The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China

Most of the Great Wall of China that stands now was built in the second half of the 16th century during the Ming dynasty to connect the principal garrison points of the Ming defensive system against Mongol attacks.

Being northern nomads the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty had no need for the Great Wall as a defense barrier. In 1368, a Chinese rebel, Zhu Yuanzhang (Chu Yuan-chang), ended the Yuan dynasty, established the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and gained complete control of both Inner and Outer Mongolia almost to Lake Baikal and to Hami in the northwest.

His son Yongle (Yung-lo), the third Ming emperor, was also a seasoned commander and personally led five campaigns into Mongolia in the early 15th century. Then he chose a defensive posture against the approximately 2 million Mongols whose homeland stretched from northwestern Manchuria, across Mongolia and modern Xinjiang (Sinkiang).


Mongols still nurtured the dream of rebuilding the empire of Genghis Khan but fortunately for the Ming, they were divided and often warred with one another. In a pattern that went back for 2,000 years, the sedentary Chinese and their nomadic northern neighbors had conducted official trade under the tributary system.

Thus Mongol chiefs were enrolled as Ming vassals, paid tribute, and received gifts in return. Mongols also sold livestock, especially horses, to the Chinese in exchange for Chinese raw materials and manufactured goods such as silks, tea, and metals.

After his conquests, Emperor Yongle (r. 1402–24) decided to withdraw to an inner line of defense and divided the northern border into the Nine Defense Areas, each guarded by a garrison along a line that eventually became the Great Wall. It stretched from Shanhaiguan (Shanhaikuan) or Mountain Sea Pass in the east to Jiayuguan (Chiayukuan) 1,500 miles to the west.

It was a gigantic project. Stone was used for the lower courses, facing, and gates, while rubble filled the core. Huge kilns fired large bricks where stone was not available; bricks were also used for the towers and crenellations.

Although not uniform throughout most of the wall measured 35 feet high and 25 feet wide at the top with towers every half a mile or so that reach to 50 feet. Where the land is mountainous the wall followed the crest of the ridges; it blocked roadways and damned rivers.

Since the Ming capital Beijing (Peking) was close to the wall (one day’s ride), more than a hundred passes or barriers with monumental gateways guarded strategic points along the eastern section to the sea at Sanhaiguan. At the western terminus at Jiayuguan (Chiayukuan) at the northwestern tip of Gansu (Kansu) province another formidable fortress marked the starting point of the Silk Road.

The Great Wall was Ming China’s inner line of defense against the nomadic Mongols in the north and wall building continued to the end of the dynasty. Yet it was not totally effective because the Mongols were able to breach or bypass it. Its building exhibited sophisticated technology and consumed vast resources.

Five Dynasties of China

Five Dynasties of China

The great Tang (T’ang) dynasty, founded in 618, was wrecked by the Huang Zhao (Huang Ch’ao) Rebellion that lasted between 875 and 884. It was put down only with the help of regional warlords and Turkic allies (the Turks who lived to the north of China were called Shatou), who retained power. In 907 a Shatou chief slaughtered the last Tang emperor and most members of the Tang imperial family and proclaimed himself emperor of the Later Liang dynasty.

Thus began the Five Dynasties Era, 907–960. It was also called the Five Dynasties and Ten States Era, because none of the Five Dynasties controlled lands beyond the Yellow River plains of northern China whereas central and southern China were ruled by 10 regional states, each occupying about one province in that region. Later historians did not give any of the Ten States the status of a legitimate “dynasty” which succeeded one another throughout Chinese history. The Five Dynasties were

1. Later Liang (16 years, 907–923, three rulers)
2. Later Tang (T’ang) (13 years, 923–936, four rulers)
3. Later Jin (Chin) (10 years, 936–946, two rulers)
4. Later Han (three years, 947–950, two rulers)
5. Later Zhou (Chou) (nine years, 951–960, three rulers)

The first and last of the five were ruled by Han Chinese families; the remaining three were headed by men of Turkic tribes, but who were largely Sinicized. For example the Later Tang rulers had served the Tang dynasty as provincial governors and had been bestowed with the Tang imperial surname Li.

