Sui Dynasty(581-618)
The developed of Sui Dynasty
After Han Dynasty fall apart, no emperor was powerful enough to control China by itself until Wendi showed up. Wendi united northern and southern China in 581, and named himself as the first emperor of Sui. Steppe which was made up two main parts which are western Steppe that approachs Eastern Europe and eastern Steppe that is present-day Mongolia provides Mongols people dry, windswept plain to supply their nomadic life which uses horses as basic transportation.
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_dynasty>.
"Tagged: Wendi Sui." Wendy World. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2016. <http://www.wendymeyen.com/tag/wendi-sui/>.
The developed of Sui Dynasty
Sui had an advantage of trading between the northern cities and the southern rice-producing area of the Chang Delta becaused of Wendi’s amazing accomplishment: The Grand Canal. It’s a waterway that connects the Huang He and the Yangtze river, which made their trading easier and more efficient by boat, and it also helped the transportation.
Decline and fall
However, his accomplishments not only made him famous, but also caused the decline of Sui. Since build the Grand Canal require a lot of people, he forced about a million laborers to dig a waterway which have more than 1000 mile long for toiled five years. Secondly, he also forced people to rebuild the Great Wall. Half the workers died because of both building projects. Finally, overworking and overtaxing caused the anger from those labor and they revolted in 618 which made the collapsed of Sui Dynasty.
"Ancient China." : The Grand Canal. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2016. <http://www.ducksters.com/history/china/grand_canal.php>.
Anyway, they built a strong foundation which helped Tang Dynasty achieve some great accomplishments.
Tang Dynasty(618-907)
Tang Taizong lead the empire expand
A strong empire that last about 300 years is Tang Dynasty, from 618 to 907. The first emperor was Tang Taizong(626-649). Under his brilliant reign, the empire expanded to the northern and western lands which finally got to the region that China had lost since the collapse of the Han.
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty>.
First women emperor
After Tang Taizong’s rule, Wu Zhao(660) was a women who held the real power of the empire while the empire was ruled by a weak emperors. She led China to extend its influence over Korea by campaign in Korea. Finally she became Empress Wu in 690, and assumed the title of emperor for herself. Another reason why she was so famous is that she was the only woman ever became an emperor in China.
"Wu Zhao Biography: Empress Wu Zetian of Zhou Dynasty (624-705)." Totally History Empress Wu Zetian Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2016. <http://totallyhistory.com/empress-wu-zetian/>.
Bureaucracy and examination system
Since Sui created an amazing network of roads and canals, Tang expanded it to help pull the empire together, and to strengthen Chinese central government. Also, they began to trade with foreign countries and improvements in agriculture which made a good diplomatic. Furthermore, in order to manage the large empire, they started to use bureaucracy again and the civil service examination system from Han Dynasty. This system elects scholar-officials from the people who can pass the exams. Everything has defects, the men who have political connections could take a higher positions even without taking exam and only rich people can afford good education, which caused that most scholar-officials were from wealthy people. However, this system extremely helped the governing class in China because it set off a learning trend. As the time went by, education and knowledge became more common and significant.
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination>.
Silk Road and famous poet
One of the famous thing in China was the Silk. Tang made a great Silk Roads all the way to the west which created a flourished foreign trade. This period also produced some great poetry. Two extremely famous poets were Li Bo and Tu Fu. Li Bo wrote about life’s pleasures, and Tu Fu wrote critically about war and the hardships of of soldiers.
"Tu Fu." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2016. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/tu-fu>.
Decline and fall
Since Tang conquered a lot, they had a really big army. In order to suffice the costs, they had no choice but imposed crushing tax. As a result, not only did they cause hardship to people, but also failed to afford the costs of military expansion and new building programs. Another problem was caused by that is that the empire was so vast, the Tang struggled to control it. So soon, they lost the Battle of Talas with Muslim. Eventually, they lost the control of the empire and the border attack with the internal rebellions that made the empire fall, and the Chinese rebels and burned the Tang capital at Ch’ang-an and killed the last Tang emperor which was a child in 907.
Song Dynasty(960-1279)
Begining of the Song Dynasty
China had been divided into separate kingdoms by rival warlords after the fall of the Tang Dynasty. Finally 53 years later, in 960. Song Dynasty was emerged and under a general named Taizu who reunited China and declared him as the first emperor of Song. Song armies never have chance to get the western lands and the northern lands back since they had been lost during the decline of Tang Dynasty. Even though, Song made China reserved more flourishing and powerful.
"The Song Dynasty in China | Asia Topics in World History." The Song Dynasty in China | Asia Topics in World History. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2016. <http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/>.
Advocate peace
Some emperors of Song advocated peace, so they tried to pay annual tribute for peace to northern enemies with of silver, silk, and tea. However, it failed in north since a Manchurian people who called the Jurchen conquered northern China and established the Jin Empire. They forced the Song to retreat south across the Huang He. Since then, Song only ruled southern China.
Ocean trade
Song rulers moved capital to Hangzhou, a coastal city south of the Chang Jiang. Since it was good for trade there, the south had become the economic heartland of China. Also, because China lost control over the Silk Roads after Tang collapsed, the merchants from Song started ocean trade, and they developed some advances in sailing technology such as the magnetic compass which made the sea trade possible and expand. Merchant ships went to trade goods with Korea and Japan, they sailed across the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and even the coast of Africa. These Chinese merchants created a big trading colonies around Southeast Asia, also, they spread the Chinese culture throughout East Asia by trade. The Buddhism spread from China to Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. By doing so, some foreign religions spread to China too, such as Christianity.
