History of China Archaeological evidence suggests that China is one of the cradles of the human race. The earliest known human in China, whose fossilized skull was unearthed in Shanxi Province in 1963, is believed to date back to 600,000 BC. The remains of Sinanthropus pekinensis, known as Peking Man and dating back to 400,000 BC, were excavated in 1923 at Zhoukoudianzhen near Peking. Peking Man was closely related to Pithecanthropus of Java and lived during the Old Stone Age. In the upper caves of Zhoukoudianzhen are found artifacts of a late Old Stone Age man (50,000-35,000 BC), who ranks in age with the Cro-Magnon of Europe. This was an early form of Homo sapiens, or modern man, who made tools out of bones as well as stones, made clothes out of animal hides, and knew how to make fire.  Around the 4th or 3rd millennium BC, in the New Stone Age, great changes occurred in the lives of the ancient Chinese. Larger numbers of people began living together at settled places, cultivating land, and domesticating animals. These people made polished stone tools and built shelters in pit dwellings and beehive huts that were covered with reed roofs. Such villages were found mostly in the area of the great bend of the Huang He on the North China Plain. Despite its severe winters, this area was well suited to agriculture. In fact, it closely resembled the other cradles of ancient civilizations, such as the valley of the Nile in Egypt.  The people of this period (3000-2000 BC) also developed the art of making pottery for storing food and drink. Two distinct types have been discovered: red clay pots with swirling black designs in the northwest near Yangshao village, and smooth black pottery in northeast China near Lungshan, a site in Shandong Province. The Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BC) Before the Shang, Chinese tradition mentions a Hsia Dynasty, but for lack of evidence, the Hsia is still considered a legendary period. Until the late 1920s the Shang Dynasty too was thought to be legendary but discoveries made near the modern city of Anyang (the site of the Shang capital) in Henan Province proved that the dynasty existed. The most important of these discoveries was the finding of over 100,000 bones and shells with still-recognizable characters inscribed on them. These oracle bones and shells, originally used as religious objects, represent the earliest form of the Chinese writing system. In addition to the oracle bones and shells, the superb Shang bronzes and the tombs of the Shang rulers reveal a highly developed society. The Shang are distinguished from the New Stone Age people by their settled life-style and their highly developed bronze-making technique. The Shang used bronze to make weapons, daily tools, and elaborately decorated sacrificial vessels. The last Shang ruler was reportedly evil and tyrannical. He was overthrown by a revolt of the people, who were aided by the neighboring Chou people. The leader of the Chou was named Wu. With his brother's help, he defeated the Shang and founded the Chou Dynasty. The Chou Dynasty (1122-221 BC) The Chou conquest of the Shang was given an important meaning by later moralistic interpretations of the event. The Chou kings, whose chief deity was heaven, called themselves "Sons of Heaven," and their success in overcoming the Shang was seen as the "mandate of heaven." From this time on, Chinese rulers were called "Sons of Heaven" and the Chinese Empire, the "Celestial Empire." The transfer of power from one dynasty to the next was based on the mandate of heaven.  Chou rule in China continued for nearly nine centuries. During that time great advances were made. The long period of the Chou Dynasty is divided into two subperiods: Western (Early) and Eastern (Later) Chou, named for the locations of the capitals.  Western (Early) Chou (1122-771 BC) Western Chou territory covered most of the North China Plain. It was divided into about 200 princely domains. The Chou political system was similar to the feudal system of medieval Europe.  The Chou people combined hunting and agriculture for a living. Associating the success or failure of crops with the disposition of nature, the people prayed to numerous nature gods for good harvests. One of the ruler's duties was to placate heaven and Earth for all people. Failure to do so deprived him of the right to rule. Such beliefs are still widely held today among the Chinese people. Ancestor worship also developed during the Chou period and has been important in East Asia for the last 2,000 years.  The Chou were invaded in 771 BC by a less cultured, more militaristic people from the northwest. The capital was moved east to Luoyang. From this point on, the dates are considered reliable. The manner in which the Western Chou fell followed a pattern that was repeated throughout Chinese history. People who led a nomadic, or wandering, life in the northern steppe land would invade settled agricultural communities to solve periodic food shortages. Eastern (Later) Chou (771-221 BC) The Eastern Chou is also two periods. The first is Ch'un Ch'iu, the Spring and Autumn period (771-481 BC), named for a book credited to Confucius. The second is Chan-kuo, the Warring States period (481-221 BC).  