Thursday October 7, 2010

Qin and Han dynasties

• Historically, Han controlled part of modern North Korea and part of north Vietnam.
• In Qin, only imperial positions were hereditary.
• Qin was the last of the warring states. The First emperor? Ch'in Shih-Huang, meaning, first emperor of Qin.
• Qin falls in 206. Collapses because of its harshness. The people became weary. They wore the people down.
• Sima Qian tells a story of how the end of Qin began.
• Ch’in Shih-Huang had become bored after unifying China and probably developed a depression. Therefore, he becomes obsessed with finding immortality and decides that mercury would make him immortal. Probably dies of mercury poisoning.
• He craves protection and wants it badly. He visited his tomb while still in construction. There was a massive dome inside the tomb and on top of the dome, were painted constellations. There was a river of mercury and the emperor’s coffin was placed on a sea of “mercury”. The main entrance of the tomb is rigged with crossbows and almost all of the tomb workers were sealed inside of the tomb by the government. Then, dirt was placed on top of the tomb to look like a huge hill. Is this a myth? No. In the 1970’s, Yang Yi the peasant finds this tomb.
• Yang Yi discovers a trench underneath his land while digging for a well. Inside, he discovers the outer ring of the tomb of the Qin emperor. There are hundreds of teracotta soldiers placed there. They had been buried for 2000 years and not one of them looks alike.
• Archaeologists had no idea that these soldiers were a part of the tomb.
• The theory goes that the teracotta soldiers were modeled after real soldiers and were then placed around the tomb to protect the emperor.
• They continue to dig and unearth many many many more. Alberta was supposed to get an exhibition of these soldiers but China is mad at Alberta right now…
• A nearby hill is proven to be the tomb of Ch’in Shih-Huang. After prodding the hill, archaeologists have found that the hill has 100 times the natural amount of mercury than anywhere else.
• After the death of the Qin emperor, there was a brief civil war, between 2 main men. Liu Bang- an unrefined commoner and peasant. He was illiterate and had the gift of leadership. Many people were extremely loyal to him. He was a peasant and knew of the problems that the people had. Then, there was Xiang Yu. He was old family aristocracy. Was from the state of Chu. Between 206 and 202, the civil war arose and it was brief but intense.
• Liu Bang wins, Xiang Yu was surrounded and took his own life- slits his own throat. In 202, Liu Bang founds the Han and endures for 400 years. From 202 B.C- 220 A.D.

The Myth of the Great wall of China..

• Many textbooks claim that Ch’in Shih-Huang built the wall to keep barbarians out. This is more than likely, not so.
• There are walls all over the place in China, and the Qin did build a wall, but is it what we see today? Probably not.
• Our assumption has been that the wall has existed in one place, at one time, for all time. Unfortunately, chinese imperial records never mention the wall.
• Late 1400’s and 1500’s Ming dynasty built the modern wall.
• The construction of the wall never becomes a big deal during Ming times.
• The wall becomes a sign of Chinese strength after the Jesuits arrive duringt he late 1500’s.
• 1644-1912: The Chinese appropriate the wall as a sign of China’s greatness during the last dynasty.
• The wall is not ancient, and is never really a border dividing the nomads and the urban life.
• Did the wall ever work? For a time, it kept the mongols out.
• HOWEVER- in 1644, the Manchu’s got over the wall and conquered all of China for the 2^nd time.
• The Yuen dynasty was also a Manchurian dynasty.
• Can you see it from orbit? No, that is not true. No american astronaut has ever claimed to see it from space.
• The notion that you would be able to see it from space, came from Ripley’s believe it or not. In 1930, they published a cartoon about what they thought would be visible from space. They concluded that it was the great wall.
• The notion also came from the early 1900’s when people were terrified of mars. They likened the wall to the non-existent “canals” visible on mars.
• Taikonaut- chinese word for astronaut.
• The wall is visible from google earth with magnification but not visible with the naked eye from space.

What to see when in China?