All five dynasties were founded by military adventurers, and within each dynasty, family members or rivals assassinated many rulers. The wars and rebellions that ended the Tang dynasty had so devastated Chang’an (Ch’ang-an) that it would never be China’s capital again.

The center of political power would shift eastward from Shaanxi (Shensi) province, which was the cradle of Chinese civilization, to Henan (Honan) province, where both Luoyang (Loyang) and Kaifeng (K’ai-feng) (then called Bian or Pien) were located. Both cities were capital of some of the dynasties during this era, Luoyang because of its historic importance.

Kaifeng is east of Luoyang, also on the southern side of the Yellow River, and was easily accessible by roads and the Grand Canal. It would remain the capital under the Song (Sung) dynasty, between 960 and 1126. However Kaifeng was without natural bulwarks and was thus vulnerable to attacks. Chang’an became the capital of the impoverished Shaanxi province and its name was changed to Xi’an (Sian).

The wars and invasions that so disrupted northern China in the ninth and 10 centuries also greatly diminished the long-entrenched leadership of the “eminent clans” that had dominated political and social life since the Han dynasty, because so many other members were killed in the conflicts. This would result in a profound social change and in the creation of a more egalitarian society.

Imperial palace Kaifeng China

Another factor contributing to growing egalitarianism is the invention of printing. Block printing to produce books began in the seventh century (paper was invented in China in the first century). It was during the Five Dynasties, between 932 and 953, that the first complete printed edition of the 11 Confucian Classics (plus two supplementary works) totaling 130 volumes was produced, under government sponsorship of four dynasties.

Luoyang, Kaifeng, and several cities in the south became centers of a vibrant printing industry. Cheaper printed books, as opposed to the expensive hand copied ones, increased literacy and enabled sons of middle-class families to compete in the state exams. This fact also contributed to the breaking of the lock on power by the “eminent clans.”

In contrast to the turmoil North China suffered from the late Tang through the Five Dynasties, southern China was relatively peaceful and continued to prosper. Many great poets and painters of the kurun came from southern China. This was a ekspresi dominan that would continue during the next 1,000 years.

During the Han and Tang dynasties the frontier that had threatened China’s security had been Central Asia, which included ancient lands called Sogdiana, Bactria, Transoxannia, and Ferghana in ancient Western texts (modern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kirghizstan, and part of Kazakhistan) to the Caspian Sea.

The threat had shifted by the ninth century to a region called “Inner Asia” that extended from the Pacific Ocean westward for 3,000 miles to the Pamir Mountains and from the Great Wall of China northward for 1,000 miles to Siberia in present day Russia; it included modern Mongolia, Chinese Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang (Sinkiang), Tibet, and Russia east of the Pamir Mountains.

In the 10th century two states dominated by pastoral nomads ringed northern China. They were the Khitan state called Liao rooted in the northeast, and the Tangut state called Xixia (Hsi Hsia) rooted in the northwest. The founder of the Later Jin (Chin) dynasty ceded 16 prefectures in northeastern China, including the area around modern Beijing, to the Khitan Liao.

This session bequeathed serious consequences to the Song dynasty; seeking to regain this historically Chinese land the second Song emperor would go to war with the Liao, with disastrous results. Another legacy of the Five Dynasties to the Song was the pivotal role of the army in the founding of each dynasty, since the Song too was founded as a result of a coup d’etat, and seeking to end the cycle, Song Taizu (T’ai-tsu) would reorganize his army and put it under civilian control. The result was no more coups d’etat, but also an incompetent Song army.

Sui Dynasty

Sui Dynasty

This short-lived dynasty (581–618) is enormously important in Chinese history because it restored unity to a country that had been divided since the fall of the Han dynasty in 220.

