In summer , the Olympics were held for the first time in Beijing , and China took the opportunity to show the best of modern China to the world. After the protests at Tian'anmen Square in , some Chinese leaders wanted to stick to a centrally planned economy, and slow down Deng's pro-market reforms. Shortly afterwards, China's leadership agreed to continue with Deng's pro-market agenda. In , China joined the World Trade Organisation, and by had quadrupled its exports.
To reduce air pollution in Beijing, factories were closed and traffic bans put in place. The Olympic torch relay was disrupted by human rights protesters outside China, and demonstrations in Tibet caused the route to be altered. But to many Chinese people, China's ability to host an impressive and successful global event was a source of enormous pride. Marco Polo was a merchant from Italy who travelled to China. The book which Marco Polo wrote about his experiences was the first detailed description of China available to Europeans.
The book was widely read, and shaped Europeans' image of China for centuries. Born into a merchant family in Venice, Marco Polo set off to China in when he was seventeen. With his father and uncle, he travelled overland along the Silk Road , visiting cities such as Kashgar along the way. Marco Polo lived in China for twenty years, and probably became an accounting official in the Chinese government.
China was at the time ruled by the Yuan dynasty established by Mongol emperor Khubilai Khan , and it was the most advanced society in the world. Marco Polo marvelled at China's wealth and the splendour of its cities. He was amazed at the courier stations with mounted couriers galloping the Khan's commands efficiently across the vast empire.
He travelled on the Grand Canal , and went to Hangzhou , which he said was so grand and so beautiful, and so full of abundant delights, it "might lead an inhabitant to think himself in paradise. Marco Polo returned to Europe in , and wrote a book about his travels. The book became a best-seller, translated into many European languages.
In his book, Marco Polo said, "I believe it was God's will that we should come back, so that men might know the things that are in the world". Marco Polo's book inspired others - including Christopher Columbus - to seek new sea routes for trade with the wealthy and sophisticated peoples that Marco Polo had described. Around BCE, in many of the river valleys of today's China, neolithic cultures emerged. People grew crops, made pottery and textiles, and lived in permanent settled villages.
The pots and the textiles made life easier — pots meant people could carry and store food and water; and the clothes and other textiles kept people warm. In the south, the most important food staple that people ate was rice, while in the north, it was millet. Millet was ground into flour and made into flat breads like crackers, or eaten as a kind of porridge. The image is a pot from Banpo , a Neolithic settlement in north China.
Another very well preserved Neolithic site was found at Hemudu , in the Shanghai delta. The late Neolithic period BCE , was a time of increased contact between communities in China. Many walled sites were constructed and society was becoming more complex. Around BCE, at Erlitou , in the Yellow River Valley , a civilisation emerged whose people learned how to cast bronze, which they used to make vessels for ritual feasting and drinking. The bronzes found at Erlitou are the earliest in East Asia. The Erlitou bronzes are the first manifestation of what was to become the Shang , a civilisation which would eventually encompass the entire central plain of north China.
Shang cities had palaces and temples, housing areas for the upper classes and commoners, as well as craft workshops for metal workers, potters and stone carvers, and burial grounds. Several large settlements of the Shang period have been discovered, including Zhengzhou and Anyang. It is thought that the first Shang city was near the modern day city of Shangqiu. The people of Shang China engaged in large-scale production of bronze vessels and weapons. The Shang people were brilliant metal workers, and created extraordinarily fine bronze vessels using a piece-mold technique unknown anywhere else in the world.
Most of the Shang bronzes that survive are cups, goblets, steamers and cauldrons, which were used to heat wine and food for rituals. The rituals played a central role in ancestral rites, and government. Bronzes came to be a symbol of power. Bronzes were also made during Shang times at other places, such as Sanxingdui in south-west China, a magnificent site discovered in the s.
Shang kings communicated with their ancestors through sacrificial rituals using bronzes and through divination. The most common technique of divination involved the diviner applying a heated rod to turtle shells or cattle bones. The shells and bones would crack, and the cracks were interpreted as the ancestors' answers to questions posed by the Shang kings.
The shells and bones are known as 'oracle bones'. The diviners scratched the questions and answers onto the bones, in a script known as oracle bone script, which is closely related to modern Chinese writing. The oracle bones provide a great deal of information about Shang life — from military activities, harvest, crops, weather, to their families, illnesses, travels, and pastimes such as hunting. Most of the Shang oracle bones date from about to BCE. Very unusually, she was also a military leader. Most of the information we have about Fu Hao comes from oracle bone inscriptions.
There are many inscriptions on the oracle bones showing the king's concern for her when she was ill or pregnant. They also show that Fu Hao was involved in ritual ceremonies and military activities. She led numerous military campaigns against the neighbouring tribes. One oracle bone, for example, asks whether Fu Hao should gather soldiers before an attack. Fu Hao's tomb at Anyang is the only Shang tomb that was not robbed before it was excavated.
The last king of the Shang is supposed to have given himself over to wine, women and wild, cruel behaviour. He is said to have had a pool constructed in the palace, filled with wine, with a small island, where trees were planted with branches hung with meat on skewers. The king, whose name was Di Xin , and his friends and concubines would drift on canoes, reaching out to eat the roasted meat and fill their cups with wine from the pool.
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The people were said to have suffered from high taxes to pay for extravagances such as these. The Shang campaigned constantly against enemies at their frontiers. To their west were the warlike Qiang , tribespeople whose language may have been a form of Tibetan. Mu Ye is in central Henan. The battle marked the end of the Shang dynasty and the beginning of the Zhou dynasty. In early texts, three great Zhou rulers are said to have made the Zhou state strong. The first of the three was King Wen of Zhou, who formed alliances with neighbouring states and tribes.
King Wen was released, but tension grew between Shang and Zhou. King Wu died only six years later. The third great Zhou ruler was the king's brother the Duke of Zhou, who ruled as regent for his young nephew, and extended the new Zhou territories. He built a new city at modern Luoyang to rule the Zhou dynasty's new eastern lands. The Zhou kings sent out their relatives and trusted subordinates to establish walled garrisons in their new territories, and by BCE, there were around vassal fiefdoms across the Zhou lands, run by regional lords, with ministers and officers to assist them.
Chinese in later periods - including notably Confucius - looked back on the early Zhou as a golden age. The Zhou is the first period of Chinese history from which texts have been transmitted. The Book of Documents contains speeches made by first Zhou kings. The Book of Changes or I Ching was the text of a new divination system that arose in the place of the old oracle bones.
The Book of Songs contains odes that would have been sung at court, as well as poems that probably were originally folk songs. These books became part of the set of texts known as the Confucian Classics, and would later be memorized by hundreds of thousands of men studying for the Chinese civil service exams.
After conquering the Shang , the early Zhou kings sent out their relatives and trusted subordinates to run vassal fiefdoms across the Zhou lands. However as time went by, the regional lords became more powerful. In BC, an alliance of regional lords and barbarian tribesmen killed the Zhou king. The Zhou court moved east to Luoyang , from where the Zhou kings continued to reign, as the 'Eastern Zhou'.
The fiefdoms increasingly ignored the Zhou court and acted like independent states, struggling between each other for power. This was an era of instability, violence, and moral crisis. It was during this era that the intellectual foundations of Chinese civilisation were established, as people questioned the basic principles of how people should live.
Confucius lived at this time, as well many other advisers, teachers and philosophers. Laozi , or Lao Tzu , is a legendary figure, who is thought of as the founder of Daoism. According to tradition, Laozi was a wise official at the Zhou court in Luoyang , who grew weary of the lack of morality he witnessed around him. He left for the west, riding a buffalo.
When he reached the mountain pass at the edge of China, the guardian of the pass would not let him leave until he had written down his teachings. People who followed Daoist teachings affirmed the Way, or 'Dao' , an indescribable force that is the source of all that exists. A major theme in the Daodejing is that yielding is better than being assertive.
