Did you know that China's name comes from the Qin Dynasty? Hello and welcome to World History Encyclopedia! My name is Kelly and today's video is all about the history of ancient China. Don't forget, the easiest way to support us is by giving this video a thumbs up, subscribing to our channel and hitting that bell icon for notifications, so you don't miss out on any new uploads. If you haven't already heard, World History Encyclopedia has teamed up with Andante Travels to bring you the 'Treasures of Ancient Greece' guided tour. Join our expert tour guide, Dr Rita Roussos, as she takes you on a journey through Classical Athens to Delphi, across the Gulf of Corinth and into the Peloponnesian Hills where the hero Hercules began his Twelve Labours and King Agamemnon set out to rescue Helen and capture Troy. Make sure to hit the link in the description below to learn all about this amazing trip, and we hope to see you there! In 1927, a skull fossil was found from a body now known as Peking Man, who lived sometime between 700,000 and 300,000 years ago and in 1965, remains were found in Yuanmou of a man who lived there 1.7 million years ago. Not only were the remains found but evidence also shows that the early inhabitants of China also knew how to fashion stone tools and use fire. This kind of evidence shows a long history of Hominids and Homo sapiens in China and also a high level of sophistication in the early culture. Banpo Village, a Neolithic site dating to circa 4500 BCE, boasts 45 houses and a trench surrounding the village for drainage, fencing in domestic animals and protection from attack. There are man-made caves that have been dug underground for food storage and there have been pottery and tools found at the site. The Greeks and Romans knew the country of China as 'Seres', meaning "the land where silk comes from" but the name China comes from the Sanskrit 'Cina' which was derived from the Qin Dynasty. It's important to note that the following dynasties and periods of ancient China's history didn't start and end neatly but ran into one another with similarities, including language and religion, running through each period but for clarity's sake, the history has been broken up into different periods. From the small villages and farming communities developed a centralised government and the first was the Prehistoric Xia Dynasty, which dates between circa 2070 and 1600 BCE, and was once considered more of a myth than a fact; this all changed though with excavations in the 1960s and 70s uncovering bronze works and tombs that proves there was societal development between the Stone Age villages and the later cohesive Chinese civilization. The legendary Yu the Great founded the dynasty and worked for 13 years to control the flooding of the Yellow River which continuously destroyed the farmer's crops. In those 13 years, he didn't return home, even though he seems to have walked by his house at least three times but his dedication to solving the flooding river inspired others to follow him. He successfully controlled the flooding then conquered the Sanmiao tribes and was named the successor of the current ruler. The power remained in Yu the Great's family with his son Qi ruling after him, and coming to an end in 1600 when the final Xia ruler, Jie, was overthrown by Tang who established the Shang Dynasty. The dates that are often assigned to the reign of Tang, 1657 to 1646 BCE, don't actually correspond to the events he took part in and what is actually known about him is that he was either the ruler or a very important person in the Kingdom of Shang, where he was from, and in around 1600, he led a revolt against the Xie ruler Jie and defeated them at the Battle of Mingtiao. The Xia court was extravagant and their indulgent usage of the kingdom's resources is thought to have led to the uprising against Jie. When Tang came to power, he lowered the taxes, stopped all monumental building projects begun by Jie, and was ultimately a wise and efficient ruler. It was during the Shang Dynasty that arts and culture flourished and when writing, religion and bronze metallurgy in China developed. Before the Shang Dynasty, there was a pantheon of gods worshipped by the Chinese people with one supreme god (Shangti) who was considered 'the great ancestor' and was responsible for war, agriculture, good government and the weather. During this time, ancestor worship also developed and it was believed that once someone died, they gained divine powers and could be called upon for help in times of need, so with these beliefs sophisticated rituals developed alongside them in order to appease the ancestors spirits. It was during the Shang Dynasty that the practice of linking a just ruler with the divine and his rule as ultimately ordained by divine law began with the famous Mandate of Heaven being developed during the Zhou Dynasty. The Mandate of Heaven was the god's blessing on a just ruler, so that when the ruler wasn't serving the will of the gods, the government could be overthrown. The Zhou Dynasty succeeded the Shang Dynasty in around 1046 BCE, after King Wu of the Zhou province rebelled and won against King Zhou of Shang after the Shang king killed his brother unjustly. The Zhou Dynasty spanned from 1046 to 256 BCE with 1046 to 771 BCE marking the Western Zhou Period, while 771-256 BCE marks the Eastern Zhou Period. During the Zhou Dynasty, civilization developed further and their culture flourished. The best known and greatest of the Chinese philosophers and poets all