In the Spring and Autumn period, iron replaced bronze for tools and weapons. The use of iron led to an increase in agricultural output, growth of the population, and warfare among the states. By the 4th century BC the number of states had shrunk to seven. In 256 BC the princes of those states assumed the title of king, stopped paying homage to the Chou king, and continued to fight for supremacy. The strongest of the seven states was Ch'in. The Ch'in Empire (221-206 BC) After nearly 900 years, the Chou Dynasty came to an end when the state of Ch'in, the strongest of the seven surviving states, unified China and established the first empire in 221 BC. The Ch'in empire did not last long, but it left two enduring legacies: the name China and the idea and structure of the empire. This heritage outlasted the Ch'in Dynasty itself by more than 2,000 years. The first Ch'in emperor was called Ch'in Shih Huang Ti. The title of emperor was used for the first time in Chinese history to set the Ch'in ruler apart--as the ruler of the unified land--from the kings, the heads of the earlier, smaller states. The construction of massive palaces and the ceremony of the court further enhanced the power of the emperor by inspiring awe in the people.  A centralized bureaucracy replaced the old feudal system. The empire was divided into provinces and counties, which were governed by centrally appointed governors and magistrates. The former ruling families who had inherited their places in the aristocracy were uprooted and forced to live in the capital of Xianyang. Other centralizing policies included census taking and standardization of the writing system and weights and measures. The Ch'in army conducted massive military campaigns to complete the unification of the empire and expand its territory. The Ch'in empire stretched from the Mongolian plateau in the north to Vietnam in the south. As with rulers before and after him, the first emperor was preoccupied with defending his territory against northern nomads. After waging several successful campaigns, the emperor ordered the building of the wall of "ten thousand li" (a li is a Chinese unit of distance) to protect the empire. This task involved connecting the separate walls that were built by former northern states to form the famous Great Wall. The Ten Thousand Li Wall, as it is known in China, is 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) long, from 15 to 50 feet (5 to 15 meters) high, and from 15 to 25 feet (5 to 8 meters) wide. Although closely linked with the first ruler of the Ch'in Empire, the wall as it stands today dates mainly from the later Ming Dynasty. Ch'in Shih Huang Ti's harsh rule provoked much opposition. The emperor feared the scholars most. He had them rounded up and put them to death or sent them into exile. Many went into hiding. Moreover, all books, except technical ones, were confiscated and burned. In the last years of his life, Ch'in Shih Huang Ti became fearful of threats on his life and lived in complete secrecy. He also became obsessed with obtaining immortality. He died in 210 BC in Shandong Province, far from the capital of Xianyang, during one of his long quests to find the elixir of life.  The Ch'in empire disintegrated rapidly after the death of the first emperor. The legitimate heir was killed in a palace intrigue, and a less able prince was put on the throne. Conditions worsened throughout the empire. In 209 BC, rebellions erupted all over China. Two men had the largest following. Hsiang Yu was a general of aristocratic background; Liu Pang was a minor official from a peasant family. By 206 BC rebels had subdued the Ch'in army and destroyed the capital. The struggle between Hsiang Yu and Liu Pang continued for the next four years, however, until Liu Pang emerged as the victor in 202 BC. Taking the title of Kao Tsu, High Progenitor, he established the Han Dynasty. The Han Empire (202 BC-AD 220) The four-century-long Han rule is divided into two periods: the Earlier or Western Han and the Later or Eastern Han. In between these two was the short-lived Hsin Dynasty (AD 9-23).  Earlier (Western) Han (202 BC-AD 9) The Han Kao Tsu preserved many features of the Ch'in imperial system, such as the administrative division of the country and the central bureaucracy. But the Han rulers lifted the Ch'in ban on philosophical and historical writings. Han Kao Tsu called for the services of men of talent, not only to restore the destroyed classics but to serve as officials in the government. From that time, the Chinese Empire was governed by a body of officials theoretically selected on merit. Such a practice has few parallels elsewhere at this early date in human history.  In 124 BC, during the reign of Wu Ti (140-87, the Martial Emperor), an imperial university was set up for the study of Confucian classics. The university recruited talented students, and the state supported them. Starting with 50 when the university first opened, the number of government-supported students reached 30,000 by the end of the Han Dynasty. Emperor Wu also established Confucianism as the official doctrine of the state. This designation lasted until the end of the Chinese Empire.  