They thought that human actions upset the natural order. They felt that rulers should leave people alone, and allow the world to return to a natural state. Today, Daoism is one of the five religions officially recognized in China. Rulers of the states gathered officials and advisers at their courts. Confucius traditional dates - BCE was one of these men.
He spent some time at the court of the state of Lu where he was born, in northeast China. He tried to persuade people to do good, and accept the traditional social roles that had existed in the the golden days of the early Zhou when it was thought people had lived in harmony.
He said that if the ruler was virtuous, the people would also be good. Confucius travelled from Lu to other states, in search of a ruler who would listen to him. Confucius was disappointed that he did not succeed in influencing any rulers. But his disciples organized his teachings into the book known as the Analects, and his philosophy would became the most important school of thought in China. By this time, the Zhou ruled only in name. Many smaller fiefdoms were conquered and amalgamated into bigger states, so that by BCE, China was dominated by just seven strong powers, including Qin in the west, and Chu in the south.
Qin had been a poor state on the western frontiers, considered semi-barbarian by its neighbors to the east. But Qin introduced new 'Legalist' ways of ruling, to strengthen the state. Legalist advisers, such as Shang Yang BCE said that strong government depended not on Confucian virtue, but on effective institutions such as laws and tough discipline. Qin conquered Sichuan to the southwest, which gave it rich new farmland and iron ore mines. He was a brilliant general, under whom Qin armies defeated all the other states.
In BCE, he united them in a realm that established China much as we know it today, and declared himself First Emperor. Across the new Chinese empire, the noble houses of the former states were abolished. The government sent its own officials to govern each area, using a great quantity of rules and regulations.
Weights and measures were standardized, and even the width of axles was regulated, so that vehicles would run smoothly on the new roads that were built empire-wide. Criticism was not tolerated, and all books were destroyed except manuals on topics like agriculture and medicine. According to tradition, scholars were buried alive as a warning against defiance. Hundreds of thousands of people were conscripted to build the Great Wall , as well as a huge palace at his capital Xianyang , and a gigantic tomb.
The tomb was discovered by farmers in , with its thousands of life-size terracotta figures lined up to protect the emperor. Ordinary people suffered from onerous labour service, and from harsh treatment under Qin laws. In the lands of the old state of Chu , a group of conscripts marching to do their frontier service were delayed by rain and floods. Rather than face death as punishment for arriving late, they decided to become outlaws.
Their uprising was unsuccessful, but other revolts broke out. Qin generals defected, and the former nobles of the old states raised armies again. Out of the chaos, two major powers emerged, Western Chu and Han , and they fought for supremacy over China. Not long after, Han leader Liu Bang proclaimed himself first emperor of the Han dynasty. Liu Bang was a man from an ordinary background who founded the Han dynasty.
He had been in charge of a postal relay station during the Qin dynasty. In BC he defeated his main rival and set up the Han Dynasty. China's Han emperors needed to secure order in China, but avoid the harshness of the Qin regime that preceded it. They sent out local officials to govern the regions, as the Qin had done. But instead of the exhaustive and harsh rules that Qin had used to control people, Han rulers adopted Confucian ideas of moral rule. They believed the government should employ people who had learned Confucian ideas about loyalty and concern for others.
The court searched out copies of the old books that Qin had attempted to destroy, and reconstructed the wisdom of the past. The prestige of government posts rose, and in order to become government officials men strove to display their learning and Confucian virtue. From these beginnings, China's imperial civil service developed, and the idea that government should be in the hands of educated men, steeped in Confucian learning and morality, would remain important right up until the twentieth century. In the third century BCE, a great confederation of nomadic tribes persistently raided China.
Han Emperor Wudi sent troops to fight these tribes, who are known as the Xiongnu. They were captured by the Xiongnu and held for twelve years. But they were treated well, and Zhang Qian married a Xiongnu wife. Finally they escaped, and continued their mission into Central Asia. There, Zhang Qian saw that people had a different culture. He heard that a conqueror - Alexander the Great - had come there from the west.
He saw that the people used Greek coins and script. Zhang Qian's presence was the first recorded contact between the civilizations of China and the Mediterranean. Zhang Qian was surprised to find that people he met used bamboo and cloth products made in China. He was told that the products were brought by merchants from a land to the southeast, which was India. Thus India, as well as Greece, were now known to the Chinese. Zhang Qian travelled home with his wife.
He astonished the Chinese at the Han court with his stories. His travels opened up to China many kingdoms then unknown to the Chinese, and are associated with the major route of transcontinental trade, which became known as the Silk Road. Up until the Han period, documents were normally written on bone or bamboo strips, sewn and rolled together into scrolls. These were heavy, awkward, and hard to transport. People also wrote on silk, which was much lighter, but expensive. He used rags, tree bark, old fishing nets and other plant fibres.
Fragments of paper discovered in in northeast China suggest that paper was actually already in use more than years earlier. Cai Lun's contribution was probably to improve this skill systematically and scientifically. Papermaking technology spread from China to the Arab world, and reached Europe in the eleventh century. At first Buddhism was practised only by foreigners. To many Chinese, Buddhism initially seemed to be a variant of Daoism.
But Chinese people began to be attracted to Buddhism. A Central Asian monk Kumarajiva CE settled in China and translated texts into Chinese, and some Chinese monks travelled to India to discover the religion for themselves, such as Faxian around CE who went overland via Xinjiang.
China was at this time divided and in disarray, after the collapse of the Han dynasty. In the chaos of the times, Chinese people were attracted to Buddhism partly because it addressed questions of suffering and death in a way that China's own traditions did not. By the mid s, Buddhism had become very popular in China.
The Chinese landscape was transformed by the building of Buddhist temples and monasteries. The Han government fell into disarray during the second century. Government revenues shrank, so it could no longer pay its officials. There were plagues of locusts, and devastating floods. Rebellions broke out, and many people became refugees. In the year , Han rule came to an end, and for the next years, China was divided. At first, the famous 'Three Kingdoms' vied for power, In the subsequent years, non-Chinese peoples took the upper hand in north China, including the nomadic Xiongnu people from the steppes, and the Xianbei people from Manchuria.
North China became a battleground, and cities were sacked as leaders vied for power. Many who could do so fled south. In South China, refugee aristocrats from the north set up a government based in Nanjing. But none lasted long, and none could establish control over society in the way the Han had done. Without strong government, the wealthy built up huge landed estates and private armies.
The number of serfs and slaves increased, sometimes tattooed on the face to make it harder to flee. The whole period of disunity is known as 'The Six Dynasties'. It produced some of China's most beautiful poetry, as men weary of the instability and violence of the age sought refuge in nature, good wine, and friendship. After the end of the Han dynasty in , China was fragmented. After three centuries of division and instability, in a northern army general managed to reunite China and declared the founding of the Sui Dynasty. As Emperor Wendi , he had ambitious plans to rebuild the country.
At first, the Sui empire was stable, and the economy prospered. Emperor Wendi issued a new law code, and introduced written civil service exams to select good officials. These policies had very long term impact - China's legal system in all succeeding dynasties would be based on the Sui code, and the civil service exams were an important aspect of society until the twentieth century.
The Sui also constructed the amazing Grand Canal which linked north and south China. But the Sui emperors tried to do too much too soon, and less than forty years after the dynasty was founded, in the Sui was overthrown by rebellion. Emperor Tang Taizong ruled was one of the founders of the Tang dynasty. After the Sui dynasty collapsed, many contenders for power emerged. An ambitious nobleman emerged as victor, and founded the Tang dynasty in His second son staged a coup and took power as Emperor Taizong.
Taizong along with his father are thought of as co-founders of the Tang. Taizong proved to be a wise and hard-working ruler, who selected good advisers and could listen to criticism. China entered a period of great prosperity. The Turks were a recurring threat along China's northwest borders. Taizong went on the attack, conquering Silk Road cities such as Turfan , and massively expanding the empire.
