China Flashcards
Make a basic timeline of Chinese history through the beginnings of the Han dynasty (this is to understand the chronological order of the early Chinese dynasties)
The Shang……..The Zhou………Warring States………The Qin……The Han
How were both the basic needs of the government and more lavish luxuries paid for?
Agriculture produced the wealth and taxes that supported the institutions of imperial China. The main tax, a percentage of the annual harvest, funded government activities ranging from the luxurious lifestyle of the royal court to the daily tasks of officials and military units.
During the early Han period, how did the population shift?
The population shifted from 12 million households and 60 million people to the later, not quite 10 million households and 49 million people.
What public works projects did the government undertake?
Building palaces, temples, fortifications, and roads; transporting goods; excavating and maintaining canal channels; laboring on imperial estates; or working in mines.
How did the Han ethnicity become the dominant ethic group in China?
As the Han Chinese expanded into new regions, they took along their social organization, values, language, and other cultural practices.
What do we know of the role of women in Han China? How does this compare to their role in other civilizations?
Confucian ethics stressed the impropriety of women participating in public life. Duties included: cook the five grains, heat the wine, look after her parents-in-law, make clothes. In other civilizations women were allowed to have some kind of social life, but in China they were only allowed to do their duties.
What type of society did Shi Huangdi and Li Si create?
They created a totalitarian structure that subordinated the individual to the needs of the state. They got rid of Confucianism, and created a stream of political thought know as Legalism.
What is the contribution of the Emperor Wu to Han history?
launched a period of military expansion. Controlling the newly acquired territories was expensive, however, so Wu’s successors curtailed further expansion.
Why do you think the Chinese emperors lived in seclusion? How did the government function without the physical presence of the emperor?
I think Chinese emperors chose to live in seclusion, so that he could focus on his own life and not have to worry about his empire. Also I think it was so that he could really connect with the Gods. The government was run by a prime minister, a civil service director, and nine ministers with military, economic, legal, and religious responsibilities. This was how the empire functioned properly without the emperor because you had so many other qualified officials to do the work for you.
Could a young man of humble means rise in their social standing? How is this tied to the adoption of Daoism among the common people?
Yes, a young man of humble means could rise in their social standing. Daoism emphasized the search of the Dao, or “path” of nature and the value of harmonizing with the cycles and patterns of the natural world. It urged passive acceptance of the disorder of the world, denial of ambition, contentment with simple pleasures, and trust in one’s own instincts.
What did the Han create that was more advanced than what was being produced in Rome?
The Chinese hammered ores with a higher carbon content to produce steel, and they mastered the technique of liquefying iron and pouring it into molds. Whereas Roman blacksmiths produced wrought-iron tools and weapons by hammering heated iron.
In what ways did the Han and the Romans create similar technologies?
Both of these places created roads to expedite the movement of troops, and it became a highway of commerce and the thoroughfares by which imperial culture spread.
Why did the Han dynasty end, and what happened in China when it did?
Factional intrigues within the ruling clan, official corruption and inefficiency, uprisings of desperate and hungry peasants, the spread of banditry, attacks by nomadic groups on the northwest frontier, and the ambitions of rural warlords. China entered a period of political fragmentation and economic and cultural regression that lasted until the rise of the Sui and Tang.