For 300 years before its creation China had moreover been divided between the Turkic tribal people called the Toba (T’o-pa) and Xianbi (Hsien-pi) who ruled the north and Chinese, many descended from refugees who had fled the nomadic invaders, who ruled the south.

As the short-lived Qin (Chin) dynasty (220–206 b.c.e.) that it has been compared to, the Sui heralded China’s second great imperial age under its successor, the Tang (T’ang) dynasty. The last of a succession of mostly short-lived states of northern China ruled by Turkic tribal people was called the Northern Zhou (Chou).


The second Northern Zhou ruler was married to the daughter of a powerful nobleman named Yang Jian (Yang Chien), the duke of Sui. When he died leaving a six-year-old son as successor, grandfather Yang became regent and soon seized power and founded a new dynasty named the Sui, in 581.

Sui Wendi

Yang Jian (r. 581–603) is known by his reign title Sui Wendi (Wen-ti), meaning “literary emperor of the Sui.” Of mixed Chinese and Turkic descent, he was a prudent, hardworking, and wise ruler and was assisted by his capable Turkic wife, Empress Wenxian (Wen-hsian).

Sui Wendi

He established his capital in Chang’an (Ch’ang-an), which had been capital city of the Han dynasty, symbolizing his goal of restoring its institutions and glories.

Between 587 and 589 he subdued southern China, reunifying the country. Though a devout Buddhist, he used Buddhism, Daoism (Taoism), and Confucianism to win support and to establish a common cultural base for the country.

Wendi curtailed the power of the great landed families by vesting in the central government the power to appoint all officials throughout the land and laid the foundations for personnel recruitment through a nationwide examination for which the successor Tang (T’ang) dynasty is usually given credit.

Wendi also began a nationwide land allocation system for farmers and a militia system in which all male farmers who had been given land were obliged to serve. These policies were also fully realized under the succeeding Tang dynasty.

Wendi waged inconclusive campaigns against the northern Turkic tribes and the newly formed state that occupied northern Korea and southern Manchuria called Koguryo. He also rebuilt sections of the Great Wall.

Wendi was frugal in private life and worked to improve the economy by rebuilding old canals to link Chang’an with the Yellow River and expanding the waterways to link up with the waterways of central China and the Yangzi (Yangtze) River.

His son and successor later expanded on the waterways, known as the Grand Canal, in the north to Luoyang (Loyang) with a branch to present day Beijing, and in the south to Hangzhou (Hangchou) on the coast, via Yangzhou (Yangchou) on the Yangzi River. Its total length was 1,250 miles, the longest canal system in the world and a huge engineering feat.

This grand project was completed by corvee labor and at great human cost, which generated popular discontent against the dynasty. Its completion was of immense importance because the system linked the rich and growing economy of the south to the heart of the empire in the north to support the needs of defending the empire. The Grand Canal also aided in the reintegration of the long divided empire.

Wendi and his empress had five sons. The second son, Yang Guang (Kuang), known to history as Yangdi (Yang-Ti), was born in 569. Talented and well educated, Yang Guang was married to a woman from the royal family of the former Liang dynasty of southern China and appointed viceroy of the newly pacified southern provinces in 589, where he remained for 10 years.

He ruled from Yangzhou, which flourished as the junction that connected the Yangzi River with prosperous Hangzhou on the coast. In a series of murky events that might have implicated Yang Guang, his elder brother the crown prince was demoted, he was elevated to that position, followed shortly by Wendi’s death.

Yangdi (Yang-Ti)

Sui Yangdi

Yang Guang reigned as Yangdi (Emperor Yang) from 604 to 617. Historians have accused him of megalomania and extravagance that brought down the Sui dynasty. His grand vision led to the simultaneous launching of huge projects that include the building of a second capital in the east, at the site of the former Han capital of Luoyang that had been sacked by the Xiongnu (Hsiungnu) 300 years before.

