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80 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
- 3rd side (hint)
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What was the collection of sayings Confucius’ students collected from their master?
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Analects
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What are the two great rivers of China?
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The Yellow and the Uangtze
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Who, according to Chinese legend, were said to be the rulers that first brought the rudiments of civilization to China?
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Fu Xi (the ox tamer who “knotted cords for hunting and fishing,” domesticated animals, and introduced the beginnings of family life); Shen Nong (the divine farmer who “bent wood for plows and hewed wood for plowshares” and taught people agriculture); and Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor who created the first bow and arrow, as well as the Chinese system of writing).
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What does the legend of the Chinese founders symbolize as some of the defining characteristics of China?
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The interaction between nomadic and agricultural peoples, the importance of family as the basic unit of Chinese life, and the development of a unique system of writing.
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When did Homo Sapiens start appearing in China?
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Sometime after 40,000 B.C.E
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What are the two Neolithic societies that stemmed from the early agricultural settlements of the Yellow River?
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The Yangshao and the Longshan
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How are the Yangshao and the Longshan identified?
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Sometimes in terms of their pottery; Yangshao had painted pottery, and Longshan had black pottery
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What were the southern settlements of China based on?
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The cultivation of rice [rather than crops such as millet or barley]
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How much of China’s land is arable?
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12 percent
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What was some of the roles China’s geographic location served for their history?
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The geographical barriers served to isolate the Chinese people from the advanced agrarian societies in other parts of Asia. The frontier regions in the Gobi Desert, Central Asia, and the Tibetan plateau were sparsely inhabited by peoples of Mongolian, Indo-Eurpoean, or Turkish extraction. Most were pastoral, and many had skills in war that endangered China.
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What become one of the great fault lines of conflict in Asia?
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The northern frontier, as Chinese armies attempted to protect precious farmlands from marauding peoples from beyond the frontier.
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Aside from the ____ frontier, where else did China need to fear from?
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Not really any other direction. To the east lay the China sea, a lair for pirates and the source of powerful typhoons that occasionally ravaged the Chinese coast but otherwise rarely a source of concern. South of the Yangtze River was a hilly region inhabited by a mixture of peoples of varied linguistic and ethnic stock who lived by farming, fishing, or food gathering, and were eventually absorbed by the Chinese civilization.
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What were the dynasties of China in order?
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Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing
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What is the legend of the founder of the Xia dynasty?
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The founder was a ruler named Yu who is also credited with introducing irrigation and draining the floodwaters that periodically threatened to inundate the northern China plain.
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What was the Shang dynasty’s capital?
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Anyang
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What did the Shang dynasty use oracle bones for?
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Ox and chicken bones or turtle shells were used by Shang rules for divination and to communicate with the gods. They are notably the earliest known form of Chinse writing and provide much of our information about the beginnings of civilization in China.
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How was the Shang dynasty structured as a society?
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It was a predominantly agricultural society ruled by an aristocratic class whose major occupation was war and control over key resources such as metals and salt.
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How was the Shang dynasty structured politically?
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The Shang king ruled with the assistance of a central bureaucracy in the capital city. His realm was divided into a number of territories governed by articoratic chieftains, but the king appointed these chieftains and could apparently depose them at will. He was also responsible for the defense of the realm and controlled large armies that often fought on the fringes of the kingdom.
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What is some evidence did we have that the kings of the Shang dynasty are important?
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When the king died, ritual sacrifices were undertaken; hundreds of retains were buried with him in the royal tomb.
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How did the Shang dynasty view the king?
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An intermediary between heaven and Earth.
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To what extent was the Shang dynasty superstitious?
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The Chinese ruling elite believed in the existence of supernatural forces and thought they could communicate with those forces to obtain divine intervention of matters of this world. The early Chinese also had a clear sense of life in the hereafter.
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What was the basic social unit of China in the Neolithic period?
