Between 400-1280 CE, China was ruled by the Sui, Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties. The Sui reunified China after years of war and built the Grand Canal for transportation. The Tang expanded the empire and saw economic growth through trade. The Song led a prosperous period but faced invaders from the north. In 1279, Kublai Khan and the Mongols conquered China and established the Yuan Dynasty, ruling from Beijing until 1368 when the Ming Dynasty took over. Confucianism was the dominant ideology while Buddhism and Daoism also grew in popularity. The economy advanced, especially in cities, through agriculture, manufacturing, and trade. Printing and gunpowder were invented during

1. 400 CE – 1280 CE

2. When we left off with China, the Han dynasty had
taken control and were solidifying their power. In
220 CE, the Han Dynasty ended and China fell into
chaos and civil war.
In 581 CE, a new Chinese empire set up under the
Sui Dynasty, which lasted around 40 years, until
618. However, it’s legacy was that it reunified China
after years of war and strife.
Suy Yangdi, the second emperor of the Sui Dynasty, Sui Yangdi was a cruel ruler who
completed the Grand Canal, which linked the two used forced labor to build the
great rivers of China, the Yangtze and the Huang Grand Canal. He also imposed
He. high taxes, lived a luxurious
lifestyle, and was a poor military
The two rivers flowed east to west, while the canal leaders. He was eventually
linked the north and south, enabling the Chinese murdered and the Sui Dynasty
to ship rice and other goods from north to south ended.
and vice versa.

3. The Tang Dynasty, which lasted for 300
years, emerged after the fall of the Sui.
Early Tang rulers instituted reforms,
like restoring the civil service exams to
recruit bureaucratic officials. They also
gave land to peasants and breaking up
the power of the owners of large
estates, a move meant to stabilize the
economy.
Tang rulers were also concerned about Neighboring states like Korea to
the balance of power in East Asia. They China, and the imperial court of
brought peace to northwestern China China set up trade and diplomatic
and expanded their control to the relations with the states of
borders of Tibet, north of the Southeast Asia.
Himalayas.

4.  Like the Han, the Tang eventually became corrupt
(remember the dynastic cycle? ) and eventually the
military revolted against the Tang rulers. By the 8th
century, the Tang dynasty was weak and had to hire
soldiers from outside the country to help them fend off
rebellions. They hired the Uighurs, a northern tribal
people, to fight for the dynasty. Their attempts were
unsuccessful, and the dynasty collapsed in 907 CE.

5.  One of the greatest inventions from
the Tang era was the invention of
printing on paper.
 The Chinese invented a way of
using cut woodblocks to print text
on paper, sometime between 704
and 751 CE.
 Once developed, the Chinese were
able to print multiple copies of
important works, including the
works of Confucius, poetry,
Buddhist teachings, and other
important documents.
 By the 11th century, the Chinese
invented moveable type, which
enabled them to print works much
faster by using iron frames and
plates.

6.  After the collapse of the Tang, a new Dynasty, the
Song, rose to power in 960.
 The Song led a period of economic prosperity and
cultural achievement, from 960 to 1279.
 The Song had to deal with invasions in northern China
throughout their reign.
 The threat was strong enough that the Chinese emperor
moved his court to Hangzhou.
 The Song Dynasty was never able to overcome the
challenges from the north and were eventually
overthrown by the Mongols, who invaded northern
China and defeated the Song Dynasty’s forces

7.  China was a monarchy
during the three dynasties,
with an emperor in charge
of the country
 The emperor used a
bureaucracy full of
government workers to
enforce laws, collect taxes,
and govern the provinces,
districts, and villages
 Confucian ideals were
followed throughout China

8.  Between the Sui and the Song dynasties, the Chinese
economy grew in size and complexity
 Agriculture grew
 Manufacturing grew
 Trade grew
 China was still primarily a farming society; during the
civil wars, aristocratic families took control of
farmland and peasants became serfs or slaves
 The Song government helped poor peasants obtain their
own land
 This improved farming and led to an abundance of food

9.  Chinese began making steel by mixing cast iron with wrought
iron in a blast furnace heated by coal
 Used to make swords and sickles
 Chinese began growing cotton, which made it possible to make
new kinds of clothes
 Gunpowder was invented and was used to make explosives and
a flame-thrower called a fire-lance and was the precursor to
guns
 Trade expanded under the Tang dynasty, expanding the
Silk Road and trade with local regions
 Chinese exported tea, silk, and porcelain
 Received exotic woods, precious stores, and tropical goods
 Changan became the wealthiest city in the world during
the Tang Era as a result of trade

10. Chinese
Fire-
Lance
Making Steel
Making Gunpowder

11.  Economic changes throughout the three dynasties
impacted society
 Wealthy city dwellers benefitted from increased trade
and prosperity
 Hangzhou, the Song capital city, was one of the largest
and wealthiest cities on Earth
 New forms of entertainment, such as cards and chess
(from India) and new literature resulting from
increased printing were available to the wealthy
 Wealth was concentrated in cities, not villages

