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Chinese History

China has a rich culture that dates back more than 4000 years. China can boast having the longest uninterrupted civilization of any country. In addition, Chinese history has benefited from having the world's longest continuously used written language systems.

China Tour will provide you with opportunities to travel back in time and experience wonders that date back millenia. Reading about Chinese history will make any China Tour that much more rewarding.

Xia Dynasty
c. 2200-1766BC
Most historians believed the Xia to be a mythical dynasty, but recent archaeological findings have verified their existence.
Shang Dynasty
1766- c.1040BC
Excavations have confirmed descriptions in ancient Chinese literature of a highly developed culture. The Shang Dynasty was distinguished by an aristocratic government, great artistry in bronze, a writing system still in use today, an agricultural economy, and armies of thousands whose commanders rode in chariots.
Zhou Dynasty
c.1040BC- 256BC
The semi-nomadic Zhou people from northwestern China overthrew the Shang king. The Zhou court developed a feudal society in China.
Qin Dynasty
The Legalists strengthened state power and control over the people. Weights and measures, and the Chinese writing system were unified. Chinese defenses were strengthened by creating the Great Wall.
Han Dynasty
The Sui, Tang and Song Dynasties were quite similar. The short-lived Sui dynasty reunified China after four hundred years of fragmentation.
Tang Dynasty
Li Yuan was a Sui general who founded the Tang Dynasty, the largest, wealthiest, and most populous in the world at that time. The Tang based their laws on Confucian thought.
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty continued the flowering of Chinese culture.
Ming Dynasty
Founded by a Buddhist monk who led a peasant army to victory over the Mongols.
Founded by conquerors from Manchuria in 1644, the Qing was the last imperial dynasty of China. When it was overthrown in 1911, China became a republic.

Concise Chinese History

1. Historical and Cultural Continuity


2. Beginnings and Early History


The people of this period (3000-2000 BC) also developed the art of making pottery for storing food and drink. Two distinct types have been discovered: red clay pots with swirling black designs in the northwest near Yangshao village, and smooth black pottery in northeast China near Lungshan, a site in Shandong Province.

3. Shang Dynasty

The Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BC) is the first documented era of ancient China. The highly developed hierarchy consisted of a King, nobles, commoners, and slaves. The capital city was Anyang, in north Henan Province. Some scholars have suggested that travelers from Mesopotamia and from Southeast Asia brought agricultural methods to China, which stimulated the growth of ancient Chinese civilization. The Shang peoples were known for their use of jade, bronze, horse-drawn chariots, ancestor worship, and highly organized armies.


Bone libraries and others: ancient times. The earliest known libraries were connected with palaces and temples. In China, records of the Shang dynasty (1767?-1123? BC) were written on animal bones and tortoise shells. An early library called "The Healing Place of the Soul," in the palace of Egypt's King Ramses II (1304?-1237 BC) at Thebes, consisted of thousands of papyrus scrolls. Among the most important libraries in the ancient Near East was the palace library of Ashurbanipal (668?-627? BC) at Nineveh in Assyria. This early type of national library, collected "for the sake of distant days," consisted of over 30,000 clay tablets. Early librarians were usually priests, teachers, or scholars. The first known Chinese librarian was the philosopher Lao Tse, who was appointed keeper of the royal historical records for the Chou rulers about 550 BC.

4. Zhou Dynasty (1122-221 BC)
The Zhou Dynasty (1122-221 BC) saw the full flowering of ancient civilization in China. During this period the empire was unified, a middle class arose, and iron was introduced. The sage Confucius (551-479 BC) developed the code of ethics that dominated Chinese thought and culture for the next 25 centuries (See Confucius).

The Zhou conquest of the Shang was given an important meaning by later moralistic interpretations of the event. The Zhou kings, whose chief deity was heaven, called themselves "Sons of Heaven," and their success in overcoming the Shang was seen as the "mandate of heaven." From this time on, Chinese rulers were called "Sons of Heaven" and the Chinese Empire, the "Celestial Empire." The transfer of power from one dynasty to the next was based on the mandate of heaven.

Zhou rule in China continued for nearly nine centuries. During that time great advances were made. The long period of the Zhou Dynasty is divided into two subperiods: Western (Early) and Eastern (Later) Zhou, named for the locations of the capitals.

Western (Early) Zhou (1122-771 BC)
Western Zhou territory covered most of the North China Plain. It was divided into about 200 princely domains. The Zhou political system was similar to the feudal system of medieval Europe. The Zhou people combined hunting and agriculture for a living. Associating the success or failure of crops with the disposition of nature, the people prayed to numerous nature gods for good harvests. One of the ruler's duties was to placate heaven and Earth for all people. Failure to do so deprived him of the right to rule. Such beliefs are still widely held today among the Chinese people. Ancestor worship also developed during the Zhou period and has been important in East Asia for the last 2,000 years.

The Zhou were invaded in 771 BC by a less cultured, more militaristic people from the northwest. The capital was moved east to Luoyang. From this point on, the dates are considered reliable. The manner in which the Western Zhou fell followed a pattern that was repeated throughout Chinese history. People who led a nomadic, or wandering, life in the northern steppe land would invade settled agricultural communities to solve periodic food shortages.

The conflict between the nomads and settled farmers has been a continuing feature of Chinese history. Settled Chinese called the nomads "barbarians," a term applied to all peoples of non-Chinese culture up to the 20th century. From this concept an idea developed that China was the center of the civilized world, hence the traditional name "Middle Kingdom/Country," referring to China.

Eastern (Later) Zhou (771-221BC)
The Eastern Zhou is also two periods. The first is the Spring and Autumn period (771-481 BC), named for a book credited to Confucius. The second is the Warring States period (481-221 BC).

In the Spring and Autumn period, iron replaced bronze for tools and weapons. The use of iron led to an increase in agricultural output, growth of the population, and warfare among the states. By the 4th century BC the number of states had shrunk to seven. In 256 BC the princes of those states assumed the title of King, stopped paying homage to the Zhou king, and continued to fight for supremacy. The strongest of the seven states was Qin.

The disruption caused by this prolonged warfare had a number of long-range consequences. One was the rise of a new social group, the scholars (shi). They were forerunners of the scholar-officials of the Chinese Empire, who became the most influential group in China. In the Later Zhou period, however, they were a relatively small group of learned people. Often wandering from state to state in search of permanent employment, the shi worked as tutors to the children of feudal princes and as advisers to various state governments. The most famous of these scholarly shi was Confucius.

5. Qin Empire (221-206 BC)
After nearly 900 years, the Zhou Dynasty came to an end when the state of Qin, the strongest of the seven surviving states, unified China and established the first empire in 221 BC. The Qin empire did not last long, but it left two enduring legacies: the name China and the idea and structure of the empire. This heritage outlasted the Qin Dynasty itself by more than 2,000 years.

The first Qin emperor was called Qin Shi Huang Di. The title of emperor was used for the first time in Chinese history to set the Qin ruler apart--as the ruler of the unified land--from the kings, the heads of the earlier, smaller states. The construction of massive palaces and the ceremony of the court further enhanced the power of the emperor by inspiring awe in the people.

Centralized bureaucracy replaced the old feudal system. The empire was divided into provinces and counties, which were governed by centrally appointed governors and magistrates. The former ruling families who had inherited their places in the aristocracy were uprooted and forced to live in the capital of Xianyang (Xian). Other centralizing policies included census taking and standardization of the writing system and weights and measures.

The Qin army conducted massive military campaigns to complete the unification of the empire and expand its territory. The Qin empire stretched from the Mongolian plateau in the north to Vietnam in the south. As with rulers before and after him, the first emperor was preoccupied with defending his territory against northern nomads. After waging several successful campaigns, the emperor ordered the building of the wall of "ten thousand li" (a li is a Chinese unit of distance) to protect the empire. This task involved connecting the separate walls that were built by former northern states to form the famous Great Wall. The Ten Thousand Li Wall, as it is known in China, is 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) long, from 15 to 50 feet (5 to 15 meters) high, and from 15 to 25 feet (5 to 8 meters) wide. Although closely linked with the first ruler of the Qin Empire, the wall as it stands today dates mainly from the later Ming Dynasty.

Qin Shih Huang Di's harsh rule provoked much opposition. The emperor feared the scholars most. He had them rounded up and put them to death or sent them into exile. Many went into hiding. Moreover, all books, except technical ones, were confiscated and burned. In the last years of his life, Qin Shih Huang Di became fearful of threats on his life and lived in complete secrecy. He also became obsessed with obtaining immortality. He died in 210 BC in Shandong Province, far from the capital of Xianyang (Xian), during one of his long quests to find the elixir of life.