lived during the Zhou Period, including Confucius, Mo Ti, Lao-Tzu, Mencius, Tao Chien and Sun-Tzu. Iron metallurgy became more sophisticated and the chariot became fully developed by the Zhou, although introduced to the region under the Shang. The end of the Western Zhou Period and the beginning of the Eastern Zhou Period happened during what is known as the Spring and Autumn Period, between circa 772 and 476 BCE, when the government became decentralised and moved to their new capital at Luoyang. This period is known for its advancements in philosophy, the arts and poetry and saw the rise of Taoist, Mohist and Confucian thought. But between circa 481 and 221 BCE, states of China started to break away from the central rule and proclaimed themselves sovereign and this period is known as the Warring States Period, because each fought against the other. There were seven states that all fought one another for control: Chu, Han, Qi, Qin, Wei, Yan and Zhao. They all considered themselves sovereign but none of them were quite confident enough to claim the Mandate of Heaven that the Zhou of Luoyang (the capital) still held because none could win a decisive victory over the others. To claim the Mandate of Heaven, a state would have to show they were favoured by the gods through military superiority. None could gain advantage over the others since they were all using the same tactics and observing the same battle protocol and military traditions, but between 262 and 260 BCE, the Qin state gained supremacy over Zhao at the Battle of Changping. This victory was due to the Qin statesman Shang Yang, who changed the focus of warfare from playing by the rules to winning at any cost. The Qin threw away the traditional chivalric rules of Chinese warfare with Shang advocating for the pursuit of victory by any means. Under the king of Qin, Ying Zheng, Shang's directives were fully implemented and the Qin were victorious in 221 BCE, subduing and unifying the other six states. Afterwards, Ying Zheng declared himself Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China. Under the reign of Shi Huangdi, not only was the Qin Dynasty established, but it was the beginning of the period known as the Imperial Era of China which ran from 221 BCE to 1912 CE. Shu Huangdi ordered all of the fortifying walls that separated the states to be destroyed and began the construction of one huge wall along the northern border of his kingdom and although very little of the original wall remains, this was the first Great Wall of China, though it looked nothing like the famous wall built later. He also worked to improve travel in his kingdom by building roads and expanded the borders of his empire. He began as a fair ruler and although he did much for the infrastructure of China, he suppressed all philosophies other than Legalism and ordered the destruction of history and philosophy books that didn't correlate with Legalism, his family line, himself or the state of Qin. Not only did he suppress philosophical beliefs that weren't his own, he also suppressed general freedoms like the freedom of speech and he became more and more unpopular; he became ever more engrossed with the concepts of death and what came after and focused more on the afterlife realm than his earthly kingdom. He became obsessed with death and as his obsession grew, he became increasingly paranoid about his own safety and sought immortality. He felt he found how to live forever, in part, in making sure his afterlife was just as grand as his present one and so he commissioned a palace built for his tomb and an army of over 8,000 terracotta warriors that could serve him for eternity. He wasn't only buried with terracotta warriors but also with chariots, cavalry, a commander-in-chief and assorted animals and birds. Shortly after the death of Shi Huangdi in 210 BCE, the Qin Dynasty collapsed quickly and China reverted back to the chaos of states fighting each other for supremacy with two (the Chu and Han) finally facing each other for supremacy. Between 206 and 202 BCE, was the chaos of the Chu-Hun contention which saw two generals, Liu-Bang of Han and Xiang-Yu of Chu fighting for control of the Chinese government. A temporary peace was negotiated by Xiang-Yu through the Treaty of Hong Canal. Liu-Bang wanted a united China under the Han Dynasty but Xiang-Yu suggested he would rule the east and Liu-Bang in the west. Hostilities broke out again and Liu-Bang defeated Xiang-Yu at the Battle of Gaixia in 202 BCE, and he was proclaimed emperor and became known as Emperor Gaozu of Han. With the accession of Liu-Bang to the throne, the Han Dynasty began. With the peace brought by the Han Dynasty, culture was able to flourish again; arts and technology developed and this is the period when trade with the west began. The Han Dynasty wrote their history down and in all areas of their culture, great advances were made: paper was invented, writing became more sophisticated, all philosophies were tolerated; so both literature and education flourished. After Emperor Gaozu's death in 195 BCE, the Han Dynasty continued under puppet kings installed by his wife Empress Lu Zhi and stability remained in the region. Wu Ti, also known as Wu the Great, is known as the greatest Han emperor, who ruled between 141 and 87 BCE. He expanded China's borders, increased public works, encouraged literacy, improved roads, transportation and trade, employed millions as state workers and was the Chinese emperor who sent an emissary to the west resulting in the