Hi guys welcome today we will talk about ancient Chinese civilization. The topic is very beautiful and interesting which is why I decided to divide it in two parts then in two videos. In this video we will talk especially of the birth of this ancient civilization that was born near a yellow river, do you think it is really yellow and that we will also go to see together. We will also talk about agriculture, we will talk about them social organization, of how the houses of the famous writing were: writing ideograms. And we will also see what tools they used and how they did the paper they wrote on. And there is a beautiful video that you can see on just the papermaking. Let's get started! I would start immediately with, say, the birth of civilization. Our archaeologists have found artifacts dating back to 4000 BC while the first villages date back to 3000 BC. And where did these villages rise? Near rivers that we go to see on the map. Then we have this very large part of China with two rivers the Yellow River and the Blue River are very important. The Yellow River, as it says the name is really yellow and we will then go to discover and see also some images of this river and find out why it is yellow. So, they were born here initially small villages, both on the Yellow River and on the Blue River Now, these two villages basically fought over the territory and therefore they were constantly at war, they were enemies and fought for many years. We know that around 1500 BC from simple villages they became fortified cities with walls and continued to go to war for many years, until 221 BC, when in reality they decided to unify the territory and form a single kingdom under the dynasty of the QIN emperor. Cin, where the name China comes from. So it became a single empire very powerful and remained so, under the emperors until 1912 after Christ then when China became a republic. Let's talk about agriculture and how these peoples lived near rivers and because the yellow river is yellow. The yellow river, as we can see here from an image that I open to you, is truly yellowish because in the waters there is a mud of this color which is a silt. A limo, which we know well, goes to fertilize in a natural way the land. So what could these peoples live on: they lived mainly of agriculture, they cultivated wheat and barley, the most important thing rice is produced in China. Which is the main food for them. So, along the banks of this river, they cultivated. Also along the banks of the Blue River but especially on the banks of the Yellow River. Another very important thing which concerns agriculture are woods where we find mulberry plants of the mulberry trees. And why on earth are these mulberry trees so important? Because there are animals, the famous silkworms, that yes they feed on the leaves of this mulberry. What did the Chinese do with these silkworms? Let's go see what a bug is. Here it is: it is a cocoon that these animals, who are caterpillars, before these caterpillars become butterflies they go to build this silkworm. From here the Chinese derive the fabric of silk which is a very precious, very light, very beautiful fabric who then dyed made many bright colors and sold. And they are them for silk, we know, the first producers of this beautiful fabric. So it is to remember among the products of agriculture As for society, as we said, there was the emperor who was believed to be a kind of god and who ruled the whole kingdom. He was helped by simple officials and then under them in one imaginary pyramid of society, we must imagine craftsmen. Of the craftsmen who worked bronze and who made terracotta, they made vases, made statues and also worked iron and bronze to build weapons. The cities were, as I said, very fortified and therefore protected because however they were subject to the invasions of the peoples of the north, of which then we will talk longer. Finally we have the farmers. What did the peasants do? We know this, precisely from the cultivation of these lands near rivers. But in case of war the peasants became soldiers. And they became part of the army and went to fight. So they were still a very important part of society. There were no slaves and no other social typologies. As for the houses, however we must distinguish between the houses we say in the nobles, of the rich who were made especially in wood with terracotta roofs and we distinguish them instead, we can thus differentiate them from those of the peasants and the craftsmen who were simpler houses made with mud with wood and with bamboo canes. Very interesting is the writing of the Chinese. He was born around 1500 BC and they initially recorded on the shells of turtles or on the bones of animals. What did they affect? They engraved ideograms, a kind of drawings. Many of these signs, of these ideograms are still used in famous Chinese writing today which is very complicated for us Westerners. How did they write? They also wrote with sticks similar to brushes. Brush that was dipped where: in an ink. The ink was made with the crumbled coal, mixed with of the water as we can see here, black black. They dipped the brush and they drew, they just wrote their ideograms. The very interesting thing is that they discovered, invented and then made the paper. It was in 105 BC. How did they make the card? The paper was made, as we can see here, taking the bark of the trees but not only: old rags or nets of the broken fishermen now ruined, these materials were shredded comminuted and placed in water so that they softened. They softened to form a paste that was spread on a species sieve and dry. When it dried it came all leveled, it was completely dried. This dough became paper. And then they could, once dry, cut according to the format they needed and then they started writing. A very, very important invention! So, with the invention of paper, this first part of the video ends here on the civilization of the Chinese. Instead, as for the next video that you are going to see, we will talk about many interesting things: we will first talk about their religion and the Great Wall that we all know, this huge wall structure , which we will talk about later widely and we will also see images with a final surprise. And not only: we will also talk about the famous Terracotta Army and what it was and their inventions. As for the final surprise of the Great Wall we have satellite images that show us the Great Wall from space. Will it be true? It is true that the Great Wall can you see it from space? We will find out in the next video. Hello everyone!