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ChinaX Course Notes I transmit, I do not innovate.1 If you copy this document, please do not remove this disclaimer These are the class notes of Dave Pomerantz, a student in the HarvardX/EdX MOOC course entitled ChinaX. My ChinaX id is simply DavePomerantz. First, a very big thank you to Professors Peter Bol and Bill Kirby and Mark Elliot and Roderick MacFarquhar, to the visiting lecturers who appear in the videos and to the ChinaX staff for assembling such a marvelous course. The notes may contain copyrighted material from the ChinaX course. Any inaccuracies in here are purely my own. Where material from Wikipedia is copied directly into this document, a link is provided. See here. Left to right: Professor Peter Bol, myself, Professor Bill Kirby. 12/18/2014. Outside of Dumplings in Cambridge. 1 The Analects 7.1. See page 35. ChinaX Course Page 1 of 323 Part 1: The Political and Intellectual Foundations of China Week 1: The Big Picture Section 1: Time What is a dynasty? A dynasty is a ruling house, an empire, an imperial family. A hierarchy of inner and outer court. It has a temporal limit and a geographic limit and it always begins as a conquest. The high points are a shengshi - a prosperous age. The name of the dynasty is the name of a country. The dynasty song (Sung to the tune of Frère Jacques. Lucky for you I didn’t post a musical rendition.) Shang Zhou Qin Han Shang Zhou Qin Han Sui Tang Song Sui Tang Song Yuan Ming Qing Republic Yuan Ming Qing Republic Mao Zedong Mao Zedong Dynasties The name of the dynasty is different from the name of the ruling house. Ming is the Zhu family. Han is the Liu family. When the emperor is a baby, he's the successor, but he can't rule. He has a regent. There may be an empress dowager, but more commonly a regent (an acting head of state in a monarchy). All successors were male, except for one female empress, Wu Zetian, in the Tang. She ends the Tang and creates the Second Zhou. Dynasties maintain power through force, through a bureaucracy with centralized appointment of local officials, through common ideology and and through education standards among the elite. Time can be divided by dynasty, by sociology (feudal, capitalist, socialist), and by archaeological age (paleolithic, neolithic, bronze age, iron age). ChinaX Part I The Political and Intellectual Foundations of China Page 2 of 323 Chinese Calendar and the Sexagenary Cycle The year is a solar year, 24 periods of 15 days. The calendar is lunar, 12 moons of 29 or 30 days with an extra (intercalary) month every 7 years. Going back at least to 1200 bce is the Sexagenary Cycle. One set of 12, one set of 10, for a cycle of 60 (the Jiazi). Confucius said (The Analects, 2.4, see here): when I was 50, I could understand the will of heaven. Wushi er zhi tianming. See here for Wikipedia's example of a Sexagenary cycle. ChinaX Part I The Political and Intellectual Foundations of China Page 3 of 323 Chinese Dynasties and Their Ruling Houses Copied from Wikipedia with minor edits (removed a column) to fit on the page. See here for two more excellent timelines. Dynasty Ruling House or Years clan of houses Name Chinese Pinyin Meaning Xia dynasty 夏 Xià Summer 姒 2070–1600 BC 470 Sì ( ) Shang dynasty 商 Shāng Toponym 子 1600–1046 BC 571 Zǐ ( ) 西周 姬 Western Zhou dynasty Xī Zhōu Toponym Jī ( ) 1046–771 BC 275 Eastern Zhou dynasty 東周 / 东周 Dōng Zhōu Toponym Jī (姬) 770–256 BC 514 Spring and Autumn period 春秋 Chūn Qiū As English 771-476 BC 295 Warring States period 戰國 / 战国 Zhàn Guó As English 476-221 BC 255 Qin dynasty 秦 Qín Toponym Yíng (嬴) 221–206 BC 15 206 or 202 BC–9 AD, Western Han dynasty 西漢 / 西汉 Xī Hàn Toponym Liú (劉 / 刘) 215 23–25 AD 新 王 Xin dynasty Xīn "New" Wáng ( ) 9–23 AD 14 Eastern Han dynasty 東漢 / 东汉 Dōng Hàn Toponym Liú (劉 / 刘) 25–220 195 Cáo (曹) Three Kingdoms 三國 / 三国 Sān Guó As English Liú (劉 / 刘) 220–265 or 280 45 Sūn (孫 / 孙) Western Jin dynasty 西晉 西晋 Xī Jìn Ducal title Sīmǎ (司馬 / 司马) 265–317 52 / Eastern Jin dynasty 東晉 / 东晋 Dōng Jìn Ducal title Sīmǎ (司馬 / 司马) 317–420 103 Southern and Northern Nán Běi 南北朝 As English various 386 or 420–589 169 Dynasties Cháo Ducal title Sui dynasty 隋 Suí (随 Yáng (楊 / 杨) 581–618 37 homophone) Tang dynasty 唐 Táng Ducal title Lǐ (李) 618–907 289 Five Dynasties and Ten 五代十國 or 五 Wǔ Dài Shí As English various 907–960 53 Kingdoms 代十国 Guó Kingdom of Dali 大理国 Dà Lǐ Guó Toponym 段 937–1253 316 Duan ( ) 北宋 趙 Northern Song dynasty Běi Sòng Toponym Zhào ( / 赵) 960–1127 167 Southern Song dynasty 南宋 Nán Sòng Toponym Zhào (趙 / 赵) 1127–1279 152 "Vast" or