• The great wall
• The forbidden city
• The teracotta soldiers

Hsiung-nu

• Qin and Han China are terrified by these barbarians. At the same time China was unifying, so were they.
• They are pastoral nomads. They hunter and gather, then farm.
• There was much steppe- good grassland- available for farming.
• These people were raised on horseback and are the worlds best horsemen. They are deadly people for China’s infantry army.
• These people were from Mongolia and are also called the Hans.
• They are committed to their lifestyle and they don’t like heat and humidity.
• For a nomad, seeing a China farmer scratching in the mud is a miserable life. They would NEVER want a life like that.
• They like being high on their horses and seeing a lot of their country.
• They know intuitively that their diet is not a very good one. They want the grain that the Chinese people are growing.
• They waited until October after the harvest, when the Chinese were tired, and then raided them. Why trade when you can raid?
• Did China unify because of the Hsiung-nu or did the Hsiung-nu get together as a response to a unified China? Who knows.
• The Hsiung-nu are a headache for the security of Qin and Han China.
• In 200, or 201, Liu Bang tries attacking the Hsiung-nu and barely escapes with his life.

The rise of the Han

• The Hsiung-nu don't really attack China in massive ways. They instead bully China into trading and the Chinese pay up.
• Qin’s taxes were ⅔ of the crop.
• Liu bang decreases that to 1/15 of the crop.
• He tells the chinese to have more kids because they are peaceful and prospering- so the people do.
• He also drastically reduces the number of crimes that demanded the death penalty.
• There is a campaign in early Han to recover the lost works of Confucius. They conduct this effort for some decades and they result in a fragmentary reconstruction of Confucius’ thought.
• Liu Bang was generous and decent and the people liked him. Han dynasty named after the river. He called of military campaigns as well.
• He gets several things from the legalist Qin and he is a practical man. They look at the basic structure of Qin government and they like it. He keeps all of it.
• He looks at the law, doesn't like it, but reluctantly recognize that there has to be some sort of laws in place. Part of their laws are Qin laws.
• The Qin did the dirty work and the Han comes along and looks great.
• The Hsiung-nu threat is basically the threat that the Han have to face.

The apogee of Han power.

• During the year 2 A.D, the population of Han is at 60 million. Their territory and population is far bigger than the Roman empire.
• The state exists in Han China to.. #1- to provide domestic peace. #2- to provide security against foreign threat and #3- to maintain a magnificent capital city to make the emperor and his family happy- and also to impress the diplomats that came form abroad.
• During the Han, people are recruited on values of Confucian heartedness. They are a Confucius state. Having a good heart was important and that came about through Confucian values. Letters of recommendation were required but too many glowing reviews were being received.
• Therefore, this is when the state-wide civil exams came into effect. This exam gives the Chinese government what they want.
• For Confucians, a just man will make just decisions. Han China grows wealthy and along comes a man.. Name emperor Wu.

The career of Emperor Wu Di (147- 87 B.C.)

• Comes to the throne and he is a great expansionist. He turns China into and empire. He engages in imperialism.
• He expands their territory in 4 directions. Expands into N.Korea, N.Vietnam, and into Uzbekistan. That is the silk road and China wants it. The most difficult is into the north towards the Hsiung-nu.
• Wu Di officially proclaims Confucianism as the state ideology.
• During the beginning of the Han dynasty, the Hsiung-nu constantly tried to provoke Liu bang to fight.
• Along the silk road, there were caravans that brought chinese silk back to the mediterranean. For that road to be open, there had to be political stability and so, they (the Hsiung-nu) collected passage fees to avoid thieves.
• Wu Di decides that their first business is to take as much silk road away from the Hsiung-nu as possible.
• He does this and even expands into Mongolia- which is dangerous.
• He begins to train his own horseback riders and he attacks the steppes (Mongolia) during March when it is the coldest there. The animals are weak and the mongolians will move and do what they want. They should become weak that way.
• However, a cycle begins. Hsiung-nu attacking in October and China attacking in March. Gradually, they are weakened, the silk road falls into the hands of the Han and they Hsiung-nu back off.
• Salt and iron become government monopolies. Wu Di does that because he uses the money to fund his expansion campaigns.
• He institutes a program of soak the rich taxation, but never do it to the peasants.
• Han China nearly bankrupts itself doing this, but after Wu Di dies, the Hsiung-nu finally submit to China. Han China eventually wins out for a time.