Read the following questions and answers not only for the content of the information (it’s good stuff about early China), but also to get a feel for how thorough you should be in answering your Unit analysis questions. Consider these models for your own short essay responses (but remember that you must write them by hand – typed answers will not be accepted).
1.How did geography and climate influence the early development of Chinese civilization? Were these influences greater than political and economic developments?
The realities of China’s geography and climate clearly shaped the civilization’s subsequent political and economic development. One can argue, therefore, that China’s inherent geographic characteristics exerted greater influence on the rise of civilization than any specific human-derived means of governing its later complexities. Like other cities in antiquity, civilization in China emerged along the banks of major river systems. The fertile soil and favorable climate of the Yellow and Yangtze RiverValleys, in fact, make up the heart of ancient China’s agriculture-based economy. Beyond that, China’s surrounding geographic barriers – the Yellow Sea to the east, the Gobi Desert to the north, and the sparsely populated lands of Central Asia and the Tibetan plateau to the west – served to isolate its people (though by no means did they seal them off entirely) from the outside world. This would later feed into the worldview that China was the center of the universe – a worldview that would in turn drive political and economic policies. And insofar as China is sometimes referred to as the world’s oldest continuous civilization, its relative ability through the centuries to fend off aggressive nomads – thanks in large measure to those geographic barriers – made possible its subsequent political and economic achievements.
2.What were the most important political and social developments during the Shang dynasty?
The founders of the Shang dynasty probably rose to power quite literally on the back ends of two-horse chariots, a technological advancement aiding their military ascendancy. The ruling aristocratic class of China’s predominantly agricultural society was heavily engaged in war, ruling with a centralized bureaucracy and territorial divisions governed by chieftains – a fundamental political structure that would have a long-lasting legacy. Shang rulers also believed they had a unique relationship with the gods, that they could seek divine intervention on worldly questions through oracle bones, on which were inscriptions constituting the earliest Chinese writing. To appease the gods, they practiced human sacrifice, a ritual that probably also led to the common present-day concept of ancestor worship. Under the Shang, villages were organized not by nuclear families but by clans of extended families, an enduring reality seen in the fact that China’s population of 1.3 billion people today features only about four hundred commonly used family names.
China’s social classes became more and more differentiated during this time (the Shang dynasty lasted from around 1600 to 1100 BCE), as poorer peasants were required to work the land of local chieftains. This pattern of land ownership that subjugated the peasantry continued beyond the fall of the Shang and the rise of the Zhou dynasty and may have figured into the statecraft notion of the “mandate of Heaven,” specifically the idea that the Zhou king was responsible for ruling wisely and justly as a representative of Heaven. This overarching idea would provide a kind of justification for the poor plight and difficult life of the average peasant paying high taxes to the government or lord.