An Outline of Chinese Culture History中国历史要略
More than amillion years ago, primitive human beings lived on the land now called China.About 400,000 to 500,000 years ago, the Peking Men①,primitive men that lived in Zhoukoudian southwest of Beijing, were able to walkwith the body erect, to make and use simple tools, and use fire. Six to seventhousand years ago, the people living in the Yellow River valley supportedthemselves primarily with agriculture, while also raising livestock.
In China, slave society began around the 21st century B.C., coveringthe Xia Dynasty, Shang Dynasty, the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumnand the Warring States Periods. Over a span of 1,700 years, agriculture andanimal husbandry(畜牧业) developedgreatly and the skills of silkworm-raising and silk-weaving spread widely.Bronze smelting and casting skills reached a relatively high level, and ironsmelting became increasingly sophisticated. The Chinese culture flourished, asa great number of thinkers and philosophers emerged, most famously Confucius.The teachings of Confucius developed into an ethical and philosophical systemcalled Confucianism(儒学) which helped to build up the norms and values of Chinese people.
In 221 B.C., QinShi Huang, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, established a centralized,unified, multi-ethnic feudal monarchy state. He unified the language, themeasurement system and currency, set up the prefectures and counties system(郡县制), constructed the famous GreatWall and built extravagant(奢华的) palaces and mausoleums.
This period from Qin Shi Huang’s unification of China to the OpiumWar②in 1840 belongs to feudal society. During these 2,000 years, China’s economyand culture continued to develop, leaving a rich heritage of science andtechnology, literature and the arts. The four great inventions of ancient China--- paper-making, printing, the compass and gunpowder --- have proved anenormous contribution to world civilization.
In 206 BC, after overthrowing the Qin Dynasty, Liu Bang establishedthe Han Dynasty, after which the members of the ethnic majority in China arenamed, the “people of Han”. It is divided into two periods: Western Han Dynastyand Eastern Han Dynasty. The Han Dynasty was notable also for its militaryprowess. The empire expanded westward as far as the end of the Tarim Basin (塔里木盆地), making possible for the relativelysecure “Silk Road” , which extends to the Roman Empire.
The Han Dynasty survived for 426 years. By 220AD, China evolved intothe Three Kingdoms Periods, in a tripartite balance (三国鼎立) of the Wei Kingdom, the ShuKingdom and the Wu Kingdom. Following the Three Kingdoms Periods wereconsecutively the Jin Dynasty, the Sixteen Kingdoms, the Southern and NorthernDynasties. It was an age of civil wars and disunity for China.
China was reunified in 589 by the short-lived Sui Dynasty. The Sui Dynasty’sshort reign was attributed to the government’s tyrannical(残暴的) demands on the people, who bore the crushing burden of taxes andcompulsory labor. These resources were overstrained (过度紧张) in the completion of the GrandCanal③, and in the undertaking of other construction projects, includingthe reconstruction of the Great Wall.
Chinesecivilization peaked at Tang Dynasty when Tang people traded with people allover the world. This is why overseas Chinese often call themselves “Tang Ren”,or the People of Tang. Stimulated by contact with India and the Middle East,the empire saw a flowering of creativity in many fields. Buddhism, originatingin India around the time of Confucius, flourished during the Tang period,becoming thoroughly assimilated and a permanent part of Chinese traditionalculture. Block printing was invented, making the written word available togreater audiences. The Tang Dynasty was the golden age of literature and art.
Following theTang Dynasty came the period of the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms. In 960a new power, Song Dynasty reunified most of China. The Song Dynasty dividesinto two phases: Northern Song and Southern Song. The division was caused bythe forced abandonment of north China in 1127 by the Song court, which couldnot push back the nomadic (游牧民族) invaders.
By the mid-thirteenthcentury, the Mongols (蒙古人) had subjugated (征服) north China, Korea, and the Muslim (穆斯林的) kingdoms of Central Asia and had twice penetrated Europe. With theresources of his vast empire, Kublai Khan (1215- 1294)（忽必烈）, a grandson of Genghis Khan(1167- 1227)（成吉斯汗）, beganhis drive against the Southern Song. Even before the extinction of the Song Dynasty,Kublai Khan had established the Yuan Dynasty with Dadu ( now Beijing ) as thecapital.
Rivalry amongthe Mongol imperial heirs, natural disasters, and numerous peasant uprisingsled to the collapse of the Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was founded by a HanChinese peasant, Zhu Yuanzhang. Ming Dynasty had its capital first at Nanjingand later at Beijing. In this period, the Chinese fleet sailed the China seasand the Indian Ocean, cruising as far as the east coast of Africa.
Long wars with the Mongols, incursions (侵犯) by the Japanese into Korea, andharassment of Chinese coastal cities by the Japanese in the sixteenth centuryweakened Ming rule. In 1644 the Manchus(满族人) took Beijing from the north and became masters of north China,establishing the last imperial dynasty, the Qing Dynasty.
The Qing Dynastywas determined to protect itself not only from internal rebellion but also fromforeign invasion. After China’s land had been subjugated, the Manchus conqueredOuter Mongolia (now the Mongolian People’s Republic) in the late seventeenthcentury. In the eighteenth century they gained control of Central Asia as faras the Pamir Mountains (帕米尔高原) and established a protectorate over the area of Tibet.
The success ofthe Qing Dynasty in maintaining the old order proved limited when the empirewas confronted with growing challenges from Western powers. In 1840, anxious tocontinue its opium trade in China, Britain started the Opium War against China.After the war, the big foreign powers forcibly occupied land and divided Chinainto different spheres of influence(势力范围); China was transformed into a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society.
The Revolutionof 1911 led by Sun Yat-sen abolished the feudal monarchy, and established theRepublic of China, therefore starting the modern history of China.
With theintroduction of Marxism and Leninism into China and under the influence of theOctober Revolution in Russia, the May 4th Movement broke out in1919, and in 1921, the Communist Party of China (CPC) was founded. After theAnti-Japanese War and Liberation War, in 1949, Communist Party of Chinaestablished the People's Republic of China, driving the Nationalist Party(国民党) led by Jiang Kaishek to TaiwanIsland.
Abridgedand revised from
http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/yanglu/ECC_HISTORY_SUMMARY.htm
