I'm John Green. This is Crash Course World History and today we're going to talk about China which these days is discussed almost constantly on television and in newspapers, wait, are they still the same? No one thought this was weird, by the way. Instead, I want to talk about the way you tell a story shapes the story. China was really the first modern state, by which I mean it had a centralized government and a corps of bureaucrats who could execute the wishes of that government. It lasted in pretty much the same form. So even "me from the past", with learn more here five minutes of world history knows that Chinese history is conveniently divided into periods called "dynasties.
Green, I didn't even say anything That doesn't seem very fair. What makes a dynasty a dynasty is that it's ruled by a king, or as the Chinese know him, an emperor, who comes from a continuous ruling family.
The Chaos and Division of Asia's History Essay
As long as that family produces emperors, and they are always dudes First off, there were several emperors [unintelligible] who wielded tremendous power throughout Chinese history. There was one very important, full-fledged empress, Empress Wu, who wuled China for more than 20 years and founded her own freaking dynasty.
The dynasty can end for two reasons; either they run out of dudes which never happens, thanks to the hard work of many, many concubines, or the emperor is overthrown out after a rebellion or war. This is more or less what happened to all the dynasties which makes it easy for me to go over to camera two and describe them in a single, run-on sentence. Hi there, camera two. Leading inside the [Shaw] Dynasty which is sadly fictional, the first Chinese dynasty was the Shang who were overthrown by the Zhou which disintegrated into political chaos Sameness In Harrison Bergeron "The Warring States Period" in which states warred over periods Oh no, wait, it was a period in which states warred, which ended when the Qin emperor was able to extend his power over most of the Confucianism: The Rise And Fall Of The Qin Dynasty Of China warring states, but the Qin were replaced by the Han, which was the dynasty that really set the pattern for most of China's history, it lasted for almost years, after which China fell again into political chaos which only means there was no dynasty that ruled over all of China.
Out of this chaos was the Sui who are followed quickly by the Tang, who in turn were replaced after a short period of no dynasty by the Song, who saw a huge growth in China's commerce that was still not enough to prevent them from being conquered by the Yuan, who were both unpopular and unusual because they were monguls horses galloping which sparked rebellions resulting in the rise of the Ming which was the dynasty that built the Great Wall and made amazing vases, but didn't save them from falling to the.
And breathe.
Abd that's what happened. But what's interesting as far as capital H history is concerned is why it happened and especially why the people who were writing history at the time said it happened which leads us to the Mandate of Heaven. So the concept of the Mandate of Heaven dates from the Zhou Dynasty. Current historians think they invented it to get rid of the Shang. Before the Zhou, China didn't even have a concept of heaven or "tiantang", but they did have a high God called "Shangdi. This, of course, would have been impossible probably because the Dynasyy king had no concept of heaven, and partly because as previously noted, they didn't exist, but let's just leave that aside.
The [shoo jing] is pretty specific about what caused the Qia kings to lose the mandate, by the way, explaining the attack on Qia may be traced to the orgies in learn more here Tao].
What Are The Internal And External Factors That Led To The Fall Of The Han Empire
Sadly the [shoo jing] is woefully Ths on details of these orgies, but orgies are the kind of behavior that is not expected of a ruler, and therefore, heaven saw fit to come in, remove the mandate and allow the Shang to take power. But then the Shang lost the mandate. Well, the last Shang emperor is reported to have roasted and eaten his opponents which, you know Of course that might not actually have happened, but it would explain why heaven would allow the Zhou to come to power. Rsie basically the fact that one dynasty falls and is replaced by another in a cycle that lasts for 3, years is explained in the eyes of early Chinese historians by divine intervention based on whether the ruler behaves in a proper, upright manner.
It's after the fact analysis that has the virtue of being completely impossible to disprove as well as offering a tidy explanation for some very messy political history.]
Many thanks for the help in this question, now I will not commit such error.
I apologise, but, in my opinion, you are mistaken. I can defend the position.
Certainly. And I have faced it. Let's discuss this question.