The Resurgence of Empire in China

The Sui, Tang, and Song

• Government unified the coinage, nationalized the mints and standardized

weights and measures.

Tiger Hill Pagoda

Sui Dynasty (589-618)

• Sui unite China after 400 years of internal division

• Led by Sui Wendi and Sui Yangdi

• Established capital city at Chang’an

• Used Daoism and Buddhism as common identity to unite the empire – appointed monks to high political positions and built monasteries

• Led extensive public works projects – Strict Rule

Emperor Sui Wendi

The Sui Dynasty lasted from 580-618 A.D

• Created the "land

equalization system". While controlling the possession of the land by the rich, this law

provided for land distribution to all

families on the basis of the

number of the people in each

household.

Sui Dynasty (589-618)

The Grand Canal• 1,400 mile canal that

connected the Yellow River in the north to the Yangtze River

in the south.

• Helped to transport grain and rice from the south to the

densely populated north.

• Increased communicationsRapid dispatch of troops

Highway for inspection – used “Dragon boats”

The Grand Canal created an economic foundation for

political and cultural unity

Sui Dynasty (589-618)

Sui Dynasty (589-618)

Fall of the Sui• Sui Emperor was a tyrannical ruler

• Expensive military campaigns, high taxes and forced labor aroused

widespread unrest

• Failed campaign against Korea in 618 led to revolt

•In 618, a disgruntled minister assassinated Emperor Sui Yangdi

Emperor Sui Yangdi

TangDynasty (618-907)

Rise of the Tang• Li Yuan, a general in the Sui Army, seized the capital city of Chang’an and proclaimed

himself the New Emperor.

•His Son, Li Shimin soon took over and assumed the name Tang Taizong, the Grand

Emperor

•Tang launched a program of internal renewal and external expansion that would

make it one of the greatest dynasties in Chinese history!

To ans wer this ques tion we mus t .go back to the Han Dynas ty

The Han Chines e had s ettled parts of Northern China and

intermingled and married with the local Turkic .peoples

The Tang rulers and nobility were des cendents of the Turkic e lites and Chines e offic ials who

s e ttled there in the time of the.Han

Where did the Tang rulers and nobles come from?

They continued the Confucian s ys tem of examining candidates

.for bureaucratic office

But they als o apprec iated the . Turkic culture of Central As ia

Much of what we recognize as Tang art was heavily influenced

. by the Turkic peoples Camels and hors es us ed in the Silk Route

trade were the favorite s ubjects .for artis ts

, In warfare the Tang combined Chines e and Turkic weapons and

:tactics

They us ed Chines e cros s bows - and armored infantry men

combined with Turkis hhors emans hip .and iron s tirrups

The Tang military reached its 650-751, peak from about when they were defeated in Central As ia by an Arab Mus lim army at

.the Battle of the Talas River

Tang Dynasty (618-918)

PoliticalThree Keys to success• Maintenance of transportation and

communication networks• Reliance on a bureaucracy based on

merit, a meritocracy using the civil service exams

• Revival of Han Confucianism: Created a foundation for stabil i ty and prosperity for the Chinese people

Tang Dynasty (618-918)Government inspired by

ConfucianismThree Keys to success• Maintenance of transportation and

communication networks• Distribution of land – Equal-field

system, only 1/5th of property was the hereditary possession of a family

• Reliance on a bureaucracy based on merit, a meritocracy using the civil service exams

Revival of Han Confucianism: Created a foundation for stability and prosperity for the Chinese people

Economic System:

Canals: Grand Canal connected Yellow River and Yangtze River. Allowed grains in south to be shipped to north.

Expanded Trade: Tang merchants traded with India, Persia, and the Middle East. Chinese became expert shipbuilders and a naval power.

This led to a huge influx of precious metal into China – a trend that would continue unti l the 19 th century.

Land Reform – Equal-f ield system, redistr ibuted land to peasants.

Chang’an (Xian) had a population of over 1 million people making it one of if not the

largest city in the world.

Tang Dynasty (618-918)

•Located near the Silk Route, the capital of the Tang Dynasty became an

important city in both the political and economic spheres.

•Foreigners, resided in special compounds. These included living

accommodations, and general stores.

•By the end of the Tang period, West Asians in Chang’an numbered over

100,000.

•In the main part of the city, restaurants, inns, temples, mosques and street

stalls were kept very busy. At curfew, commoners returned to their

neighborhoods which were enclosed by brick walls and wooden gates.

