of Buddhism and
of literature and the arts. The greatest poets and painters in the empire were in attendance at
court. The last of the Northern Song emperors was himself perhaps the most noteworthy artist
and art collector in the country. His capital at Kaifeng was a city of beauty, abounding in
palaces, temples, and tall pagodas when, in 1126, the Juchen burned it. The architecture of the
Song era was noted for its tall structures; the highest pagoda at Bianjing was 360 feet (110
metres). Song architects curved the eave line of roofs upward at the corners. Pagodas, six- or
eight-sided and built of brick or wood, still survive from the period.

The sculpture of the Song period continued to emphasize representations of the Buddha, and in
that genre there were no substantive improvements over the work of Song sculptors in
succeeding dynasties. Landscape painting was one of the outstanding arts of the Bei Song, and
its most noted figures were Fan Kuan and Li Cheng. In the Nan Song many great painters served
at the Hanlin Academy, becoming noted for brush effects, miniatures, and, under Chan (Zen)
influence, paintings of Buddhist deities, animals, and birds.

In the decorative arts the Song dynasty marked a high point in Chinese pottery. Song wares are
noted for their simplicity of shape and the purity of colour and tone of their glazes. From the
Bei Song came Ding, Ru, Zhun, Cizhou, northern celadon, and brown and black glazed wares;
from the Nan Song came Jingdezhen whiteware, Jizhou wares, celadons, and the black pottery
of Fujian. Pottery produced at the Guan kilns, near the Nan Song capital, was the finest of an
enormous number of celadons of the dynasty.

The tendency of Song jade carvers to adopt old lines and techniques makes difficult the
accurate dating of jades that may be from the Song, and it has been similarly difficult to place
Song lacquerware.

In music the Bei Song adopted a two-stringed fiddle from the northern tribes, and music was
widely used for ceremonies, sacrifices, and other court events. Music attracted considerable
attention in the dynastys enormous works of literature: the official history of the dynasty
devoted 17 of its 496 chapters to musical events, and an encyclopaedia that appeared in 1267
has 10 of 200 chapters on the subject of music. Music drama flourished throughout the Song,
and distinctly different styles evolved in the North and the South. The literature of the Song
dynasty emphasized a return to old-time simplicity of expression in prose, and short tales called
guwen were written in great volume. A school of oral storytelling in the vernacular arose, and
conventional poetry enjoyed wide cultivation. Song poets achieved their greatest distinction,
however, in the new genre of the ci, sung poems of joy and despair. These poems became the
literary hallmark of the dynasty. For the diversity and richness of its cultural achievements, the
Song dynasty is remembered as one of Chinas greatest.

7. Yuan Dynasty12601368

The relative stability of the early thirteenth century, with the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty in the
north and the Southern Song in the south, was shattered by Mongol incursion. Chinggis Qan
(Genghis Khan) (ca. 11651227) and his ferocious army swept into China on horseback. With
the fall of its capital at Beijing, the Jin dynasty was defeated in 1215. After the death of Chinggis
Qan, the military campaign was taken up and completed under the leadership of his grandson,
Qubilai Qan (Khubilai Khan) (12151294). The Southern Song fell in 1279, and once again north
and south China were reunited. Qubilai had assumed the title of Great Qan in 1260, and
proclaimed himself emperor of China in 1271. Earlier in 1259, before he became the Mongol
leader, he had established a princely residence in the city of Shangduthe famed pleasure-
dome in Coleridge's poem "Xanadu." Shangdu was planned for Qubilai by the Chinese monk-
official Liu Bingzhong (12161274), who was also responsible for the design of the new Yuan
dynasty capital city of Dadu, located at the site of present-day Beijing.

The Mongols ruled China for about one hundred years. During this short time, they established
new rituals and institutions that heavily influenced the following Ming and Qing dynasties. The
Mongols adopted many features of Chinese culture, but early in their rule they were suspicious
of having native Chinese serve in government. In turn, many Chinese scholars and officials felt
alienated and refused to serve the Yuan, preferring instead to live in retirement or pursue
unconventional professions. Rather than stifling creativity, however, the tension between the
Mongols and their Chinese subjects seems to have energized the arts of the period. In addition,
new religious and secular practices were introduced into China. At different times, the Yuan
government alternated in its support between Daoism and Buddhism; and the Mongol rulers
particularly favored Lamaism, a form of Tibetan Buddhism.

