Timeline of Chinese History Adapted from http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/
China's Dynasties
Notes
1766 BCE
1122 (?)
Shang
Zhou (Chou)
600 BCE
Confucius lives and writes
403
Warring States Period
Taoism and Legalism established
221
Qin (Ch'in)
Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi
206
Han
Concurrent with Roman Empire
Confucianism adopted
0 CE
Silk Road links East with West
222
Six Dynasties
central govt. decline
Buddhism introduced
600 CE
589
Sui
second unification
Tang (T'ang)
907
Song (Sung)
1127
Northern Song
Southern Song
1200 CE
1279
Yuan (Mongols)
1368
Ming
1644
Qing (Ch'ing) (Manchus)
1800 CE
1839
Opium Wars with Britain; Treaty of Nanking, 1842
1912
Republic
Kuomintang Party (Nationalists) led by Sun Yat‐sen; later, Chiang Kai‐shek
1949
People's Republic
Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong
1989
Student movement crushed at Tiananmen Square
1992
Deng Xiaoping, party leader, encourages economic reform
2000 CE
now
Hu Jintao is President of China and the General Secretary of the CCP
Patterns in Chinese History Traditionally, China has been governed by dynasties. A dynasty is a hereditary monarchy. The right to rule is passed from one family member to another. Typically, dynasties followed a predictable dynastic cycle: Start here and go clockwise: A strong leader establishes control over Chinese territory by way of a powerful military and controls it with able administration. For 200‐300 years, the kingdom enjoys a period of internal peace, economic prosperity and political unity. Strong leaders tax their subjects fairly; they redistribute land to peasants; they defend and extend the borders of their kingdoms. They build defensive walls, roads, canals and irrigation systems. The dynasty secures “The Mandate of Heaven.”
China is vulnerable to internal coup and external attack and…
Internal crises (famine, flood, peasant rebellion) or external crises (invasion) prompt the declining dynasty to collapse. The dynasty loses “The Mandate of Heaven.”
Eventually, however, the leader’s descendents—born to luxury, out of touch with the people, and surrounded by self‐serving and conniving advisors— go soft. Nobles evade their taxes, administration officials sink into corruption, and the emperor leans on the peasants for money, causing internal strife and weakening the financial and agricultural foundations of the kingdom. A weak administration allows provincial leaders to build their own bases of power. Empty treasuries allow defensive walls crumble.
The Mandate of Heaven, Defined: In Chinese dynastic history, the emperor’s absolute authority to rule was based on universal acceptance of his office as expressed through the idea of the Mandate of Heaven. In a system without elections, the collective vote was believed to be expressed through signs in the natural world that supposedly reflected the quality of the ruler. When the government worked poorly, natural disasters, such as drought, famine, floods, earthquakes, and fires, would occur to indicate that the ruler’s legitimacy was being questioned by Heaven. Thus, in a way, the Mandate was a pact between the ruler and the ruled, with Heaven as the judge and people’s advocate, and with the ruler as executive director. When the ruler was the emperor, the Son of Heaven, he had the job of placating a stern and watchful father.