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The farming village, at least in the core region of the Yellow River valley
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How was the Shang dynasty farming villages structured?
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They were organized by clans rather than by nuclear family units, and all residents probably took the common clan name of the entire village. IN some cases, a village may have included more than one clan.
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What do the clan-based origins of China explain?
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The continued importance of the joint family in traditional China, as well as the relatively small number of family names in Chinese society.
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How were the social classes like during the Shang dynasty?
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The classes were becoming increasingly differentiated. It is likely that some poorer peasants did not own their farms but were obliged to work the land of the chieftain and other elite families in the village. The aristocrats not only made war and served as officials, but were also the primary land owners. There were also a small number of merchants and artisans, as well as slaves, probably consisting primarily of criminals or prisoners taken in battle.
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What is the Shang dynasty best known for?
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Their mastery of casting bronze
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What was the longest-lived dynasty of China?
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The Zhou dynasty, which lasted for about eight hundred years
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What was Zhou dynasty capital?
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In their home territory near present-day Xian (it was called Fenghao), and later a second capital city at modern Luoyang farther to the east, to administer new territories captured from the Shang
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What were the Zhou dynasty’s political structures?
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Nearly the same as the Shang’s; they divided the kingdom into a number of territories governed by officials appointed by the king, the Zhou king was the apex of the government who served by a bureaucracy of growing size and complexity, etc. It also now included several ministries responsible for rites, education, law, and public works. Beyond the capital, the Zhou kingdom was divided into a number of principalities governed by members of the hereditary aristocracy, who were appointed by the king and were at least theoretically subordinated to his authority.
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What is the mandate of Heaven?
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Introduced in The Rites of Zhou, the mandate of Heaven is a concept that says that Heaven maintained order in the universe through the Zhou king, who thus ruled as a representative of Heaven but not as a divine being. The king, who was selected to rule because of his talent and virtue, was then responsible for governing the people with compassion and efficiency. If he didn’t, the mandate was said to pass to someone else.
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How did the Zhou dynasty decline?
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Question if it was really all that awesome in the first place. In any case, bitter internal rivalries arose among the various principalities, where the governing officials had succeeded in making their positions hereditary at the expense of the king. As the officials’ power grew, they began to regulate the local economy and seek reliable sources of revenue for their expanding armies, such as a uniform tax system and government monopolies on key commodities such as salt and iron.
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What was the well-field system?
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Originating from the Shang, the peasants worked on lands owned by their lord but also had land that they cultivated for their own use. Each peasant family tilled an outer plot for its own use and joined with other families to work the inner one for the hereditary lord.
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How did trade and manufacturing work in the Zhou dynasty?
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It was carried out by merchants and artisans, who lived in walled towns under the direct control of the local lord. Merchants did not operate independently but were considered the property of the local lord and on occasion could even be bought and sold like chattels. A class of slaves performed a variety of menial tasks and perhaps worked on local irrigation projects. Most of them were probably prisoners of war.
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What were the things that affected the Zhou dynasty’s economy?
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The period of later Zhou was an era of significant economic growth and technological innovation. Large-scale water control projects were undertaken to regulate the flow of rivers and distribute water evenly to the fields, as well as to construct canals to facilitate transport of goods from one region to another. They made a water control project on the Min River; a system of canals and spillways that diverted excess water into the local irrigation network and watered an area populated by as many as five million people. Food production was also advanced by the invention of the iron plowshare, natural fertilizer, collar harness, and the technique of leaving land fallow.
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Why did rice replace other grain areas with warm climate, when it was it was difficult and time-consuming to produce?
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Because of its good taste, relative ease of preparation, and high nutritional value.
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During the late Zhou era, what was the prime source of power and influence?
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Economic wealth (in contrast to noble birth, as it was before)
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What was one of the most important items of trade in China and why?
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Silk. It was not only used for clothing and quilts but also to wrap dead bodies before burial. [Still, though, the more important one was jade; praised by Confucius as a symbol of purity and virtue, it assumed an almost sacred quality among Chinese during the Zhou dynasty.