The Qin Empire disintegrated rapidly after the death of the first emperor. The legitimate heir was killed in a palace intrigue, and a less able prince was put on the throne. Conditions worsened throughout the empire. In 209 BC, rebellions erupted all over China. Two men had the largest following. Hsiang Yu was a general of aristocratic background; Liu Pang was a minor official from a peasant family. By 206 BC rebels had subdued the Qin army and destroyed the capital. The struggle between Hsiang Yu and Liu Pang continued for the next four years, however, until Liu Pang emerged as the victor in 202 BC. Taking the title of Kao Tsu, High Progenitor, he established the Han Dynasty.

6. The Han Empire (202 BC-220 AD)

Earlier (Western) Han (202 BC-9 AD)
The Han Dynasty preserved many features of the Qin imperial system, such as the administrative division of the country and the central bureaucracy. But the Han rulers lifted the Qin ban on philosophical and historical writings. Han Kao Tsu called for the services of men of talent, not only to restore the destroyed classics but to serve as officials in the government. From that time, the Chinese Empire was governed by a body of officials theoretically selected on merit. Such a practice has few parallels elsewhere at this early date in human history.

In 124 BC, during the reign of Wu Ti (140-87, the Martial Emperor), an imperial university was set up for the study of Confucian classics. The university recruited talented students, and the state supported them. Starting with 50 when the university first opened, the number of government-supported students reached 30,000 by the end of the Han Dynasty. Emperor Wu also established Confucianism as the official doctrine of the state. This designation lasted until the end of the Chinese Empire.

The Early Han faced two major difficulties: invasions by the barbarian Huns and the influence of the imperial consort families. In the Han Dynasty, the Huns (known as Hsiung-nu by the Chinese) threatened the expanding Chinese Empire from the north. Starting in Wu Ti's reign, costly, almost century-long campaigns had to be carried out to establish Chinese sovereignty along the northern and northwestern borders. Wu Ti also waged aggressive campaigns to incorporate northern Korea in 108 BC and northern Annam in 111 BC into the Han Empire. The Early Han's other difficulty started soon after the first emperor's death. The widowed Empress Lu dominated politics and almost succeeded in taking the throne for her family. Thereafter, families of the empresses exerted great political influence. In AD 9 Wang Mang, a nephew of the Empress, seized the throne and founded a new dynasty of Hsin.

Wang Mang's overambitious reform program alienated him from the landlords. At the same time the peasants, disappointed with Wang's inability to push through the reform, rose in rebellion. In AD 17 a rebel group in Shandong painted their faces red (hence their name, Red Eyebrows) and adopted religious symbols, a practice later repeated by peasants who rebelled in times of extreme difficulty. Wang Mang's force was defeated, and he was killed in AD 23.

Later (Eastern) Han (AD 23-220)
The new ruler who restored peace and order was a member of the house of Han, the original Liu family. His title was Kuang Wu Ti, "Shining Martial Emperor," from AD 25 to 57. During the Later Han, which lasted another 200 years, a concerted but unsuccessful effort was made to restore the glory of the former Han. The Later Han scored considerable success in recovering lost territories, however. Sent to befriend the tribes on the northwestern frontier in AD 73, a great diplomat-general, Pan Ch'ao, eventually led an army of 70,000 almost to the borders of Eastern Europe. Pan Ch'ao returned to China in 101 and brought back information about the Roman Empire. The Romans also knew about China, but they thought of it only as the land where silk was produced.

The Later Han period was particularly plagued with evils caused by eunuchs, castrated males recruited from the lower classes to serve as bodyguards for the imperial harem. Coming from uneducated and poor backgrounds, they were ruthlessly ambitious once they were placed within reach of power. Toward the end of the Later Han, power struggles between the eunuchs and the landlord-officials were prolonged and destructive. Peasant rebellions of the Taoist-leaning Yellow Turbans in 184 and the Five Pecks of Rice in 190 led to the rise of generals who massacred over 2,000 eunuchs, destroyed the capital, and one after another became dictators. By 207 General Ts'ao Ts'ao had emerged as dictator in the north. When he died in 220 his son removed the powerless emperor and established the kingdom of Wei. The Eastern Han came to an end, and the empire was divided into the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu Han, and Wu. The pattern of the rise and fall of Han was to be repeated in later periods. This characteristic came to be known as the dynastic cycle.

Han culture

The Han Chinese were especially distinguished in the field of art. The famous sculpture of the "Han flying horse" and the carving of the jade burial suit found in Han period tombs are only two superb examples. The technique of making lacquer ware was also highly developed. The Chinese are proudest of the tradition of historical writing that began in the Han period. Ssu-ma Ch'ien (145?-85? BC) was grand historian (an office that combined the duties of court recorder and astronomer) during the time of Wu Ti. His `Historical Records', which took ten years to complete, established the pattern and style followed by subsequent historians. In the Later Han, the historical tradition was continued by the Pan family. Pan Piao, the father, started to bring Ssu-ma Ch'ien's `Records' up to date. The work was continued by his son Pan Ku (twin brother of the general Pan Ch'ao) and was completed by his daughter Pan Chao, China's earliest and most famous woman scholar. Unlike Ssu-ma Ch'ien, the Pan family limited their work to 230 years of the Early Han. This was the first of the dynastic histories, subsequently written for every dynasty. Pan Chao also wrote a highly influential work on the education of women, `Lessons for Women'. `Lessons' emphasized the "virtues" of women, which restricted women's activities. The Confucianism that the Han Dynasty restored differed from the original teachings of Confucius. The leading Han philosophers, Tung Chung-shu and others, used principles derived from the early Chinese philosophy of nature to interpret the ancient texts. The Chinese philosophy of nature explained the workings of the universe by the alternating forces of yin and yang--dark and light--and the five elements: earth, wood, metal, fire, and water. The Han period was marked by a broad eclecticism. Many Han emperors favored Taoism, especially the Taoist idea of immortality.

7. The Period of Disunity (220-581)
After the fall of the Later Han, the Chinese Empire remained divided for three and a half centuries. The first half-century began with the domination of the Three Kingdoms: Wei under the Ts'ao family in the north, Shu Han under Liu Pei in the southwest, and Wu under Sun Ch'uan in the southeast. Invaders from the north soon overran the kingdoms and set up their own states, but the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), established by one of the barbarian tribes, the Toba, was the only one to last. Four dynasties established by the Chinese ruled in the south during the 4th and 5th centuries. The Three Kingdoms period was made famous by the novel `Romance of the Three Kingdoms', which glamorized the period as an age of chivalry.

8. The Sui Dynasty (581-618)
The prolonged period of disunity finally ended when a general from the northwest united China by establishing the new dynasty of Sui. A second great period of imperial unity was begun. The relationship of the Sui to the succeeding Tang Dynasty was much like that of the Qin to the Han. It served as the unifying foundation on which its successor could build. The first Sui emperor, Wen Ti, introduced a series of economic reforms, such as reduction of the peasants' taxes, a careful census for equitable tax collection, and restoration of the equal allocation system used in the Northern Wei. Every taxable male received a grant of land, part of which was returnable when he ceased to be a taxpayer at age 60 and part of which he could pass on to his heirs. He also revived the Han system of examinations based on Confucian classics.

Sui Wen Ti's premature death might have been caused by his ambitious son Yang Ti, whose grandiose projects and military campaigns ultimately led to the Sui's downfall. Some of his projects were productive, especially the construction of the Grand Canal, which linked up the Huang, Huai, and Yangtze rivers and connected north and south China.

Yang Ti's overly ambitious scheme of expanding his empire led to disastrous wars against Korea. After a series of futile expeditions, the Chinese army of over a million was defeated and forced to flee. In 618, Yang Ti was assassinated in an army coup; one of the coup leaders, Li Shih-min, installed his father as emperor, founding the T'ang Dynasty. After about a decade, during which he was able to secure his father’s abdication, he took the throne himself in 626 as the emperor T'ai Tsung.

9. The Tang Dynasty (618-907)
The Tang emperors set up a political system in which the emperor was supreme and government officials were selected on the basis of merit and education. The early T'ang rulers applied the equal allocation system rigorously to bring about a greater equity in taxation and to insure the flow of taxes to the government. A census was taken every three years to enforce the system, which also involved drafting people to do labor. These measures led to an agricultural surplus and the development of units of uniform value for the principal commodities, two of the most important prerequisites for the growth of commerce and cities.

The Tang capital of Chang'an (Xian) was one of the greatest commercial and cosmopolitan cities in the world at that time. Like most capitals of China, Chang'an (Xian) was composed of three parts: the palace, the imperial city, and the outer city, separated from each other by mighty walls.