He welcomed a Christian mission to his fabulous capital, Chang'an. He was fascinated by the news of foreign countries that the monk Xuanzang brought back to China after his travels. The Tang Dynasty had 20 emperors and lasted years. It was the most open, cosmopolitan period in all of China's history. During the Tang dynasty, Buddhism was a significant part of Chinese life. Buddhism had begun to spread to China from India in the Han dynasty, brought by travellers on the Silk Road.
During the period of disunity after the fall of the Han, Buddhism continued to spread, and by the Tang, had become the most popular religion in China. Buddhist stories became woven into Chinese popular culture, Buddhist monasteries were important to Tang China's economy and society, and Buddhist art and architecture became part of China's landscape, creating monuments such as the Longmen Grottoes. Xuanzang was a Chinese monk who went to India to seek Buddhist scriptures. And at the request of Emperor Taizong , he also wrote an account of his travels.
Xuanzang's book was the inspiration for a novel called Journey to the West , which written about years later during the Ming dynasty, and was later translated into English with the title Monkey. At the end of the Tang, however, as the confidence of the dynasty waned, opposition to Buddhism arose, and it was criticized as a foreign religion. The Tang government was tolerant of foreign religions and cultures. A stone stele known as the Nestorian Stele, which was made in the late s, records how Christianity came to China.
The inscription on the stele says that a Christian delegation arrived in China in The inscription records that Emperor Taizong declared the teachings to be lucid and clear, and ordered them spread through the land. After the An Lushan Rebellion in the late s, Tang power weakened, and society became less open to foreign ideas.
In CE the Emperor issued a decree against Buddhism , which also said that Christian and Zoroastrian men had been ordered to stop 'polluting Chinese customs' and return to lay life. By the tenth century, Christian presence in China was wiped out. During the s, a new power arose on China's frontiers, the Turks. The Tang rulers at first tried to control the Turks using marriage diplomacy and trade.
Then in the mid s under Emperor Tang Taizong , China went on the offensive: Tang armies conquered oasis city states along the Silk Road , including cities such as Turfan across what is now Xinjiang province, and for a time extended their control deep into Central Asia. The Silk Road became a busy trade route, extending from the Tang capital, Chang'an to the Mediterranean. Merchants, most of whom were Persians, traded silk and many other products along the route.
Technologies such as silk making spread from China to the west, whilst religions such as Zoroastrianism and Christianity spread to China, though none took hold as Buddhism had. China's economy grew rapidly during the Tang , stimulated by the Grand Canal , which linked the empire north to south, and by the expansion of international trade on the Silk Road and on sea routes into Southeast Asia. Coastal ports such as Guangzhou prospered as maritime trade expanded. Yangzhou became a great economic centre, where goods from China's interior and from overseas were trans-shipped and sent up the Grand Canal to the cities of the north.
Empress Wu was the only woman in Chinese history who took the title emperor. The daughter of a former timber trader, she became a palace maid when she was fourteen, and then became a concubine of Emperor Gaozong. Politically capable and ruthless, she had herself installed as Gaozong's empress. After Gaozong became ill in , she took charge of the empire herself. After his death, she deposed her two sons and in proclaimed herself emperor of a new dynasty.
She improved the examination system, and promoted economic growth. She circulated texts that predicted the reincarnation of the Buddha Maitreya as a woman, under whom the world would be free of all troubles.
She sponsored large-scale Buddhist projects, including temples, and an enormous statue at the Longmen Grottoes which is said to bear a likeness of her own face. She was finally deposed in , when she was over eighty, and buried at the Tang imperial tomb site at Qianling , near Xi'an. The Tang aristocracy had strong links to the peoples of the steppes to China's north and west, who had lived in north China during the period of disorder before the founding of the Tang. Influenced by steppe culture, Tang nobles enjoyed vigorous activities like horseback riding, hunting and polo.
Polo players rode on horseback, with a long mallet to hit the ball. Women also played polo, and there were women's polo teams. The Tang court also enjoyed other leisure activities related to the Silk Road and its peoples, such as music from the Silk Road oases cities, and a form of energetic dancing that became hugely popular at court.
One Tang prince even lived in a yurt tent, and would offer guests roast mutton that he carved off the bone with a dagger. There were Muslims in China from the s, soon after the foundation of Islam. The Muslims in China were mostly traders who came from the Islamic world of West Asia to the ports of China's southern seaboard, such as Guangzhou , Quanzhou and Changzhou. The Tang dynasty's cosmopolitan culture helped the introduction of Islam.
The Great Mosque in Xi'an , which was known as Chang'an , was founded in From the s onwards, Tang rulers expanded China's power westwards into Central Asia. In the early s, the Arabs were advancing into Central Asia. In , an Arab army met a Tang army at Talas , which is in today's Kyrgyzstan. Only four years later, the An Lushan Rebellion broke out in China, and all Chinese troops in Central Asia were ordered back to the interior to deal with the rebellion.
The Battle of Talas was the first and the only time that Arab and Chinese armies met. The An Lushan Rebellion was a massive revolt that seriously weakened the Tang dynasty. An Lushan was the son of a Persian father and Turkic mother. He was governor of Tang defence forces in the north east, responsible for controlling the nomadic tribes at China's borders.
An Lushan was a court favourite, and received gifts and favours from Emperor Xuanzong and with his favourite consort Yang Guifei. In , An Lushan heard court enemies were plotting against him, and he rose in revolt. He marched south and the emperor fled. After eight years' struggle during which millions died or went missing, the Tang finally suppressed the rebellion.
However, the Tang government never regained its authority. It pardoned rebel leaders and appointed them as military governors, who then acted like rulers of independent states. The rebellion caused much disorder in north China. Many people fled south, and cities of the Lower Yangtze area such as Yangzhou , Suzhou and Hangzhou flourished as new people came in. Trade expanded, with markets opening in more and more towns, partly because the government gave up trying to restrict trade to government-supervised markets.
Du Fu is one of China's most famous poets. Du Fu tried to become a government official, but his life was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion , as were the lives of many others. Du Fu's early poems described the beauty of the natural world. Later, he wrote about the suffering caused by war, and described the hardships endured by his family during the rebellion. Du Fu was not well known during his own lifetime, but his works later became very influential and greatly loved.
The Tang is considered the golden age of Chinese poetry. Poems were an important part of social life. Men had to master poetry for the civil service exams, and poetry became a sort of national pursuit. Huge amounts of poetry were written - a massive compilation of all known Tang poems was printed under Emperor Kangxi in the eighteenth century. It contains nearly 50, poems. Woodblock printing was one of the great inventions of ancient China. There is evidence of woodblock printing in China in the s. By the s, the technique had been perfected, and within a couple of centuries, the spread of printed books revolutionized the communication of ideas in China.
Woodblock printing involves carving the characters onto a wooden board, then brushing ink onto the board, and pressing paper onto it, and smoothing it with a brush. At the same time as printing developed, China stopped using the scroll format for documents, and began to use flat books with folded pages. The oldest surviving printed book in the world is the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist text in Chinese, which is dated CE.
Buddhism was an important aspect of Chinese life during the Tang dynasty. However, after the An Lushan Rebellion , the opposition to Buddhism as a foreign religion strengthened, and Buddhism was also criticised for economic reasons, because Buddhist monasteries owned a lot of land and could avoid paying tax. In , the government initiated a massive suppression of Buddhism, as well as other foreign religions.
Nearly 5, monasteries were demolished or converted to other use, and , monks and nuns were returned to lay life. The Tang government never really recovered after the An Lushan Rebellion. Eunuchs took over court affairs. Regional commanders threatened central control. After , the government could no longer maintain order, and bandit armies ravaged the countryside and pillaged towns. For example, Guangzhou suffered pillaging and a massacre of foreign inhabitants.
Eventually in , Tang rule was abandoned. A period began called the Five Dynasties, when China was again fragmented. Zhao Kuangyin reigned was the founder of the Song dynasty. After the Tang dynasty disintegrated, there was a series of five short-lived dynasties in north China. The great cities of Chang'an and Luoyang were ravaged, and the Beijing area was occupied by Khitans, a non-Chinese people. South China meanwhile broke up into many small states.
