...Asia had many too, but the Han dynasty started something different from all of the rest that would continue on for over a thousand years. The Qin dynasty, before the Han began, had caused terrible education, high taxes, and harsh laws that made it hard to live in China. The Han dynasty wanted to change that, for no one could live under such circumstances. They combined Legalism, a philosophy that order came before everything else, and Confucianism, which changed major aspects of how government should be. Gao Zu, the first emperor of the Han dynasty, created a new sect of advisors who were Confucian scholars. He created this new form because “he believed the government...
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...significance of the following? Rome Etruscans Latins Republic Greeks- influence? Patrician Legions Plebeian Senate Consuls Centuriate Assembly Tribal Assembly Tribunes Veto- Who had it? Praetors- How many? Twelve Tables Citizenship- who had it? Women? Times of emergency, who ruled? “Real Power” Geography? Punic Wars Hannibal? Scipio? Tiberius & Gaius Gracchus? Civil War Period? Shift from Republic to Empire? Describe Loyalty of soldier? Julius Caesar Triumvirate Crassus Pompey Ides of March Octavian? Augustus? Pax Romana? Trade system? Basis? Succession to throne? Gladiators? Entertainment? Problems with Empire? Why the Fall-specifics? Diocletian? Constantine? Huns? Germanic invasions? Attila? Byzantine Empire Romulus Augustulus? Virgil? Roman Achievements? The major contribution to Western CIF.? Dates of Republic/Empire/Byzantine Trajan? Arch/Architecture? Infrastructure? Greatest Roman Legacy? Gupta Major accomplishments of each Empire? Mauryan Chandragupta Maurya? Indian geography? Invasions into India? Arthashastra Ashoka Maurya? Kautilya? Buddhism and Hinduism? Brahmin? Collapse? Patriarchal/Matriarchal? Chandra Gupta? White Huns? Tamil? Trade patterns/partners? Guild? Political stability? Dates/TL of each Empire? HAN 1. A family of kings, called a ____________, would rule over China during...
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...Brandon Mogi Dana M. Reemes History 110A MWF 11:00-11:50 16 March 2015 Chapter 8: The Unification of China The unification and expansion of China during the Qin and Han dynasties (221-220 B.C.E) was a rich tradition of the social and political philosophies of Confucians, Daoists, and Legalists was the foundation on which these and later dynasties rested. The important elements that contributed to the unification of China in this period were building a centralized bureaucracy staffed with professionals educated in Confucian thought and values, a prosperous economy based on technological and industrial development and long-distance trade, and standardization of the written language. Confucius was an educator and political advisor and his sayings were compiled in the Analects by his disciples. His ideas were fundamentally moral and ethical in character and practiced on how to restore political and social order. His ideas concentrated on the formation of junzi or superior individuals and did not allow personal interests influence their judgements. Confucius had edited the Zhou classics for his disciples to study. Ren, an example of key Confucian values, was a sense of humanity, kindness, and benevolence. There was also Li, a sense of propriety, courtesy, respect, and deference to elders. Lastly, there was Xiao, afilial piety and familial obligation. He wanted to cultivate personal morality and junzi for bringing order to China. One of the spokesmen for Confucian school was...
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...The Han Chinese, Han people or or "Han ethnic group" are an East Asian ethnic group. They constitute approximately 92% of the population of China. The name Han was derived from the Han dynasty, which succeeded the short-lived Qin dynasty, and is historically considered to be the first golden age of China's Imperial era due to the power and influence it projected over much of Asia. As a result of the dynasty's prominence in inter-ethnic and pre-modern international matters, many Chinese began identifying themselves as the "people of Han" a name that has been carried down to this day. Similarly, the Chinese language also came to be named the "Han language" ever since. In the Oxford Dictionary, the Han are defined as "The dominant ethnic...
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...------------------------------------------------- History of China From at least 1766BCE to the twentieth century of the Common Era, China was ruled by dynasties. A dynasty is a family that passes control from one generation to the next. A dynasty does not have to last for a long time. One Chinese dynasty lasted more than 800 years while another lasted only fifteen years. The ancient Chinese believed their ancestors in heaven had chosen their leaders. They called this the Mandate of Heaven. The Chinese people often rebelled against a weak leader if they believed he had lost the Mandate of Heaven. There are indications of an earlier Hsia Dynasty, but the Shang were the first dynasty to leave written records. The Shang also developed a lunar calendar consisting of twelve months of 30 days each. The Shang Dynasty ruled China from approximately 1766BCE to about 1040BCE. Shang rulers expanded the borders of their kingdom to include all of the land between Mongolia and the Pacific Ocean. The Shang practiced human sacrifice. If a Shang king died, many of his subjects would join the ruler in his grave. Some people were beheaded first but others were buried alive. When a Shang king died, his next oldest brother replaced him. When there were no brothers, the ruler’s oldest maternal nephew became king. A maternal nephew would be a child of one of the deceased king’s cousins – that is, a son of his mother’s siblings. The Chou were initially nomads who lived west of the Shang...
