Transcript Reunification of China – Sui Song & Tang Chinese Golden Age

Reunification of
China – Sui
Song & Tang
Chinese Golden Age
Chapter 12
China During the Era of Division, The Sui Dynasty, and the Tang
Dynasty
Sui Dynasty
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Yangdi (son of Wendi)
– Legal reform
– Reorganized Confucian education
– Canals built, completion Grand Canal
- longest in the world (still)
– reconstruction of Great Wall
– Attacked Korea – costly & disastrous
– Defeated by Turks 615
– Assassinated – 618
– early 7th C - dynasty disintegrated popular revolts, disloyalty &
assassinations
Tang Dynasty
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Scholar-gentry elite based on
examinations (not family connections)
Highest offices went only to individuals
able to pass exams based on the
Confucian classics/Chinese literature –
some social mobility possible BUT
central administration dominated by a
small number of prominent families
Overland trade routes - Silk Road reaching as far as Syria and Rome
Confucian ideology supreme
Result  imperial unity & power of
the aristocracy reduced
Bureau of Censors closely watched all
officials.
Specialized exams administered by
Ministry of Public Rites
Tang era gilt-silver ear
cup with flower motif
*Powerful cultural
influence over Korea
& Japan
Tang /Song Economy
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Court portrait painting of
Emperor Taizu of Song
(960–976)
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Silk routes reopened - greater contact with
Buddhist, Islamic regions
Sea trade
– Use of Junks – increased maritime
commerce
RESULT Commerce expands
Credit - deposit shops
Flying money
Dev. of cities & urban pop. growth – Tang
capital – Changan – pop. 2 million – largest
city in world at time
group of wealthy commoners--the mercantile
class--arose
printing & education spread, private trade
grew, and a market economy began to link the
coastal provinces and the interior
Landholding & gov’t employment no longer
the only means of gaining wealth and prestige
Buddhism becomes fully entrenched in Chinese
culture
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Split in Buddhism
– Mahayana Buddhism popular in era of turmoil
– Chan (Zen) Buddhism common among elite - stressed
meditation & appreciation of natural & artistic beauty
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Empress Wu (690-705) supported Buddhism
– Endows monasteries
– Tried to make Buddhism the state religion
– 50,000 monasteries by c. 850
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Persecution of Buddhism under Emperor Wuzong
– 841-847
– Monasteries destroyed
– Lands redistributed
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Confucian re-emerges as central ideology
Tang Decline
Emperor Xuanzong (713-756)
– Mistress - Yang Guifei – gained power
– Relatives gain power in govt
 755 - Revolt led by An Lushan - Chinese
general (Iranian/Turkish) - proclaimed
himself emperor; later killed by his own son
 RESULT civil war; Yang Guifei executed
– blamed for rebellion
 Central government lost its grip on the local
administration
 907 -- last Tang emperor resigns
- Warlordism broke out - China divided into
north and south - many small shortlived
dynasties
Paintings of Yang
Guifei & An Lushan
Song Dynasty
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Zhao Kuangyin (Taizu) - birth of
Song dynasty
– Scholar-gentry given power
over military
– Revival of Confucian Thought
– Libraries established, old texts
recovered
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Neo-confucians - stressed
personal morality & male
dominance
– Hostility to foreign ideas
– Gender, class, age distinctions
reinforced
Example of Chinese
pottery
Scholar in a Meadow,
11th century
The Spinning Wheel, by Northern Song artist Wang Juzheng
-one of the earliest representations of the invention
Women’s Status – Tang / Early Song
The Status of
women
improved during
Tang & early
Song –started
declining during
the late Song –
WHY?
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Elite women had broader opportunities / careers
Empresses Wu, Wei & Mistress Yang Guifei – signif.
political power
Legal code supported women’s rights in divorce
Some wealthy, urban women had lovers - example of
female independence
Marriage brokers - professional female match-makers
Partners were of the same age; marriage ceremonies did
not take place until puberty
Rights of women deteriorate in late Song Dynasty
– stressed the roles of homemaker and mother
– advocated physical confinement of women
– emphasized the importance of bridal virginity, wifely
fidelity, and widow chastity
– Men were permitted free sexual behavior & remarriage
– fewer Buddhist monasteries (fewer women monks)
– New laws favored men in property inheritance & divorce
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Women excluded from education system
Footbinding - painful, mobility restricting practice
Tang and Song Prosperity: Golden
Age - Expanding Agrarian Production
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A red lacquerware food tray
with gold foil engraving
designs of two long-tailed birds
and a peony (12th -13th C)
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Peasants encouraged to migrate to new
areas; gov’t provided irrigation
Canals built
New crops & technology increased yields.
Aristocratic estates broken up - more
equitable distribution of land for free
peasants
Confucian scholars believed peasants were
essential for a stable and prosperous social
order
Scholar-gentry replaced aristocracy
Chinese ships of the Song period featured hulls w/
watertight compartments (1085–1145)
Tang & Song achievements in
science, technology & culture
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Technological / scientific discoveries—new
tools, production methods, weapons—
passed to other civilizations - altered the
course of human development
Arts / literature passed to neighboring
regions—central Asia, Japan, and Vietnam.
Engineering feats - Grand Canal, dikes and
dams, irrigation systems, and bridges
Banks & paper money stimulated prosperity
Explosive powder – Tang invented fireworks / Song adapted for military use
Song armies & navies - flamethrowers,
poisonous gasses, & rocket launchers
Chairs, tea drinking, the use of coal for fuel,
compasses, & kites
A trebuchet catapult - used
to launch the earliest type
of explosive bombs
Song dynasty falls to
Mongols
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Southern Song - 1127–1279 - Song lost
control of northern China to the Jin Dynasty
 Song court retreated south of the Yangtze
River & established their capital at Lin'an
 Kubilai Khan defeated Jin & founded the
Yuan dynasty in Northern China
 The Chinese economy, until the 18th C, was a
world leader in market orientation, overseas
trade volume, productivity per acre,
sophistication of tools, and techniques of craft
production.
– COT China, as a civilization, retained many
traditional patterns, but it also changed dramatically in
the balance between regions, in commercial and urban
development, and in technology.
– Outside influences - Buddhism – sinified