official opening of the Silk Road in 130 BCE. Even after Wu the Great's death, prosperity in China continued but although increased wealth meant that there was a rise in large estates and general prosperity, the lives of the peasants got worse and worse. Wang Mang, the acting regent in 9 CE, usurped the government and declared an end to the Han Dynasty, founding the Xin Dynasty, with the vision of land reforms and a redistribution of wealth. Although his plans sounded good, they failed in execution and resulted in widespread unemployment and resentment. He was assassinated and the Xin Dynasty ended in 25 CE, making way for the Eastern Han Period under Emperor Guangwu who reclaimed the lands lost under the Xin Dynasty. He spent much of his time putting down rebellions including the Trung Sisters Rebellion in Vietnam, in 39 CE, which was led by two sisters who were such brilliant strategists it took four years for China to defeat them. Afterwards, China's prosperity and trade increased and the borders of the region were expanded. The Romans were happy to meet whatever price the Chinese asked for the much sought-after silk - a luxury item the Romans couldn't get enough of and whose origin and means of production the Chinese kept a carefully guarded secret. Even with China's prosperity, disputes and rebellions against authority continued as the government began neglecting their people and became increasingly corrupt and ineffective. Two major rebellions: the Five Pecks of Rice Rebellion and the Yellow Turban Rebellion were mounted to force the Eastern Han to abdicate and the government's ability to control the people continued to disintegrate. General Cao Cao eventually put down the rebellion and tried to unify China by invading the south but he was defeated at the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 CE, which left China split into three kingdoms: Cao Wei, Eastern Wu, and Shu Han; all three of which claimed the Mandate of Heaven. This period, which was rife with violence, instability and uncertainty, is known as the Period of the Three Kingdoms, which spanned from 220 to 280 CE; a story famously told in the Legends of the Three Kingdoms. There were some short-lived dynasties such as the Wei and Jin, the Wu Hu and the Sui, between around 208 and 618 CE. In 589 CE, China was finally reunited by the Sui Dynasty who implemented a highly efficient bureaucracy which made it easier to maintain an empire. Literature flourished and it's thought that the famous "Legend of Hua Mulan" was developed during this time. In 618, the Emperor Yang was assassinated and Emperor Gao-Tzu of Tang took control and established the Tang Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty is considered the Golden Age of Chinese civilization and spanned from 618 to 907 CE. The bureaucracy was improved, extravagant building projects and military operations were conducted, but even so, Gao-Tzu was assassinated by his son Li-Shimin in 626 CE, who took the title Emperor Taizong. He was an efficient ruler and a skilled military strategist and improved upon the works of his father. Taizong was succeeded by his son Gaozong, whose wife, Wu Zetian, became China's first and only female monarch. Empress Wu Zetian improved living conditions in China and strengthened the position of emperor. Trade flourished, especially along the Silk Road, and China became the most populous and prosperous country in the world. Some of the most impressive sculpture and silver work in Chinese history comes from the Tang Dynasty and all types of art, culture and technology flourished during this period. Still though, uprisings were a common concern and not everyone loved the government. In 755, General An Lushan rebelled with the force of troops numbering more than 100,000 and declared himself the new emperor. Although in 763 CE, his revolt was put down. It has been estimated that some 36 million people died as a direct result of An Lushan's rebellion, which obviously led to a dramatic decrease in the population of China. After this rebellion, trade suffered, taxes went uncollected and the government was unable to maintain any kind of significant authority. The Tang Dynasty suffered numerous revolts and eventually, after the Huang Chao Rebellion, between 874 and 884 CE, it couldn't recover. China completely broke apart into the period known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms between 907 and 960 CE, until the rise of the Song Dynasty. Under the Song Dynasty, China stabilised once again, although the strife between landowners and those who worked the land continued. The most popular philosophy of the time Neo-Confucianism influenced the laws and customs of China which shaped the region into the country still recognisable in the modern day. China continued past the ancient period and was ruled under the Song Dynasty from 960 to 1279 CE, and then after the Mongol invasion of 1279, the Mongols ruled China under the Yuan Dynasty until 1368 which marked the end of the Mongol rule of China, and was the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. Under the Ming Dynasty, literature and the arts flourished once again and it was the period for the production of the beautiful white and blue Ming porcelains. the Ming Dynasty ruled China until the establishment of the Qing Dynasty in 1644 who ruled until 1911 CE. Which period in ancient China do you find most fascinating and why? Let us know what you think in the comments below! 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