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First Edition
Britannica Educational Publishing
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Incipient Neolithic 26
Silk 27
Religious Beliefs
and Social Organization 32
The First Historical Dynasty: The Shang 33
The Advent of Bronze Casting 33
The Shang Dynasty 35
Royal Burials 36
The Chariot 37
Art 37
Late Shang Divination and Religion 38
State and Society 39
C 2: T Z
Q D 41
The History of the Zhou (1046–256 BC) 41
Zhou and Shang 42
The Zhou Feudal System 44
Social, Political, and Cultural Changes 47
The Decline of Feudalism 47
Urbanization and Assimilation 47
The Rise of Monarchy 48
Economic Development 50
Cultural Change 53
The Qin Empire (221–207 BC) 54
The Qin State 54
Struggle for Power 55
The Empire 56
The Great Wall of China 57
93
81
in the North (303–439) 86
Intellectual and Religious Trends
During the Six Dynasties 87
Confucianism and Philosophical Daoism 87
Confucius 88
Daoism 90
Buddhism 92
The Sui Dynasty 95
Wendi’s Institutional Reforms 96
Integration of the South 97
Foreign A airs Under Yangdi 100
123
108
C 5: T T D 102
Early Tang (618–626) 102
Administration of the State 104
Fiscal and Legal System 105
The Period of Tang Power (626–755) 107
The “Era of Good Government” 107
Rise of the Empress Wuhou 110
Prosperity and Progress 114
Military Reorganization 115
Late Tang (755–907) 117
Provincial Separatism 118
The Struggle for Central Authority 120
Cultural Developments 122
The Infl uence of Buddhism 122
Trends in the Arts 125
Du Fu 125
Social Change 126
the Decline of the Nan Song 162
Song Culture 163
C 8: T Y,
M, D 168
The Mongol Conquest of China 168
Invasion of the Jin State 168
Genghis Khan 169
Invasion of the Song State 170
China Under the Mongols 172
Mongol Government and Administration 172
Early Mongol Rule 172
Changes Under Kublai Khan
and His Successors 173
Economy 177
Religious and Intellectual Life 178
Daoism 178
Buddhism 180
Foreign Religions 181
Confucianism 181
Literature 182
The Arts 183
Yuan China and the West 186
The End of Mongol Rule 188
C 9: T M D 190
Political History 190
The Dynasty’s Founder 191
Hongwu 192
The Dynastic Succession 192
Government and Administration 196
Local Government 197
and the Second Opium War (Arrow War) 234
Popular Uprising 236
The Taiping Rebellion 236
The Nian Rebellion 238
Muslim Rebellions 239
E ects of the Rebellions 240
The Self-Strengthening Movement 240
Foreign Relations in the 1860s 241
Industrialization for “Self-Strengthening” 242
Changes in Outlying Areas 244
East Turkistan 244
Tibet and Nepal 244
Myanmar (Burma) 245
Vietnam 245
210
209
215
267
255
251
Japan and the Ryukyu Islands 246
Korea and the Sino-Japanese War 247
Reform and Upheaval 248
The Hundred Days of Reform of 1898 249
The Boxer Rebellion 251
Reformist and Revolutionist Movements
at the End of the Dynasty 253
Sun Yat-sen and the United League 254
Sun Yat-sen 255
Constitutional Movements After 1905 256
from the KMT 275
285
301
310
The Nationalist Government
from 1928 to 1937 276
Japanese Aggression 278
War Between Nationalists
and Communists 278
The United Front Against Japan 280
C 13: T L R
P W A J 281
The Early Sino-Japanese War 281
Phase One 281
Nanjing Massacre 282
Phase Two: Stalemate and Stagnation 283
Renewed Communist-Nationalist Confl ict 285
The International Alliance Against Japan 286
U.S. Aid to China 286
Confl icts Within the International Alliance 287
Phase Three: Approaching Crisis (1944–45) 289
Nationalist Deterioration 290
Communist Growth 290
E orts to Prevent Civil War 291
Civil War (1945–49) 291
A Race for Territory 292
Attempts to End the War 293
Resumption of Fighting 294
The Tide Begins to Shift 296
A Land Revolution 297
Political Developments 338
Educational and Cultural
Policy Changes 340
International Relations 340
Relations with Taiwan 341
Conclusion 342
Glossary 346
For Further Reading 348
Index 349
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INTRODUCTION
I | 15
O
n October 1, 2009, the People’s
Republic of China celebrated its
60th anniversary with a stunning display
of weapons, rumbling tanks, and smartly
dressed soldiers under a blue sky in the
capital city of Beijing. It was an impres-
sive show of military might that displayed
China’s rising power in the modern world.