The Early Han faced two major difficulties: invasions by the barbarian Huns and the influence of the imperial consort families. In the Han Dynasty, the Huns (known as Hsiung-nu by the Chinese) threatened the expanding Chinese Empire from the north. Starting in Wu Ti's reign, costly, almost century-long campaigns had to be carried out to establish Chinese sovereignty along the northern and northwestern borders. Wu Ti also waged aggressive campaigns to incorporate northern Korea in 108 BC and northern Annam in 111 BC into the Han empire. The Early Han's other difficulty started soon after the first emperor's death. The widowed Empress Lu dominated politics and almost succeeded in taking the throne for her family. Thereafter, families of the empresses exerted great political influence. In AD 9 Wang Mang, a nephew of the empress, seized the throne and founded a new dynasty of Hsin.  Wang Mang's overambitious reform program alienated him from the landlords. At the same time the peasants, disappointed with Wang's inability to push through the reform, rose in rebellion. In AD 17 a rebel group in Shandong painted their faces red (hence their name, Red Eyebrows) and adopted religious symbols, a practice later repeated by peasants who rebelled in times of extreme difficulty. Wang Mang's force was defeated, and he was killed in AD 23.  Later (Eastern) Han (AD 23-220) The new ruler who restored peace and order was a member of the house of Han, the original Liu family. His title was Kuang Wu Ti, "Shining Martial Emperor," from AD 25 to 57. During the Later Han, which lasted another 200 years, a concerted but unsuccessful effort was made to restore the glory of the former Han. The Later Han scored considerable success in recovering lost territories, however. Sent to befriend the tribes on the northwestern frontier in AD 73, a great diplomat-general, Pan Ch'ao, eventually led an army of 70,000 almost to the borders of eastern Europe. Pan Ch'ao returned to China in 101 and brought back information about the Roman Empire. The Romans also knew about China, but they thought of it only as the land where silk was produced. The Period of Disunity (220-581) After the fall of the Later Han, the Chinese Empire remained divided for three and a half centuries. The first half-century began with the domination of the Three Kingdoms: Wei under the Ts'ao family in the north, Shu Han under Liu Pei in the southwest, and Wu under Sun Ch'uan in the southeast. Invaders from the north soon overran the kingdoms and set up their own states, but the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), established by one of the barbarian tribes, the Toba, was the only one to last. Four dynasties established by the Chinese ruled in the south during the 4th and 5th centuries. The Three Kingdoms period was made famous by the novel 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms', which glamorized the period as an age of chivalry. The Sui Dynasty (581-618) The prolonged period of disunity finally ended when a general from the northwest united China by establishing the new dynasty of Sui. A second great period of imperial unity was begun. The relationship of the Sui to the succeeding T'ang Dynasty was much like that of the Ch'in to the Han. It served as the unifying foundation on which its successor could build. The first Sui emperor, Wen Ti, introduced a series of economic reforms, such as reduction of the peasants' taxes, a careful census for equitable tax collection, and restoration of the equal allocation system used in the Northern Wei. Every taxable male received a grant of land, part of which was returnable when he ceased to be a taxpayer at age 60 and part of which he could pass on to his heirs. He also revived the Han system of examinations based on Confucian classics. The T'ang Dynasty (618-907) The T'ang emperors set up a political system in which the emperor was supreme and government officials were selected on the bases of merit and education. The early T'ang rulers applied the equal allocation system rigorously to bring about a greater equity in taxation and to insure the flow of taxes to the government. A census was taken every three years to enforce the system, which also involved drafting people to do labor. These measures led to an agricultural surplus and the development of units of uniform value for the principal commodities, two of the most important prerequisites for the growth of commerce and cities.  The T'ang capital of Chang'an was one of the greatest commercial and cosmopolitan cities in the world at that time. Like most capitals of China, Chang'an was composed of three parts: the palace, the imperial city, and the outer city, separated from each other by mighty walls.   The T'ang was a period of great imperial expansion, which reached its greatest height in the first half of the 8th century. At that time, Chinese control was recognized by people from Tibet and Central Asia in the west to Mongolia, Manchuria (now the Northeast region of China), and Korea in the north and Annam in the south. The Sung Dynasty (960-1279) Over 300 years of Sung history is divided into the two periods of Northern and Southern Sung. Because of the barbarian occupation of northern China the second half of the Sung rule was confined to the area south of the Huai River. Northern Sung (960-1126) General Chao K'uang-yin, later known as Sung T'ai Tsu, was said to have been coerced to become emperor in order to unify China. Wary of power-hungry commanders, Sung T'ai Tsu made the military into a national army under his direct control. Under his less capable successors, however, the military increasingly lost prestige. Unfortunately for China, the weakening of the military coincided with the rise of successive strong nomad nations on the borders.  