Continuities and Changes Between the Shang Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty

China is always described in mythological way where by it all starts with Pangu who is the creator of the world. It then continues with a succession by the sage emperors who are legendary. These emperors include Yao and Shun who are believed to be the fathers of invention since they taught the ancient Chinese people how to dress, communicate and making shelter. This paper is going to discuss the comparison that is found in some of the dynasties in China. These dynasties are Shang, Zhou, Qin and Han.

Shang Dynasty

This dynasty ruled the central part of china and the northern parts. The capital city of Shang dynasty was near the border of Henan in a place known as Anyang. This was during the period of 1384 BCE. In this dynasty, most of the economic activity was agriculture whereby crops such as millet, barley and wheat were the crops that were grown primarily (wills 48). On the other hand, they also kept animals such as silkworms, dogs, pigs, oxen and sheep. During these are, this dynasty was famous for their metallurgy that included weapons, bronze ships and tools.

          This dynasty had an aristocratic leadership whereas the kings had a military system that ruled the nation (Edward 155). The king made appointment of the territory rulers and this made it easy for him to rule his people. In this aristocrat rule, there was a smaller division that included the priest class. The priests were in charge of the religion and at the same time they kept the government records. Their religious practice was based on the worship of the ancestors and worshiping of many gods who were under one umbrella of their most high lord known as Shang Ti.

          The king during this era was a tyrant who was cruel and he was killed by another king who was from another kingdom and this brought the fall of this dynasty. The king that killed him was from the Chou kingdom, which was believed to be a combination of the non-Chinese culture and the Shang culture.

Zhou Dynasty

          The Zhou dynasty made the Chinese civilization expand in a big way. This dynasty was very wide that gave the leader have problems in terms of communication. This problem was taken care of by the appointment of the leaders who were in charge of overseeing the progress of the territories which were based on walled off cities. Each leader of the territory was given a title of the Lord and this was inherited (Sarah 73). The most possible suitors for the hierarchy were the warriors and as time elapsed, the leadership was inherited by the domestic and the peasant slaves. After sometime, the territories became independent and they started to break away from the leadership of the Zhou dynasty.

          The Zhou dynasty mostly depended on the production of agricultural practices and the leaders or lords of the territory had big farms that the peasant workers looked after it was dived into three by three squares. Each peasant had eight squares to work on. On the other hand, their Zhou Empire (Sarah 79) determined their religious practice. This was majorly based on who was the empire at that particular time this is because these Zhou kings believed that they had the obligation of being worshiped since their leadership was from heaven. The people also worshiped many gods such as the ancestors and the agriculture gods.

          After their defeat by the non-Chinese forces, the Zhou dynasty formed another territory on the eastern part of china. These territories were believed to be stronger than the first one and more powerful. It was noticed that it was during this time that there was an economic growth and there was a lot of warfare that were based on territorial borders. It was after this period that china entered into Iron Age.

Qin Dynast

          This dynasty is the one that is responsible for the redefinition of china. During this era, the emperor was able to conquer all the other dynasties, which led to the creation of one nation which is China. This leader went ahead to proclaim himself as being the first emperor of china. His name was Shih Huang Ti (Edward 208). This unification led to the standardization of the weights, measures and writing through out the whole of the nation. This enabled the internal trade to be made easy by the other surrounding states. This emperor also made education to be standard through out the whole nation and banned all the schools that taught different things apart from what the recommendations were. Amongst the greatest achievements of this dynasty is the building of the Great Wall of China (wills 65).

Han Dynasty

          The Han dynasty is divided into two, the early Han dynasty and the later. The early Han dynasty was formed as a rebellion movement after the death of the emperor of the Qin dynasty.  This emperor was durable compared to the others and it had a lot of medication in its policies. This dynasty saw to it that there was reduction of tax and there was little involvement of the economic policies by the government (Sarah 97). The appointment of the leaders was based on merit and one had to be qualified for the position. This dynasty later had troubles when a war broke out between the eunuchs and the bureaucrats.

Work cited

 Edward Lewis,Sanctioned Violence in Early China, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990. Print

Sarah Allen,The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991. Print

 Wills, John,Mountain of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. Print

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Source: https://comparisonchinesedynasties.blogspot.com/2017/04/comparison-between-dynasties-in-china.html

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