A brief history of Ancient China

Ancient China
The Dynasties Early Legend and History "Ancient" China Epilogue
INTRODUCTIONPresent-day China covers a vast area and is protected on the south by the jungles of Indo-China, on the east by the ocean, and on the west by the mountains of Tibet. Only on the north was ancient China vulnerable to invaders, such as the Mongols, or to visitors and traders who, like Marco Polo followed the Silk Road from Europe. However, until the eighteenth century, to most Europeans it was an unknown and enigmatic country,.
The setting of the opera Turandot are given simply as "Ancient China", but that covers an enormous time-span. Traces of humans dating back almost 600,000 BC have been found, possible ancestors of the 400,000-year-old "Peking Man". Some scholars think that man originated separately in China, others that he migrated there from an ultimate source in Africa. Remains of Old Stone Age (Paleolithic) humans, dating from 50,000-35,000 BC, have been found which would have been contemporary with the Cro-Magnon of Europe.
THE DYNASTIESThose in red are described in more detail below. Each of these can be accessed directly by clicking on its name. Many are also referred to in other articles which have links to the pertinent information here. Just as Peking is now Beijing, the transliteration of most of the names has changed. Variations are indicated in parentheses. The list is somewhat simplified; China was not always unified and some of the dynasties overlapped. Dates are approximate.
Age of the Five Rulers c. 2700-2200 BCXia (Hsia) Kingdom (legendary) c.2200-1520 BCShang (Yin) Kingdom c.1520-1066 BCZhou (Ch'ou) Dynasty c.1066-221 BCQin (Ch'in) Dynasty 221-207Han Dynasty 207 BC - AD 220Three Kingdoms Period 221-265Shu 221-264Wei 220-265Wu 222-280Jin (Chin) Dynasty 265-420 Liu (Sung) Dynasty (2nd Partition) 420-581Sui Dynasty 581-618T'ang Dynasty 618-906Five Dynasties (3rd Partition) 907-960Liao (Khitan, Ch'itan) Dynasty 907-1124: Capital established at PekingWest Liao Dynasty 1124-1211Northern Sung Dynasty 960-1126Southern Sung Dynasty 1127-1279Jin (Chin, Jurchen) Dynasty 1115-1234: First imperial palaces Peking, Genghis Khan captured city.Yüan (Mongol) Dynasty 1260-1368: Kublai Khan rebuilt capital at Peking and the Imperial City which later became the Forbidden city.Ming Dynasty 1368-1644: Forbidden City built.Qing (Ch'ing, Manchu) Dynasty 1644-1911Republic 1912-
People's Republic 1949-
EARLY LEGEND AND HISTORYThe civilization we know as Chinese began on the Northern Great Plain in the valley of the Yellow River. Like all peoples, the Chinese have their own creation story. In the beginning was an egg, from which hatched a man named Pangu (P'an Ku). The half of the shell above him became the sky, the one below, the earth. For 18,000 years he grew until the two were as far apart as they are today. Then he collapsed and broke into pieces which became mountains, rivers, etc. His two eyes became the sun and the moon. The lice on his body became men who lived as wild beasts. This happened about 2,229,000 BC. He was followed by three (or twelve) emperors, each of whom also lived 18,000 years; the Celestial Emperors of Heaven, of Earth, and of Mankind. Then came sixteen sovereigns of whom nothing is known but their names. They were followed by the Five Emperors, the first who were human: Huang Di (Ti), Chuan Hsiu, H'u, Yao and Shun. (Other than Huang Di the names vary in different accounts.) They introduced many things of benefit to mankind: agriculture, law, rules of morality and proper religious rituals, music, medicine, weights and measures, silk, etc. The most revered of all, was Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor, regarded as the founder of Chinese civilization. All subsequent kings and princes claimed descent from him.
XIAThe last of the Five Emperors was followed by Yü, the founder of the legendary Xia (Hsia) Dynasty He built ravines through mountains so the rivers could run to the sea. During his reign, rice wine was discovered, and when he prohibited its use, the Chinese made it the national beverage. While the man and his exploits are legends, archaeology has found urban sites from the period which had bronze implements.