In contrast to the military's loss of prestige, the civil service rose in dignity. The examination system that had been restored in the Sui and T'ang was further elaborated and regularized. Selection examinations were held every three years at the district, provincial, and metropolitan levels.  Only 200 out of thousands of applicants were granted the jinshi degree, the highest degree, and appointed to government posts. From this time on, civil servants became China's most envied elite, replacing the hereditary nobles and landlords.  Sung dominion extended over only part of the territories of earlier Chinese empires. The Khitans controlled the northeastern territories, and the Hsi Hsia (Western Hsia) controlled the northwestern territories. Unable to recover these lands, the Sung emperors were compelled to make peace with the Khitans in 1004 and with the Hsi Hsia in 1044. Massive payments to the barbarians under the peace terms depleted the state treasury, caused hardship to taxpaying peasants, and gave rise to a conflict in the court among advocates of war, those who favored peace, and reformers.  In 1069 Emperor Shen Tsung appointed Wang An-shih as chief minister. Wang proposed a number of sweeping reforms based on the classical text of the 'Rites of Chou'. Many of his "new laws" were actually revivals of earlier policies, but officials and landlords opposed his reforms. When the emperor and Wang died within a year of each other, the new laws were withdrawn. For the next several decades, until the fall of the Northern Sung in 1126, the reformers and antireformers alternated in power, creating havoc and turmoil in government.  In an effort to regain territory lost to the Khitans, the Sung sought an alliance with the newly powerful Juchens from Manchuria. Once the alliance had expelled the Khitans, however, the Juchens turned on the Sung and occupied the capital of Kaifeng. The Juchens established the dynasty of Chin, a name meaning "gold," which lasted from 1115 to 1234, in the north. They took the emperor and his son prisoner, along with 3,000 others, and ordered them to be held in Manchuria. Southern Sung (1126-1279) Another imperial son fled south and settled in 1127 at Hangzhou, where he resumed the Sung rule as the emperor Kao Tsung. The Sung retained control south of the Huai River, where they ruled for another one and a half centuries.  Although militarily weak and limited in area, the Southern Sung represented one of China's most brilliant periods of cultural, commercial, maritime, and technological development. Despite the loss of the north, trade continued to expand, enabling a commercial revolution to take place in the 13th century. Cut off from the traditional overland trade routes, Sung merchants turned to the ocean with the aid of such improvements as compasses and huge oceangoing ships called junks. The development of a paper money economy stimulated commercial growth and kept it going. The Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty (1279-1368) The Mongols were the first of the northern barbarians to rule all of China. After creating an empire that stretched across the Eurasian continent and occupying northern China and Korea in the first half of the 13th century, the Mongols continued their assault on the Southern Sung. By 1276 the Southern Sung capital of Hangzhou had fallen, and in 1279 the last of the Sung loyalists perished.  Before this, Kublai Khan, the fifth "great khan" and grandson of Genghis Khan, had moved the Mongol capital from Karakorum to Peking. In 1271 he declared himself emperor of China and named the dynasty Yuan, meaning "beginning," to signify that this was the beginning of a long era of Mongol rule.  In Asia, Kublai Khan continued his grandfather's dream of world conquest. Two unsuccessful naval expeditions were launched against Japan in 1274 and 1281. Four land expeditions were sent against Annam and five against Burma. However, the Mongol conquests overseas and in Southeast Asia were neither spectacular nor were they long enduring.  Mongol rule in China lasted less than a century. The Mongols became the most hated of the barbarian rulers because they did not allow the Chinese ruling class to govern. Instead, they gave the task of governing to foreigners. Distrusting the Chinese, the Mongol rulers placed the southern Chinese at the lowest level of the four classes they created. The extent of this distrust was reflected in their provincial administration. As conquerers, they followed the Ch'in example and made the provincial governments into direct extensions of the central chancellery. This practice was continued by succeeding dynasties, resulting in a further concentration of power in the central imperial government.  The Chinese despised the Mongols for refusing to adapt to Chinese culture. The Mongols kept their own language and customs. The Mongol rulers were tolerant about religions, however. Kublai Khan reportedly dabbled in many religions. The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Having restored Chinese rule to China, the first Ming emperor tried to model his rule after that of the Han, but the Ming fell far short of the Han's accomplishments. The land under Ming domination was less than under either the Han or the T'ang. The Ming dominion changed little after the first two decades. It was confined mostly to what is known as China proper, south of the Great Wall and east of Xinjiang and Tibet.  