Zhao Kuangyin was a military commander, from an elite family in north China. He was famous for his horsemanship - it was said that he once hit his head on a city gate while riding an unbroken horse. He fell off, but picked himself up, chased the horse down, remounted, and continued his gallop unperturbed. He launched a coup in , and set up the Song dynasty. As Emperor Song Taizu , he subdued most of the warlords of the south, and reunited China after eighty years of fragmentation.
Emperor Taizu made the city of Kaifeng his capital. As Song capital, Kaifeng was a much more commercial city than Tang Chang'an had been. Kaifeng was dominated not by palaces, but by markets that were open all hours. Instead of the walled compounds of Tang Chang'an, Kaifeng had multi-story houses which opened onto the street. The Song empire was smaller than the Tang empire had been. Song rulers had no hope of regaining the lands of Central Asia, and could not even dislodge alien regimes from large areas of north China. The area around Beijing , was ruled by the Khitan people who set up a state called Liao.
Northwest China was ruled by the Tangut people who set up the Western Xia state, with its capital at Yinchuan. The Song tried to conquer Liao, but were badly beaten, and in they made a treaty with Liao, agreeing to make annual payments in exchange for agreement not to invade.
Forty years later, the Song made a similar agreement with the Tanguts. But defence remained a constant concern, and the Song army increased to over a million men. The Song government massively expanded China's civil service examination system. By the end of Song dynasty, up to , men would attempt the prefectural civil service exams each year. Boys and men would study for decades to prepare for the exams, which tested their literary skills and their understanding of the Confucian classics.
Those who graduated successfully would then start their first civil service job, perhaps working in a county government office, before a transfer to a post in the capital, travelling widely across China as they moved from one assignment to the next as their careers progressed. The prestige of passing the exams was extremely high, and gave a graduate's family elite status. The exam system created a whole class of educated 'scholar officials' - men selected on merit, steeped in Confucian ideas of duty and public service.
They formed an elite that was unlike that of any other major civilisation. Woodblock printing had been developed in the s, just before the founding of the Song dynasty. Printing meant that books could be mass-produced, so they became cheaper and much more widely available. The Song government printed and circulated standard texts, including not only the Confucian classics, but also practical illustrated handbooks on topics such as mathematics, medicine, agriculture, warfare and architecture, to help spread knowledge of up-to-date techniques and tools.
Private printing presses also flourished. Now, instead of relying on experts, ordinary people could use books to establish how to organise their own weddings and funerals, browse for recipes in cookery books, or read advice about how to look after elderly relatives. In the eleventh century, a system of printing using moveable type was developed, but its use was limited by the nature of Chinese script, which required thousands of pieces of type.
Woodblock printing continued to be widely used up until the end of the nineteenth century. The Song dynasty was a period of remarkable industrial development. Ceramics, silk and lacquer reached superb levels of technical perfection. Song potters created exquisite ceramics, and are famous for their technically perfect, sophisticated designs.
Silk was produced by many small-scale family businesses, as well as by large government workshops. The city of Suzhou became famous for silk production and embroidery. Heavy industry such as iron production also grew massively in the Song, helped by the invention of hydraulic machinery to drive bellows, and the use of explosives in mining.
Commerce expanded enormously, as improved transport especially on canals and rivers helped circulate huge quantities of goods within China and overseas. Market towns grew, and new commercial networks connected villages to market towns and cities. Underpinning the Song commercial revolution was a transformation of agriculture.
Farmers used new strains of seed, and new irrigation techniques, which massively increased rice crops. The world's first paper money emerged in Song China. With trade increasing and the economy flourishing , the demand for money in Song China grew enormously. Coins had been used as the basic unit of trade for centuries. The number of coins minted rose from one billion per year at start of the Song dynasty, to six billion within a century.
In Sichuan province particularly heavy iron coins had been used, and for convenience, merchants started to use paper notes from deposit shops where they had left coins or goods. The government took over the system in the s, producing the world's first government-issued paper money.
The paper notes were issued for three years, after which they would be exchanged, because the paper tended to have worn out. The use of paper money gradually became established across China. The use of gunpowder in warfare began in China during the Song dynasty. Song China faced well-organized rival states to the north , and defence was a major preoccupation. The Song had an army of more than a million men, and sophisticated military technology. Gunpowder had been invented in the ninth century by Chinese alchemists.
A Song dynasty handbook , Essentials of the Military Arts , records the first true gunpowder formula, and describes how to produce it on a large scale. Song soldiers used gunpowder weapons such as incendiary projectiles, smoke bombs, fire arrows, and grenades. Song China was under pressure from rival states , and had a huge defense budget.
By the mid eleventh century, the government was running out of money. Officials were divided about how to respond to the difficulties. One camp, led by statesman Sima Guang , thought the government should focus on making sure the civil service was staffed by men of good character with a classical education.
He thought that the state's economic activities should be minimal, and wanted government cost cuts and tax reductions. The opposing group was led by a former regional official, Wang Anshi , who said the state needed men who were not only educated in the Confucian classics, but professionally trained to handle military matters, financial affairs, and practical administration.
Wang argued that the government should intervene to create prosperity. With the support of the emperor, Wang introduced many reforms, adding new specialized degrees in law, science and medicine to the civil service exams. He launched a national loans system called the Green Shoots scheme, designed to help give farmers access to cheap credit.
Wang Anshi's reform initiatives were a massive national program, and continued for over ten years, though they met with huge resistance. Su Song was a scholar official, who is famous for having built a mechanical clock. Su Song was born near Quanzhou in south China. He passed the civil service exams and was also an expert on a wide range of technical subjects including pharmaceutical botany, zoology and minerals, as well as calendar science and astronomy. In , he was sent as an ambassador to the Liao court to celebrate the winter solstice. But he arrived one day early, because the calendar being used in Song China was wrong.
The Liao calendar, however, had been correct. Greatly concerned, the Song emperor ordered Su Song to build a new clock at the Song capital Kaifeng. The clock Su Song built involved a chain-drive mechanism added to a water-powered clock. It told the time of day, as well as the day of the month, and the phases of the moon. Rotating figures dressed in miniature Chinese clothes came out of doors with plaques to announce the time of day, and rang bells and gongs, and beat drums.
At the top of the foot tower was an armillary sphere that showed the changing location of the planets and stars. Su Song was one of several Song dynasty polymaths of astonishingly broad ability and curiosity.
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The Song period is famous for impressive advances in science and technology. The Song government encouraged foreign trade, especially maritime trade. For the first time in history, Chinese foreign trade by sea exceeded trade by land. As overseas demand for China's fabulous porcelain and silk and other goods boomed, Song merchant ships sailed to Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia and as far afield as the Arabian peninsula and the east coast of Africa. Wrecks of Song ships have been found with huge cargoes of tens of thousands of pieces of ceramic ware, as well as spices, medicines, copper coins, and bamboo products.
Chinese sailors were assisted by the invention of the mariner's compass. The compass freed sailors from the need to navigate by recognising landmarks along the coasts. Chinese people had long known that a magnetized needle would point north-south. In Song times, the compass was made usable at sea by reducing the size of the needle and attaching it to a stem. The first mention of the compass being used in this way was in a book written in The busiest Chinese port was Quanzhou , on the coast of Fujian.
The Jin dynasty was set up in north China by the Jurchen people of Manchuria. The Jurchens were originally horse breeders and hunters. They developed agriculture, craft industries and commerce, and became a strong power. In , they declared themselves the Jin dynasty. They defeated the Liao and then attacked the Song. In they took the fabulous Song capital at Kaifeng , sacked and looted it, and forced the captured Song emperor to march into captivity in the Jin capital Shangjing , along with the imperial family and thousands of others.
The Jin then ruled north China for nearly a century. One of the Song emperor's sons meanwhile fled south, and set up a new Song capital in Hangzhou. Hangzhou was meant to be a temporary base, but Song attempts to retake the north did not succeed, and Hangzhou remained the Song capital for over years, until the end of the dynasty.
