Background
For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences. But in the 19th and early 20th centuries, China was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established a dictatorship that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of millions of people. After 1978, his successor DENG Xiaoping gradually introduced market-oriented reforms and decentralized economic decision-making. Output quadrupled by 2000. Political controls remain tight while economic controls continue to be relaxed.
The History Of China, as documented in ancient writings, dates back some 3,300 years. Modern archaeological studies provide evidence of still more ancient origins in a culture that flourished between 2500 and 2000 B.C. in what is now central China and the lower Huang He ( orYellow River) Valley of north China. Centuries of migration, amalgamation, and development brought about a distinctive system of writing, philosophy, art, and political organization that came to be recognizable as Chinese civilization. What makes the civilization unique in world history is its continuity through over 4,000 years to the present century.
The Chinese have developed a strong sense of their real and mythological origins and have kept voluminous records since very early times. It is largely as a result of these records that knowledge concerning the ancient past, not only of China but also of its neighbors, has survived.
Chinese history, until the twentieth century, was written mostly by members of the ruling scholar-official class and was meant to provide the ruler with precedents to guide or justify his policies. These accounts focused on dynastic politics and colorful court histories and included developments among the commoners only as backdrops. The historians described a Chinese political pattern of dynasties, one following another in a cycle of ascent, achievement, decay, and rebirth under a new family.
Of the consistent traits identified by independent historians, a salient one has been the capacity of the Chinese to absorb the people of surrounding areas into their own civilization. Their success can be attributed to the superiority of their ideographic written language, their technology, and their political institutions; the refinement of their artistic and intellectual creativity; and the sheer weight of their numbers. The process of assimilation continued over the centuries through conquest and colonization until what is now known as China Proper was brought under unified rule. The Chinese also left an enduring mark on people beyond their borders, especially the Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese.
Another recurrent historical theme has been the unceasing struggle of the sedentary Chinese against the threat posed to their safety and way of life by non-Chinese peoples on the margins of their territory in the north, northeast, and northwest. In the thirteenth century, the Mongols from the northern steppes became the first alien people to conquer all China. Although not as culturally developed as the Chinese, they left some imprint on Chinese civilization while heightening Chinese perceptions of threat from the north. China came under alien rule for the second time in the mid-seventeenth century; the conquerors--the Manchus--came again from the north and northeast.
For centuries virtually all the foreigners that Chinese rulers saw came from the less developed societies along their land borders. This circumstance conditioned the Chinese view of the outside world. The Chinese saw their domain as the self-sufficient center of the universe and derived from this image the traditional (and still used) Chinese name for their country--Zhongguo () , literally, Middle Kingdom or Central Nation. China saw itself surrounded on all sides by so-called barbarian peoples whose cultures were demonstrably inferior by Chinese standards. This China-centered ("sinocentric") view of the world was still undisturbed in the nineteenth century, at the time of the first serious confrontation with the West. China had taken it for granted that its relations with Europeans would be conducted according to the tributary system that had evolved over the centuries between the emperor and representatives of the lesser states on China's borders as well as between the emperor and some earlier European visitors. But by the mid-nineteenth century, humiliated militarily by superior Western weaponry and technology and faced with imminent territorial dismemberment, China began to reassess its position with respect to Western civilization. By 1911 the two-millennia-old dynastic system of imperial government was brought down by its inability to make this adjustment successfully.
Because of its length and complexity, the history of the Middle Kingdom lends itself to varied interpretation. After the communist takeover in 1949, historians in mainland China wrote their own version of the past--a history of China built on a Marxist model of progression from primitive communism to slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and finally socialism. The events of history came to be presented as a function of the class struggle. Historiography became subordinated to proletarian politics fashioned and directed by the Chinese Communist Party. A series of thought-reform and antirightist campaigns were directed against intellectuals in the arts, sciences, and academic community. The Cultural Revolution (1966-76) further altered the objectivity of historians. In the years after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, however, interest grew within the party, and outside it as well, in restoring the integrity of historical inquiry. This trend was consistent with the party's commitment to "seeking truth from facts." As a result, historians and social scientists raised probing questions concerning the state of historiography in China. Their investigations included not only historical study of traditional China but penetrating inquiries into modern Chinese history and the history of the Chinese Communist Party.
