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| 235140828 | Wendi | A noble. Won control of northern China with support of nomadic military leaders. In 589, he defeated the Chen kingdom, which ruled most of the south; established Sui dynasty as ruler. He won popularity by lowering taxes and establishing granaries to ensure a stable, cheap food supply. | 0 | |
| 235140829 | Yangdi | Wendi's son. Strengthened the state by further conquests and victories over nomads. Reformed the legal code and the Confucian educational system. He undertook extensive construction projects at Loyang and for a series of canals to link the empire. Attempted to conquer Korea, failed. Was defeated by Turkic nomads in Asia in 615. Revolts followed. Assassinated in 618. | 1 | |
| 235140830 | Li Yuan | Re-unified the nation after Yangdi was assassinated. Began the Tang dynasty. His armies extended the empire's reach to the borders of Afghanistan and dominated the nomads of the frontier borderlands. The Tang used Turkic nomads in their military and tried to assimilate them into Chinese culture. Repaired the great wall. His empire stretched into Tibet, Vietnam, Manchuria, and Korea. | 2 | |
| 235140831 | Tang Bureaucracy | They reworked Confucian ideology to help the Tang maintain unity. Power of the aristocracy was reduced. Political authority was shared by imperial families and scholar-gentry bureaucrats. A Bureau of Censors watched all officials. | 3 | |
| 235140832 | Examination System in China | Under the Tang and Song, the numbers of scholar-gentry rose far above Han levels. They greatly extended the examination system, and civil service advancement patterns were regularized. Specialized exams were administered by the Ministry of Public Rites. The highest offices went only to individuals able to pass exams based on the Confucian classics and Chinese literature. Additional exams determined their ranking in the pool eligible for office and awarded special social status. Birth and family connections remained important for gaining high office. Intelligent commoners might rise to high positions, but the central administration was dominated by a small number of prominent families. | 4 | |
| 235140833 | Confucian revival | Threatened Buddhism's place in Chinese life; many previous rulers supported Buddhism. Monks gave the foreign religion Chinese qualities. | 5 | |
| 235140834 | Buddhism's effect in China | Won mass acceptance during the era of war and turmoil. | 6 | |
| 235140835 | Elite Chinese accepted what religion? | Chan Buddhism, or Zen | 7 | |
| 235140836 | Early Tang Rulers (in relation to Buddhism) | Patronized Buddhism | 8 | |
| 235140837 | Empress Wu | (690-705) Endowed monasteries, commissioned colossal statues of Buddha, and sought to make Buddhism the state religion. There were about 50,000 monasteries by the middle of the ninth century. | 9 | |
| 235140838 | Anti-Buddhist Backlash | Confucians and Daoists opposed Buddhist growth. Daoists stressed their magical and predictive powers. Confucian scholar-administrators worked to convince the Tang that untaxed Buddhist monasteries posed an economic threat to the empire. Measures to limit land and resources going to Buddhists gave way to open persecution under Emperor Wuzong (841-847). Thousands of monasteries and shrines were destroyed; hundreds of thousands of monks and nuns had to return to secular life. Buddhist lands were taxed or redistributed to taxpaying nobles and peasants. Buddhism survived the persecutions, but in a much reduced condition. Confucianism emerged as the enduring central ideology of Chinese civilization. | 10 | |
| 235140839 | Emperor Xuanzong | (713-756) Marked the peak of Tang power. Advanced political and economic reform; turned to patronizing the arts and the pleasures of the imperial city. | 11 | |
| 235140840 | Yang Guifei | Object of Xuanzong's infatuation. Filled the upper levels of government with her relatives and gained authority in court politics. Killed in the Revolt of 755. | 12 | |
| 235140841 | In China, rival cliques stimulated unrest, and lack of royal direction caused distress and weakness, leading to...? | The Revolt of 755. Rebels were defeated, Yang Guifei was killed, but Xuanzong and succeeding rulers provided weak leadership for the dynasty. | 13 | |
| 235140842 | Worsening economic conditions in ninth century China caused... | Many revolts, some caused by peasants. | 14 | |
| 235140843 | When did the last Tang emperor resign? | 907 | 15 | |
| 235140844 | Zhao Kunagyin | A military commander; renamed Taizu. Reunited China under one dynasty, the Song. Failed to defeat the Liao dynasty of Manchria, which established a lasting precedent for weakness in dealing with northern nomadic peoples. | 16 | |
| 235140845 | Song Politics | Never matched the Tang in political or military strength. Military was subordinated to scholar-gentry civilians. Song rulers promoted the interests of the Confucian scholar-gentry class over aristocratic and Buddhist rivals. Salaries increased, civil service exams were made routine, and successful candidates had a better chance for employment. | 17 | |
| 235140846 | The revival of Confucian thought | Ideas and values dominated intellectual life. New academies for study of the classics and impressive libraries were founded. | 18 | |
| 235140847 | Zhu Xi | Most prominent neo-Confucianist. Emphized the importance of applying philosophical principles to everyday life. | 19 | |
| 235140848 | What did neo-confucians believe? | The cultivation of personal morality was the highest human goal. Confucian learning, they argued, produced superior men. Social harmony was maintained when men and women performed the tasks appropriate to their status. | 20 |