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...(e.g Han dynasty), states started to adopt a mixture of Confucianism and Legalistic ideology. Why did Legalism and Confucianism fall off? In this paper I will explore and provide my own insights on the shortcomings of both ideologies; how Legalism was more persuasive in getting people to accept their ideas and more effective as an ideology and how Confucianism lost out in both aspects. Persuasiveness of Legalism The central idea of legalism was to provide absolute power to the person in charge and the supremacy of authority. Legalists like Han Fei Zi believed that human nature was “evil” and strict rules should be in place to ensure order, similar to a shepherd and sheeps3. With this theory in mind, the idea of absolute power was very attractive to rulers of states. Rulers will exercise the “two handles” of reward and punishment accordingly to keep their subjects obedient and loyal. This ideology is even more appealing towards newly founded states that lack in the department of control over its subjects. If states can adopt the legalistic way of ruling, rulers can exercise their control over the whole state to maintain order. Therefore it is more likely for rulers to be persuaded into adopting legalism as their state ideology since it aligns with their objectives. When compared to Confucianism where rulers are encouraged to trust officials in states with their own ruling, power dilution was a very glaring problem to the rulers. China underwent many changes in dynasty with...
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...Imperial Rome and Han China were two of the most powerful empires to ever exist. In order to maintain their positions of political power, it was imperative that the rulers of each empire had a way of maintaining unity and controlling the populace. Though they had different forms of government- Rome was a republic, which allowed the people some influence, and Han China was a bureaucracy with one overall leader -each had a unique approach of asserting political control among the population, using varying forms of religion, centralized government, and entertainment for the citizens. 1- Religion: Politically and culturally, religion played an extremely important part in providing political control for both Imperial Rome and Han China. However, both the religions and the way they were used to benefit each empire varied greatly in order to serve the...
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...powerful regimes existed, the Han dynasty in Asia and Imperial Rome in Europe. Although these countries were very far in distance and only came in contact through trade, both empires were strong and well organized due to this Rome and Han China both had great success. The Han dynasty lasted for roughly 426 years, while Imperial Rome lasted 507 years, and through their long reigns, they were able to achieve great advancements in technology and economy. Han China and Imperial Rome, both had a powerful central government with well-organized bureaucracies, the fall of these dynasties was because of over expansion and taxation of land. However, the overall political structure of these regimes were different because Han China’s bureaucratic system and Rome’s bureaucratic system were controlled by...
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...distinguish the historians tone as well as perspective; is he Asia-centric, eurocentric, is he crediting or discrediting a certain event or people.Some biases may be blatant and seek to distort the past and as such we can say that history might just be a propaganda of the winners. For this paper, a definition of “bias: is crucial to understanding this topic. Often times “bias” implies deliberately or involuntarily ignoring some random facts. Because of this any historian can choose to influence his readers perception for a given period of history by what he/she chooses to include or exclude. Thus recordings of history provides not only information about the past but also a reflection of the historian's perspective. As a matter of fact, the ancient Chinese historians are very selective when it comes to organizing portions of history. They do this in order to bring about a specific point or message. Many accounts of Chinese history thus provide insight to the historian's perception of the past as well as the influences of the historian from their own time and culture. Examples of this can be found in the Records of the Grand Historian or Shiji; written by Sima Qian. Sima Qian’s Shiji offers insights as a historian as well as his plea to resolve one life changing event that he tries to justify through a way that may have seemed objective, but nonetheless it was one filled with...
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...In my selected opinion editorial, the author argues that the countries along the silk road are “both welcoming and wary of Beijing’s ‘one-belt, one-road’ initiative,” because some local people express their concerns that China’s influence expands and “this is an imperialistic move.” To respond to this argument, I turn to the Qing dynasty’s policy to stimulate trades in the Central Asia. In the eighteenth century, the Qing empire conquered the West Regions, and the Manchus tended to maintain the routes of trade in Tarim and Zungharian Basins which were parts of the overland silk road in Xinjiang, though the overland one was not as prosperous as earlier time. This inspires me to seek the answer to a series of questions as follows. To what extent...