In post-Mao China, the discipline of historiography has not been separated from politics, although a much greater range of historical topics has been discussed. Figures from Confucius--who was bitterly excoriated for his "feudal" outlook by Cultural Revolution-era historians--to Mao himself have been evaluated with increasing flexibility. Among the criticisms made by Chinese social scientists is that Maoist-era historiography distorted Marxist and Leninist interpretations. This meant that considerable revision of historical texts was in order in the 1980s, although no substantive change away from the conventional Marxist approach was likely. Historical institutes were restored within the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and a growing corps of trained historians, in institutes and academia alike, returned to their work with the blessing of the Chinese Communist Party. This in itself was a potentially significant development.
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Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BC) was born in Hantan, the capital of the feudal state of Zhao. When he was 13 years old (246 BC), King Chin Juang Shiang (Qin Zhuang Xiang) died (after only three years on the throne). Because of his young age, Chin Shih Huang (Qin Shi Huang) was not yet able to take over the throne, and Ying Cheng (Ying Zheng) became king.
After 9 years of political training, he was 22 (238 BC), which was the minimum age required to become king. He underwent the coronation ceremony in present-day Feng Xiang County, Shaanxi Province, and began to officially carry out affairs of the state.
From 231 BC, he made use of the Chin (Qin) military strength, and during the next ten years conquered six feudal states (Han, Zhao, Yan, Wei, Chu and Qi). He united China and established the Chin (Qin) Dynasty, naming himself the first emperor of China. He was the first in Chinese history to concentrate power into one centralized authority and became China's first emperor at only 39 years of age.
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The Great Wall of China is the longest structure ever built. It is about 4,000 miles long, and it was built entirely by hand. About 1, 200 - 1, 500 miles of the Great Wall were built during the reign of Emperor Shi Huangdi (Qin Dynasty). The Great Wall crosses northern China from the east coast to the central part of China.
The Chinese built walls along their borders as early as the 600's B.C. During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, walls were built between Chinese regions which were fighting with each other. Walls were also built to protect China from outside invaders.
Emperor Shi Huangdi of the Qin dynasty (221 - 206 B.C.) is regarded as the first ruler to think of the idea of the Great Wall. He thought of connecting existing, older walls with sections of new wall. The building of the Great Wall continued into the Han and Sui dynasties.
Emperor Shi Huangdi ordered the building of the Great Wall to keep the enemy (the Mongols) from attacking his empire. The northern part of his empire did not have many people in it, so enemy invaders could move in easily. The people in that region were also nomadic which meant they moved from place to place.
Emperor Shi Hunagdi stated that the wall should be six horses wide at the top, eight horses wide at the bottom and five men high. The emperor's soldiers grabbed criminals, troublemakers, musicians, teachers, writers, artists, and humble peasants to help build the Great Wall. In all, about one million people marched north to build the Great Wall.
Every one hundred yards, the workers built watchtowers two stories high. From the watchtowers, the Mongols could be seen coming, and warning signals could be sent. This prevented the Mongols from making surprise attacks.
The Chinese worked throughout the day and night. Workers who complained or who tried to run away were buried alive. Many Chinese spent the rest of their life building the Great Wall. Many times, dead Chinese were buried in the wall. The Great Wall is sometimes called the "Long Graveyard" because so many people died while building the wall.
The wall wound up and down the mountains. It was built with dirt, stone and bricks. At the top of the wall, a roadway paved with three layers of brick connected the watchtowers. The roadways were wide enough to hold ten soldiers side by side.
The Great Wall was so strong that the Mongols did not threaten China again for more than one thousand years. The last improvements to the wall were made between 1368 A.D. to 1644 A.D. Today, much of the wall lay in ruins. The wall no longer serves the purpose of defending China, but it does attract many tourists.
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"The Temple of Heaven" was built in 1420 A.D. during the Ming Dynasty to offer sacrifice to Heaven. As Chinese emperors called themselves "The Son of Heaven" ,they dared not to build their own dwelling,"Forbidden City" bigger than a dwelling for Heaven. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368 A.D. - 1911 A.D.), the emperors would offer sacrifice to Heaven on the day of the Winter Solstice every year. This ceremony was to thank Heaven and hope everything would be good in the future.
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