"The Song Dynasty in China | Asia Topics in World History." The Song Dynasty in China | Asia Topics in World History. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2016. <http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/tech/compass.htm>.
02.29.00, Posted. "China's Age of Invention." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2016. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/song-dynasty.html>.
Expanding population
The population of the Song era was huge, it had at least then cities with a population of 1 million each. The result of that accelerated the advances of farming. Especially improved the cultivation of rice, they imported a new variety of fast-ripening rice from Vietnam, which allowed them to harvest double rice crops each year compared to before. These improvements of the agricultural produced more food which was really opportune to feed the growing population.
Improve technological
Technological advances had some big developed too. The Artisans and scholars made lots of inventions which made their life a lot easier. The most important things were movable type and gunpowder. The movable type helped printer to arrange the real characters of words into the frame to make a page for printing. This invention made their education more easier since they don’t need to carved the words anymore. The developed of gunpowder let them have more weapons such as bombs, grenades, small rockets, and cannons, and made the war more easier. Some other important inventions helped a lot too, like porcelain, the mechanical clock, paper money, and the magnetic compass for sailing.
"Song (Sung) Dynasty." Song (Sung) Dynasty. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2016. <https://www.bcps.org/offices/lis/models/chinahist/song.html>.
Fall By the conquered from Mongols
Yuan Dynasty(1279-1368)
"Yuan Dynasty at It's Height." By DinoSpain on DeviantArt. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2016.
Raise of Yuan Dynasty
In 1260, Kublai Khan, Genghis Khan’s grandson, ruled the entire Mongol empire which splitted into four khanates. However, he focused on his own khanate which covered Korea, North China and Mongolia and Tibet. Although Yuan Dynasty didn’t last more than a century, time that China was under Kublai Khan’s ruling exceeded 300 years. He maintained a splendid palace where located in Shangdu in Beijing and moved capital to Beijing. Later he also tolerated Chinese culture and just changed a few of Chinese government system and use it as their own.
Mongol rule in China
In 1274 and 1281, Kublai Khan tried to conquered Japan twice which failed after all. They hired 15000 soldiers who include a few Mongolians, Chinese and Koreans and forced Korea to build boats, which is a hard, financial task for Korea. The second time to attack, they failed because they met typhoon which is a type of huracan which only appears in Pacific region. No soldiers survived in the disaster. This is also how kamikaze which can also explained as “divine wind” comes from.
Because of cultural and life style’s difference, Mongolians barely had common with Chinese. They kept Chinese in government as many as possible, but Kublai Khan forced Chinese people to live as low class of society.
Since the peace of large range of land, their safe trading through central China and Silk road to western Mongol empire. Most of unique, practical or beautiful goods like porcelain and silk that were invented in Song Dynasty can be traded through those ways to boost the increase of economy. In addition, Kublai Khan also encouraged foreign trader or merchants to visit China. Marco Polo was one of them, who from Venis, have visited China and told what impressive stuff he saw and his adventures. Others wrote down what he said and this book spreaded widely and became an influential opus.
Marco Polo
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2016.
Kublai Khan
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2016.
Decline of Yuan Dynasty
First off, the expedition that Kublai Khan sent to southern China was defeated mostly. Furthermore, luxurious life of Yuan Dynasty Court and overtax of government finally led to decline. After Kublai Khan’s death in 1294, four Khan took place throne and always argue about who should be ruler. The Yuan Dynasty was finally fall because of rebellion of Chinese people who suffered under Kublai Khan’s ruling that caused disease, slow growing economy and corruption.
Geography and Resource of modern China
There are three main factors that affects which is Climate and naturalness in China. First off, climate is influential through whole China including the subsidiary of mountain system. Generally, summer is with higher and humid temperature and in contrast, winter is with colder and dryer temperature condition. This impact influences the agriculture dramatically because higher temperature and humid environment boosted crops to quicker growing tendency and more efficiently harvest per year. The Himalaya Mountain located at southwest border of China. It can block the monsoon from west and south of China to blow the wind from east to west in winter and from west to east in summer. These condition caused the typhoon every year to crush south of China. In addition, rivers which is Yangtse river and Yellow river which benefits the development of Chinese mainland. The modern irrigation system was built on the tank of those two essential river and fertilizes those grids in order to have great harvest. The pollution including air and water pollution forces people to come up some ideas about protecting environment. Overusing also caused the weak ability of blocking sands to form a sand dust storm to bring mess to city. Government built the program that delivers water from Eastern China where has ample storage of water to Western China where is lack of water in order to solve the problem caused by overusing underground water.
The main source that have been using since revolution of industry is coal and woods which has high efficiency to burn. Other common mental resources are found mostly in mountain by excavating.
Work Citation
"Asia: Physical Geography." National Geographic Education. N.p., 04 Jan. 2012. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.
http://education.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/asia/
"Asia: Human Geography." National Geographic Education. N.p., 04 Jan. 2012. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.
http://education.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/asia-human/