In their conquest of China, the Mongols had relied on their military prowess. Accustomed to a
mobile steppe society, they had to devise new institutions that would enable them to rule a
land in which they were a decided minority. Within a hundred years, the military strength of
the Mongols was no longer dominant. Political infighting further weakened the ruling house,
and widespread dissatisfaction and rebellion erupted around the country.
7.Ming Dynasty

The Ming dynasty was founded amidst the chaos that arose at the end of the Yuan dynasty,
when drought and famine compounded the unrest growing among the Chinese citizenry of the
Mongol empire. Initially the Mongols ruled China with efficiency, making progressive changes in
the management of the economy and implementing a number of important public works
projects. Ultimately, however, the Mongol/Chinese dualism that dominated the period in
Chinese history could not be overcome. Though Yuan law placed its Chinese citizenry in the
lowest of social statuses, the Mongols simultaneously desired to lay claim to impressive and
rich China's Imperial heritage. Towards the end of their reign, Yuan courtly life was an odd
amalgamation of cultures, partly nomadic Mongol and partly Imperial Chinese, yet not entirely
either.

This conflict of cultures led to a conflict of attitudes towards policy, and when Chinese peasant
unrest threatened to grow to full-scale rebellion, no intelligent strategy was devised to deal
with the crisis. In the mid-fourteenth century, when natural disasters in the form of drought led
to wide-spread famine, the Mongols learned that to embrace Imperial Chinese culture had its
hazards as well as benefits. These disasters were interpreted as signs that the Mongols had lost
the Mandate of Heaven (if indeed they had ever received it), and rebellions occurred
throughout the country. Various military leaders rose from the midst of these rebellions, among
them a general from Nanjing named Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang succeeded in unifying an
army that was able to drive the despised foreigners out of China and back to Inner Mongolia.

In 1368 he declared himself emperor of the new Ming dynasty, and came to be known in the
histories as Hongwu (r. 1368-99). The capital remained in Nanjing until 1421, when the third
emperor, Yongle (1403-1424), chose to move the court to Beijing. Comparatively speaking, the
Ming era was one of the more stable and long-lived periods of Chinese dynastic history. In
particular, the reign of Xuande (1426-35) is regarded in later histories as a particularly glorious
period, both for Xuande's wise and compassionate rule and for nurturing of the arts. It was
during this decade that porcelain production in the Jingdezhen kilns reached its height of
production.

To generalize, it may be said that the Ming dynasty was one dominated by nationalism,
compounded by a desire to rediscover China's own rich cultural heritage, which had suffered so
long under the foreign rule imposed by the Mongols, the Jurchen and the Khitan. Archaism
became all the rage among the scholarly class, and the collection of ancient Chinese
archeological objects, such as Han-era jades and bronzes, as well as a revisiting of Tang-era
painting styles grew in popularity. Pre-Song-era histories and treatises were re-examined,
commented on, and annotated.

This interest in redeveloping China's own ancient culture coincided with a growing distrust of
foreign powers. Trade along the Silk Route with China became more difficult in the later
fourteenth century, when the early Ming emperors erected fortresses and placed garrisons of
troops in the west in attempts to counter the perceived threat of invasion. Meanwhile, the
secrets of silk production were known as far away as Europe by this time, and by the early
fifteenth century, Lyons was producing much of the silk for European consumption. This led to a
steep drop in the amount of revenue generated by Silk Road trade. Finally, border disputes with
the Uighurs of Central Asia led to threat of military reprisals, which convinced the Ming rulers
to attempt to shut down trade along the Silk Road altogether.

Yet while overland trade with China was at the lowest point it had been in millennia, sea trade
along the so-called Spice Route became highly developed. Shipping offered more efficient and
safer trade options than did caravans attempting to cross the increasingly treacherous
Taklamakan Basin. As trade along the sea routes became more developed, diplomatic relations
with the various nations of East and Southeast Asia, India, the Arab coast and even as far as the
east coast of Africa were more actively engaged.

As the Chinese and other nations engaged more and more in naval trade, the economies of the
various cities and oasis settlements along the Silk Road in Central Asia and modern northwest
China that depended so heavily on international trade suffered greatly. Except the very largest
cities with the most dependible water supplies, communities were slowly abandoned, to be
swallowed by sand. In this way, the millenia-old Silk Road came to an inauspicious end under
the isolationist policies of the Ming dynasty during the mid-fifteenth century.

Sources:

http://www.ancient.eu/Han_Dynasty/
https://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/history/jin/
https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/exhibit/sui/sui.html
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sui-dynasty
https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/exhibit/tang/essay1.html
https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/exhibit/ming/essay.html
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Song-dynasty