SHANGThe Xia Dynasty is said to have ended when a degenerate descendant of Yü amused himself by forcing 3,000 Chinese to jump to their death in a lake of wine. He was followed by another descendant of Huang Di who founded the Shang (Yin) Dynasty (ca. 1520-1030 BC). For many years this was also thought to be legendary, but in the 1920s, a discovery was made of inscribed bones, which not only verified the existence of the Shang Dynasty but also gave archaeologists information about it. The characters on the bones were the ancestors of modern Chinese script and form the missing link between the early representational characters and the modern abstractions. They also wrote on tortoise shells. At that time, only the nobility had family names so only they could trace their ancestors. Without ancestors, a family could not have a shrine to worship them. In their cosmology, the Shang capital was the center of the universe. They called their land "Chung-kuo — The Middle Kingdom". There was a well-developed social system with king, nobles, commoners, slaves and an army with horse-drawn chariots. Their jade and bronze work was of a very high level.
Apparently the Shang culture employed human sacrifice, not only to accompany a king in death but in the foundation of a new building where they could serve as its spirit guardians. One structure had several hundred people, with war-chariots and weapons, buried in front of it. As with the Aztecs, most of those sacrificed may have been prisoners of war, with expeditions sent to capture people from more primitive peoples for this purpose.
"ANCIENT CHINA"ZHOUAbout 1000 BC, the Shang were overthrown by a revolt, aided by the neighboring Zhou (Ch'ou) under the leadership of Wu. Their capital, Chi, was the first one associated with the site of the present-day Beijing. The Zhou leaders called themselves "Sons of Heaven" a title used by all subsequent Chinese rulers. (In prehistoric times the idea arose that all power in sky was conferred on one superman and his successors, giving them the right to rule all men. These were the 'sons of heaven'. In Turandot the Prince addresses the emperor as Figlio del cielo or Son of Heaven). The Zhou Dynasty lasted until 221 BC, about 800 years. The exact date of its establishment is disputed, for the Chinese had no absolute chronological reference such as dates BC and AD. Events were dated from the start of each reign, and started again with each new ruler. It was during the Zhou Dynasty that Chinese philosophy, based on Confucius and others, was born.
At one time there were over 1,700 small principalities, very like the Greek city-states. The small units were particularly vulnerable to attacks from the North and they built walls to protect themselves. Under the Zhou, many of these were amalgamated, and the central government assumed more and more control. However, the kingdom later fell apart and the years from 480-221 BC are known as the "Warring States" period. During this period the theories of yin-yang and the theory of the five elements developed.
QINThe first real unification of the empire occurred under the Qin (Ch'in). These people learned the art of fighting on horseback from the nomads of the north, and from the third century BC on, they fought and defeated the Zhou in a series of battles. The Qin Dynasty gave the country its name and its "First Emperor", Qin Shih Huangdi. This is the first time that the title "emperor" (di or ti) was used. The emperor ordered the building of a wall of "ten thousand li" by connecting earlier walls. (2.8 li = 1 mile). This was the first version of what is now the Great Wall, although it really only stretches about 1,500 miles or about 4350 li. Shih Huangdi went about reorganizing China, replacing the feudal societies with a centralized government. The most powerful families were forced to move to his capital, where they were encouraged to build exact replicas of their other palaces. All weapons were collected and melted down. Standardized systems of weights and measures and of writing were introduced. (The emperor introduced a standard width for the axles of all carts. It has been claimed that this was so all would fit the existing ruts in the road, but this is not likely. If all followed the same ruts, these would soon be so deep the axles would touch the ground.) All peasants were made to work on public projects for a month at a time, and the records which had to be kept to enforce this requirement led to the proletariat finally gaining surnames.
On the negative side, Shih Huangdi is notorious for burning the books of all the Confucian scholars. (Exceptions were made for those on medicine, agriculture and divination.) Those who did not destroy their own books were subject to branding and forced labor, often on the Great Wall. (Because thousands and thousands died, crushed beneath the stones, the wall has been called "the longest cemetery in the world".) Many books escaped confiscation, some because scholars memorized the complete works of Confucian teachers and passed them on orally, but some scholars were rounded up and sentenced to death or exile. In his last years, the emperor feared attacks on his life. He constructed a vast complex of palaces joined by covered passageways, so no one would know where he was, and he tried to find an elixir which would give him eternal life. When he heard of three fairy islands where, because its inhabitants had discovered such an elixir old age and death were unknown, he sent an expedition bearing precious gifts to find these islands. The leader of the expedition returned empty handed. He had found the islands, but the inhabitants didn't want costly gifts, they requested young men and women. The ships sailed again with 3,000 of China's finest young people and was never heard from again. Legend says it was they who colonized Japan.