Liao dynasty 遼 / 辽 Liáo "Iron" (Khitan Yelü ( ; 耶律) 907 or 916–1125 209 homophone) ChinaX Part I The Political and Intellectual Foundations of China Page 4 of 323 Wanggiyan Jin dynasty 金 Jīn "Gold" ( ; 完顏 / 完颜 1115–1234 119 ) Western Xia 西夏 Xī Xià Toponym Li ( ; 李) 1038–1227 189 Borjigin "Great" or"Pri Yuan dynasty 元 Yuán (ꠣᠷᠵᠢ됢ᠨ; 孛兒只斤 / 孛 1271–1368 97 macy" 儿只斤) Ming dynasty 明 Míng "Bright" Zhū (朱) 1368–1644 or 1662 276 Aisin Gioro Qing dynasty 清 Qīng "Pure" ( ᠠᡳᠰᡳᠨ 遳ᠣᡵᠣ}; 愛新覺 1636 or 1644–1911 268 羅 / 爱新觉罗) ChinaX Part I The Political and Intellectual Foundations of China Page 5 of 323 Section 2: Space Place names are combinations of words that have meaning, much like the Native American names given to many U.S. locales. (Connecticut means long river in Pequot) Yunnan - South of the Clouds Xizang - Western Storehouse Physical Geography Tibetan Plateau Land mass formed when the Indian subcontinent collided with Eurasia. The mountains are still rising. Tibet and Tarim Basin are arid, different from China proper. Because of the height of Tibet, all rivers flow east. Three Rivers Yellow River in the north, called China's sorrow because of the flooding. Yangzi River, draining from Sichuan to the rich Lower Yangzi Region. In the middle of the Yangzi are a series of great lakes that are catchment basins for seasonal floods. Pearl River, emptying into the Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Mountains and Plains North China Plain (alluvial?) drainage from the loess, which is the dust blown soil from the Yellow river. Nine Macroregions G.William Skinner proposed a tic-tac-toe map of 9 regions centered around river junctions and mountainous peripheries. Corresponds with the language map. North vs South The divider is a line between the Qinling Mountains in the West and the mouth of the Huai River in the East. Cold and dry in the north, good for growing wheat; wet and warm in the south encouraging farming of rice. Note the monsoon, an annual cycle where wind changes from northerly to southerly. Climate Historical climate change The climate cycled through periods of warming and cooling, differing only by a few degrees celsius, but enough to make for longer and shorter growing seasons. In the north, colder periods mean failed harvests while in the south, it might mean an extra crop of winter wheat. Also, in Beijing, the main road came through the steppe (grassy plains) to the Gobi. Possibly in the cooler climate, the nomads were pushed down from the north to raid the North China Plain. ChinaX Part I The Political and Intellectual Foundations of China Page 6 of 323 People and Geography The ChinaX interactive map is here. Mountains can't be moved (yet) but rivers can be dammed, roads built, and geography changed in ways to suit the people. The old highways and the modern railways are closely related. Populations moved over time. Silk Road and Sea Routes The Silk Road, top, begins in the Wei River Valley, where Chang'an, the capital of the Han and Tang dynasties was located and stretches across the Tarim Basin to Central Asia. The sea routes (blue lines on right) connect China to Japan and SE Asia (Arab traders). Great Wall Border between central states and tribal peoples. Grand Canal Connected Beijing to rice paddies in SE China. Names of the Provinces By direction By physical features N Bei Lake Hu E Dong River (north) He (yellow river) S Nan River (south) Jiang (Yangzi river) W Xi Mountain Shan Shandong province - east of the mountains. ChinaX Part I The Political and Intellectual Foundations of China Page 7 of 323 Section 3: Identity Written Language Where was writing invented? Mesopotamia: cuneiform2 Egypt: hieroglyphic3 China: hieroglyphic (or logographic?)4 None of these first written languages were based on sounds. Chinese is the only surviving hieroglyphic language, a language that represented objects. Writing symbolized sound only in the mediterranean. From Egyptian comes Hebrew, Arabic, Davangari, Phoenician. From Phoenician comes Greek and Roman. Because Chinese doesn’t alphabetize, one written language can serve every spoken language. Even though Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese are grammatically different, the Chinese writing system can be adopted. In fact, Chinese is more complicated than simple hieroglyphics. How do you get a concept like East? The sun rising through the trees is the symbol for a tree plus the symbol for the sun: The verb to see, is an eye on legs: Homophones Only 400 distinct sounds in Mandarin.
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