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| 214893895 | the yellow river | like the Indus, the yellow river is boisterous and unpredictable. it rises in the mountains bordering the high plateau of Tibet, and it courses almost 4,700kilometers(2,920 miles) before emptying into the yellow sea. Huang He, meaning yellow river from the vast quantities of light colored loess soil that it picks up along its route. So much loess becomes suspended in the Yellow River that the water turns yellow and river takes consistency of a soup.The yellow river altered its course many times and has caused so much destruction that it has earned the nickname " China's Sorrow." | 0 | |
| 214893896 | Yangshao Society and Banpo Village | Yangshao societh flourished from about 500 to 300 bce in the middle region of the yellow river valley. it is especially known from the discovering in 1952 of an entire neolithic village at Banpo, near modern Xian. Excavations at Banpo unearthed a large quantity of fine painted pottery and bone tools used by early cultivators in the 5 and 6 millennia bce. | 1 | |
| 214893897 | The Xia Dynasty | one of the three legendary dynasties that arose before the Qin and Han dynasties brought China under unified rule in the third century bce. Xia made one of the first efforts to organize public life in China on a large scale. Xia was one of the more vigorous states of its time. Most likely the Xia came into being about 2200bce in roughly the same region of the Yangshao. | 2 | |
| 214893898 | Bronze Metallurgy and Horse-Drawn Chariots | Bronze metallurgy transformed chinese society during Shang times and indeed may well have enabled Shang rulers to displace the Xia dynasty. Bronze metallurgy went to China from southwest Asia, together with horses, horse-drawn chariots and other wheeled vehicles. | 3 | |
| 214893899 | Shang Political organization | relied on political allies, NOT a centralized state, vast networks of walled towns whose local rulers recognized the authority of the shang kings. According to tradition, the Shang capital moved six times. | 4 | |
| 214893900 | The Shang Capital at Ao | The Shang named one of its earliest capitals Ao, and archaeologists have found its remains near modern Zhengzhou. the most remarkable feature of this site is the city wall, which originally stood at least 10 meters high, with a base some 20 meters thick. This building technique is still used in the country side or northern China. | 5 | |
| 214893901 | The Shang capital at yin | Even more impressice than Ao is the site of yin, near modern Anyang. Yin have identified a complex of royal palaces, archives with written documents, several residential neighborhoods, two large bronze foundries, several workshops used by potters, woodworkers, bone carvers, and other craftmen and shattered burial grounds. | 6 | |
| 214893902 | Beyond the Yellow River Valley | Other regions at the same time as Xia and Shang ruled the Yellow River Valley. For example, a very large city Sanxingdui in modern day Sichuan province. Ocuppied about 1700 to 100 bce, the city was roughly contemporaneous with the Shang dynasty and it probably served as the capital of a region kingdom. | 7 | |
| 214893903 | The Rise of the Zhou | Shang and Zhou ambitions collided in the late twelfth centurybce. According to Zhou accounts, the last Shang king was a criminal fool who give himself over to wine, women, tyranny and greed. As a result many of the towns and political districts subject to the Shang transfered their royalty to Zhou. Zhou forces toppled Shang's govt in 1122bce and replaced it with their own state. They allowed shang heirs to continue governing small districts but reserved for themselbes the right to oversee affairs throughout the realm. | 8 | |
| 214893904 | The Mandate of Heaven | A philosophical concept of chinese imperial politics. There was a close relationship between Heaven and the King. Heaven authorizes the ruler to have power, and can take it away. The king only has the mandate to rule when he is acting in the best interests of his people. This allowed rulers to legitimize their power, but it also ensured that dynasties could not last forever. Events such as natural disasters signified that the ruler has lost the mandate. It was abused by people trying to take over the government by claiming that the current ruler has lost the mandate that they now have. | 9 | |
| 214893905 | Political organizations | Zhou rulers relied on a decentralized administration: they entrusted power, authority, and responsibility to subordinates who in return owed allegiance, tribute, and millitary support to the central govt. | 10 | |
| 214893906 | Weakening of the Zhou | Zhou kings could not remain control indefinitely over this decentralized political system. Subordinates gradually established their own bases of power: they ruled their territories not only as allies of the Zhou kings but also as long established and traditional governors. As they became more secure of their rule, they also became more independent of the Zhou dynasty itself. | 11 | |
| 215034572 | Iron Metallurgy | The Zhou kings were not able to control the production of bronze as their shang predecessors and subordinates built uo their own stockfiles of weapons. During the first millennium bce, the technology of iron metallurgy spread to China, and the production of iron expanded rapidly. Iron ores are both cheaper and more abundant than copper and tin, the Zhou kings could not monopolize iron production. | 12 | |
| 215034573 | Ruling Elites | under the Shang and early Zhou, the royal family and allied noble families occupied the most honored positions in Chinese society. They resided in large, palatial compounds made of pounded earth and they lived on agricultural surplus and taxed delivered by their subjects. They consumed bronze in staggering quantities. the consumption of bronze set them apart from less privileged classes. | 13 | |
| 215034574 | specialized labor | a small class of free artisans and craftman plied their trades in the cities of ancient china. Some, who worked almost exclusively for the privileged classes, enjoyed a reasonably comfortable existence. During shang, bronzesmith often lived in houses of pounded earth. | 14 | |