Like the Egyptian pharaohs, Shih Huangdi started to build his tomb the moment he became king and some 700,000 conscripts worked for 36 years to complete it. It was said that several hundred maidens were buried alive to keep him company, and the workmen who brought the coffin into his tomb were also buried alive to prevent them from revealing its location within the tomb complex. After his death, the empire crumbled, and the dynasty lasted only fourteen more years.
His tomb did not stay hidden for long. A century after his death, the Han Dynasty historian Sima-Quan (Ssu-ma-Chi'en) described its desecration in 206 BC and wrote descriptions of the burial complex. They had dug through three subterranean streams and poured molten copper for the outer coffin, and the tomb was filled with models of palaces, pavilions, and offices, as well as fine vessels, precious stones, and rarities. Artisans were ordered to fix up crossbows so that any thief breaking in would be shot. The Yellow River and the Yangtze were reproduced in quicksilver and by some mechanical means made to flow into a miniature ocean.
The location of the tomb has long been known as a mound called Mount Li on the outskirts of the city of Xian. In 1974 a remarkable discovery was made. Workers in the fields to the east of the mound found interesting artifacts, and when archaeologists dug they found an army! An army of over 8,000 clay soldiers and horses as well as the cemetery for the laborers who had built the tomb. So far there has been no report of the several hundred maidens. The soldiers were arrayed, four abreast, in battalion order, and over 1,000 have been restored and can be seen by visitors. Each is about six feet tall and has a different face. It is thought they were copied from live models.
HANThe Han Dynasty which lasted from 207 BC to AD 265, with a short intermission was one of the most productive in the history of China. The Chinese are so proud of it they still call themselves "Han people". The ban on philosophical and historical writings was lifted and men of talent were called upon to restore the lost works and to serve in the government. The Chinese Empire was governed by officials selected on merit, an unusual practice at any time. Their capital, Ch'ang-an, has been called the first great city in Chinese history. The Imperial Library had over 11,000 books on classics, philosophy, poetry, mathematics, and medicine.
Note: Starting with the Han, the reigning emperor was always referred to by a term meaning Emperor. When he attained the crown, his personal name became taboo. When he died he was given a posthumous name and it is by that he is known today. This name ended in ti (di), like Wu-ti. Since Ti means Emperor, it is redundant to refer to the Emperor Wu-ti. From the T'ang on, with the exception of the Mongols, the suffix used is tsu or tsung.
China was often subject to invasions by the Hsiung-nu (probably the Huns). THey waged and won repeated wars against them, thus expanding the Empire to include parts of what are now Korea, Manchuria, Turkestan and Indo-China. The Great Wall was extended to the west.
One of the most important men of the Han period was not an emperor but a historian, Sima-Qian, the author of the "Historical Records". Taking him ten years to complete, it is his account of the history of the known world. It includes not only the history of the dynasties, but treatises on topics such as the calendar and economics, and biographies of influential people. His granddaughter wrote a work on the education of women, "Lessons for Women", which emphasized the virtues of women and the proper restriction of their activities. After he died, the Records were continued until 1911. It was during the Han period that the lunar calendar was developed which lasted until 1912. Paper and porcelain also date from this time.
With the expansion to the west, caravans could now travel in relative safety from the Middle East to China. This route became known as the Silk Road. Stations along this Silk Road, were fortified, and trade with the West intensified. Oases on the western end were cultivated by people who were not Chinese but related to the Iranians (Persians). (The original Turandot story was from Persia, not China!) The Silk Road started in Antioch and ended at Ch'ang-an. By the first century AD, Chinese silk could be bought in the markets of Rome. Arabian horses were imported from the Near East and their stock soon proved superior to that of the Mongols. For more on the Silk Road and the cities along it see: http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/index.shtml. There was also a sea route by which an emissary of the Roman Emperor reached China in AD 166 AD, and it was during the Han Dynasty that the Chinese first made contact with India.
Men were appointed to oversee markets, and prices were fixed. Official bankers lent money at a rate of interest of three per cent per month. Income was taxed. Like our returns to the IRS, everyone had to turn in a report on his earning and pay the required tax of about ten percent.
Like Egypt, China has its "Valley of the Kings", north of Xian and near the ruins of Ch'ang-an. In it are buried 12 Han rulers. Only the one of Jing Di, the fifth emperor, has been excavated. He was also buried with an army to protect him, but it was less impressive than that of Shih Huang, There are fewer men and they are only two feet tall.