The Tang was a period of great imperial expansion, which reached its greatest height in the first half of the 8th century. At that time, Chinese control was recognized by people from Tibet and Central Asia in the west to Mongolia, Manchuria (now the Northeast region of China), and Korea in the north and Annam in the south.

The An Lu-shan rebellion
Most of the Tang accomplishments were attained during the first century of the dynasty's rule, through the early part of Emperor Hsuan Tsung's long reign from 712 to 756. However, late in his reign he neglected government affairs to indulge in his love of art and study. This led to the rise of viceroys, commanders responsible for military and civil affairs in the regions. An Lu-shan was a powerful viceroy commanding the northwest border area. He had both connections at the imperial court and hidden imperial ambitions. In 755 he rose in rebellion.


The new emperor raised a new army to fight the rebels. An Lu-shan was assassinated in 757, but the war dragged on until 763. Afterward, the Chinese Empire virtually disintegrated once again. The provinces remained under the control of various regional commanders. The dynasty continued to linger on for another century, but the Tang Empire never fully recovered the central authority, prosperity, and peace of its first century.

The most serious problem of the last century of Tang was the rise of great landlords who were exempt from taxation. Unable to pay the exorbitant taxes collected twice a year after the An Lu-shan rebellion, peasants would place themselves under the protection of a landlord or become bandits. Peasant uprisings, beginning with the revolt under the leadership of Huang Ch'ao in the 870s, left much of central China in ruins.

In 881 Huang Ch'ao's rebels, now numbering over 600,000 people, destroyed the capital, forcing the imperial court to move east to Luoyang. Another rebel leader founded a new dynasty, called Later Liang, at Kaifeng in Henan Province in 907, but he was unable to unify all China under his rule. This second period of disunity lasted only half a century. Once again, however, China was divided between north and south, with five dynasties in the north and ten kingdoms in the south.

Tang Culture
Buddhist influence in art, especially in sculpture, was strong during the Tang period. Fine examples of Buddhist sculpture are preserved in rock temples, such as those at Yongang and Longmen in northwest China. The invention of printing and improvements in papermaking led to the printing of a whole set of Buddhist sutras (discourses of the Buddha) by 868. By the beginning of the 11th century all of the Confucian classics and the Taoist canon had been printed. In secular literature, the Tang is especially well known for poetry. The great Tang poets such as Li Po and Tu Fu were nearly all disillusioned officials.

The Tang period marked the beginnings of China's early technological advancement over other civilizations in the fields of shipbuilding and firearms development. Both reached new heights in the succeeding dynasty of Sung.

Papermaking & Firearms


The earliest mention of firearms is in a Dutch chronicle dated 1313. It states that firearms were invented in Germany. The first picture of a primitive cannon can be found in an English manuscript dated 1326.

10. The Song Dynasty (960-1279)
Over 300 years of Song history is divided into the two periods of Northern and Southern Song. Because of the barbarian occupation of northern China the second half of the Song rule was confined to the area south of the Huai River.

Northern Song (960-1126)
General Chao K'uang-yin, later known as Sung T'ai Tsu, was said to have been coerced to become emperor in order to unify China. Wary of power-hungry commanders, Song T'ai Tsu made the military into a national army under his direct control. Under his less capable successors, however, the military increasingly lost prestige. Unfortunately for China, the weakening of the military coincided with the rise of successive strong nomad nations on the borders.

In contrast to the military's loss of prestige, the civil service rose in dignity. The examination system that had been restored in the Sui and T'ang was further elaborated and regularized. Selection examinations were held every three years at the district, provincial, and metropolitan levels.

Only 200 out of thousands of applicants were granted the jinshi degree, the highest degree, and appointed to government posts. From this time on, civil servants became China's most envied elite, replacing the hereditary nobles and landlords.

Song dominion extended over only part of the territories of earlier Chinese empires. The Khitans controlled the northeastern territories, and the Hsi Hsia (Western Hsia) controlled the northwestern territories. Unable to recover these lands, the Song emperors were compelled to make peace with the Khitans in 1004 and with the Hsi Hsia in 1044. Massive payments to the barbarians under the peace terms depleted the state treasury, caused hardship to taxpaying peasants, and gave rise to a conflict in the court among advocates of war, those who favored peace, and reformers.

In 1069 Emperor Shen Tsung appointed Wang An-shih as chief minister. Wang proposed a number of sweeping reforms based on the classical text of the `Rites of Chou'. Many of his "new laws" were actually revivals of earlier policies, but officials and landlords opposed his reforms. When the emperor and Wang died within a year of each other, the new laws were withdrawn. For the next several decades, until the fall of the Northern Sung in 1126, the reformers and anti-reformers alternated in power, creating havoc and turmoil in government.

In an effort to regain territory lost to the Khitans, the Song sought an alliance with the newly powerful Juchens from Manchuria. Once the alliance had expelled the Khitans, however, the Juchens turned on the Song and occupied the capital of Kaifeng. The Juchens established the dynasty of Chin, a name meaning "gold," which lasted from 1115 to 1234, in the north. They took the emperor and his son prisoner, along with 3,000 others, and ordered them to be held in Manchuria.

Southern Song (1126-1279)
Another imperial son fled south and settled in 1127 at Hangzhou, where he resumed the Song rule as the emperor Kao Tsung. The Song retained control south of the Huai River, where they ruled for another one and a half centuries.

Although militarily weak and limited in area, the Southern Song represented one of China's most brilliant periods of cultural, commercial, maritime, and technological development. Despite the loss of the north, trade continued to expand, enabling a commercial revolution to take place in the 13th century. Cut off from the traditional overland trade routes, Song merchants turned to the ocean with the aid of such improvements as compasses and huge oceangoing ships called junks. The development of a paper money economy stimulated commercial growth and kept it going.

End of the Southern Song
While the Song ruling class and the imperial court indulged themselves in art and luxurious living in the urban centers, the latest nomad empire arose in the north. The formidable Mongol armies, conquerors of Eurasia as far west as eastern Europe and of Korea in the east, descended on the Southern Song.

Culture in the Song period

The Song period was noted for landscape painting, which in time came to be considered the highest form of classical art. The city-dwelling people of the Sung period romanticized nature. This romanticism, combined with a mystical, Taoist approach to nature and a Buddhist-inspired contemplative mood, was reflected in landscape paintings showing people dwarfed by nature.

In philosophy, the trend away from Buddhism and back to Confucianism, which had begun in the late Tang, continued. Pure and simple restoration of the ancient teaching was impossible, however, because Confucianism had been challenged by Buddhism and Taoism. Confucianism needed to explain humanity and the universe as well as to regulate human relations within society. In the late Tang and early Song, several strands of Confucianism emerged. The great scholar Chu Hsi synthesized elements of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. This reconstituted philosophy became known as Neo-Confucianism, and it was the orthodox state doctrine until the end of the imperial system. Chu Hsi's philosophy was one that stressed dualism, the goodness of human nature, and self-cultivation by education through the continuing "investigation of things."

The Song scholars and historians also attempted to synthesize history. Ssu-ma Kuang made the first effort at producing a comprehensive history since Ssu-ma Ch'ien of the Han. In 294 chapters, he wrote a chronological account of the period from 403 BC to AD 959, which was abridged by Chu Hsi in the 12th century. Another first in Song scholarship was the creation of encyclopedias. `Assembled Essentials on the Tang', a collection completed in 961, became the example for the various types of encyclopedic literature that followed.

The Song period is famous for porcelain with a celadon glaze, which was one of the most desired items in foreign trade (See Pottery and Porcelain). The development of gunpowder led to the invention of a type of hand grenade. In shipbuilding, the great seagoing junks were admired and imitated by Arab and Western sailors. By far the largest ships in the world at the time, they had watertight compartments and could carry up to 1,000 passengers.

The Song Cities
Oceanic and coastal trade was concentrated in large ports such as Canton, Hangzhou, and Chuanzhou (Marco Polo's Zayton), where large foreign trading communities developed. Koreans dominated the trade with the eastern islands, while Persians and Arabs controlled commerce across the western seas. Along with commercial expansion came the urbanization, or increasing importance of cities, in Sung society. Hangzhou, the Southern Song capital, had a population of more than 2 million. Commercialization and urbanization had a number of effects on Chinese society. People in the countryside faced the problems of absentee landlordism. Although many city residents enjoyed luxury, with a great variety of goods and services, poverty was widespread.

A change associated with urbanization was the decline in the status of women of the upper classes. With the concentration of the upper classes in the cities, where the work of women became less essential, women were treated as servants and playthings. This was reflected in the practices of concubinage and of binding girls' feet to make them smaller. Neither practice was banned until the 20th century.

