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History of China

Ancient China is one of the world's oldest four civilizations. If counted from Huangdi, the history of China will be 5000 years. There are two cradles of Chinese civilization: the Yellow River civilization and the Yangtze River civilization. With the communication of these two Regional civilizations, it turns out the big fruit: Chinese civilization.
According to archaeological studies, the central plains (中原Zhōngyuán: a plain in Northern China in the lower reaches of the Yellow River) had the matriarchal clan society transited to the patrilineal clan society about 6,000 years ago. Meanwhile, the equality of Primeval Period was broke. Men came into the power while women were in a lower position.
Xia Dynasty began the hereditary system and Qin Dynasty started the autocratic centralization system of Chinese feudal society.
Sun Yat-sen (12 November 1866 - 12 March 1925) lead Xinhai revolution and ended the feudal society of Qing Dynasty in 1911. Republican China was found next year. After Mao's announcement in the Tiananmen Square on 1 October 1949, the People's Republic of China was found.

During the Primeval Period

1. The oldest primitive human lived in China more than 700,000 years ago, we call them Yuanmou ape-man.
2. At least 200,000 years ago, Peiking man lived in Zhoukoudian of Beijing. They were able to make good use of the natural fires.
3. Roughly 7,000 years ago, the ancient painted pottery and black pottery techniques were invented in China and surely influenced the later Chinese Ceramics.
4. Ancient painted pottery from Banppo in Shanxi Province had the delicate veins. The primitive art form and primitive characters were both partially released.
5. About 4000 years ago, among the tribe wars, Huangdi gained the last success via his impressive wisdom, bravery and respect from his supporters.
6. After Huangdi, in China, several outstanding leaders appeared. They are Yao, Shun and Yu. Yu was succeeded in driving off the flood.


rehabilitation of Yuanmou apeman	rehabilitation of Peiking man	stone implement in Stone Age

pottery	painted pottery	Yu lead his people to fight against the flood

During the Slavery Period

7. Subsequently, Yu’s son Qi(启) became the leader, and he established Xia----the first dynasty of slavery system in China. At that time, the calendars was invented and used in people’s daily life.

8. The last ruler of Xia Dynasty Jie(桀) had a bad temper and inhumane. The Shang Tribe in the east overturned the Xia government. The copper manufacturing made great progress in Shang Dynasty. Simuwuding with the weight of 875 kilograms is the largest bronze ware all around the world. Oracle bone inscription of Shang Dynasty was a type of Chinese characters carved on the bones of beast and tortoise shell.

9. In the late period of Shang Dynasty, Zhou Tribe became strong and its leader Zhouwenwang became the new leader of all the tribes in the west. The last dominator of Shang Dynasty was brutal and selfish. The son of Zhouwenwang together with other tribes defeated and overthrew the ruling government.

10. After the establishment of Zhou Dynasty, there were more than 71 states. China stepped into Spring and Autumn period and Warring-states period during the late time of Zhou dynasty. In sequence, five overlords and seven powers appeared during this time.
11. Roughly 2500 years ago, one of the greatest ideologists of China, Laozi appeared. He was the initiator of Taoism. His representative book is Taoteching. He emphasized the connection between different phenomena. During the period of 551 BC to 479 BC, Confucius was famous as a great ideologist, educationist and the initiator of Confucianism. Confucius was the first man in China to begin and operate the private school education. He had more than 3000 students, among them, 72 outstanding people became the social celebrities. He did great contribution to the development of China’s ancient culture and history. He reedited and made up the Book of Changes, theBook of Songs, the Book of History and the Book of Rites. Confucius died at the age of 73. He was buried in Qufu. His house in Qufu became the Confucian Temple later. Confucius’ students made up a book in a dialogue way on Confucius’ thought and lifestyle and named it the Analects.

12. Sun Wu was an outstanding strategist in Spring and Autumn period, his famous book The Art of War, in which Sun Wu referred to plenty of famous principles and measures for wars. The essence of the Art of War is like this: Let enemy give in by way of non-warring is the intention of mastering war. This book is took as the bible of strategics and widely used in diplomacy, business competition and PE. Sun Bing was another authoritative strategist. He was the student of Guiguzi who was a very mysterious man with marvelous and magic thought and legend. He was the offspring of Sun Wu. There was a famous anecdote or story on his tactics in a horse race.

13. The first ancient famous doctor in China was the folk doctor Bian Que. He mastered in diversity of medicine. He summarized the experiences of the former people into four fundamental standards: countenance-watch, scent-smell, symptom-question and pulse-inspecting. Hundreds of academies contending against one another is another significant and meaningful event when different kingdoms combated fiercely against one another on the battle-grounds for hegemony.