Toward the end of the Han period, there were destructive power struggles between the eunuchs, who had gained considerable importance, and the court officials. Floods alternated with droughts, and peasant rebellions led to the rise of generals who massacred over 2,000 eunuchs and destroyed the capital. The Great Wall could not keep out hordes of "Tatars", or Mongols, who conquered large areas of the north. Soon the Empire was divided into The Three Kingdoms.
T'ANGAfter four hundred years of disunion and weak ruler after weak ruler, a new Dynasty, the T'ang, emerged in AD 618 and formed a government in which the emperor was supreme and officials were once more chosen on the basis of merit. A census, needed to implement a system in which people were drafted to do labor, was taken every three years. Society was organized into a strict hierarchy. At the top of the social scale were nobles; the othere were divided into nine ranks each of which was supported by the taxes of those below it. The highest received the taxes of 10,000 families, the lowest of only 300.
The first T'ang emperor started the Grand Canal to join the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. Now barges from the south could bring rice to the north, which had previously existed on wheat and millet. The T'ang capital of Ch'ang-an became one of the largest cities of the world. It covered 30 square miles in a grid layout typical of the Chinese. It had two main markets and several parks. A broad avenue, the Street of Heaven, led from the main gate in the south to the Imperial City. This avenue was almost five times as wide as New York's Fifth Avenue. Each of the blocks created by the grid was surrounded by a wall forming a ward. Even the highest officials were expected to dismount at a gateway into a ward. The Emperor's home, the Great Luminous Palace, was set among the hill on the northeast. There was an Imperial College for the training of civil servants, and there were over 10,000 scholars attached to it, all of whom were exempt from taxes. Tourists from India and Europe came to admire it. Buddhist monks came from India to teach, and Chinese Buddhists travelled to India to study their religion at its source.
LIAOThe T'ang Dynasty lasted almost three hundred years, but the unfairly burdened common people rose in rebellion after rebellion. By the tenth century China was again divided, with five dynasties in the north and ten kingdoms in the south. The Peking region came under the control of a Mongol people called the Khitan. They set themselves up as a dynasty with the name Liao and called one of their five capitals Yenching, still the literary name for Beijing. Jurchen chieftains from outside united to overthrow the Liao and set up the Jin (Chin) Dynasty. Yenching became their capital
SUNGThe kingdoms coalesced once more into the Northern (960-1126) and Southern Sung (1126-1279) Dynasties. When the Northern Empire was overrun by people from Manchuria, one son of the emperor escaped and set up the Southern Dynasty. It was during this period that women lost status and, treated as playthings, had their feet bound to make them smaller. This cruel practice was not banned until the twentieth century.
YÜAN (References in Gozzi's Turandot make this the most likely time in which it is set.)Giving themselves up to art and luxurious living, the Sung became easy prey to the powerful Mongols of the northern steppes, led by the formidable Genghis Khan. His grandson, Kublai Khan, moved the Mongol capital to the site of Peking and declared himself emperor of the new Yüan Dynasty. The Mongols replaced the Chinese nobles in the government with their own men and with foreigners such as Marco Polo.
After Kublai Khan died, he was succeeded by his grandson Timur, whom Marco Polo described as "a valiant man full of kindness, wise, and prudent". (The name Timur is Middle Eastern.) With Timur's death, the Mongol Empire broke apart. The name of the deposed emperor in Turandot is Timur. One of the most famous of all Timurs was Timur-i-leng or Tamerlane.
EPILOGUEMING AND MANCHUOnce more the unhappy Chinese revolted. Under the leadership of Chu Yüan-chang, a peasant army reconquered China from the Mongols. In 1368 Peking fell, Chu Yüan-chang became the first Ming emperor, and China went back to being Chinese. The government was modelled on that of the T'ang, the Forbidden City took its present form, and the Great Wall was strengthened.
The Mings were despots, keeping all the power in their own hands. The mandarins had little influence and became cautious and conforming. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, contact with the West had increased. Jesuit missionaries arrived who served the emperors as map makers, calendar reformers and astronomers. Contacts were peaceful and in 200 years the Jesuits attracted 300,000 converts to Christianity. On June 3, 1644 Ch'ing, or Manchu, forces entered Peking and the final Chinese Dynasty began its almost 300 year reign. This dynasty lasted until the 1911 revolution when the last emperor, the boy P'u-yi, was deposed . Although he continued to occupy the Forbidden City for thirteen years, the era of Chinese Dynasties had come to an end. The movie, The Last Emperor, tells his story.