11. The Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty (1279-1368)
The Mongols were the first of the northern barbarians to rule all of China. After creating an empire that stretched across the Eurasian continent and occupying northern China and Korea in the first half of the 13th century, the Mongols continued their assault on the Southern Sung. By 1276 the Southern Sung capital of Hangzhou had fallen, and in 1279 the last of the Sung loyalists perished.

Before this, Kublai Khan, the fifth "great khan" and grandson of Genghis Khan, had moved the Mongol capital from Karakorum to Peking. In 1271 he declared himself emperor of China and named the dynasty Yuan, meaning "beginning," to signify that this was the beginning of a long era of Mongol rule.

In Asia, Kublai Khan continued his grandfather's dream of world conquest. Two unsuccessful naval expeditions were launched against Japan in 1274 and 1281. Four land expeditions were sent against Annam and five against Burma. However, the Mongol conquests overseas and in Southeast Asia were neither spectacular nor were they long enduring.


The Chinese despised the Mongols for refusing to adapt to Chinese culture. The Mongols kept their own language and customs. The Mongol rulers were tolerant about religions, however. Kublai Khan reportedly dabbled in many religions.

The Mongols and the West

The best account of the Mongols was left by a Venetian merchant, Marco Polo, in his `Marco Polo's Travels'. It is an account of Polo's travels over the long and perilous land route to China, his experience as a trusted official of Kublai Khan, and his description of China under the Mongols. Dictated in the early 14th century, the book was translated into many languages. Although much of medieval Europe did not believe Polo's tales, some, like Christopher Columbus, were influenced by Polo's description of the riches of the Orient.

After the death of Kublai Khan in 1294, successive weak and incompetent khans made the already hated Mongol rule intolerable. Secret societies became increasingly active, and a movement known as the Red Turbans spread throughout the north during the 1350s. In 1356 a rebel leader named Chu Yuan-chang and his peasant army captured the old capital of Nanjing. Within a decade he had won control of the economically important middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, driving the Mongols to the north. In 1368 he declared himself the emperor Hung-wu and established his capital at Nanjing on the lower Yangtze. Later the same year he captured the Yuan capital of Peking.

Kublai Khan (1215-94)
The founder of China's Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty was a brilliant general and statesman named Kublai Khan. He was the grandson of the great Mongol conqueror, Genghis Khan, and he was overlord of the vast Mongol Empire. The achievements of Kublai Khan were first brought to the attention of Western society in the writings of Marco Polo, the Venetian traveler who lived at the Chinese court for nearly 20 years.

Kublai Khan was born in 1215, the fourth son of Genghis Khan's fourth son. He began to play a major role in the consolidation of Mongol power in 1251, when his brother, the emperor Mongke, resolved to complete the conquest of China. He therefore vested Kublai with responsibility for keeping order in conquered territory. After Mongke's death in 1259, Kublai had himself proclaimed khan. During the next 20 years he completed the unification of China. He made his capital in what is now Beijing.

Kublai's major achievement was to reconcile China to rule by a foreign people, the Mongols, who had shown little ability at governing. His failures were a series of costly wars, including two disastrous attempts to invade Japan; they brought little benefit to China. Although he was a magnanimous ruler, Kublai's extravagant administration slowly impoverished China; and in the 14th century the ineptitude of his successors provoked rebellions that eventually destroyed the Mongol dynasty. (See Genghis Khan; Mongol Empire)

Marco Polo (1254-1323)




Marco Polo at the Court of the Great Khan
Marco quickly became a favorite of Kublai Khan. For three years he governed busy Yangchow, a city of more than 250,000 people. He was sent on missions to far places in the empire:to Indochina, Tibet, Yunnan, and Burma. From these lands Marco brought back stories of the people and their lives.




12. The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)
Having restored Chinese rule to China, the first Ming emperor tried to model his rule after that of the Han, but the Ming fell far short of the Han's accomplishments. The land under Ming domination was less than under either the Han or the Tang. The Ming dominion changed little after the first two decades. It was confined mostly to what is known as China proper, south of the Great Wall and east of Xinjiang and Tibet.


The emperor Hung-wu modeled his government on the Tang system, restoring the doctrine and practices of Confucianism and continuing the trend toward concentration of power in the imperial government, especially in the hands of the emperor himself. He tried to conduct state affairs singlehandedly, but the work load proved overwhelming. To assist him, he gathered around him several loyal middle-level officials, thus creating an extra-governmental organization, the Grand Secretariat. The central bureaucracy was restored and filled by officials selected by the examination system. That system was further formalized by the introduction of a special essay style called the eight-legged essay, to be used in writing the examination. In addition, the subject matter of the examinations was restricted to the Five Classics, said to have been compiled, edited, or written by Confucius, and the Four Books, published by Chu Hsi.

The field of provincial government, the emperor Hung-wu continued the Yuan practice of limiting the power of provincial governors and subjecting them directly to the central government. The empire was divided into 15 provinces. The first capital at Nanjing was in the economic heartland of China, but in 1421 the emperor Yung-Lo, who took the throne after a civil war, moved the capital to Peking, where he began a massive construction project. The imperial palace, which is also known as the Forbidden City, was built at this time.

The Ming produced two unique contributions: the maritime expeditions of the early 15th century and the philosophy of Wang Yang-ming. Between 1405 and 1433, seven major maritime expeditions were launched under the leadership of a Muslim eunuch, Cheng Ho. Each expedition was provided with several seagoing vessels, which were 400 feet (122 meters) high, weighed 700 tons (635 metric tons), had multiple decks and 50 or 60 cabins, and carried several hundred people. During these expeditions, the Chinese sailed the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. They traveled as far west as eastern Africa and as far south as Java and Sumatra. But these missions ended just as suddenly as they had begun.

In philosophy, Wang Yang-ming developed a system of thought that ran counter to the orthodox teaching of Chu Hsi. While Chu Hsi believed in learning based on reason and the "investigation of things," Wang Yang-ming believed in the "learning of the mind," an intuitive process.

During the second half of the Ming Dynasty, European expansion began. Early in the 16th century Portuguese traders arrived and leased the island of Macao as their trading post. In 1582 Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit missionary, arrived in Macao. Because of his knowledge of science, mathematics, and astronomy and his willingness to learn the Chinese language and adapt to Chinese life, he was accepted by the Chinese and became the first foreigner allowed to live in Peking permanently. Jesuits followed him and served the Ming emperors as mapmakers, calendar reformers, and astronomers.

Unlike earlier brief contacts with the West or the later Western incursions into China, the 16th-century Sino-Western relationship was culturally oriented and mutually respectful. Both the Chinese and the Jesuits tried to find common ground in their thoughts. The Jesuits' activities produced 300,000 converts in 200 years, not a great number among a population of more than 100 million. Among them, however, were noted scholars such as Hsu Kuang-ch'i and Li Chih-tsao, who translated many of the works that Jesuits brought to China. The Jesuits wrote over 300 Chinese works.


Externally, the security of the Ming Empire was threatened from all directions. The Mongols returned and seized Peking in 1550, and their control of Turkestan and Tibet was recognized by the Ming in a peace treaty of 1570. Pirates preyed on the east coast, and Japanese pirates penetrated as far inland as Hangzhou and Nanjing. In the 1590s the Ming had to send expeditionary forces to rescue Korea from invading Japanese soldiers under Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The Ming drove back the Japanese forces, but not without depleting the treasury and weakening their defensive network against neighboring Manchuria to the northeast.

In Manchuria the Manchus (Pinyin: Manzu) had organized a Chinese-style state and strengthened their forces under a unique form of military organization called the banner system. However, it was not the Manchus who overthrew the Ming but a Chinese rebel, Li Tzu-cheng, who became a leader among the bandits who had become desperate because of a famine in the northwest in 1628. By 1642 Li had become master of north China and in 1644 he captured Peking.

There he found that the last Ming emperor had hanged himself, ending the "Brilliant" dynasty. Li, however, was not destined to rule. The rule was to pass once again into the hands of a people from beyond the Great Wall, the Manchus. They were invited into China by the Ming general Wu San-kuei to eliminate the rebels. After driving the rebels from the capital, the Manchus stayed and established a new dynasty, the Qing.

13. The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)
Like the Mongols in the 13th century, the Manchus (formerly the Juchen) were barbarians who succeeded in ruling the whole of China, but, unlike the 13th-century conquerers, the sinicized Manchus made their rule more acceptable to the Chinese. As a result, Qing rule lasted 267 years, compared with 89 years for the Yuan.

The Pax Sinica 1683-1795
The Manchus took Peking with relative ease in 1644, but they did not gain control of the whole of China until 1683. Thereafter, the Manchus enjoyed more than a century of peace and prosperity, a period that came to be called Pax Sinica (Peace in China). By the end of that period the dynasty had reached the height of its power.