From a nation devastated by civil war
and the ravages of World War II, China
has become the world’s third-largest
economy and a major player on the world
stage. But the ability to renew itself is far
from new for China. Despite upheavals
that have shattered the country, China is
unique among nations: its many cultural
and economic accomplishments stretch
reign became the traditional territory of
China. In later eras China sometimes
held other territories, but the Qin bound-
aries were always considered to embrace
the indivisible area of China proper. He
developed networks of highways and uni-
fied a number of existing fortifications
into the Great Wall of China, a UNESCO
World Heritage site today. He established
a basic administrative system that all
succeeding dynasties followed for the
next 2,000 years. His tomb near Xi’an
contains one of China’s most famous
treasures—6,000 life-sized terra-cotta
statues of warriors.
The Han (202 BC–220 AD), the next
great Chinese imperial dynasty estab-
lished much of Chinese culture, so much
so that “Han” became the Chinese word
denoting someone who is Chinese. Under
its most famous emperor, Han Wudi,
China fought against its northern nomad
neighbours, the Xiongnu, and took con-
trol of the eastern portion of the Silk
Road, a trading route that allowed China
to sell goods as far away as Rome. He also
started China’s civil service system in
which young men competed through
exams for government jobs.
After the Han dynasty fell apart, China
but was only partially successful. It
wasn’t until his grandson, Kublai, took
control that the Song dynasty was com-
pletely defeated—a fight that took several
decades. Being ruled by a foreign invader
was dicult for native Chinese, who
were not allowed to hold the highest
positions in court and were called “south-
ern barbarians.” But at the same time,
Yuan rule had certain benefits for the
Chinese. The Mongols reunited China.
as the time of the Six Dynasties. Although
China was not united in government, it
retained its essentially Chinese charac-
ter. This era was a time of development
for two of China’s three major religions:
Daoism and Buddhism (The other is
Confucianism).
The short-lived yet significant Sui
dynasty (581–618) unified the country after
more than three centuries of fragmenta-
tion. One of the greatest accomplishments
of the Sui dynasty was building a great
waterway, the Bian Canal, which linked
north and south China. This system,
further enlarged in later times, was a valu-
able transportation network that proved
to be extremely important in maintaining
a unified empire.
The Sui set the stage for the succeed-
seats in the new legislature and
obstructed Yuan’s agenda, the president
undermined parliament and eventually
took on dictatorial powers. He then tried
to appoint himself as emperor but died in
1916 before doing so. Still, Yuan managed
to leave behind foreign debt, a legacy of
brutality, and a country fracturing into
warlordism.
On May 4, 1919, students organized
protests and riots in the nation’s major
cities, and waves of workers went on
strike to pressure the government to
oppose the decisions made at the Paris
Peace Conference after World War I
ended, especially the decision to allow
the Japanese to keep control of valuable
Chinese land, resources, and railroads
that they had taken in the previous
decade. This outburst led to the estab-
lishment of the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP). After spending several
years recruiting new members, the CCP
began to compete with the KMT for con-
trol of China.
In 1928, the Nationalists formally
established a reorganized National
Government of the Republic of China.
Meanwhile, Japan was moving aggres-
sively to extend its power in Manchuria,
China had a favourable trade balance,
but gradually it became weak, and begin-
ning in the 1820s, European powers such
as Britain began demanding conces-
sions and other special favours from
China (including control of some Chinese
territory). The Qing dynasty was not
strong enough to resist. A series of brief
wars and uprisings took place during the
18 | The History of China
10 years of civil war, had developed a
powerful discipline and sense of cama-
raderie. After the war ended with Japan’s
defeat in 1945, the Nationalist govern-
ment began to deteriorate.
