Dynasty #1: Shang Dynasty
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Bronze Age
Capital City: When archaeologists were excavating in 1928, archaeologists were excavating, they found the Shang capital city. The city included a palace, temple, workshops for artisans, houses, and workshops for things like workshops for carpenters, metalworkers, masonists,cobblers, and things like that, and burial sites The palace was sitting on an elevated platform. The palace was held up by wooden posts and mud plastered walls for a foundation. Beneath the foundation, there were bones suggesting human sacrifices were made. They also found 9 royal tombs, each containing a large pit and ramps. This suggested that when a king was buried, cattle,servants, and other animals were sacrificed. Treasures were also found in tombs.
Hierarchy: At the top of the hierarchy was the king, then nobles, below them the artisans, after that the traders, second lowest the farmers, and lowest of all the slaves.
Writing: Like most early writing, the Shang dynasty had pictures for words and the writing helped unify ancient China. The upper class used the same type writing. Art: The Shang produced remarkable jade pieces. They believed that jade reflected a person. The hardness of a jade represents a person’s wisdom and smoothness and shininess represents the kindness. |
Starting in 1700 B.C.E and ending in 1122 B.C.E, the Shang dynasty was in a time where rival clans frequently fought one another. Sometimes, one clan got enough power so that a dynasty was formed. This is what happened to the Shang dynasty.
Government: The king was the head of the kingdom. To expand his empire, the king had little kingdoms led by his cousins and brothers and nephews. All the kings of the little kingdoms participated in warfare. Prisoners of war were used as slaves or sacrifices.
Warfare: The Shang were one of the first to discover bronze which gave them a huge advantage. The Shang armies were made up of foot soldiers, archers, men on horses, elephants, chariot fighters, and cart riders. The driver stool in the middle with a spear man to his left and archer to the right. Technology: The Shang made spearheads, axes, arrowheads, helmets, and other tools. This enabled them to stay in power for 500 years.
Downfall: In 1045 B.C.E, a minor state, the Zhou, rose up against the Shang dynasty and defeated them. |
Dynasty #2: Qin Dynasty
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Bronze Age
Government: Qin was influenced greatly by Legalism as a ruler. To avoid bishops, he replaced the old Feudalism system with his own government. How it worked is that there were 36 sections of the empire. Each section had 3 officials. One governor, one to oversee agriculture, and one to report to the emperor what was happening in that district. Qin began to standardize the cultural practices across the country. One key was to unify laws. Officials were punished if the granaries weren't filled or a wall under supervision collapsed. Some laws also governed lifestyle, like a widow couldn't remarry. Rich and poor were treated with the same punishments. Some punishments were fines, other were physical punishments. Physical punishments included beheading, forced labor and whippings. Fines were paid in shields, armor, or gold. The emperor standardized money by ordering only bronze or gold were to be accepted on courts. He also standardized and simplified writings. He burned all books except books about medicine, farming, and history.
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The Zhou dynasty led to turmoil until the Qin dynasty. The Qin dynasty rose to power after defeating the Zhou dynasty with military might,bribes,spies, and allies to conquer the remaining opposing states. Prince Zheng, ruler of the Qin dynasty,decided to rename himself Qin Shi Huangdi, or first Emperor of Qin.
The Great Wall: To protect the northern border, the emperor orders the 10,000 li long wall to be built ( one li is a third of a mile), later to be known as the Great Wall. The great wall was built out of pounded earth in wooden frames. 300,000 men were forced to help build the great wall facing swamps deserts, bitter cold winter, and blazing hot summer. The Great Wall connected walls in villages by building a wall. The wall was effective. Nomad raiders couldn’t jump over the wall with horses and couldn’t herd cattle so after they scaled the wall, they had no supplies and were horseless. Tens of thousands of men died to build it.
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The end of the Qin dynasty: When Qin died, the dynasty was plunged into chaos as rebellion broke out.
Dynasty #3. The Han Dynasty
about them
Iron Age
Medicine: The Chinese believed that when you are sick, there was an imbalance of yin and yang. To cure this, medics used needles inserted into points in the body to cure illnesses that appear quickly like a headache, and used a mix of herbs and burned that on or near the skin to cure long-term diseases like arthritis. They also learned to listen to a person’s heartbeat to judge their health and learned about the circulatory system.
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Warfare: The Han dynasty had a large army of 130,000-1,300,000 25-26 year old soldiers. Advances in iron made it so better armor with chain link and longer swords made out of iron so that soldiers could kill their enemy from a longer distance. The Han also favored the crossbow as a weapon and used kites to send messages and frighten enemy soldiers by attaching bamboo sticks to the kite to make ghastly noises.
Industry: The two biggest industries in the Han dynasties were silk and salt. The Chinese developed a foot powered loom to boost silk production and learned to mine salt from the ground using a bamboo stick with a valve.
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Government: Gradually, they softened the punishments and harsh governments and brought Confucian ideas into the government. They had a bureaucracy, meaning that they operate using a set of rules and conditions, with each group in the hierarchy ordering the lower class in the hierarchy what to do. The highest level in the hierarchy lives in the capitol as the emperor’s advisers while the lower people is the hierarchy lived spread throughout China. To become officials men had to pass a difficult exam instead of being born into a royal line like before the Han dynasty. Once hired, official can’t serve their own district to prevent cheating.
Science: The two main scientific discoveries and innovations were the compass and the seismograph. The Chinese thought the needle pointed south and it became a holy direction. The seismograph had eight balls and animal heads. The seismograph allowed them to detect and earthquake from hundreds of miles away.
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The Han dynasty lasted for 426 years created in 206 B.C.E and falling at 220 A.D. After the first ruler to unify China, Qin Shihuangdi died, rebels rose and created the Han dynasty, rising is a period of chaos in China.
Agriculture: Han farmers, expected to feed their families and fill the granaries while facing droughts and floods destroying roads and crops. Helpful inventions helped the farmers cope with this like the chain pump which helped move water down and the used pedals to turn a wheel with wooden planks to help move the water uphill. Iron plows designed to the Han were designed to move dirt behind it to not mess the rows up as well as the invention of the wheelbarrow to carry huge loads.
Hierarchy: according to Totally History ,”The society of the Han Dynasty can generally be described as highly structured with a clear definition of each social class. Han China was comprised of a three-tiered social system. Aristocrats and bureaucrats were at the top of this hierarchy followed by skilled laborers like farmers and iron workers. The bottom tier consisted of unskilled laborers such as servants and slaves. The emperor was at the top of the whole hierarchy.’’
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