Two strong emperors who were considered models of all Confucian ideals ruled for much of this period: the emperors K'ang-hsi (1661-1722) and Ch'ien-lung (1735-96). By recruiting the well-educated in government and promoting Confucian scholarship, these two Manchu rulers firmly established themselves as Confucian rulers in China. Outside China, both were successful conquerers. All of the Ch'ing empire's vast territories, including Mongolia in the north, Xinjiang in the northwest, and Tibet in the southwest, were incorporated into the expanding Chinese Empire during this period.

The Qing adopted the Ming system of government with two exceptions: the insertion of Manchu power at the head of the Chinese state, and the creation of the Grand Council in the emperor Yung-cheng's reign. The Grand Council superseded the Grand Secretariat and became the most powerful body in the government. In provincial government, the Qing created 18 provinces from the 15 Ming provinces. A governor, usually Chinese, headed each province, and a governor-general, usually a Manchu before the 19th century, headed every two provinces. Local landlords and administrators were generally left alone if they submitted to the new rule.

The K'ang-hsi era marked the height of Jesuit success in China, with more than 200,000 converts. Thereafter, Jesuit influence waned rapidly because of the rivalry between the Jesuits and other Catholic missionaries and the so-called Rites Controversy, which concerned the Jesuits' willingness to tolerate the converts' performance of ceremonies honoring Confucius. The pope denounced the Jesuit view and prohibited the ceremonies.

The long period of peace and prosperity had some adverse effects on Chinese society. There was a shortage of land, resulting from an increase in the population from 100 million to 300 million at the end of the 18th century. Decadence and corruption spread in the imperial court. There was a decline of the Manchu military spirit, and the Qing military organization deteriorated. The long and illustrious reign of the emperor Ch'ien-lung was marred by the first of many serious rebellions in the Qing era; the White Lotus Rebellion from 1796 to 1804. It was not put down for ten years, and China entered the 19th century rocked by revolt. More devastating were the incursions of Western powers, which shook the foundation of the empire.

19th Century Invasions and rebellions.
The first of many Sino-Western conflicts in the 19th century was the first Opium War, fought from 1839 to 1842. It was more than a dispute over the opium trade in China; it was a contest between China as the representative of ancient Eastern civilization and Britain as the forerunner of the modern West. Free trade advocates in the West had protested against the restrictive trading system in force at Canton. They demanded free trade in China, the opening of more ports to Westerners, and the establishment of treaty relations. The Treaty of Nanjing, which ended the first Opium War, opened five ports to the British - the first of the "treaty ports" where Western nations were granted various privileges. A second Opium War, also known as the Arrow War, fought from 1856 to 1860, pitted China against Great Britain and France.

The Opium Wars disrupted the old life and economy of southern China. A number of peasant revolts occurred in the 1840s, coming to a head in the Taiping Rebellion, the biggest rebellion in Chinese history. The leader of the Taipings was Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, from a village near Canton. Believing that God had chosen him to save the world, he adopted a confused version of Christianity as his guiding doctrine and set out to overthrow the Manchus and change society. The combination of religious fervor and anti-Manchu sentiment attracted a following that rose to over 30,000 within a short time. In 1852 the T'ai-p'ing T'ienkuo (Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace) was proclaimed. In 1853 the rebels took the city of Nanjing and made it their capital.

Other revolts erupted at about the same time: the Nien Rebellion in the northeast and Muslim rebellions in the southwest and the northwest. Fearing a linkup among the rebels that would engulf all of China, the Qing government created regional armies manned entirely by Chinese and commanded by Chinese of the scholar-gentry class. The commanders of the new forces, all loyal supporters of the dynasty - Tseng Kuo-fan, Tso Tsung-t'ang, and Li Hung-chang - suppressed the rebels with the help of Western weapons and leadership. They annihilated the Taipings in 1864, the Niens by 1868, and the Muslims by 1873.

The internal rebellions were suppressed, but external threats continued. After a brief period of "cooperation" in the 1860s, foreign powers renewed their assault on China, reacting to widespread anti-foreign violence. Again, China became embroiled in a series of conflicts: the Tianjin Massacre with France in 1870, the Ili crisis with Russia in 1879, the Sino-French War from 1884 to 1885, and the Sino-Japanese War from 1894 to 1895. Each brought further humiliation and greater impairment of sovereignty. In the last two incidents territory was lost, and an indemnity had to be paid to the victor in the Sino-Japanese War.

Opium Wars
China in the 19th century was beset by internal turmoil. It was easy prey to more powerful nations that wanted to exploit every advantage to profit from trade. Chief among these advantages was the opium trade. Official Chinese resistance to opium resulted in two trade wars in which Great Britain, France, the United States, and Russia gained significant commercial privileges. These conflicts were the first Opium War from 1839 to 1842 between China and Britain and the second Opium War (1856-60) fought by China against Britain and France.

Opium had been introduced into China in the 7th century. By the early 18th century opium addiction had become such a severe problem that the government tried to prohibit trade in it. The prohibition was a failure. When the British discovered the value of the opium trade in 1773, they determined to benefit. The Chinese paid the British for the opium, and the British in turn used the money as part payment for goods bought from the Chinese.

In 1839 the Chinese government made a concerted effort to suppress the opium trade. All the opium warehouses in Canton were confiscated. This serious effort, followed by a minor military incident, led to hostilities. In February 1840 the British sent an expedition against Canton.

The conflict, in which the more powerful British were victorious, was ended by the Treaty of Nanjing, which was signed on Aug. 29, 1842, and a supplemental treaty of Oct. 8, 1843. These treaties provided for payment of an indemnity of 21 million dollars by the Chinese, cession of five ports for British trade and residence, and the right of British citizens in China to be tried in British courts. It was at this time that Britain gained control of Hong Kong.

In October 1856 the Canton police boarded a British-registered ship, the Arrow, and charged its crew with smuggling. This incident led to the second war. In this war the British were joined by the French, and an Anglo-French force occupied Canton late in 1857. The Treaty of Tianjin in 1858 temporarily halted the fighting, opened new trading ports, allowed residence in Peking for foreign emissaries, gave freedom of movement to Christian missionaries, and permitted travel in the interior.

The Chinese refusal to ratify the treaty led to an Anglo-French attack on Peking and the burning of the Summer Palace. In 1860 the Chinese signed the Convention of Peking by which they promised to observe the 1858 treaty.

Taiping Rebellion
In terms of casualties, it was one of the worst civil wars in history. More than 20 million--possibly more than 30 million--died, and 17 provinces were ravaged by the Taiping Rebellion. This was the most serious of several internal disturbances that took place in China between 1850 and 1873 and seriously weakened the Qing Dynasty and helped prepare the way for the revolutions of the 20th century.

The leader of the rebellion was Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, an unsuccessful civil-service candidate who came under the influence of fundamentalist Christianity. Thinking of himself as a son of God sent to reform China, he helped found the Association of God Worshipers in about 1846. Preaching that all property should be held by the people, he attracted many followers in Guangxi Province. By January 1851, when the rebellion began, Hung's ranks had swelled from several thousand ragged peasants to more than 1 million disciplined and eager soldiers. They took the city of Nanjing in March 1853 and made it their capital. For several years the rebel armies dominated the Yangtze River valley. They failed, however, to take Shanghai, where the defenders were commanded by an American named Frederick Townsend Ward and the British general known as Chinese Gordon. By 1862 the movement was losing steam, weakened by internal strife and defections. Nanjing fell in July 1864 to the army of Gen. Tseng Kuo-fan, and Hung committed suicide. Sporadic resistance continued for four more years.

Late 19th Century Revolutionary ideas and organizations
The reforms that were sponsored by the imperial government were too little and too late. A drastic change was necessary. The idea of overthrowing the Manchus was suggested by Liang Ch'i-ch'ao in his concept of hsin min (new people). Publishing a magazine in Japan, where he had fled after the Hundred Days, Liang called for the Chinese people to renew themselves and also indicated that the Chinese nation was distinct and separate from the ruling dynasty of the Manchus. Although he did not advocate overthrowing the dynasty, the message was quickly picked up by the more radical leaders who were already leaning toward revolution.

One such leader was Sun Yat-sen, who is now revered as the father of modern China by Nationalists and Communists alike. Born into a peasant family near Canton, the traditional stronghold of anti-Manchu rebels, Sun followed a traditional Chinese path during his early years. He was educated in Hawaii, converted to Christianity, and had a short-lived medical career before switching to politics and attempting to propose a reform program to Li Hung-chang in 1894. After forming a secret revolutionary society and plotting an unsuccessful uprising in Canton in 1894, Sun began a long period of exile outside China. He gained wide recognition as a revolutionary leader in 1896, when his arrest in the Chinese legation in London and subsequent rescue were reported sensationally in newspaper articles.