The game of Polo was .imported from Pers ia

Tang Dynasty (618-918)

Chang’an restored the

glory of of the Han Dynasty. Possibly the

greatest city of the world of its

time.

Expansion of the Tang Dynasty

Territorially, the Tang Empire ranks among the largest in Chinese history

Because of the Grand Canal and other government projects for shipping grain and other goods, the Tang Dynasty had the strongest economy of the time period.

Even in its decline, Tang exports far outnumbered imports from South Asia, West Asia, Europe and Africa combined.

This led to a huge influx of precious metal into China – a trend that would continue until the 19th century.

Buddhist Carvings along the Silk Route by Tang Artists.

Tang Dynasty (618-918)Empress Wu – (649-705)

• Wu Zetian became the first and only woman to be Emperor – supported Buddhism.

• Began a campaign to elevate the position of women. Said that the ideal ruler was one who

ruled like a mother does over her children.

• Meritocracy - Civil Service exams- best people ran the government and were treated

fairly.

• Reduced the army's size and stopped the influence of aristocratic military men.

• Fairness to peasants- lowering taxes, raising agricultural production, and

strengthening public works.

How did Empress Wu challenge the traditions of

Confucianism?

The Golden AgeArtistic, Technological and Industrial Developments

Gunpowder and Rockets

Moveable Type

Chinese junks

Porcelain - Chinaware

Landscape art

• Other reasons for decline• Equal land system breaks down• Persecution of Buddhism• Poor attention to canal & irrigation systems• Nomadic alliances and attacks

Decline of the Tang DynastyEmperor Xuanzong

• (Empress Wu’s grandson) Ruled for 44 years• Patron of arts• Began to neglect the people and engaged in pleasure seeking lifestyle• Decline due to lack of morality?• Government corruption• He was forced to abdicate his power

Song Dynasty (960-1279)

The Rainbow Bridge

Political System: 907-960 saw the fragmentation of China into five northern dynasties and ten

southern kingdoms

• Song Taizu united much of the former Tang Dynasty

• Moved capital to Huangzhou in the south

• Centralized government, limited the military, and expanded the Bureaucracy, offered many political positions with generous salaries

• Civil Service Exams

• Used Neo-Confucianism as basis of political system

Neo-Confucianism•Song Confucian tradition differed from previous dynasties•United Metaphysical aspects of Buddhism and Daoism with the pragmatic Confucian approach to society. •Incorporated Buddhist writings that also dealt with issues such as nature of the soul, an individuals place in the cosmos, and other issues.•Illustrates deep influence of Buddhism•Shaped Korea, Vietnam, and Japan

•The Neo-Confucians saw Buddhism as a threat to the social and political order as well as a threat to their (scholar-gentry) authority.

•Buddhism, with its emphasis on egalitarianism and finding one’s own way to one’s own salvation was deemed a threat to the authority of the state and a disruption of the social order that developed under traditional Confucianism.

In order to show the importance that Confucianism would have in the Song Dynasty, the government began an expensive and massive project to restore Confucian temples around the empire.

This is more astounding when one remembers that the maintaining of temples was the responsibility of the local population.

An imperial Confucius Temple in modern Hangzhou

The government began an expensive and massive project to restore Confucian temples around the empire – was the responsibility of local population.

•The most influential of these philosophers, whose synthesis of Confucian thought and Buddhist, Taoist, and other ideas became the official imperial ideology from late Song times to the late nineteenth century. •As incorporated into the examination system, Zhu Xi's philosophy evolved into a rigid official creed, which stressed the one-sided obligations of obedience and compliance of subject to ruler, child to father, wife to husband, and younger brother to elder brother. •The effect was to inhibit the societal development of premodern China, resulting both in many generations of political, social, and spiritual stability and in a slowness of cultural and institutional change up to the nineteenth century.

Zhu Xi (1130-1200)

- What is Neo Confuc ianis m and why ?did it occur

• - Neo Confucianis m is an attempt to broaden the .topics and depth of the philos ophy

• Traditional Confucianis m devoted mos t of its time to the development of s ound governmental theory

.and s tate building

• -Neo Confucianis m expanded into what the Wes t , would call metaphys ics human nature and the .world order

• This was an attempt to curtail the growing influence of Daois m and es pec ially Buddhis m.

