Transcript The Mongols and China

The Mongols and China
Ch 8.2
“Voices from the Past”
 Read p. 253
 As we go through the section, think
about the following:
 What were the major achievements of
the Mongol dynasty?
 What changes resulted from the Mongol
invasions?
The Mongol Empire
 Who were the Mongols?
 Pastoral people from Mongolia (North of
China) who were organized into clans
 Temujin: born in 1160 and gradually
unifed the Mongol clans
 Elected Genghis Khan in 1206
 Created the largest land empire in history
 Central Europe to Korea
 After he died, the empire was split up into
several separate territories called Khanates
The Mongol Dynasty
 Kublai Khan: Genghis’ grandson who
created a new Chinese dynasty
 Adapted to the Chinese political system
 Major Difference between Chinese and
Mongolians: CULTURALLY
 Social Stratification: Mongols became a
separate class with their own laws
 Highest positions: Mongols
Religion and Government
 Primarily Confucianism, Daoism, and
Buddhism
 Buddhism was criticized for being a foreign
religion (India)
 Government destroyed countless Buddhist
temples and forced more than 260,000 monks
and nuns to leave
 Official governmental support went to a revival
of Confucianism
 Neo-Confucianism
 Says the world is real, not an illusion, and that
fulfillment comes not from withdrawal but from
participation in the world
Poetry
 The invention of printing (1450s) helped to
make literature more readily available and
popular
 Golden age of poetry
 48,000 poems were written by 2,200 authors
 Celebrated the beauty of nature, the changes of
the seasons, and the joys of friendship
 Read poems on page 256-257
Painting and Ceramics
 Landscape paintings reached its high point
 Went into the ountains to paint and find the Dao (the way) in
nature
 Not just painting what they saw though…
 Tried to portray the “idea” of what they saw (See painting-257)
 Painted the concept of a mountain rather than a specific mountain
 Always left empty spaces in paintings
 Why?

Because in Daoism, one cannot know the whole truth
 Portrayed humans as small and insignificant next to nature
 CERAMICS
 Perfected the making of porcelain (a ceramic made of fine clay
baked at very high temperatures
 Technique didn’t make it to Europe until the 18th century!
“Lord of the Mongols: Genghis
Khan”
 Read p. 258-261
 Answer Questions 1-3
 They will be graded for correctness, not
just completion so answer them
thoroughly!
 Information from this section will also
be on your test, so you may want to
take some notes as you read…
“Genghis Khan: Rise of the
Conqueror”
 Discovery DVD
 Notes as a class as we go along