Ch. 9 East Asia 600 - 1450

China = Tang and Song Dynasties

Japan = Feudalism

China between600 - 1200

Song Dynasty, ChinaChang’an - capital

Huangzhou - capital

Big Picture Changes

•Changes include an increase and concentration of wealth in China

•Intensification of cross-cultural exchanges

•Innovations in transportation and commerce

•Influence of pastoral, nomadic culture of Central Asia

What specific items on your ID List support each of these big trends?

“In the east, in days gone by, when the hazards of travel were many and the comforts were few, travelers often banded together in caravans for protection. Stopping places for the caravans were called caravanserais…and they were a place to sit around a fire at night and exchange stories…In the day, travelers…might see each other only as silhouettes wavering in the heat haze. At night, under the starry sky, they could come together again…to the travelers, the caravanserais were a cheerful source of news, companionship and entertainment.”

Source: Nawab Pasnak

What were caravanserais and what impact might they have had on what regions?

Sui Dynasty

589 - 618

• reunites China

• builds Grand Canal

• connects Yangzi and Huang He Rivers

• will facilitate internal trade between northern and southern China

• will facilitate political and cultural unity, allowing Chinese hegemony during later Tang era

Tang Dynasty

618 - 907

• Tang emperors and nobles descended from the Turks. Significance of influence of Central Asian culture:

• Buddhism

• strong military tradition - horses

• Capital - Chang’an - cosmopolitan - one of the largest cities

• Tang Era - one of the greatest eras of Chinese history

• How did they come to rule? experts at horse warfare which included the use of the stirrup in military expeditions

Tang Government• Ruled over Turkic tribes in the north

• tribes became vassals of Tang rulers

• daughters of Turkic leaders married off to Tang rulers

• sons of Turkic leaders sent to Chang’an to “study” became hostages

• Extended rule over Korea and Vietnam

• Korean kingdoms defeated in war - Silla kingdom - becomes a tributary state - China’s vassal - woodblock printing invented in China but Koreans advanced printing by inventing movable type printing which impacts China - Confucianism and Buddhism introduced to Korea from China

• Vietnam also became a tributary state - loyal vassal to China - Champa rice introduced to China from Vietnam and Confucianism and Buddhism introduced to Vietnam from China

• Ambassadors of tributary states had to perform the kowtow ceremony (a deep bow before the Chinese emperor in which the forehead touched the ground)

Tang Government

• How did Tang emperors establish hegemony over east Asia?

• They ruled with an elaborate bureaucracy made up of the scholar-gentry class which diminished the power of the land-holding aristocrats.

• To become a bureaucrat you had to pass a Confucianist civil service exam.

• What does the word hegemony mean? control

Emperor

scholar-gentry classaristocrats

peasantsmerchants

Xuanzang• Chinese Buddhist monk and traveler• Popularized Buddhism in China when he travelled to India in 645 C.E. and brought back hundreds of Buddhist texts• Buddhist monasteries and temples could not be taxed

(shuanjang)

Decline of Tang

•Neglectful, inefficient emperors

•rebellions from peasants

•Uighurs, nomads, attack Chang’an

•emperors granted more and more power to regional military commanders.

Song Era960 - 1127 Northern

Song1127 - 1279 Southern

Song

The scholar-gentry class continued to make up the emperor’s bureaucracy.

A civil service examination based on Confucianism continued to be given in order to select the civil servants.

Capital cities were trading cities and government centers.

Commerce and Industry of the Song era

• steel

• gunpowder

• movable type printing

• large ships called junks

• small compass suitable for navigation

• credit - “flying money” - paper could be redeemed for coins

• Commercial transactions were facilitated by the use of paper money, a Chinese innovation in the 11th c.

• Government will print too much leading to inflation

• Champa rice from Vietnam (originally from India) will sustain large population. First brought to China as a tribute gift to the Song Court.

Ideology of the Song Era

Neo-Confucianism•Neo-Confucianism was the ideology of the

Song era.

•Neo-Confucianists promoted formal education.

•Neo-Confucianists emphasized traditions that reinforced class, age and gender distinctions.

•Neo-Confucianists emphasized a male-dominated hierarchy.

Status of women •The practice of foot binding began during the Song era.•It spread only among elite women.•It was a sign of female subordination during the late Song period. It restricted women by making it difficult and painful to go too far away from their home.

Japan

Environment: Japan is mountainous and in earlier times was heavily forested. Only 11 percent of its land area was suitable for cultivation.

Taika Reforms - What they borrowed:

• Borrowed ideas from China received through their embassies in Chang’an

• Included:

• a legal code

• Confucianism

• reverence for Buddhism

• Impact on Japan: create a centralized government

Taika reforms - What they did not

borrow:•Mandate of Heaven = Japanese dynasty

never changed

•Emperors all came from the one and only dynasty of Japan and were not as powerful as Chinese emperors as Shinto leaders held tremendous power.

•Religion: Indigenous belief: Shintoism

Japan - status of women

• Influence of Confucianism = lowers women’s status in Japan

• Elite women lived in isolation so they dedicated their time to Buddhism and poetry, diaries and...here comes first novel:

Year: 1021

Heian Period of Japanese History794 - 1185

Heian Era: 794 - 1185• 794 the government moves to Kyoto - called Heian during this time

• Fujiwara family controlled and protected the emperor - they were priests, bureaucrats and warriors

• Pursuit of an aesthetic life of poetry and art leads them to leave the day-to-day activities of local governing and collecting taxes to the warriors - by 1100’s warriors had become wealthy and powerful

=

Feudal Japan

Kamakura Shogunate begins 1185