In 1905, in Japan, he brought together several revolutionary groups and formed the Revolutionary Alliance Society. Its program consisted of the now famous Three People's Principles: nationalism, freeing all China from foreign control; democracy, overthrowing the Manchus and introducing a democratic political system; and people's livelihood. Although Sun himself could not live in China, members of the alliance infiltrated many social organizations there. The revolutionary spirit that had been developed by Sun became especially high among students' and soldiers' groups.

The Empress Dowager
TZ'U-HSI (1835-1908). Known in the West as the empress dowager, Tz'u-hsi dominated the political life of China for nearly 50 years. As ruler acting for child emperors, she and her cohorts brought a measure of stability to their nation. But, under her, the government was dishonest and did not make changes that were needed to benefit the people. This eventually led to the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty, which ruled from 1644 to 1911, and a revolution.

Tz'u-hsi was born in Peking on Nov. 29, 1835. She became a consort of the emperor Hsien-feng (ruled 1850-61) and mother of the emperor T'ung-chih. When T'ung-chih became emperor in 1861, he was only 6. She and another consort became co-regents along with a brother of the former emperor. Under this three-way rule the Taiping Rebellion was ended. Other disturbances were put down, and some modernization was brought to China.

Tz'u-hsi gradually increased her power within the ruling coalition, and even when the emperor matured she continued to control the government. After the young emperor's untimely death, she saw to it that her 3-year-old nephew was named as heir, though this violated succession law. Thus the two Dowagers continued acting as regents. The other dowager died--presumably murdered - in 1881, and Tz'u-hsi ruled alone. From 1889 to 1898 she lived in apparent retirement in the summer palace. The new emperor's attempts at reform after losing the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), however, brought her back into action - determined to stave off any changes. In 1899 she backed the officials promoting the Boxer Rebellion. After China's defeat at the hand of foreign troops, she fled the capital and accepted humiliating peace terms. She returned in 1902 and belatedly tried to install the reforms she had once opposed. Before her death, on Nov. 15, 1908, she had the emperor poisoned. His successor was a 2-year old who was forced from the throne four years later.

Boxer Rebellion
In the summer of 1900 members of a secret society roamed northeastern China in bands, killing Europeans and Americans and destroying buildings owned by foreigners. They called themselves I-ho ch'uan, or "Righteous and Harmonious Fists." They practiced boxing skills that they believed made them impervious to bullets. To Westerners they became known as the Boxers, and their uprising was called the Boxer Rebellion.

Most Boxers were peasants or urban thugs from northern China who resented the growing influence of Westerners in their land. They organized themselves in 1898, and in the same year the Chinese government - then ruled by the Qing Dynasty - secretly allied with the Boxers to oppose such outsiders as Christian missionaries and European businessmen. The Boxers failed to drive foreigners out of China, but they set the stage for the successful Chinese revolutionary movement of the early 20th century.

Foreigners had entered China during an era of imperialism. In the late 1800s Great Britain and other European nations, the United States, Russia, and Japan scrambled for spheres of influence there. In some cases they seized Chinese territories, but usually they only sought the riches of trade and commercial enterprise. At the same time, Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries tried to convert the Chinese to Christianity. These outsiders were resented and feared by the Chinese, who saw Western religion and business practices as a threat to their traditional ways.

By May of 1900, Boxers were wandering the countryside and attacking Western missionaries and Chinese converts to Christianity. In June an expeditionary force, made up of Russian, British, German, French, American, and Japanese troops, was organized to proceed to Peking (now Beijing), put down the rebellion, and protect Western nationals.

The Chinese dowager empress Tz'u-hsi, the aunt of Emperor Kuang-hsu, ordered her troops to block the advance of this expedition. The foreigners were turned back. Meanwhile, Boxers were rampaging in Peking, burning down churches and the houses of Westerners, and killing Chinese Christians. Foreign troops then seized Chinese coastal forts to insure access to Peking. Enraged, the dowager empress ordered the death of all foreigners in China. The German minister to China was assassinated, and Boxer rebels began an eight-week attack on the walled foreign compound in Peking. (See Tz'u-hsi) In response, the allied foreign governments sent some 19,000 soldiers to Peking, capturing the city on Aug. 14, 1900. The invaders looted the city and routed the Boxers, while the empress and her court fled to the north. By the time the rebellion ended, at least 250 foreigners had been killed. It took a year for the parties to the conflict to agree on a settlement, which was entitled the Peace of Peking. This protocol, which was signed in September 1901, was dictated by the Western powers and Japan in such a way as to humiliate China. Heavy fines were levied against the Chinese government, and existing commercial treaties were amended in favor of the Western powers.

The foreign coastal defenses were dismantled.

The failure of the Boxer Rebellion to eject the West and the humiliation of the Chinese by the terms of the Peace of Peking generated more support for nationalist revolutionaries. In 1911 the Qing Dynasty collapsed. Revolutionaries led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen then took over the Chinese government, ending more than 2,000 years of monarchy.

14. The Republic of China (1912-1949)

The Revolution of 1911
In the industrial city of Wuhan, a soldiers' group with only a loose connection to Sun's alliance rose in rebellion in the early morning of Oct. 10, 1911 (since celebrated as Double Ten, the tenth day of the tenth month). The Manchu governor and his commander fled, and a Chinese commander, Li Yuan-hung, was pressured into taking over the leadership. By early December all of the central, southern, and northwestern provinces had declared independence. Sun Yat-sen, who was in the United States during the revolution, returned and was chosen head of the provisional government of the Republic of China in Nanjing.

The Manchu court quickly summoned Yuan Shih-kai, the former commander of the reformed Northern Army. Personally ambitious and politically shrewd, Yuan carried out negotiations with both the Manchu court and the revolutionaries. Yuan was able to persuade the Manchus to abdicate peacefully in return for the safety of the imperial family. On Feb. 12, 1912, the regent of the 6-year-old emperor formally announced the abdication. The Manchu rule in China ended after 267 years, and with it the 2,000-year-old imperial system.

Early in March 1912, Sun Yat-sen resigned from the presidency and, as promised, Yuan Shih-kai was elected his successor at Nanjing. Inaugurated in March 1912 in Beijing, the base of his power, Yuan established a republican system of government with a premier, a cabinet, a draft constitution, and a plan for parliamentary elections early in 1913. The Kuomintang (KMT, National People's party), the successor to Sun Yat-sen's organization, was formed in order to prepare for the election.

Despite his earlier pledges to support the republic, Yuan schemed to assassinate his opponents and weaken the constitution and the parliament. By the end of 1914 he had made himself president for life and even planned to establish an imperial dynasty with himself as the first emperor. His dream was thwarted by the serious crisis of the Twenty-one Demands for special privileges presented by the Japanese in January 1915 and by vociferous opposition from many sectors of Chinese society. He died in June 1916 a broken man. After Yuan's death, a number of his protégés took positions of power in the Beijing government or ruled as warlords in outlying regions. In August 1917 the Beijing government joined the Allies and declared war on Germany. At the peace conference in Versailles, France, the Chinese demand to end foreign concessions in China was ignored.

Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925)
Known as the father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen worked to achieve his lofty goals for modern China. These included the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty, the unification of China, and the establishment of a republic.

Sun Yat-sen was born on Nov. 12, 1866, in Guangdong Province and attended several schools, including one in Honolulu, Hawaii, before transferring to a college of medicine in Hong Kong. Graduating in 1892, Sun almost immediately abandoned medicine for politics. His role in an unsuccessful uprising in Canton in 1895 prompted Sun to begin an exile that lasted for 16 years. Sun used this time to travel widely in Japan, Europe, and the United States, enlisting sympathy and raising money for his republican cause. Sun returned to China in 1911 after a successful rebellion in Wuhan inspired uprisings in other provinces. As leader of the Kuomintang, or Nationalist party, Sun was elected provisional president of the newly declared republic but was forced to resign in 1912.

In 1913 his disagreements with government policies led Sun to organize a second revolution. Failing to regain power, Sun left once again for Japan, where he organized a separate government. Sun returned to China and attempted to set up a new government in 1917 and 1921 before successfully installing himself as generalissimo of a new regime in 1923.

Sun increasingly relied on aid from the Soviet Union, and in 1924 he reorganized the Kuomintang on the model of the Soviet Communist party. Sun also founded the Whampoa Military Academy and appointed Chiang Kai-shek as its president. Sun summarized his policies in the Three Principles of the People - nationalism, democracy, and socialism. He died of cancer in Peking on March 12, 1925. Sun's tomb in Nanking is now a national shrine.