In culture, as well, the Ming lacked the Han's creativity and brilliance. Coming after almost a century of foreign domination, the Ming was a period of restoration and reorganization rather than a time of new discovery. In a sense, the Ming followed a typical dynastic cycle: initial rehabilitation of the economy and restoration of efficient government, followed by a time of stability and then a gradual decline and fall.  The emperor Hung-wu modeled his government on the T'ang system, restoring the doctrine and practices of Confucianism and continuing the trend toward concentration of power in the imperial government, especially in the hands of the emperor himself. He tried to conduct state affairs singlehandedly, but the work load proved overwhelming. To assist him, he gathered around him several loyal middle-level officials, thus creating an extra-governmental organization, the Grand Secretariat. The central bureaucracy was restored and filled by officials selected by the examination system. That system was further formalized by the introduction of a special essay style called the eight-legged essay, to be used in writing the examination. In addition, the subject matter of the examinations was restricted to the Five Classics, said to have been compiled, edited, or written by Confucius, and the Four Books, published by Chu Hsi.  In the field of provincial government, the emperor Hung-wu continued the Yuan practice of limiting the power of provincial governors and subjecting them directly to the central government. The empire was divided into 15 provinces. The first capital at Nanjing was in the economic heartland of China, but in 1421 the emperor Yung-Lo, who took the throne after a civil war, moved the capital to Peking, where he began a massive construction project. The imperial palace, which is also known as the Forbidden City, was built at this time. The Ch'ing Empire (1644-1911) Like the Mongols in the 13th century, the Manchus (formerly the Juchen) were barbarians who succeeded in ruling the whole of China, but, unlike the 13th-century conquerers, the sinicized Manchus made their rule more acceptable to the Chinese. As a result, Ch'ing rule lasted 267 years, compared with 89 years for the Yuan.  Pax Sinica (1683-1795) The Manchus took Peking with relative ease in 1644, but they did not gain control of the whole of China until 1683. Thereafter, the Manchus enjoyed more than a century of peace and prosperity, a period that came to be called Pax Sinica (Peace in China). By the end of that period the dynasty had reached the height of its power. The Republic of China (1912-1949) Early in March 1912, Sun Yat-sen resigned from the presidency and, as promised, Yuan Shih-kai was elected his successor at Nanjing. Inaugurated in March 1912 in Beijing, the base of his power, Yuan established a republican system of government with a premier, a cabinet, a draft constitution, and a plan for parliamentary elections early in 1913. The Kuomintang (KMT, National People's party), the successor to Sun Yat-sen's organization, was formed in order to prepare for the election.  Despite his earlier pledges to support the republic, Yuan schemed to assassinate his opponents and weaken the constitution and the parliament. By the end of 1914 he had made himself president for life and even planned to establish an imperial dynasty with himself as the first emperor. His dream was thwarted by the serious crisis of the Twenty-one Demands for special privileges presented by the Japanese in January 1915 and by vociferous opposition from many sectors of Chinese society. He died in June 1916 a broken man. After Yuan's death, a number of his proteges took positions of power in the Beijing government or ruled as warlords in outlying regions. In August 1917 the Beijing government joined the Allies and declared war on Germany. At the peace conference in Versailles, France, the Chinese demand to end foreign concessions in China was ignored. The People's Republic of China On Oct. 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The CCP hailed its takeover of China as a people's victory over and liberation from imperial domination (especially that of the United States) and the oppressive KMT regime. The Red Army was renamed the People's Liberation Army. During the early days of the People's Republic, the troops were restrained, foreign-educated Chinese returned to help the country, and most local administrators remained in office.  The first Communist government, the People's Consultative Council, included non-Communists among its 662 members. However, in the top committee, 31 out of 56 seats were occupied by Communists, and the constitution of 1954 drastically curtailed the role of non-Communists. After 1954, more authority was concentrated in the central government under the State Council. Real power, however, lay with the Communist party, especially the Central Committee, then composed of 94 members. This committee held together the triad of power--army, government, and party. The inner circle of the Central Committee was the 19-member Political Bureau and its seven-member Standing Committee. 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