China History Timeline, Chronology, Dynasty Qin Han Tang Ming Qing
The period during which the capital was in Hangzhou is known as the Southern Song. The loss of the north was a huge blow, but the Song Chinese were able to use the extensive waterways of the south, and enjoyed great prosperity as China's commercial revolution continued. Li Qingzhao lived to around was a Chinese writer and poet. She is considered the greatest woman poet in Chinese history. Li Qingzhao was born into a literary family, and already as a teenager she wrote poetry that was highly regarded. She married a scholar official, and lived in Kaifeng. She and her husband fled their home to avoid the invading Jin armies and travelled south.
Li Qingzhao's husband died of malaria during the journey. As a grieving widow, Li Qingzhao reached Hangzhou in Li Qingzhao's poems drew on her personal experiences, from her happy younger days in Kaifeng, to her sadness in later life. Li Qingzhao's poetry continues to be loved today. Here is an extract of one of Li Qingzhao's poems. Kaifeng Go to the map to view additional details. Yue Fei was a Song general who tried to regain north China from the Jin. He is one of China's most famous heroes. After the Song set up their southern capital in Hangzhou , fighting continued between Song China and the Jin.
Yue Fei had been born into a poor family in north China. Yue Fei's mother is supposed to have had characters tattooed on his back saying, 'Serve the Country with Utmost Loyalty'. Yue Fei became an army commander, and led several campaigns into Jin territory. Yue Fei was about to attempt to retake Kaifeng itself when the emperor decided to sue for peace instead of continuing the war. Yue Fei was jailed for insubordination. When he was charged, the story goes that he ripped his clothes to reveal the tattoo on his back. He was killed in , at the order of his enemies at court.
China signed a peace agreement with the Jin in the same year, giving up all the northern territory. Some people welcomed the peace with relief, but others thought that the Song should have continued to try to reconquer the north. Yue Fei has come to represent the idea of noble loyalty, and many myths grew up around him. When Japan invaded China in the twentieth century, a poem that Yue Fei is said to have written was set to music and sung as an anthem to resistance against the invaders.
Song dynasty China was dominated by Confucianism , which formed the basis of education, public life and private family rituals. Song scholars introduced some Buddhist ideas into Confucianism, and the resulting philosophy is known as Neo-Confucianism. According to Neo-Confucianism, everything in the universe is a manifestation of one single 'principle'. If people understood that principle, they would understand the moral principles by which they should try and live, in order to achieve an ordered family, and peace in the world.
One of the leading Neo-Confucian thinkers was Zhu Xi He stressed 'the investigation of things', to perceive the pattern or principle that underlay everything. He said that the goal of education was not just the pursuit of exam degrees, but moral self cultivation.
He taught that people could put their learning into practice though being upstanding members of local society. If they did not get a civil service job, people could still do good works by focussing on their local communities, running their own family affairs properly, setting up charities and schools and looking after the poor. Through to the twentieth century, Chinese governments promoted Zhu Xi's 'School of Principle' as orthodox Confucianism. Khubilai Khan lived was the grandson of Genghis Khan. He conquered China and founded the China's Yuan Dynasty.
Genghis Khan had united the peoples of Mongolia in the s, and begun one of the most amazing campaigns of conquest in world history. His troops sacked the Jin Jurchen capital in Beijing in His grandson Khubilai Khan conquered the rest of China, defeating the last Song loyalists in at the Battle of Yamen. For the first time in history, the whole of China had been conquered by a foreign people.
The Mongols ruled China for nearly a hundred years. They organized society into different categories, with the Mongols on the top, and the southern Chinese at the bottom. The Mongol capital was in Beijing. Zhu Yuanzhang reigned was the founder of the Ming dynasty, one of only two commoners who became emperors of China. Zhu Yuanzhang was born into a very poor family from the Huai River Plain , at a time when the Mongol Yuan dynasty was collapsing and there was increasing chaos across China. His parents having died in an epidemic, Zhu became a beggar monk, and then joined a local rebel army.
A big man of striking appearance, with a huge jaw and a pockmarked face, he rose to be a commander. He defeated his rivals and in , proclaimed a new dynasty, the Ming , and took the name Hongwu , which means 'vastly martial'. Hongwu knew from his own experience how bad ordinary people's lives were if there was no strong government. He tried to keep government costs low and make taxes fair , and he issued a harsh law code to try and make society peaceful. He was obsessed with control, suspicious that people were plotting against him, and executed thousands in cruel purges. He abolished the role of prime minister, and concentrated power in his own hands.
He wanted China to be the supreme power in East Asia again, as it had been in the Han and the Tang , when subordinate foreign states brought tribute to the court. He forbade private foreign trade, as he wanted all exchange to happen through the tribute system. Nanjing is a city on the south bank of the Yangtze River. The Ming founder Emperor Hongwu took Nanjing and made it his base in the s when he was fighting other warlords.
When he became emperor, Hongwu made Nanjing the capital of Ming China. The city was located at the heart of the hugely wealthy Lower Yangtze area, and had a good defensive position. Nanjing had never before been capital of all of China. Hongwu built immense walls around the city to secure it from attack and to reinforce his authority. The Ming walls incorporated sections of earlier walls, and formed an irregular shape because of the hilly terrain.
Around 22 miles long, the Ming walls were up to 65 feet high. Emperor Hongwu ordered communities in counties to make bricks for the walls, organising the work through the 'hundreds and tithings' system he set up. Each brick was stamped with the name of the community that had made the brick. It took approximately million bricks to build the walls, over a period of 20 years. The Yongle emperor moved the capital to Beijing in Emperor Hongwu wanted to keep government costs low and did not want tax collectors harassing his people, so he made local communities themselves responsible for tax and government service.
Local communities were organized into groups of households, out of which the largest ten households were responsible on behalf of the whole group to collect tax and organise labour for government initiatives - such as making bricks for the Nanjing city walls. The system was called the 'hundreds and tithings' system. To set it up, a census of every household in the empire was carried out, as well as a land survey to record who owned every piece of land. The census was called the Yellow Register, because of the covers of each record were yellow. The land register became known as the Fishscale Register because the maps of all the small plots of land looked like the scales of a fish.
Hongwu's tax system created difficulties for later Ming administrators. Families that were responsible for tax struggled with the burdens upon them. And because tax was so low, local officials ended up having to demand irregular extra payments, exactly what Hongwu had wanted to avoid. Emperor Yongle was Hongwu's fourth son. An excellent soldier, he was made Prince of Yan , with responsibility to defend against the Mongols. Yan was a fiefdom around modern-day Beijing. Wu was annexed by Yue. Yuan's son King Zhending of Zhou became king of the Zhou dynasty.
He was succeeded by his son King Ai of Zhou. Ai was murdered and succeeded as king by his younger brother King Si of Zhou. Si was murdered by his brother King Kao of Zhou. Kao became king of the Zhou dynasty. The tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng was constructed. Kao's son King Weilie of Zhou became king of the Zhou dynasty. Weilie's son King An of Zhou became king of the Zhou dynasty. The earliest surviving Chinese maps appeared. The first Chinese star catalogue was compiled. The Zuo Zhuan was published. The city of Handan was founded to serve as the Zhao capital.
An's son King Lie of Zhou became king of the Zhou dynasty. Zheng was annexed by Han. Lie's brother King Xian of Zhou became king of the Zhou dynasty. Duke Xiao of Qin became duke of Qin. Xiao's adviser Shang Yang implemented a legal code in Qin based on the Canon of Laws which established punishment for complicity in a crime, established a system of military ranks, and implemented policies encouraging the cultivation of unsettled land.
Wei laid siege to the Zhao capital Handan. The Wei army fled Handan in response to reports of a Qi attack on their capital Daliang and were defeated by Qi forces at Guiling, in modern Changyuan County. Qi dealt Wei a bloody defeat. He was succeeded by his son King Huiwen of Qin.