The May Fourth Movement

The May Fourth Movement, which grew out of the student uprising, attacked Confucianism, initiated a vernacular style of writing, and promoted science. Scholars of international stature, such as John Dewey and Bertrand Russell, were invited to lecture. Numerous magazines were published to stimulate new thoughts. Toward the end of the movement's existence, a split occurred among its leaders. Some, like Ch'en Tu-hsiu and Li Ta-chao, were beginning to be influenced by the success of the Russian Revolution of 1917, which contrasted sharply with the failure of the 1911 Revolution in China to change the social order and improve conditions. By 1920, people associated with the Comintern (Communist International) were disseminating literature in China and helping to start Communist groups, including one led by Mao Zedong. A meeting at Shanghai in 1921 was actually the first party congress of the Communist Party of China (CCP).

The CCP was so small that the Soviet Union looked elsewhere for a viable political ally. A Comintern agent, Adolph Joffe, was sent to China to approach Sun Yat-sen, who had failed to obtain assistance from Great Britain or the United States. The period of Sino-Soviet collaboration began with the Sun-Joffe Declaration of Jan. 26, 1923. The KMT was recognized by the Soviet Union, and the Communists were admitted as members. With Soviet aid, the KMT army was built up. A young officer, Chiang Kai-shek, was sent to Moscow for training. Upon returning, he was put in charge of the Whampoa Military Academy, established to train soldiers to fight the warlords, who controlled much of China (See Chiang Kai-shek). Zhou Enlai (also Chou En-lai) of the CCP was deputy director of the academy's political department.

Sun Yat-sen, whose power base was in the south, had planned to send an expedition against the northern warlords, but he died before it could get under way. Chiang Kai-shek, who succeeded him in the KMT leadership, began the northern expedition in July 1926. The Nationalist army met little resistance and by April 1927 had reached the lower Yangtze. Meanwhile, Chiang, claiming to be a sincere follower of Sun Yat-sen, had broken with the left-wing elements of the KMT. After the Nationalist forces had taken Shanghai, a Communist-led general strike was suppressed with bloodshed. Following suppressions in other cities, Chiang set up his own government at Nanjing on April 18, 1927. He professed friendship with the Soviet Union, but by July 1927 he was expelling Communists from the KMT. Some left-wingers left for the Soviet Union.

The northern expedition was resumed, and in 1928 Chiang took Peking. China was formally unified. Nationalist China was recognized by the Western powers and supported by loans from foreign banks.

The Nationalist Era (1928-1937)
The Nationalist period began with high hopes and much promise. More could have been accomplished had it not been for the problems of Comintern corruption and Japanese aggression. In his efforts to combat them both, Chiang neglected the land reform needed to improve the lives of the peasants. Driven from the cities, the Communists concentrated on organizing the peasants in the countryside. On Nov. 1, 1931, they proclaimed the establishment of the Chinese Soviet Republic in the southeastern province of Jiangxi, with Mao Zedong as chairman. Here the first units of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army were formed. While conducting guerrilla warfare in these regions, the soldiers carried out an agrarian revolution that was based on Mao's premise that the best way to win the conflict was to isolate the cities by gaining control of the countryside and the food supply.

A military man by temperament and training, Chiang sought to eliminate the Communists by force. He defined his anti-Communist drive as "internal pacification before resistance to external attack," and he gave it more importance than opposition to the increasingly aggressive Japanese. With arms and military advisers from Nazi Germany, Chiang carried out a series of "extermination campaigns" that killed about a million people between 1930 to 1934. Chiang's fifth campaign, involving over half a million troops, almost annihilated the Communists. Faced with the dilemma of being totally destroyed in Jiangxi or attempting an almost impossible escape, the Communists decided to risk the escape. On Oct. 15, 1934, they broke through the tight KMT siege. Over 100,000 men and women set out on the Long March of about 6,000 miles (9,600 kilometers) through China's most rugged terrain to find a new base in the northwest.

In the meantime, the Japanese had made steady inroads into China. The Mukden Incident of 1931, through which Mukden was occupied by the Japanese, was initiated by Japanese officers stationed along the South Manchurian Railway. This was followed by the occupation of Manchuria and the creation of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932. By the mid-1930s the Japanese had seized Inner Mongolia and parts of northeastern China and had created the North China Autonomous Region with no resistance from the Nationalists. Anti-Japanese sentiment mounted in China, but Chiang ignored it and in 1936 launched yet another extermination campaign against the Communists in Shaanxi. Chiang was forced to give up the anti-Communist drive when his troops mutinied and arrested him as he arrived in Xian in December 1936 to plan strategy. He was released after he agreed to form a united front with the CCP against the Japanese, who were making steady inroads into China.

In China, World War II broke out on July 7, 1937, with a seemingly insignificant little battle between Chinese and Japanese troops near Peking, called the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Within a few days, the Japanese had occupied Peking, and the fighting spread rapidly. The war in China fell into three stages. The first (1937-1939) was characterized by the phenomenally rapid Japanese occupation of most of China's east coast, including such major cities as Shanghai, Nanjing, and Canton. The Nationalist government moved to the interior, ultimately to Chongqing in Sichuan, and the Japanese established puppet governments in Peking in 1937 and in Nanjing in 1940. The second stage (1939-1943) was a period of waiting, as Chiang blockaded the Communists in the northwest (despite the united front) and waited for help from the United States, which had declared war on Japan in 1941.

In the final stage (1944-1945), the United States provided massive assistance to Nationalist China, but the Chongqing government, weakened by inflation, impoverishment of the middle class, and low troop morale was unable to take full advantage of it. Feuds among the KMT generals and between Chiang and his United States military adviser, General Joseph Stilwell, further hampered the KMT.

When Japanese defeat became a certainty in the spring of 1945, the Communists seemed in a better position to take over from the Japanese garrisons than the KMT, which was far away in the rear of the formation. A United States airlift of KMT troops enabled them to occupy many cities, but the countryside stayed with the Communists.

After the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945, the Allied war effort moved to the east. The Soviet Union joined the war against Japan at the end of July. On August 6 and 9 the United States dropped the world's first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On Aug. 14, 1945, the Japanese surrendered. In China, however, civil war raged over who should take charge of the Japanese arms and equipment. At the end of August an agreement was reached in Chongqing between a CCP delegation and the KMT, but the truce was brief.

In January 1946 a cease-fire was negotiated by United States General George C. Marshall. The Nationalist government returned to Nanjing, and China was recognized by the new United Nations as one of the five great powers. The United States supplied the Chiang government with an additional $2 billion ($1.5 billion had been spent for the war). Although the KMT's dominance in weapons and supplies was enormous, it was kept under guard in the cities, while the Communists held the surrounding countryside. As inflation soared, both civilians and the military became demoralized. The CCP, sensing the national mood, proposed a coalition government. The KMT refused, and fighting erupted again.

The short and decisive civil war that followed was resolved in two main places: Manchuria and the Huai River area. Despite a massive airlift of KMT forces by the United States, Manchuria was lost in October 1948 after 300,000 KMT forces surrendered to the CCP. By the end of 1948 the KMT had lost over half a million men, more than two thirds of whom had defected. In April 1949 the Communists moved south of the Yangtze.

After the fall of Nanjing and Shanghai, KMT resistance evaporated. By the autumn, the Communists had taken all mainland territories except Tibet. Chiang Kai-shek and a number of his associates fled to the island of Taiwan, where they set up what they claimed was the rightful government of China.

15. The People's Republic of China
On Oct. 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The CCP hailed its takeover of China as a people's victory over and liberation from imperial domination (especially that of the United States) and the oppressive KMT regime. The Red Army was renamed the People's Liberation Army.
Land reform
One of the first tasks of the Communist government was land reform, redistributing land from landlords to the peasants. The Agrarian Law of 1950 began the nationwide land reform, which was almost completed by the beginning of 1953.

Social reform

Thought reform
Believing that the revolution could not be carried on without reform of people, the CCP launched a massive campaign to change China's entire psychology. The Four Olds campaign was launched to eradicate old ideas, habits, customs, and culture. The Three Anti's movement was directed at officials, with the aim of eliminating corruption, waste, and "bureaucratism." The Five Anti's campaign, directed at the remaining businessmen and bourgeoisie, opposed bribery, tax fraud, cheating, and stealing state property and economic information. For Chinese Christians, The Three Selfs movement stressed self-government, self-support, and self-propagation, the object being to separate the churches in China from their parent denominations abroad. The idea of cultural imperialism was extended to art and literature, which henceforth were to serve the people, the class struggle, and the revolution.