In 1949, the communists took con-
trol, establishing the People’s Republic
of China and installing Mao Zedong, the
chairman of the CCP, as its leader. Using
the Soviet model, Mao’s government
wanted to focus on organizing China’s
industrial workers. But four-fifths of
China’s people were underemployed,
impoverished farmers. To address this
problem, Mao came up with the First
Five-Year Plan (1953-57), which redis-
tributed land and forced farmworkers
into small agricultural collectives. This
plan had some success in helping to
reduce hunger. However, this success
By 1936, the remnants of several Red
armies had gathered into an impover-
ished area in northern Shaanxi and
reorganized themselves. During the
Long March, the communists developed
cohesion and discipline. Mao Zedong
rose to preeminence as a leader.
The Sino-Japanese War (which later
developed into the Pacific theatre of
World War II) began in 1937 with
Japanese attacks near Beijing. The CCP
and KMT formed an alliance (the United
Front) to fight against the enemy, but
during the war’s first year, Japan won
victory after victory. By late December,
the Japanese had invaded Shanghai and
Nanjing. Between 100,000 and 300,000
people were massacred by Japanese sol-
diers in Nanjing. By mid-1938, Japan
controlled the rail lines and major cities
of northern China. The next years con-
tinued to be a bitter time, and the
Chinese suered terribly. Eventually, the
alliance between the CCP and KMT
began to fracture, as both sides fought
to control territory. The Nationalist gov-
ernment became increasingly corrupt,
while the communists, having survived
I | 19
priorities changed. It began to reach out
What follows is a more detailed nar-
rative of China’s vast history with more
comprehensive information on the dynas-
ties, movements, and events that account
for the nation’s rich history.
headquarters,” blanketed the country.
Often, those who participated in one social
movement were attacked in the next.
In 1966, Mao unleashed the most far-
reaching of his upheavals: the Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a time
when many authors, scholars, school-
teachers, former party leaders, and other
intellectuals were denounced as subver-
sive to the country’s cause. Bands of
Red Guards (paramilitary units of radical
students) roamed the country attacking
those whom they deemed unsuitable.
Sometimes dierent Red Guard groups
even attacked each other. Students,
intellectuals, and party members were
encouraged or forced to moved out to the
countryside and told to “learn from the
poor and middle-class peasants.”
The consequences of the 10 years of
the Cultural Revolution were severe. In
the short run, political instability pro-
duced slower economic growth. In the
long term, the Cultural Revolution left a
severe generation gap in which poorly
fronted by technologically superior foreign nations. There
followed a century of decline and decrepitude, as China
found itself relatively helpless in the face of a foreign
onslaught. The trauma of this external challenge became the
catalyst for a revolution that began in the early 20th century
against the old regime and culminated in the establishment
of a communist government in 1949. This event reshaped
T B
C H
CHAPTER 1
22 | The History of China
A Chinese scientist holds the unearthed bones of a human who lived 25,000 years ago. AFP/
Getty Images
global political geography, and China
has since come to rank among the most
infl uential countries in the world.
PREHISTORY
Early Humans
The fossil record in China promises
fundamental contributions to the under-
standing of human origins. There is
considerable evidence of Homo erectus
by the time of the Lower Paleolithic (the
Paleolithic Period [Old Stone Age] began
about 2,500,000 years ago and ended
10,000 years ago) at sites such as Lantian,
Shaanxi; Hexian, Anhui; Yuanmou,
Yunnan; and, the most famous, that of
Peking man at Zhoukoudian, Beijing
municipality. The Lower Cave at
rated the two phytogeographical zones of
northern and southern China, while the
absence of such a mountain barrier far-
ther east encouraged a more uniform
environment and the freer movement of
Neolithic peoples about the North China
Plain. East China, particularly toward the
south, may have been covered with thick
vegetation, some deciduous forest, and
scattered marsh. The Loess Plateau north
and west of the Qin Mountains is thought
to have been drier and even semiarid,
with some coniferous forest growing on
the hills and with brush and open wood-
land in the valleys.
Anhui, Hebei, Henan, Liaoning, Shandong,
Shanxi and Shaanxi in northern China
and in Guizhou and Hubei in the south
suggest that H. erectus achieved wide
distribution in China. Whether H. erectus
pekinensis intentionally used fire and
practiced ritual cannibalism are matters
under debate.
Significant Homo sapiens cranial
and dental fragments have been found
together with Middle Paleolithic arti-
facts. Such assemblages have been
unearthed at Dingcun, Shanxi; Changyang,
Hubei; Dali, Shaanxi; Xujiayao, Shanxi;
and Maba, Guangdong. Morphological
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