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What did the Zhou dynasty use as currency?
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By the Zhou dynasty, pieces of iron-shaped like a knife or round coins with a hole in the middle so they could be carried in strings of a thousand were being used. More ordinary Chinese, however, simply used a system of barter. Taxes, rents, and even the salaries of government officials were normally paid in grain.
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What were the “hundred schools” of ancient philosophy?
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A wide-ranging debate over the nature of human beings, society, and the universe.
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What were some of the early religious beliefs of the Chinese?
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The Shang had begun to believe in the existence of one transcendent god (Shang Di) who presided over all the forces of nature. This then evolved to a more impersonal symbol of universal order known as Heaven (Tian or T’ien). Some of the earliest ideas about the order of the universe was that it was divided into two primary forces of good and evil, light and dark, male and female, called yang and yin. The early Chinese thought that they may be able to understand and predict the process, and have some minimal effects, but could never hope to reverse it; thus, the heavy element of fatalism in Chinese popular wisdom.
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What was one of the most famous manuals used to divine?
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Yi Ching (I Ching), known in English as the “Book of Changes”.
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What were the two most significant elements of Confucianism?
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Firstly, the concept of duty; it was the responsibility of all individuals to subordinate their own interests and aspirations to the broader need of the family and the community. This was called filial piety. Secondly, the idea of humanity, sometimes translated to “human-heartedness”; the sense of compassion and empathy for others.
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What is Legalism?
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Taking issue with the view of Mecius and other disciples of Confucius that human nature was essentially good, the Legalists argued that human beings were by nature evil and would follow the correct path only if coerced by harsh laws and stiff punishments. Therefore, they concluded that firm action by the state should be the only option.
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What is Daoism/Taoism?
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Daoists content that the true way to interpret the will of Heaven is not action but inaction; the best way to act in harmony with the universal order is to act spontaneously and let nature take its course.
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What were some aspects of popular Chinese religion?
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Firstly, that Heaven was a terrain peopled with innumerable gods and spirits of nature, both good and evil, who existed in trees, mountains, and streams as well as in heavenly bodies; secondly, the belief that the spirits of deceased human beings lived in the atmosphere for a time before ascending to heaven or descending to hell.
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How did the Qin dynasty come into power?
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The small principalities of the Zhou kingdom began to evolve into powerful states, eventually intensifying to civil war—there was a period of time called ‘Period of the Warring States’. The young state of Qin, located in the original homeland of the Zhou, became a key player in the conflicts, partly because of their strong defense position in the mountains to the west of the great bend of the Yellow River, as well as from their control of the rich Sichuan plains.
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What are some of the weapons that were created during the Period of the Warring States?
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Iron weapons, the introduction of the foot soldier, the cavalry, the crossbow.
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What (or rather, who) was one of the primary reasons for the triumph of the Qin Dynasty?
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Qin Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor of Qin. He ascended the throne at the age of thirteen, he closely followed the Legalist views of his advisor Li Su and defeated the last of his rivals, founding a new dynasty with himself as the emperor.
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What were the political structures of the Qin dynasty?
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Legalism was the official ideology. Qin was a highly centralized state, with the central bureaucracy divided into three primary ministries
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a civil authority, a military authority, and a censorate (whose inspectors surveyed the efficiency of officials throughout the system). Below the ministries were the provinces and countries, whose officials were appointed by court; some sort of merit system was used, although no evidence for an examination. A penal code provided for harsh punishments for all wrongdoers, and officials were watched by the censors, who reported directly to the throne.
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What were some of Qin Shi Huangdi’s accomplishments for the economy?