Timeline of Chinese history
Shang and his family were executed by dismemberment on charges of treason. Xian's son King Shenjing of Zhou became king of the Zhou dynasty. The Confucian Mencius became a Qi official. Shu was conquered and annexed by Qin. Ba was conquered and annexed by Qin. Shenjing's son King Nan of Zhou became king of the Zhou dynasty. Huiwen's son King Wu of Qin became king of Qin. The Zhou king King Wuling of Zhao ordered his cavalry to begin wearing clothes fashioned after those of the Donghu and Xiongnu peoples.
Wu's brother King Zhaoxiang of Qin became king of Qin. Zou Yan was born. The Tsinghua Bamboo Slips were written. The Guodian Chu Slips were produced. Qin dealt a bloody defeat to a Wei - Han alliance. Qin conquered the Chu capital Ying. The Chu poet Qu Yuan wrote Lament for Ying and drowned himself in the Miluo River because he could not bear his exile any long or to his despair for the state of his fellow countrymen. Zhao intercepted a Qin invasion of the commandery of Shangdang. Qin forces encircled the Zhao army, forcing its surrender. The Zhao general Zhao Kuo was killed in action.
The captured Zhao soldiers were executed. Nan submitted to Zhaoxiang and took the title Duke of West Zhou. His territory was annexed by Qin. The Dujiangyan irrigation system was built. The first drawings of the repeating crossbow appeared in Chu records.
Zhaoxiang's son King Xiaowen of Qin became king of Qin. He was succeeded by his son King Zhuangxiang of Qin. He was succeeded by his son Qin Shi Huang. Qin's wars of unification: Jing Ke failed in an assassination attempt on Qin Shi Huang. The Heirloom Seal of the Realm was carved. Construction began on the Great Wall of China. The Lingqu Canal was built. Burning of books and burying of scholars: Qin Shi Huang died,from mercury pills made by his alchemists and court physicians ironically these pills were meant to make Qin Shi Huang immortal.
Military officers Chen Sheng and Wu Guang began a rebellion for fear of being executed after failing to arrive at their posts. Chen Sheng and Wu Guang were assassinated by their own men. Li was executed on charges of treason. Zhao Gao , who had framed him, was appointed chancellor in his stead. Chu forces led by the warlord Xiang Yu defeated a numerically superior Qin force, killing a large fraction of the Qin army. Zhao Gao had Qin Er Shi killed.
Qin Er Shi's nephew Ziying succeeded him. Ziying surrendered to Gaozu. Feast at Hong Gate: Gaozu fled a banquet after it became clear that Xiang had invited him there to be killed. Xiang led an army into Xianyang , burned the Epang Palace and killed Ziying and the royal family.
Han forces dealt a decisive defeat to a numerically superior Zhao army at Jingxing Pass. The Qin general Zhao Tuo established the state of Nanyue. Gaozu took the title emperor and established his capital in Luoyang. The Xiongnu encircled and besieged a superior Han force. He was succeeded by his son Emperor Hui of Han. The Han chancellor Xiao He died. Chang'an became the eastern terminus of the Silk Road to Europe.
He was succeeded by his son Emperor Qianshao of Han. He was succeeded by his brother Emperor Houshao of Han. Houshao was deposed by imperial officials led by Chen Ping and Zhou Bo. He was succeeded by his uncle, Gaozu's son Emperor Wen of Han. The Mawangdui Silk Texts were buried at Mawangdui. He was succeeded by his son Emperor Jing of Han. He was succeeded by his son Emperor Wu of Han. The Eight Immortals of Huainan published the Huainanzi.
Han campaigns against Minyue: The Han dynasty invaded Minyue after a plea for assistance from its vassal state Nanyue. Southward expansion of the Han dynasty: The Han dynasty annexed Minyue. A Han deception failed to lure the Xiongnu into an ambush at Mayi. A Han expedition into the Orkhon Valley began which would deal a decisive and bloody defeat to the Xiongnu. The Minyue rump state of Dongyue was invaded and annexed by the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty conquered and annexed Nanyue. Han campaigns against Dian: The Han dynasty invaded and annexed the Dian Kingdom.
Han forces attacked the Loulan Kingdom at Lop Nur. Han forces laid siege to Kokand. Sima Qian completed the Records of the Grand Historian. The Prince of Changyi was deposed. Huo appointed Wu's great grandson, then a commoner, Emperor Xuan of Han. Han forces defeated the people of the Gushi culture , at that time subject to the Xiongnu , at Jiaohe in modern Turpan. The Protectorate of the Western Regions was established.
Xuan's son Emperor Yuan of Han became emperor of the Han dynasty. A Han force breached and destroyed a fortress occupied by the Xiongnu chanyu Zhizhi Chanyu at Taraz , killing him. He was succeeded by his son Emperor Cheng of Han. Liu Xiang compiled the Biographies of Exemplary Women.
He was succeeded by his nephew Emperor Ai of Han. The first model of a stern-mounted rudder was produced. A census counted fifty-nine million people in the Han empire. Ping established a national school system. Ban Biao , first author of the Book of Han , is born. Ping died after being poisoned by Wang , who became acting emperor. Liu Xin completed a star catalogue and calculated the length of the year. Wang declared himself emperor of the Xin dynasty. Wang introduced the well-field system of land distribution and agricultural production. Wang introduced an income tax of ten percent for professionals and skilled laborers.
Wang abandoned the well-field system under pressure from the aristocracy. Wang imposed government monopolies on liquor, salt, iron, coinage, forestry, and fishing. The Gengshi Emperor ascended the throne, restoring the Han dynasty. The Gengshi Emperor was executed. The Red Eyebrows appointed Liu Penzi their emperor. The Han warlord Emperor Guangwu of Han took the title emperor. The Red Eyebrows surrendered to the Han dynasty. Du Shi invented waterwheel-powered bellows for smelting cast iron.
Ban Gu , co-author of the Book of Han , is born. Second Chinese domination of Vietnam: Vietnam fell into Han control. Ban Zhao , China's first female historian, is born. The Yuejue Shu was written. He was succeeded by his son Emperor Ming of Han. The Han chancellor Deng Yu died. Ming's half brother Liu Ying converted to Buddhism. A punitive Han expedition against the Xiongnu captured territory in the area of modern Hami City. He was succeeded by his son Emperor Zhang of Han.
Wang Chong correctly theorized the nature of the water cycle. Yuan An was appointed situ. He was succeeded by his son Emperor He of Han. Battle of the Altai Mountains: Han and allied forces defeated the army of the Northern Chanyu and accepted the surrender of two hundred thousand Xiongnu soldiers in the Altai Mountains. Xu Shen completed the Shuowen Jiezi. Ban Zhao completed the Book of Han. Zhang Heng completed a star catalogue which also argued for a spherical moon that reflects light.
Zhang invented the first hydraulic-powered armillary sphere. The earliest known Chinese depiction of a mechanical distance-marking odometer was drawn. The Marquess of Beixiang became emperor of the Han dynasty. The Marquess of Beixiang died. An's son Emperor Shun of Han became emperor of the Han dynasty. Zhang invented a seismometer capable of indicating the direction of earthquakes. Liang Ji poisoned Zhi , killing him. Emperor Huan of Han became emperor of the Han dynasty. The Buddhist missionary An Shigao arrived in China.
A Roman envoy arrived at the Han capital Luoyang. Disasters of the Partisan Prohibitions: Several ministers and some two hundred university students, who had opposed the influence of corrupt eunuchs at the royal court, were arrested. Emperor Ling of Han became emperor of the Han dynasty. The Taoist sect leader Zhang Jue called on his followers in the Han provinces to rebel against the government. The Qiang people launched a rebellion against Han authority in the area of modern Wuwei.
