Period of Disunity and Sui

From the "This is absolutely random but cool" Department:


Notecard DBQ Paper Resources:
1. How to outline. (Your 3x5 index card is your only resource for you to write your essay. In case you've never seen a good outline, here's a decent model for you to use.

Dynasties Research Paper, Step One: Decide on Your Topic
1. Read this "China in Five Waves" overview--only the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing sections ("Wave 3" and "Wave 4"). Choose one specific topic from the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing that you would be interested in learning more about in a research paper. Submit your topic for each dynasty on this Google Form by the end of class. 


Period of Disunity to Sui Unification

1. Other developments in the Period of Disunity:
1. Political/Dynasties
1. Three Kingdoms (220-280)
2. Western Jin: unification and collapse (280-316)
1. "Barbarian" conquest of the Yellow River: Sixteen Kingdoms (300-439)
2. Northern Wei: Xianbei barbarians unify North (Yellow River), "become Chinese" (Sinicize) (439-581). Important: Chinese culture "defeats the conquerors." This is a pattern we'll see repeated in the Yuan and Qing.
1. Important: China Shifts South: Han "exodus" south of the Yangtze--the "Southern Dynasties"
2. Eastern Jin (Nanjing), 317-420
3. Southern Dynasties (420-580)
2. Cultural:
1. Buddhism takes root
1. Reasons for its popularity
2. Confucian reaction
3. Taoist reaction
4. Artistic effects
1. Architecture: Pagoda (from India)
2. Sculpture: Dunhuang, Datong
2. Ethnic fusion
1. Fashion, music, art, food influenced by Silk Road cultures
3. Social:
1. Decline of Confucian Government
2. Rise of military-aristocratic families
1. a step backwards from the Han for Confucian values of education, benevolence, moderation, and pacifism
2. the great families rule by wealth, heredity, force
3. peasants reduced to near-tenancy
4. this is the cause of the dizzying number of dynasties during the period of disunity--wealthy families raising private armies had no virtue (de) to win loyalty via the Mandate of Heaven
4. End of Period of Disunity: The Sui Unification (589-618)
1.  Interesting details
1. The Sui unifier was a sinicized Xianbei--so China has a "barbarian" to thank for saving it from permanent, Europe-like division
2. Sui Wendi was a Buddhist. He declared himself a "Cakravartin King," meaning he was an incarnation of Buddha with divine right to order the material world. He used this ideology to justify unification by conquest--in a sense, making him a "Buddhist Qin Shihuangdi."
3. Also like Qin, the Sui contributed an enormously important and impressive engineering feat that, like the Great Wall, would change China forever. This is the Grand Canal, a manmade river of over 1,000 miles--1/3 the width of the United States--that linked the Yangtze in the south to the Yellow River in the north (and ultimately was extended to Beijing farther north). The economic effects of this were huge: commerce, resources, and troops from the south could now easily and quickly be transported north by boat, and commercial goods could flow in both directions. China's lack of a north-south river was set right by this feat. An imperial highway runs alongside the canal the entire length. And all of this was built in less than 10 years. The mind boggles.
4. Also like Qin, the Sui Dynasty lasted only a couple decades. The labor for the canal, as well as military attempts to annex Korea--three of them, the third with a massive force of 500,000 troops and a large navy, and all of which failed to tame those tough Koreans--stirred rebellion. The Tang Dynasty declared the Mandate.

The Pagoda: An Indian-Buddhist Influence

"The Vinegar Tasters": Confucius, Buddha, and Laozi React to the Taste of 'Life' Three "Religions" Co-existing--Without Holy Wars