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He unified the system of weights and measures, standardized the monetary system and the written forms of Chinese characters, ordered the construction of system of roads extending throughout the empire, attempted to eliminate the remaining powers of the landed aristocrats and divided their estates among peasants (who were now taxed directly by the state). He was very unsympathetic to the ‘parasitic’ merchants, and were equally aggressive in foreign affairs; to supply the Qin armies operating in the edge of the Red River, he dug a canal from the Yangtze River to Guangzhou.
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Who were the Xiongnu?
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The nomadic people of the north, who had probably lived by hunting and fishing, limited forms of agriculture, or herding animals. As the climate gradually became drier, they relied on animal husbandry, and mastered the art of riding on horseback to adopt the nomadic life. They organized loosely into communities consisting of kinship groups, and moved seasonally from one pasture to another, carrying their goods and their yurts (tents).
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What was Qin Shi Huangdi’s answer to the problem of the Xiongnu?
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Build a wall and make them pay for it (kidding with the last part). The Great Wall of China.
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What were eunuchs and why were they created?
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Eunuchs were castrated males who served as personal attendants for himself and members of the royal family. The original idea may have been to restrict the influence of male courtiers, and it became a standard feature of the imperial system.
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What was the downfall of the Qin dynasty?
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The centralizing zeal that alienated many key groups (including landed aristocrats and Confucian intellectuals). When he died, the dynasty descended into factional rivalry, and four years later it was overthrown.
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What were the five relationships that were the key to a proper social order?
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A hierarchal system in which every family member had a place. The son was subordinate to the father, the wife to her husband, the younger brother to the older brother, all being subject to the king, and proper one between friend and friend.
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What was the Bao-jia system?
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Originated by the Qin but later continued, it was the practice of organizing several family units into larger groups of five and ten families that would exercise mutual control and surveillance.
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What happened to the Chinese psyche after the collapse of the Han Empire?
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The Confucian principles came under severe challenge, and many Chinese began to turn to more messianic creeds that emphasized the supernatural or the promise of earthly or heavenly salvation. Intellectuals begun to reject the moralism of Confucianism and sought the emotional satisfaction in hedonistic pursuits or philosophical Daoism. Buddhism satisfied the deeper emotional needs and provided solace in times of sorrows and the hope of a better life.
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What did Yang Jian do?
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He founded a new dynasty known as the Sui. He tried to create a unifying ideology, choosing Daoism and Buddhism and founding monasteries for both doctrines and appointed Buddhist monks to key positions as political advisors. He constructed a new canal from the capital to the confluence of the Wei and Yellow Rivers nearly 100 miles to the East. His son continued the process, and the 1,400 mile-long Grand Canal, linking the two great rivers of China (the Yellow and the Yangtze) were completed under his reign. The new canal facilitated the shipment of grain and other commodities, acted as a fast method of communication, permitted rapid dispatches of troops, and was used as the Imperial highway.
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Where was the Sui capital?
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Chang’an
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Why did the Sui empire end?
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Yang Jian’s son, Sui Yangdi, was a tyrannical ruler, and his expensive military campaigns aroused widespread unrest, eventually resulting into him getting murdered by his general, Li Yuan (who created the Tang dynasty).
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How long did the Tang dynasty last?
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300 years.
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What happened under the Tang dynasty?
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A program of internal renewal and external expansion that would make it one of the greatest dynasties in the long history of China, and the flowering of the Chinese culture.
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Under the Tang, how was China unified?
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The northwest was pacified and given the name of Xinjiang (‘new region’); the long conflict with Tibet led for the first time to the extension of Chinese control over the vast and desolate plateau north of the Himalaya Mountains; the southern provinces below the Yangtze were fully assimilated into the Chinese Empire, and the imperial court established commercial and diplomatic relations with the states of Southeast Asia. China claimed to be the foremost power, and the emperor demanded fealty and tribute from fellow rulers; Korea accepted this, and the Japanese tried to find out more.
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How did Chinese culture flower under the Tang?
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The influence of Buddhism affected art, literature, philosophy. Religion, and politics. Monasteries sprang up. Chang’an became populated with nearly two million, and was filled with temples and palaces and markets.