Zhi Yao first translated Buddhist texts into Chinese. Ling's son Liu Bian became emperor of the Han dynasty. Campaign against Dong Zhuo: Sun Ce's conquests in Jiangdong: The warlord Sun Ce attacked and conquered territory administered by Lu Kang. Battle of Red Cliffs: Battle of Tong Pass: Cao Cao defeated an alliance of anti- Han rebels in modern Tongguan County , securing his control over Guanzhong. Liu Bei's takeover of Yi Province: Battle of Xiaoyao Ford: A plague outbreak forced Sun Quan to abandon the attempted conquest from Cao Cao of a fortress at Hefei.
Battle of Han River: Liu Bei ambushed and dealt a bloody defeat to Cao Cao 's army in Hanzhong. End of the Han dynasty: Liu Bei declared himself emperor of Shu Han. Sun Quan declared himself king of Eastern Wu. Eastern Wu forces attacked and burned the Shu Han camps and dealt serious casualties during their retreat.
Zhuge Liang's Southern Campaign: Cao Wei forces encircled and destroyed a Shu Han army guarding the supply line for an invasion in modern Qin'an County. A Cao Wei army was lured into an ambush by Eastern Wu in modern Qianshan County and dealt heavy casualties on its retreat. Battle of Wuzhang Plains: Jiang Wei's Northern Expeditions: Incident at Gaoping Tombs: He was succeeded by his young son Sun Liang , with the general Zhuge Ke acting as regent.
Sun Liang was deposed by the regent Sun Chen. Coup of Cao Mao: Cao Mao was murdered in a failed attempt to kill the regent Sima Zhao at his residence. Conquest of Shu by Wei: Cao Wei instituted the nine-rank system of civil servants. Pei Xiu introduced the grid reference and the concept of scale to Chinese mapmaking. Sima Yan formally enthroned himself as Emperor of Jin, establishing the Jin dynasty.
Sima Yan is posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Jin. Emperor Wu of Jin established his oldest living son, the developmentally disabled Sima Zhong , as Heir. Conquest of Wu by Jin: Sun Hao presented himself as a prisoner to the Jin general Wang Jun. Chen Shou compiled the Records of the Three Kingdoms.
He was succeeded by his developmentally disabled son Emperor Hui of Jin , with Yang Jun acting as regent. War of the Eight Princes: Hui was poisoned, probably by the regent Sima Yue. Hui's brother Emperor Huai of Jin became emperor of the Jin dynasty. Huai was kidnapped from the capital Luoyang by Former Zhao forces. Goguryeo conquered and annexed the Lelang Commandery.
Huai's nephew Emperor Min of Jin became emperor of the Jin dynasty. Emperor Yuan of Jin declared himself prince of Jin , with his capital at Jiankang. Zhang Mao issued a general pardon to the people of Former Liang. He was succeeded by his son Emperor Ming of Jin. He was succeeded by his young son Emperor Cheng of Jin.
He was succeeded by his brother Emperor Kang of Jin. He was succeeded by his infant son Emperor Mu of Jin. Wang Xizhi wrote the Lantingji Xu. Mu's cousin Emperor Ai of Jin became emperor of the Jin dynasty. He was succeeded by his brother Emperor Fei of Jin. Gu Kaizhi became a Jin officer. Huan deposed Fei in favor of his granduncle Emperor Jianwen of Jin.
He was succeeded by his young son Emperor Xiaowu of Jin. Battle of Fei River: A Jin army defeated a massively larger Former Qin force, inflicting some seven hundred thousand casualties and expanding Jin territory north to the Yellow River. Xiaowu was suffocated by one of his concubines. He was succeeded by his young and severely disabled son Emperor An of Jin. Faxian left for India to acquire Buddhist texts. An was strangled on Wu's orders and succeeded by his brother Emperor Gong of Jin. Wu deposed Gong , marking the beginning of the Liu Song dynasty.
Helian Ding was captured by the khan of Tuyuhun. The oldest known painted depiction of a horse collar was made in the Mogao Caves. Change of Xianbei names to Han names: Xianbei names were converted to Han names in Northern Wei. Compilation began of the Jingdian Shiwen. Sui forces captured the Chen capital Jiankang and its emperor Chen Shubao. A Sui army of some three hundred thousand, led by the general Yang Liang , invaded Goguryeo. He was succeeded by his son Emperor Yang of Sui. The imperial examination was first used as the sole criterion for appointing local officials in Sui.
The Zhaozhou Bridge was completed. Japanese missions to Sui China: The Wa emissary Ono no Imoko arrived in Sui. The Grand Canal was completed. Yang ordered his commanderies to submit maps and gazetteers to the central government. The Four Gates Pagoda was completed. Goguryeo routed a Sui invasion force at the Chongchon River , inflicting some three hundred thousand casualties. Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas first visited China.
Transition from Sui to Tang: Gaozu deposed Yang You. Tang forces defeated and captured the warlord Dou Jiande at Hulao Pass. Ouyang Xun completed the Yiwen Leiju. Tang campaign against the Eastern Turks: Alopen wrote the Jesus Sutras. Emperor Taizong's campaign against Tuyuhun: The Tuyuhun khan Murong Fuyun , in flight from Tang forces and with much of his army destroyed, was killed by his officers.
Tibetan attack on Songzhou: Tibetan forces raided the city of Songzhou, in modern Songpan County. The Protectorate General to Pacify the West was established. Tang campaign against Karakhoja: Tang defeated and annexed Gaochang. Emperor Taizong's campaign against Xueyantuo: Taizong commissioned Yan Liben to paint portraits of his officials at Lingyan Pavilion.
Tang campaigns against Karasahr: A Tang army captured Karasahr and installed a friendly king. First campaign in the Goguryeo—Tang War: Tang forces dispersed a Goguryeo army which had arrived in defense of Ansi City. The Protectorate General to Pacify the North was established. Tang forces captured the king of Karasahr.
The four arts were first written of as skills required of a Chinese scholar-official. Tang campaign against Kucha: Kucha surrendered to Tang forces.
Taizong's son Emperor Gaozong of Tang became emperor of the Tang dynasty. Gaozong commissioned the compilation of a materia medica. Battle of Irtysh River: Tang forces ambushed and largely destroyed the army of the Western Turkic Khaganate at the Irtysh River. The allied navies of Silla and the Tang dynasty defeated a combined Baekje restorationist and Japanese force in the lower reaches of the Geum River.
The Protectorate General to Pacify the East was established. The Qianling Mausoleum was completed. Gaozong's wife Wu Zetian became emperor of the Tang dynasty. Tang forces reconquered the Four Garrisons of Anxi from Tibet. The Dunhuang map was created. The Giant Wild Goose Pagoda was rebuilt. Wu Zetian was forced to abdicate the throne in favor of her son Emperor Zhongzong of Tang. Zhongzong became emperor of Tang. The Small Wild Goose Pagoda was completed. Liu Zhiji compiled the Shitong. Zhongzong died after being poisoned, probably by his wife Empress Wei.
Ruizong abdicated the throne to Xuanzong. The Kaiyuan Za Bao was first published. Du Fu and Li Bai first met. After the defection of their Karluk mercenaries, a Tang force was defeated by a vastly superior Abbasid - Tibetan allied army on the Talas River , probably near modern Talas. The Tang jiedushi An Lushan declared himself emperor of Yan. Yan forces retreated from their siege of a Tang fortress in Yongqiu, in modern Kaifeng. Xuanzong recognized Suzong as emperor. Yan forces finally conquered Suiyang, in modern Suiyang District , after a siege that cost the lives of some sixty thousand Yan soldiers and thirty thousand Tang civilians were lost to starvation and cannibalism.
Arab and Persian pirates looted and burned the Tang seaport of Guangzhou. Lu Yu composed The Classic of Tea. Arab and Persian merchants are killed by Chinese rebels. Suzong died of a heart attack. Suzong's son Emperor Daizong of Tang became emperor of the Tang dynasty. Du Huan wrote the Jingxingji. The Yan emperor Shi Chaoyi committed suicide in flight from Tang forces. Daizong's son Emperor Dezong of Tang became emperor of the Tang dynasty.
