Transcript Chinese dynasties and The Silk Road

Chinese Dynasties
The Zhou Dynasty
• The Zhou dynasty took over
after the Shang dynasty and
ruled China longer than any
other dynasty.
The Mandate of Heaven
• The Zhou kings said they had
the mandate of heaven.
• The mandate of heaven was a
belief that heaven gave power to
the king, and no one rule without
heaven’s permission
• If the king was bad, heaven would
send another leader.
Zhou Social Structure
• The kings gave land to the lords,
people with high respect and wealth.
• The lords paid taxes and gave
soldiers to the king when he needed
them.
• The lords also gave small pieces of
their land to peasants (farmers)
• The peasants would farm a little piece
of land for themselves and some more
land for the lord.
Zhou Social Structure
• For a long time, this system of ruling
worked well for China. The kings
had the lords control land and other
people.
• After a while, though, the lords
started to become very powerful,
and they didn’t want to follow the
king’s orders anymore.
• The lords were not loyal to the king
anymore; they quit sending soldiers
to help the king fight invasions.
The Decline of Zhou
power
• Invaders attacked the capital city and the Zhou
soldiers lost the battle
• The lords began fighting each other and soon all of
China was fighting wars with their neighbors. This
time of fighting was called the Warring States
period.
• Large families began breaking up into groups and
fighting each other
• Some sons and fathers were even fighting and killing
one another
• China had no main ruler and was just a big mess!
• This chaos and disorder led to the creation of
Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism
The Qin Dynasty
• The Warring State period went
on for a long time, but finally
the Qin people united China
under their control.
The Qin Dynasty
• The first emperor of the Qin Dynasty
was Shi Huangdi
• Shi Huangdi was a Legalist and
made very strict rules
• He burned all books that disagreed with
Legalism
• Shi Huangdi also had his armies take
over more land to make China bigger
The Qin Dynasty
• Shi Huangdi took away all power
from the lords. He made himself the
only person with absolute, total
power.
• He divided China into districts and
each district had a governor.
• Each district was divided into
counties that also had leaders
chosen by the king.
Qin Achievements
• Shi Huangdi made a new money
system so that everyone in
China would have the same kind
of money
• He also had more road and
canals built, which helped travel
in China
The Great Wall of China
• Shi Huangdi wanted to make
sure no one could invade China,
so he had the Great Wall of
China built to keep invaders out.
• Actually, parts of the wall had
already been built hundreds of
years earlier, Shi Huangdi just had
the parts joined together to create
one BIG wall
The Decline of Qin
Dynasty
• After Shi Huangdi died, many
other people claimed to have
the mandate of heaven.
• The capital was attacked and
the new emperor surrendered.
• There was no leader again, and
everyone in China started
fighting each other again.