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What was the capital of the Tang?
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Chang’an
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What were the two biggest problems of the Tang?
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Court intrigues and official corruption. There may also have been a drought at one point
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What was one of the most famous cases of court intrigues for the Tang?
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Zuanzong, one of the great Tang emperors and a renowned patron of arts, was dominated later in life by one of his favorite concubines, Yang Guifei. She was eventually put to death. However, the Tang never recovered from the catastrophe, and the loss of power by the central government led to increased influence by great landed families inside China and chronic instability along the northern and western frontiers, where local military commanders ruled virtually without central government interference.
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What was the end of the Tang dynasty?
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The Tang tried to defeat the nomadic peoples called the Khitans by allying with a trading people called the Uighurs, but then another nomadic people called Kirghiz defeated the Uighurs and then turned on the Tang government and overthrew it.
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What was the capital of the Song dynasty?
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Kaifeng, father to the east from the Khitans. Later, when pressures from the nomads in the north increased, the court was forced to move the capital even farther south, to Hangzhou.
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What was the population of the Song dynasty?
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Forty million people
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What was the end of the Song dynasty?
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The Song was forced to pay tribute to the Jurchen peoples from Manchuria; annoyed, they formed an alliance with the Mongols, another nomadic people. The Mongols then became an even more serious threat, and after they defeated the Jurchen, they turned to the Song and advanced from both north and west (and since the Song were weakened by internal factionalism and loss of tax revenues, they were pretty much easy pickings).
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What were the Tang’s main ideology?
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They briefly considered Buddhism, but ultimately picked State Confucianism
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How as the Tang government organized?
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The Grand Council, assisted by a secretariat and a chancellery; included representatives from all three authorities—civil, military, and censorate. Under the Grand Council was the Department of State Affairs, composed of ministries responsible for jusctice, military affairs, personnel, public works, revue, and rites. This department was in effect the equivalent of modern cabinet.
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How did the Tang dynasty select bureaucrats?
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Civil service examinations
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What was the Tang dynasty’s examination system like?
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There were three levels of examinations. The first was a qualifying examination given annually at the provincial capital, and candidates who succeeded here were given bureaucratic positions only on a local level. Candidates who succeeded on the second examination, given at the capital every three years, could apply for an official position. The final examination, given in the imperial palace once every three years, determined who were eligible for high positions in the central bureaucracy or for appointments as district magistrates. Early during the Tang, the exam included Buddhist and Daost teachings, byt by Song times exams were strictly on Confucian classics.
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Who did the Song allow to take the Civil Service exams?
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All males except criminals or members of certain restricted occupations
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How did the Song provide potential candidates with schooling?
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Training academies were set up at the provincial and district levels. Without such academics, only individuals fortunate enough to receive training in the classics in family-run schools would have had the expertise to pass the exams.
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Who were the scholar-gentry?
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The majority of the candidates of the exams came from the landed gentry, non-aristocratic landowners who controlled much of the wealth in the countryside. Because the gentry prized education and became the primary upholders of the Confucian tradition, they were called the scholar-gentry.
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What mainly changed in the Song dynasty’s economy and trading?
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Private commerce was actively being encouraged, and many merchants engaged in shipping as well as in wholesale and retail trade. Guilds began to appear, along with a new money economy. Paper currency began to be used. Credit (‘flying money’) also made its first appearance during the Tang, and banking began to develop as merchants found that strings of copper coins were too cumbersome for their increasingly complex operations. This led to some price inflation though. Long-distance trade expanded, both through the Silk Road and, because said route(s) were so hazardous, maritime/sea routes.
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What was the tribute system like?
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The Chinese viewed the outside world with a hierarchical manner, and smaller countries were “younger” brothers. Foreign rulers were required to pay tribute, but also got conferred legitimacy, gifts, and access to the Chinese market.
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