The Tang official Jia Dan began work on a map of Tang and its former colonies. Du You completed the Tongdian. Dezong's son Emperor Shunzong of Tang became emperor of the Tang dynasty. Shunzong abdicated in favor of his son Emperor Xianzong of Tang. Xianzong launched the first of a series of military campaigns against the provinces. Xianzong died, possibly after being poisoned by one of his eunuch officers.
Xianzong's son Emperor Muzong of Tang became emperor of the Tang dynasty. Muzong's young son Emperor Jingzong of Tang became emperor of the Tang dynasty. Jingzong's brother Emperor Wenzong of Tang became emperor of the Tang dynasty. An Uyghur sued the son of a Tang general for failure to repay a debt. Wenzong's brother Emperor Wuzong of Tang became emperor of the Tang dynasty. A large fire consumed four thousand buildings in an eastern neighborhood of the Tang capital Chang'an.
Wuzong abolished Buddhist monasteries as well as establishments of Zoroastrianism and Christianity, which were thought to be Buddhist heresies. The Arab merchant Sulaiman al-Tajir visited Guangzhou. Duan Chengshi published the Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang. Duan Chengshi published a work describing the slave trade, ivory trade and ambergris trade in Bobali, probably modern Berbera.
Yizong's son Emperor Xizong of Tang became emperor of the Tang dynasty. Wang Xianzhi launched a rebellion against the Tang government. The rebel Huang Chao burned and looted Guangzhou and killed as many as two hundred thousand foreigners, mainly Arabs and Persians. Huang was murdered with his immediate family while in flight from Tang forces. He was succeeded by his brother Emperor Zhaozong of Tang. Zhaozong was killed on the orders of the warlord Zhu Wen , then in control of the Tang capital Chang'an. The Khitan chieftain Abaoji became emperor of the Liao dynasty.
Zhu Wen deposed Ai and declared himself emperor of Later Liang. Zhu Wen created Qian Liu the prince of Wuyue. Zhu Wen created Wang Shenzhi prince of Min. Liu Yan declared himself emperor of Southern Han. Gao Jixing declared himself king of Jingnan. Abaoji 's son Emperor Taizong of Liao became emperor of the Liao dynasty. The Later Tang emperor Li Congke burned himself to death with his family and servants as the joint armies of Liao and Later Jin approached his capital Luoyang. Min was conquered and annexed by Southern Tang. Taizong's nephew Emperor Shizong of Liao , whom he had raised, became emperor of the Liao dynasty.
The Later Han emperor Liu Chengyou was killed by one of his officers while attempting to escape the siege of the capital Ye by his general Guo Wei. Guo Wei declared himself emperor of Later Zhou. Shizong was murdered by one of his officers. Southern Tang conquered and annexed Chu. Taizu became emperor of the Song dynasty. Taizu was presented with gunpowder-impregnated fire arrows.
The Hundred Family Surnames was composed. The Huqiu Tower was built. The Song dynasty conquered and annexed Jingnan. Muzong was murdered by his servants on a hunting trip. Shizong's son Emperor Jingzong of Liao became emperor of the Liao dynasty. Southern Han was conquered and annexed by the Song dynasty. Song troops constructed a floating pontoon bridge across the Yangtze River in order to secure supply lines while fighting against the Southern Tang.
Song forces conquered and annexed Southern Tang. Taizu's brother Emperor Taizong of Song became emperor of the Song dynasty. The pagoda of the Longhua Temple was built. The Taiping Guangji was completed. The Wuyue king Qian Chu surrendered his territory to Taizong. The Wenyuan Yinghua was completed. First conflict in the Goryeo—Khitan War: Liao forces invaded Goryeo. The Longkan Shoujian was completed.
He was succeeded by his son Emperor Zhenzong. Song signed the Chanyuan Treaty , under which it agreed to pay Liao an annual tribute in silk and silver. Second conflict in the Goryeo—Khitan War: Liao captured the Goryeo general Gang Jo and burned the capital Kaesong. Third conflict in the Goryeo—Khitan War: Goryeo forces decisively defeated a retreating Liao army at Kuju, near modern Kusong.
Zhenzong's son Emperor Renzong of Song became emperor of the Song dynasty. He was succeeded by his son Emperor Xingzong of Liao. The Wujing Zongyao was completed. He was succeeded by his infant son Emperor Yizong of Western Xia. He was succeeded by his son Emperor Daozong of Liao. The Pagoda of Fogong Temple was completed. Ouyang Xiu completed the New Book of Tang. Emperor Yingzong of Song became emperor of the Song dynasty. He was succeeded by his young son Emperor Huizong of Western Xia. He was succeeded by his son Emperor Shenzong of Song. The Song chancellor Wang Anshi ordered an extensive government reform including the introduction of the baojia system of community-based law enforcement.
The Song diplomat Shen Kuo used court archives to reject Daozong's territorial claims. Su was sent on a mission to Liao. Shen was appointed to defend Yan'an.
A Song army was dealt some sixty thousand casualties defending Yan'an against an attempted invasion of Song by Western Xia forces. Su published a volume work on Song - Liao relations. Sima Guang completed the Zizhi Tongjian. He was succeeded by his young son Emperor Zhezong , with his widow Empress Xiang acting as regent. Xiang ousted the court faction affiliated with Wang's reforms at Sima's urging. Shen published the Dream Pool Essays. Su completed a clock tower in Kaifeng. The Dongpo Academy was established on Hainan.
He was succeeded by his younger brother Emperor Huizong of Song. He was succeeded by his grandson Emperor Tianzuo of Liao. Taizu conquered the Liao city of Huanglongfu. Zhu Yu published the Pingzhou Table Talks. The pagoda of Tianning Temple was completed. Taizu's brother Emperor Taizong of Jin became emperor of the Jin dynasty.
Jin dynasty forces captured Tianzuo. The Jin army invaded Song. Huizong abdicated in favor of his son Emperor Qinzong. Emperor Qinzong became emperor of the Song dynasty. The Song capital Kaifeng fell to a Jin siege. Huizong and Qinzong were captured with much of their court. Song established a standing navy headquartered at Dinghai in modern Dinghai District.
A fire destroyed some thirteen thousand homes in the Song capital Lin'an City. Emperor Xizong of Jin became emperor of the Jin dynasty. Song signed the Treaty of Shaoxing , under which it relinquished all claims to its former territories north of the Huai River and agreed to pay Jin an annual tribute in silk and silver. Yue was executed on false charges of treason spurred by the Song chancellor Qin Hui.
Xizong was murdered in a coup by Wanyan Liang , who succeeded him as emperor of Jin. The Jin capital was moved from Huining Prefecture to Zhongdu. The Jin capital was moved to Kaifeng. The Jin navy suffered heavy losses in an attempted invasion of Song near the Shandong Peninsula. Jin forces suffered as many as four thousand casualties at the hands of the Song dynasty in a naval battle which stalled their invasion across the Yangtze. Wanyan Liang was assassinated by one of his officers near the Yangtze battlefront. Gaozong abdicated in favor of Emperor Xiaozong of Song.
Song and Jin concluded the Treaty of Longxing. He was succeeded by his grandson Emperor Zhangzong of Jin. Xiaozong abdicated in favor of his son Emperor Guangzong of Song. Guangzong was forced to abdicate in favor of his son Emperor Ningzong. Huanzong was overthrown in a coup. He was succeeded by his brother Wanyan Yongji. The army of the Mongol Empire captured or killed over four hundred thousand Jin soldiers defending an important mountain pass at Zhangjiakou. Emperor Xuanzong of Jin became emperor of the Jin dynasty.
The Jin dynasty signed a treaty under which it became a vassal state paying tribute to the Mongol Empire. Mongol forces breached the walls of Zhongdu and massacred its inhabitants. Shenzong abdicated in favor of his son Emperor Xianzong of Western Xia. Xuanzong's son Emperor Aizong of Jin became emperor of the Jin dynasty. He was succeeded by Emperor Lizong. The Mongol khagan Genghis Khan died.