Chapter 9: China and the World

Reemergence of a Unified China
-Han Dynasty collapsed in 220 C.E.
-the rise of locally aristocratic to influence China
-discreditied Confucianism and embraced Buddhism and Daoism
-Movement of Chinese people, accompanied by their intensive agriculture, set in motion a vast environmental transformation, marked by the destruction of the old growth forests that once covered much of the country and the retreat of elephants that inhabited those lands

A "Golden Age" of Chinese Achievement
-Sui dynasty (589-618)
-Canal System- reaching 1,200 miles in length.
these canals linked northern and southern China economically and contributed much to the prosperity following.
-The conquest of Korea exhausted the state's resources, isolated people, and prompted the overthrow of the dynasty.
-Tang Dynasty (618-907)
-Song Dynasty (960-1279)
-renewed unity
-both established patterns of Chinese life that went through the 20th century, despite the 50 year period of disunity between the two dynasties.
- "Golden Age" of arts and literature, setting standards of excellence in poetry, landscape painting, and ceramics.
Song Dynasty- scholarship gave rise to Neo-Confucianism, an effort to revive Confucian thinking while putting into some of the insights of Buddhism and Daoism.
-Built state structure
personnel
finance
rites
army
justice
public works
-Tang Dynasty best ordered state in the world

Women in the Song Dynasty:
-Elite women in the Song Dynasty participated in social life with greater freedom than in the classical times.
-Women were viewed as a distraction to men's pursuit of a contemplative and introspective life.

-Tribute System
set of practices that required non-Chinese authorities to acknowledge Chinese superiority and their own subordinate place in a Chinese-centered world order.

China and Buddhism
- China received from India was the religion Buddhism
- large scale cultural burrowing in Chinese history.
- Buddhism entered into China through the Silk Road trading network during the first and second centuries.
- The secluded and monastic views of Buddhism was a dishonor to Chinese family values, and its concern for individual salvation or enlightenment appeared selfish and contradicting the social orientation of Confucian thinking.
- Later after the collapse of the Han dynasty, Buddhism was incorporated into China and well received by many.