The Exam Sys tem , Like previous dynas ties the Song wanted the bes t

. people pos s ible for government pos itions They continued and revamped the traditional exam

. s ys tem They made the recruiting s ys tem more egalitarian s o they could attract the bes t and

.brightes t from all s egments of the population

:The three leve ls were

4. the prefectural examination

5. " " department or metropolitan examination

6. the las t s tep was the palace examination

Song Dynasty (960-1279)

• New developments in rice cultivation, especially the

introduction of new strains from what is now Central Vietnam, spectacularly increased rice yields.

• As a result the population, which had never before

exceeded 60 million, grew to 100 million by 1127. Led to

Urbanization.

• By the end of the Song, 2/3 to 3/4 of the Chinese

population is concentrated below the Yangtze.

Two men walking into a Chinese Tavern

Song Dynasty (960-1279)

• Rise of the Merchant

•The basic unit of payment was copper coins strung on a string, but these were heavy and cumbersome for use in large-

scale transactions. The Song solution was to print paper money

• Rural markets, as well as cities and towns, facilitated the exchange of goods

and services. Some of the products on sale in this city depicted in the scroll would

have come from nearby farms, but others came from far away.

• International maritime trade also flourished during this time. Quanzhou in

the Fujian region became a major center of trade with Southeast and South Asia, as

well as with Korea and Japan. Paper Money

Culture• Made refinements in the ideal of the universal man

• combined the qualities of scholar, poet, painter, and statesman

• Song intellectuals sought answers to all philosophical and political questions in the Confucian Classics.

• This renewed interest in the Confucianism coincided with the decline of Buddhism

• Seen as offering few practical guidelines for the solution of political and other mundane problems.

Footbinding is a tradition that evolved in the concept of "ideal image" including beauty, marriage and sex. It was considered charming, showed a sense of class, and was the symbol of chastity in most Chinese cultures. It was believed to promote health and fertility, although in the reality the

tradition was painful and virtually crippling. It was a way to keep women in seclusion, which made them more dependent on others and less useful around the house.

Footbinding

The most popular and stylish type of foot binding shoes were

known as "golden lotus“ or "lotus shoes". The term "golden lotus" emerged in the southern Tang dynasty around 920 AD where the emperor Li Yu ordered his

favorite concubine, Fragrant Girl, to bind her feet with silk bands and dance on a golden lotus

platform decorated with pearls and gems. Also this term is a synonym for bound feet. Most lotus shoes were beautifully

embroidered and about three inches long ("lotus shoes"). The

lotus shoes are known to be lovely and alluring to the male

population in China.

Footbinding

When asked about the purpose of footbinding the overwhelming majority of women responded very plainly that without bound feet it was impossible to find a husband. A normal footed woman was commonly viewed as a freak of nature, and with unbound feet her pain overflowed into not 1,000, but 5,000 buckets of tears. She was considered lewd and unrefined, often subject to mockery and the brunt of village ridicule. At times in certain areas such women were so rare and unbelievable they were thought to exist only in myth. Women of the upper classes could never have imagined finding a husband of equal status without binding their feet, and if a normal footed woman of a lower class could not find a suitable mate among her economic peers, she could hope for no more than to be sold into slavery or service to those who did bind.

"If a girls’ feet are not bound, they go here and there with unfitting associates" stated a 17th century writer. The women of the wealthy villages are more involved with footbinding than the poor. It began in the late Tang Dynasty (618-906) and gradually spread through the upper class during the Song Dynasty (960-1297). It lasted approximately one thousand years.

Footbinding

North & Southern Song

• Scholar-gentry class dominates• abuses in civil service exam

develop• Heavy dependence on growth of

civilian government at expense of military• By 1127, the Song court could

not push back the Northern nomadic invaders

• Surrounded by north ‘empires’ (Jurchin’)

• Invasion of Mongols from North 1279• Start of Yuan (Mongol Dynasty)

Decline of the Song

" " The word pagoda derives from the Sans krit word

bhagavat ( . cf the book) " ".Bhagavatgita holy

Stupas in India

Very Old Stupa in Modern Pakis tan

Pagoda in Burma

Chines e Pagoda

Tang & Song Influence on East Asia

• The influence of Chinese civilization spreads throughout East Asia as neighboring countries study and borrow from Chinese civilization

• Korea, Japan, and what is today Vietnam

• Confucian thought and social and political values

• Buddhism

• Literary Chinese and its writing system which becomes the language of government and that used by the elites of these societies to communicate among themselves.

Tang Dynasty (618-918)