Transcript The Origins of Imperial China (221 BCE – 220 CE)

The Origins of
Imperial China
(221 B.C.E. – 220 C.E.)
Ster Finley
AP World History Seminar
Period 2
Table of Contents
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Geography
Politics
Economics
Religion
Social Organization
Intellectual Aspects
Summary
Key Terms
Note- Key Chapter phrases, issues,
and ideas are in bold. Key terms are
underlined
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Geography
 Chinese empires were located in the same general area as early
Chinese societies: East and Southeast Asia
 The Qin state took over, followed by the Han, and extended
control over all of eastern China and extensive territories to the
West
 Northern plain and the Yang zi River Valley were united under the Qin,
the first Chinese empire
 Han people preferred regions suitable for the kind of agriculture they
had practiced in the eastern river valleys, pushing nomadic populations
out of the northern frontier
Politics
Qin Dynasty (221 – 207 B.C.E.)
 Shi Huangdi (First Emperor) unified Ancient Chinese states
 The main tax (% of annual harvest) funded luxurious lifestyles of the royal court,
military units, and daily tasks of officials
 Government periodically conducted a census of inhabitants
 Imposed standard weights, measures, coinage, uniform law code, and a
common system of writing
 Qin rule did not last long, and were replaced by the Han people around 206
B.C.E.
 Population was centered around the North China Plain and the Yellow River
Valley
 Shi Huangdi created a totalitarian structure that subordinated the
individual to the needs of the state
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Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E. – 220 C.E.)
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Established by Liu Bang, who may have been born a peasant
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Han rule maintained political system of Qin
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By Han, population centered around Yang zi river
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Like Romans, government depended on a large population of free peasants to
contribute taxes and services to the state
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Han Chinese people were the main population, and expanded at the expense of
other ethnic groups
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Han dynasty expanded using military force
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Economics
 Agriculture produced the wealth and taxes that supported the
institutions of imperial China
 Chinese capitals Chang’an and Luoyang had large populations to support
 As intensive agriculture spread in the Yangzi Valley, the need to transport
southern crops to the north spurred construction of canals to connect
Yangzi and Yellow rivers
 During prosperous times, the government collected and stores surplus
grain that could be sold at reasonable prices in times of shortage
 In the intervals between seasonal agricultural tasks, every able-bodied
man donated one month of labor a year to public works projects
 Han people preferred regions suitable for the kind of agriculture they had
practiced in the eastern river valleys
 China’s most important export commodity was silk
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Religion
 Both Qin and Han people followed hierarchical
structure of Confucianism
 Like early Romans, the Chinese believed that
divinity resided within nature rather than outside
and above it, and they worshipped and tried to
appease the forces of nature
 Feng Shui, astrological rituals, and shrines to the
nature spirits were common elements of religion
 Mandate of Heaven still applied, with the emperor
being the Son of Heaven
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Social Organization
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Qin applied stringent rules of Legalism, Han balanced it out with Confucianism
As the Han Chinese expanded into new regions, they took along their social
organization
Basic unit of society was still the family (living generations and ancestors)
Family was living, self-renewing organism
Role of women is hard to pinpoint, but Confucian ethics stressed impropriety of
women participating in public life
Under Confucianism, people saw themselves as part of an interdependent
unit rather than as individual agents
Each person had a place and responsibilities within the family hierarchy, based on
his gender, age, and relationship to other family members
As part of their strategy to weaken the rural aristocrats and exclude them from
political posts, the Qin and Han emperors allied themselves with the gentry- the
class next in wealth below the aristocrats.
The Gentry was made up of moderately prosperous landowners, usually men with
education and valued expertise much like the Roman equites
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Intellectual Aspects
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Chinese tradition recognized the importance of technology for the
success and spread of Chinese civilization, crediting legendary
rulers of the distant past with the introduction of major technologies
The advent of bronze tools around 1500 B.C.E. helped clear the forests
and open land for agriculture on the North China Plain
In the succeeding centuries, the crossbow and the use of cavalry helped
the Chinese military repel nomads from the steppe regions.
The Qin began and the Han rulers continued an extensive program of
road building
Population growth and increasing trade gave rise to local market centers
For a long time the fact that silk cocoons are secreted onto the leaves of
mulberry trees by silkworms was a closely guarded secret that gave the
Chinese a monopoly on the manufacture of silk
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Summary
 The Qin Empire emerged rapidly because many of
the elements for unification were already in place.
Shi Huangdi looked back to the precedents of the
Shang and Zhou dynasties. The Qin applied strict
legalism, while the Han balanced it with
Confucianism. Large armies maintained social
order and defended the frontiers. An
administrative bureaucracy staffed by educated
civil servants kept records and collected taxes to
support the military and government. China
eventually succumbed to a combination of external
pressures and internal divisions, however its
imperial tradition and the class structure were
eventually restored and lasted to the 20th Century
B.C.E.
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Key Terms
 Qin- one of the Warring states located in the Wei
Valley, which took over all of China and established the
first empire in 221 B.C.E.
 Shi Huangdi- founder of the Qin Empire
 Han- the dynasty succeeding the Qin, which ruled
china from 206 B.C.E. – 220 C.E.
 Chang’an- China’s first capital city, which had an
immense population to support
 Gentry- the class in wealth below the aristocrats,
closely aligned with the emperors as part of a strategy
to weaken the rural aristocrats