| 215034575 | Merchants and Trade | There is very little info about merchants and trade in ancient China until the latter part of Zhou. Despite the high moutain ranges and forbidding deserts that stood between china and complex societies in India and southwest asia, trade networks linked China with lands to the west and south early in third millennium bce. Jade in Shang tombs came from central asia, military technology involving horse-drawn chariots came through central asia from meso.etc | 15 | |
| 215034576 | peasants | Back on the land, a large class of semiservile peasants populated the Chinese countryside. They owned no land but provided agricultural military and labor services for their lords in exchange for plots to cultivate, sercurity, and a portiion pf the harvest. Ther lived in small subterranean houses. Women did most indoor activities as wine making, weaving ets. Men spent most of their time outside working in the fields, hunting and fishing. | 16 | |
| 215034577 | Slaves | Most of whom were enemy warriors captured during battles between the many competing states of ancient China. Slaves performed hard labor, such as clearing of new fields or the building of city walls, that required a large workforce. During Shang, slaves were sacrificed during funerary, religious and other ritual observances. | 17 | |
| 215034578 | Veneration of Ancestors | a practice with roots in neolithic times. people in China diligently tended the graves and memories of their departed ancestors. They believed that spirits of their ancestors passed into another realm of existence from which they had the power to support and protect their surviving families if the descendants displayed respect and ministered to the spirits' need.They buried tools, weapons, jewelry, and other material goods with their ancestor. they also offer sacrifices of food and drink. The family became an institution linking departed generations to the living and even to those unborn-an institution that wielded enormous influence over both the private and the public lives of its members. | 18 | |
| 215034579 | patriarchal society | chinese society vested authority principally in elderly males who headed their households. During neolithic times chinese men wielded public authority, but they won their rights to it by virtue of the female line of their descent. Even if it did not vest power and authority in women, this system provided solid reasons for a family to honor its female members. | 19 | |
| 215034580 | oracle bones | In ancient China, they were pieces of bone or turtle shell used by Shang priests to tell the future. They would write a question addressed to either one of the gods, or an ancestor on the bone, then heat it until it cracked. They believed that by studying the pattern of cracks, one could learn the answer to the question. Oracle bones are the oldest example of Chinese writing. | 20 | |
| 215034581 | Zhou literature | From the oracle bones, and bronze ceremonial utensils used for rituals praising their ancestors, we have found out a lot of facts about literature in ancient China. The Zhou dynasty created many different kinds of books, including ones on history, religion, poetry, and philosophy. Many famous philosophers and writers from the Zhou age are famous to this day such as Confucius. Other lesser-known authors today were very popular during the dynasty's reining days, often used as textbooks in Chinese schools. Some of the more well known books were the Book of Changes, a book that taught how to tell the future, the Book of History, which told of the Zhou dynasty's past, the Book of Etiquette also known as the Book of Rites, that taught how to properly conduct rituals, and be polite. | 21 | |
| 215034582 | The book of songs | also known as the Book of Poetry and the book of odes, a collection of verses on themes both light and serious. Some of the poems had political implication because the recorded illustrious deeds of herioc figures and the ancient sage kings. etc | 22 | |
| 215034583 | Destruction of Early Chinese literature | The book of songs and other writing of the zhou dynasty offer only a small sample of China's earliest literary tradition, for most of the Zhou's writings have perished. One of Zhou king contained hundreds of books written on bamboo strips but none survived. other books fell victim to human enemies. When Qin brought all of China under tightly centralized rule in 221 bce, the victorious emperor ordered distruction of all writing that did not have some immediate utilitarian value. He spared the works of divination, agriculture and medicine but condemned those on poetry, history, and philosophy because he feared it might inspire doubts ab his govt or encourage independence. | 23 | |
| 215034584 | Steppe Nomads | As they expanded to the north and west, Chinese cultivators encountered nomadic ppl who had built pastoral societies in the grassy steppe lands of central asia.The lands were to arid for agriculture but their grasses supported large herds of horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and yaks. by 100bce, several clusters of nomadic ppl organized powerful herding societies on the Eurasian steppes. | 24 | |
| 215034585 | Nomadic Society | The nomads concentrated on herding their animals, driving them to regions where they could find food and water. The herds provides meat, milk and skins. They were prominent intermediaries in trade networks spanning central asia. They brought bronze metallurgy and horse drawn chariots to southwest asia. | 25 | |
| 215034586 | The Yangzi Valley | The valley of the Yangzi River supports even more intensive agriculture than in the yellow river basin. known in China as Chang jiang. it is about 6300 kilometer from its headwaters in the lofty Qinghai mountains of Tibet to it mouth near mordern city of nanjing and Shanghai where it empties into the East China Sea. | 26 | |
| 215034587 | The State of Chu | Late Zhou dynasty, the powerful state of Chu situated in the central region of the Yangzi governed its affairs autonomously and challenged the zhou for supremacy. | 27 |
