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China History
Situated in East and Central Asia, China contains over one-fifth of the world’s population. It is presently known as the People’s Republic of China. China’s history can be traced back to over 4000 years. This fact provides China with the status of maintaining the world’s longest era of unbroken civilization in addition to possessing the world’s longest incessantly utilized written language system. China’s history is distinguished by various diverse splits and reunifications and numerous sporadic periods of peace and war. Additionally, a number of the imperial dynastic changes that have occurred have been exceptionally aggressive.
The first dynasty that ruled China, as maintained by Chinese sources, was the Xia Dynasty, even though many conjecture that this is just a myth. On the other hand, excavations carried out by archeologists have revealed urban spots, bronze equipment, in addition to tombs that corroborate the subsistence of the Xia dynasty in the same site that Chinese historical texts assert it was situated.
The first authentic dynasty
- The Shang dynasty was the first authenticated dynasty which ruled over China.
- Their reign stretched from the 18th to the 12th century B.C. During the period stretching from 12th to the 5th century B.C., the Shang was overrun by the Zhou.
- Throughout this period, there were numerous dissimilar states in the region that were dominated by warlords.
- They were all unified in 221 BC, under the dominance of a single Emperor, Qin Shi Huang.
- This entity subsequently became the Qin Dynasty, the first integrated federal Chinese state.
- This state’s collapse was its legalistic attitude to establish its supremacy, which rapidly resulted in uprising.
The Qin Dynasty collapsed in 206 BC paving the way for the Han Dynasty to establish its control. The Han dynasty survived until 220 AD. Following this era emerged another stage of disunity, until China was united once again under the supremacy of Sui in 580. China witnessed its Golden Age under the subsequent Tang and Song dynasties. Throughout this period, China was one of the most progressive civilizations in the world pertaining to art, technology, as well as literature. In 1279, the Song Dynasty was attacked and collapsed under the challenge of the Mongols. The Mongols founded the Yuan Dynasty, under the leadership of Kublai Khan. In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang, a peasant defeated the Mongols and founded the Ming Dynasty, which survived until 1644. The Ming Dynasty was succeeded by the Qing Dynasty, which collapsed in 1911. In the eighteenth century, China was definitely more advanced in comparison to the other countries of central Asia in terms of to technology, but its technology lacked the proficiency of the Europeans.
The deterioration of the Chinese empire was mainly attributable to the numerous internal disturbances experienced by them. The Taiping Civil War which stretched from 1851 to 1862 was the most significant of them.