12.  Majority of people still lived off the land in villages spread
throughout the empire
 A mix of wealthy landowners, free but poor peasants,
sharecroppers (who shared their harvests with wealthy
landowners in exchange for living on and working the
landowners farm) and landless laborers – those who would
be paid to work on the land, but did not own any – grew in
China
 There was a rise in the landed gentry, called the scholar-
gentry, replaced the landed aristocracy
 They controlled much of the land AND produced most of the
candidates for civil service jobs, because they were educated

13.  Few Chinese women had any power
 The exception was Empress Wu Zhao, who became an
empress and ruled China for a brief period
 Female children were not as desirable as male children
 Parents were expected to provide a dowry , a payment
of money, goods and/or property to the husband, for
their daughters when they married
 Poor families would sell their daughters to wealthy
families as servants or concubines

14.  The Mongols were pastoral people
from the region of modern-day
Mongolia
 They were organized into clans
(family groups)
 Temujin, born in the 1160s, gradually
unified the Mongols
 In 1206, Temujin was elected Genghis
Khan (Strong Ruler) at a massive clan
meeting in the Gobi desert
 Genghis Khan devoted himself to
conquest and expanding the Mongol
empire

15.  The Mongols conquered much of the Eurasian
landmass under a single rule
 The Mongol Empire was the largest LAND empire in
history
 Genghis Khan set up the capital city at Karakorum
 Genghis Khan ruled until he died in 1227
 Mongol custom divided the Khan’s territory among his
heirs
 The empire was split into separate territories called
khanates, each under the rule of one of his sons

16.  Mongol forces defeated Persia in 1231
 Mongol forces defeated the Abbasid Empire at
Baghdad in 1258
 Mongols defeated the Song dynasty in the 1260s
 When they attacked the Chinese, they faced gunpowder
and the fire-lance
 The Mongols adapted those technologies into the
handgun and cannon
 The Mongols use of foreigners as employees allowed
these technologies to be introduced to Europe

18. Kublai Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan,
completed the conquest of the Song and
established a new Chinese dynasty, the Yuan
Dynasty in 1279.
Kublai Khan ruled China until he died in 1294
Kublai Khan established his capital at Khanbaliq in northern China, now
known as Beijing
Kublai Khan expanded the Mongol empire into Vietnam and launched fleets
against Java, Sumatra, and Japan, but was only able to conquer Vietnam
The Yuan Dynasty used the same government as previous dynasties: a
monarchy with an extensive bureaucracy
Kublai Khan lead over a prosperous period, with Khanbaliq becoming a
wealthy city, described by Marco Polo as one of the glories of China

19.  Emperor’s forces spread themselves too thin trying to
conquer other lands
 Corruption at the emperor’s court
 Internal instability as a result of corruption
 In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang, the son of a peasant, put
together an army and ended the Mongol Dynasty
 Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty (we will
learn more about them later!)

20.  Confucianism was dominant at court and remained dominant
under the Mongols
 Buddhism was brought to China in the first century CE by
merchants and missionaries from India
 Buddhism and Daoism became more popular at the end of the
Han Dynasty, as a result of the instability and civil wars of that
period
 The Tang Dynasty set up Buddhist temples throughout China
during their reign
 Eventually, Buddhism was attacked as a “foreign religion”
 Buddhist monasteries had grown and were open to corruption
 During the later Tang period, the government destroyed temples
and monasteries and forced 260,000 monks and nuns to return to
secular life

21. After purging China of Buddhists,
official government support went
instead to a revived Confucianism
Neo-Confucianism was a new form
of Confucianism that taught:
•The world is real, not an illusion
•Fulfillment comes from
participation in the world
•The world is divided into the
material and spiritual
•Humans live in the material
world, but is linked to the
Supreme Ultimate
•Individuals should try to move
beyond the material world to
reach union with the Supreme
Ulitmate through a careful
examination of moral principles
that rule the universe

22.  The invention of printing during the Tang Dynasty
helped to make literature more available and popular
 Poetry became the highest form of literary expression
in China
 At least 48,000 poems were written by over 2,200
authors during this period
 Chinese poetry celebrated beauty, nature, friendship, sadness
 Li-Bo and Duo Fu were two of the most popular poets
during the Tang Era; Li Bo was light hearted, while
Duo Fu was a serious Confucian poet

23. Landscape paintings were a popular art form
during the Song and Mongol dynasties
Chinese art reflected Daoism, in their search for
the Way in nature
Artists tried to find the ideal in nature and left
empty spaces in their paintings because one
cannot know “the whole truth”.
Human beings were often painted as tiny figures, to
represent the insignificance of humans in the midst of
nature.
After painting, ceramics was one of the greatest
accomplishments of the Chinese. Tang artists perfected
porcelain, a ceramic of clay baked at extremely high
temperatures.