Economic planning

Similarly, 80 percent of heavy industry and 40 percent of light industry were in government hands by October 1952. The government also controlled all the railways and most steamship operations. To speed China's development even more, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and others, after overcoming some opposition within the leadership, launched the Great Leap Forward in 1958.

The Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward was designed to overcome the backwardness of China's economy, industry, and technology. It was to be achieved through use of the vast manpower and indomitable spirit of the Chinese. Steel production was to be increased by setting up small-scale "backyard furnaces," and agricultural output was to be raised by combining the collective farms into communes. About 26,000 communes were created by the Communist government, each composed of approximately 5,000 households.

After a year, the leaders admitted that the success of the program had been exaggerated. The steel produced by the backyard furnaces was of low quality, and the quantity fell short of the projected goal. The people's reluctance to join communes was stronger than expected, and the size of the communes had to be reduced. Domestic life in homes, as well as private plots for family use, had to be restored. The effect of the Great Leap Forward on the people and the economy was devastating. Coupled with three straight years of poor harvests, it resulted in a severe food shortage and industrial decline. For the next several years, while lip service was paid to Mao's thought and to Great Leap-type activism, the real power was in more conservative hands.

Photo to the left - circa 1958: During the "Great Leap Forward" period local officials exaggerated the harvest stating that peanuts grew so large that local farmers could use them "as a boat to cross the Yellow River".

The Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a radical movement that closed schools, slowed production, and virtually severed China's relations with the outside world. It was proletarian because it was a revolution of the workers against party officials. It was cultural because it meant to alter the values of society in the Communist sense. It was great, because it was on a mammoth scale. It lasted for two years in its intense form, lingered on for another year and a half, and was not officially declared over until 1977.

The Cultural Revolution had its roots in a power struggle between Mao and his supporters, including his wife, Jiang Qing, and Lin Biao - who believed that the initial fervor of the revolution was being lost - and more conservative, bureaucratic elements within the leadership. One point at issue was the educational system, and particularly the fact that urban youth (especially the children of privileged officials) appeared to have a better chance of getting a university education than the children of rural peasants. Mao feared that Chinese society was becoming rigid, and to prevent this he relied for support on the military and on youth.

In the summer of 1966, a group of Beijing high school girls protested against the system of college entrance examinations. The Central Committee acceded to the students' demand by promising a reform and postponing the 1966 enrollment for half a year. Freed from their studies, students demonstrated in Beijing in August, touching off demonstrations of young people in general. Obviously inspired by Mao, youths wearing red armbands and flashing copies of the "little red book" containing Mao's thought (`Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong'), marched through the streets shouting the slogan, "To bypass the Communist party apparatus and force the hierarchy's political foes into submission." These Red Guards, as they were called, were given free railway passes, and they poured into Beijing and other cities in great numbers throughout 1967.

In early 1967 some of the highest ranking leaders, former close revolutionary associates of Mao himself, were criticized and dismissed. Liu Shaoqi, who had been president of the republic, Zhu De, and Deng Xiaoping were among the better known victims. Even Confucius was attacked as having been a hypocritical supporter of the bourgeoisie. Throughout the country, revolutionary committees sprang up, seized power from the local government and party authorities, and harassed - and in some cases attacked - those suspected of being disloyal to Mao's thought.


The Cultural Revolution greatly affected the CCP leadership. When the long-postponed ninth congress of the CCP was finally convened in April 1969, two thirds of the old members of the Central Committee were missing. Mao's attempt to maintain a state of permanent revolution had been immensely costly. Years of work and progress were sacrificed: A whole generation of youth went without education; factories and farms lay idle. China fell even further behind the industrialized powers of the world. As the Cultural Revolution died down, Zhou Enlai, who had been premier since the founding of the People's Republic, quietly took control. Deng Xiaoping and other "pragmatic" leaders were reestablished. The party and government relaxed their control over the people and granted certain civil rights in a new constitution adopted in 1975.

Chairman Mao (1893-1976)
Mao was born on Dec. 26, 1893, in Shaoshan, Hunan Province. His father was a peasant who had become successful as a grain dealer. Mao's schooling was intermittent. During the Revolution of 1911-12 he served in the army for six months. After that he drifted for a while without goals, but he managed to graduate from the First Provincial Normal School in Changsha in 1918. He then went to Peking University, where he became embroiled in the revolutionary May Fourth Movement. This movement marked the decisive turn in Chinese revolutionary thought in favor of Marxist Communism as a solution to China's problems.

In 1921 Mao helped found the Chinese Communist party. He was at that time a school principal in Hunan. Two years later, when the Communists forged an alliance with Sun Yat-sen's Nationalist party (the Kuomintang), he left work to become a full-time revolutionary. It was at this time that Mao discovered the great potential of the peasant class for making revolution. This realization led him to the brilliant strategy he used to win control of China: gain control of the countryside and encircle the cities.

The Communists and the Nationalists coexisted in an uneasy relationship until the end of World War II. The Nationalist leader after 1925 was Chiang Kai-shek, who was determined to rule China. He never trusted the Communists, and at times he persecuted them. Mao's first wife was executed by the Nationalists in 1930.

The Chinese Soviet Republic was founded in November 1931 in Jiangxi Province. In 1934 Mao and his forces were driven out, and they went northward in what is known as the Long March. By 1935, however, the Communists and Nationalists forged a united front against the Japanese. Rivalry persisted, but the front held until 1945. The revolution that then began ended in 1949 with the Communists victorious.

In addition to his problems with the Nationalists, Mao's dealings with the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin were always uneasy. Stalin grew wary of a competing Communist power of China's size on the Soviet borders. Mao eventually came to regard the Soviets as revisionists and felt they were traitors to the cause of world revolution.

Mao's title as ruler of China was chairman of the People's Republic. For the first five years he rarely appeared in public and seemed to be only a ceremonial figure. He never achieved the total control in China that Stalin did in the Soviet Union. Many of his comrades were influential in directing policy, often in ways with which Mao disagreed. In 1955 he emerged from isolation determined to play the decisive role in economic policy and political restructuring.

Failing to gain the allegiance of the intellectuals, he turned to the masses with a program called the Great Leap Forward. While not a complete economic disaster, it had severe consequences. After it disrupted both city and countryside, he was forced to retreat from his policies in favor of his opponents. To counter opposition he launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, urged on by his radical wife, Jiang Qing. This vast upheaval wrecked the Communist party bureaucracy, paralyzed education and research, and left the economy almost a shambles.

Only slowly did China begin to recover. By then Mao was old and ill. Other, more moderate hands guided policy. Zhou Enlai seemed to emerge as the nation's real leader when relations were reestablished with the United States.

Mao's personality cult remained strong until his death on Sept. 9, 1976. Shortly afterward, however, a power struggle was under way. Members of the party who had been purged by the Cultural Revolution returned to govern China. Chief among them was Deng Xiaoping.

16. Post-Mao China
The year 1976 marked the end of an era. Zhou Enlai died in January. Zhu De, who as chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress had been serving as nominal head of state, died in July. Finally, Mao himself, the chairman of the party and the embodiment of the revolution, died in September. Although many elderly leaders remained in positions of power, the old guard - the veterans of the Long March and the civil war - was clearly passing from the scene.

There were no provisions for automatic succession. At one time, Lin Biao had been Mao's designated successor, but Lin had died under mysterious circumstances in 1971. The stage was set for a power struggle, with the initial advantage going to the radical faction. Zhou's death left the moderate pragmatists in a weakened position, and Deng Xiaoping, as their most visible leader, came under immediate attack.

In April the people staged an unusual demonstration to protest the removal, by the police, of memorial wreaths honoring Zhou from Beijing's Tiananmen (the Gate of Heavenly Peace leading to the old Forbidden City). With this as an excuse, the radicals blamed Deng for the disorders and dismissed him from office. But the radicals, in turn, lost their protector when Mao died. Within a month, the "Gang of Four" radical leaders, including Jiang Qing; Mao's widow, were arrested, and Deng was reinstated once again. The Gang of Four were subsequently tried and convicted of various crimes against the state. They became a convenient scapegoat for the new leadership, which did not wish to blame China's ills on Mao directly.

In the following years, the pragmatists consolidated their position. Although he did not take any of the main party or government positions, Deng emerged as the outstanding figure within the leadership. An elderly man himself, he brought in younger men who shared his views. The new policies were confirmed in the party and state constitutions adopted in 1982. These included accelerating China's economic development by the best possible means; for example, by rewarding good work, even if this resulted in some inequalities in society. Steps were also taken to prevent the concentration of power that had marked Mao's time. Thus, the new state constitution limited state leaders to two consecutive terms.

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