Simuwuding

During the Feudalistic Period

14. After a series of reforms, Qin Kingdom became the most powerful one among the kingdoms and in 221 BC, Emperor Qinshihuang(the first emperor in China)unified China and established Qin Dynasty. During his ruling time, he standardized the characters and currency units, and vehicle demands. Furthermore, he also built up the Great Wall to restrain the inland from the invasion of minorities. He also built up his own tomb and terra cotta warriors.

15. In 206, Liu Bang, the first Emperor of Han Dynasty founded West Han Dynasty. With the help of Taoism, He took the measures to rehabilitate the economy and relieve people’s burden to develop the economy and society. During the reign of Hanwudi, the overall of China re-appeared the flourish of economy, stability of society and the power of the troops and armaments. From then on, the people of the inland were called Han People. In 25 AD, Liu Xiu, the offspring of Liu Bang founded East Han Dynasty and chose Luoyang as the national capital.

16. Sericiculture for making silk was one important invention in China 5000 years ago. Roughly in century 5-6 BC, the silk was spreaded to the west of Asia. During the Han Dynasty (means West Han and East Han Dynasties) lots of business groups came to China and transported the silk and silk products into Roman Empire, and then the Silk Road appeared. During the early period of West Han Dynasty, the paper appeared but it was coarse ad unshaped. In 105, eunuch Cai Lun improved the technology of papermaking, and then the paper became cheaper and cheaper.

17. During the reign of Hanwudi, the Confucianism became the authority of the ideological system. In Han Dynasty, Buddhism entered China as the Silk Road was opened. During the time of East Han Dynasty, the Taoism began popularizing in folk areas.

18. During the time from 220 to 280, it was the Three-kingdom period. Zhuge Liang was the representative of wisdom, Cao Cao was ambitious and Guanyu was loyal. In Jin dynasty, Gehong’s book named Baopuzi was an important work to illustrate the original chemistry. Shuijingzhu completed in Northern Dynasty by Li Daoyuan was a great geographic book. Wang Xizhi as Chinese calligrapher king was one of the most influential characters in China’s art history.

19. In 581, the Emperor Yang Jian of Sui Dynasty founded Sui Dynasty. He made up many scientific and practical laws, regulations and principles which were also widely used in upcoming Tang Dynasty. The imperial-examination system established in Sui Dynasty and lasted over 1000 years in China till the end of Qing Dynasty. In 605, the Canal from Tong County of Beijing to Hangzhou was planned to open.

20. In 618, Tang Dynasty was founded. The second Emperor of Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin was one of the most respectable and influential emperors in China history, and he was best at accepting the official’s suggestions and criticism. During the reign of Emperor Li Longji, it was the golden time of China’s ancient history. At that time, the national capital, Chang’an had millions of people. The businessmen, ambassadors and foreign students were innumerable. After Tang Dynasty, many a country people called Chinese people as Tangren and called their living places as Chinatowns.

21. In Tang Dynasty, Monk Xuan Zhuang waked to Indian for learning Buddhist sutra. The original and core character of the novel, Pilgrimage to the West, was him. During the reign of Li Longji, Monk Jian Zhen spent 12 years in visiting Japan in blindness.Wu Zetian was the solo female Emperor in China’s history.

22. In 960, North Song Dynasty appeared in China’s history, some typical reforms were taken by the famous minister and literator Wang Anshi. Bao Zheng was an incorrupt and honest official and respected deeply and widely in public. Four Grand Invention- powder, papermaking, printing, and compass were shown and used in the world. During this time, the soft-money appeared firstly in China all round the world.

23. In 1127, South Song Dynasty (1127-1279) was founded by Zhao Gou, and he chose Hangzhou as the national capital. General Yue Fei resisted the invasion from northern Minority, Jin. He was killed by Emperor. But he became the hero in public.

24. In 1271, grandson of Genghis khan founded Yuan Dynasty. He established a giant country crossing Asia and Europe. The capital of Yuan Dynasty was the world-renowned business center. It is Beijing nowadays. Quanzhou Harbor equal to Alexander Harbor in Egypt was the largest port all around the world.

25. In 1368, Ming Dynasty founded, and his son Zhu Di changed the capital Nanjing for Beijing. Eunuch Zhenghe succeeded in 7 voyages to Africa and Asia. Yongledadian was the largest book in China but severely destroyed by Western invaders in 1860 and 1900. There are only 300 volumes left now. The famous doctor Li Shizhen wrote the book Bencaogangmu. It is the most authoritative book on Chinese traditional medicines. Xu Guangqi’s book, Nongzhengquanshu, was the agricultural encyclopedia in ancient China. Scientist Song Yingxing’s Tiangongkaiwu was the summarization on agriculture, handicraft industry and production technology. It is the craftwork encyclopedia of China in seventh century.

26. Qing Dynasty（1644---1911）was founded in 1644, and during the reign of Emperor Qian Long, a large number of learners and scholars were organized to edit and compile the largest series of books all over the world--Sikuquanshu

27. Since 1840, China was kept in invasion from foreign countries till the foundation of PRC in China.