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...The Influence of Pipa on Chinese Classical Music In Chinese classical music, Pipa is one of the most popular traditional musical instruments in China and known as the “king of plucked string instrument.” It is a plucked four-stringed musical instrument having a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 26. It has been played for about two thousands years in China and many Chinese ancient literary works and poems are related to pipa praising its refinement through its bright timbre and rapid rolling tremolo. Unlike nowadays situation that everyone could learn how to play pipa or enjoy the pipa performance in the concert, people from upper class in the ancient time rarely played classical instrumnets such as pipa and guqin (a plucked seven-string instrument of the zither family) in public or for commercial purposes. And they always refused to be regard as musician because performing artists in ancient China are usually considered as the lowest social class. “In traditional China, most well–educated people and monks could play classical music as a means of self-cultivation, meditation, soul purification and spiritual elevation, union with nature, identification with the values of past sages, and communication with divine beings or with friends and lovers” (Liu) However, the development of pipa in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) let it became popular in both court music and ordinary people. Indeed, pipa music has a profound impact on the Chinese classical...
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...choose the four that I believe are the most important. I will then choose one of the Ancient Chinese contributions that I cannot live without. The most prominent inventions are: * Gunpowder: The principle behind gunpowder was discovered by the Chinese in perhaps the first century A.D., during the Han Dynasty. It wasn’t used in guns at the time, but created explosions at festivals. They mixed together saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal dust, which they put into bamboo tubes, and threw into fires until they found a way to propel the matter on its own as a rocket (Gill, 2013) * Silk: During the Shang Dynasty the Chinese learned to cultivate the silk worm, real out its silken thread, and create silk fabric. Not only was the silken fabric useful in heat or cold as clothing, but, as a highly sought-after luxury item, it led to commerce with other peoples and the spread of culture all the way to and from the Roman Empire. (Gill, 2013). * Paper: Another Han Dynasty invention. Paper could be made from a sludge made from fabrics, like hemp, or rice. Ts’ai-Lun is credited with the invention, although it is thought to have been created earlier (Gill, 2013) * Compass: A Qin Dynasty invention, the compass was first used by fortune-tellers before it was applied to the cardinal directions. At first they used a lodestone which contains iron oxide which made it align itself north-south before they...
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...Brief History of China Prehistory Mythical Era Ancient Era Imperial Era Modern Era Introduction Chinese civilization originated in various city-states along the Yellow River Valley in the Neolithic era A history of 4700 years since Yellow Emperor during the period of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors; the written history of China begins with Shang Dynasty 3600 years ago when turtle shells with ancient Chinese writing were carbon dated in 1500BC Prehistory Peking Man Paleolithic – – – – China was inhabited by Homo erectus more than 1 million years ago The archaeological site of Xihoudu site in Shanxi Province is the earliest recorded of use of fire by Homo erectus 1.27 million years ago The excavations at Yuanmou and later Lantian show early habitation The most specimen of Homo erectus found in China is the so-called Peking Man discovered in 1965 Prehistory (cont.) Neolithic – – – – – – Stone Tools The Neolithic age traced back to 10,000 BC Early evidence for proto-Chinese millet agriculture is carbon-dated to about 7,000 BC Population was increased due to agriculture, the ability to store and redistribute crops and to support specialist craftsmen and administrators In late Neolithic times, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a culture center, and the first villages were founded Early history of China is complicated by the lack of a written language during this period At Damaidi site in Ningxia, 3172 cliff carvings dating to...
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...www.GetPedia.com History of China: Table of Contents q q Historical Setting The Ancient Dynasties r r r Dawn of History Zhou Period Hundred Schools of Thought q The Imperial Era r r r r r r First Imperial Period Era of Disunity Restoration of Empire Mongolian Interlude Chinese Regain Power Rise of the Manchus q Emergence Of Modern China r r r r r r Western Powers Arrive First Modern Period Opium War, 1839-42 Era of Disunity Taiping Rebellion, 1851-64 Self-Strengthening Movement Hundred Days' Reform and Aftermath Republican Revolution of 1911 q Republican China r r r Nationalism and Communism s Opposing the Warlords s Consolidation under the Guomindang s Rise of the Communists Anti-Japanese War Return to Civil War q People's Republic Of China r r Transition to Socialism, 1953-57 Great Leap Forward, 1958-60 r r r r r Readjustment and Recovery, 1961-65 Cultural Revolution Decade, 1966-76 s Militant Phase, 1966-68 s Ninth National Party Congress to the Demise of Lin Biao, 1969-71 s End of the Era of Mao Zedong, 1972-76 Post-Mao Period, 1976-78 China and the Four Modernizations, 1979-82 Reforms, 1980-88 q References for History of China [ History of China ] [ Timeline ] Historical Setting The History Of China, as documented in ancient writings, dates back some 3,300 years. Modern archaeological studies provide evidence of still more ancient origins in a culture that flourished between 2500 and 2000 B.C....
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...Confucianism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Islamism enjoy equal popularity. Before the middle of Ming dynasty, Chinese economy, technology and education were in front of world. Without relying on force or the strong political background of the government, Confucianism spread to many neighboring countries just by its great humanistic spirit including humanity, kindness ethics, harmony, and the golden mean and even forming a large Confucian heritage...
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