He further expanded the Grand Canal begun by his father, building an eastern branch to modern Beijing. Yangdi also lived extravagantly and traveled extensively along the canals and rivers in a grand flotilla of pleasure boats and held elaborate entertainments in his lavish palaces. His downfall was however triggered by his ambitious foreign policy and disastrous wars.

In the south Wendi had restored Chinese power in present-day northern Vietnam, which had been annexed under the Han dynasty but had broken away from the control of the weak southern dynasties in the abad of division.

dragon boat of sui dynasty

Yangdi invaded the Champa kingdom in presentday central and southern Vietnam, which won acknowledgment of Sui overlordship by the local ruler after a costly campaign.

A naval expedition was sent in 610 to pacify islands in the East China Sea, generally assumed to be Taiwan, but formed no permanent settlements there. Chinese ships had sailed to Japan since the Han dynasty, where Chinese cultural influence, brought via Korea, had been growing.

The first Japanese embassy arrived in Yangdi’s court in 607 and addressed him as “the Bodhisattva Son of Heaven who gives the full weight of his support of Buddhist teachings.” It included Japanese Buddhist monks, who sought permission to study Buddhism in China.

Yangdi sent an emissary to Japan in 608 that brought back more information about that country. Thus opened a two-century-long abad when 17 Japanese embassies, each with hundreds of students, arrived to study in China, with great significance for Japan’s development.

In the north Yangdi, too, had to deal with the Turks. To keep them in check he rebuilt and extended sections of the Great Wall. He also resorted to traditional stratagems such as keeping sons of the Turkish khans in the Sui capitals to ensure their fathers’ good behavior, conferring Sui princesses in marriages with the khans, trade and gifts (Chinese silks for Turkish horses), and Chinese titles for Turkish rulers.

His diplomats also fomented dissension among the Turkish tribes to prevent them from coalescing or forming coalitions against China. When necessary Chinese armies overawed and defeated hostile tribes. The Sui maintained dominance over the Turkic tribes and kept open trade routes between China and the west.

In the northeast in lands where the Han had established several commanderies, a state called Koguryo had formed early in the seventh century, with its capital at modern Pyongyang and that incorporated lands of modern northern Korea and Manchuria east of the Liao River.

sui soldiers

Koguryo was militarily strong and could menace China, especially if it acted in concert with Tungustic tribal people farther north and Turkic people to the west. Wendi had attempted to subdue Koguryo, without success. In 612, 613, and 614 Yangdi launched three major campaigns against Koguryo with crippling losses of life and at huge economic costs.

The Korean campaigns and natural disasters added to the economic distress and widespread revolts broke out. Ultimately the Sui were defeated by the difficult terrain and the climate, which favored the defenders; the great distance of the campaign from the heartland of China (about a thousand miles); and the weak coordination between the Sui army and navy.

With the empire collapsing Yangdi left his capital for the south via the Grand Canal. Two years later he was murdered in his bath and the Sui dynasty ended.

Influence of the Sui Dynasty

Historians have judged Yangdi harshly for his personal debauchery and as a tyrant who brought down the dynasty his father founded.

However the debacle his policies brought and the civil war that ensued did not last long and China would enter its second imperial age under the successor Tang dynasty. The glories of the Tang dynasty have overshadowed the contributions of the Sui. They include:

1. The sweeping away of the regional regimes and their institutions that had divided China in the preceding three centuries. It built new institutions that would ensure future political and cultural unity in a subcontinental sized nation that stretched from Beijing to Hanoi and from the East China Sea to the gates of Central Asia. At the height of Yangdi’s reign the Chinese empire governed about 50 million people.
2. The modeling of a reunified China on the Han by reviving and expanding institutions such as the examination system based on the Confucian classics and the Han tradition of codified laws (the Sui code became the bases of the Tang and later codes).
3. A land tenure and militia system that would be maintained by the Tang for a century and half, which was key to its success and was copied by Japan and has inspired later Chinese governments because they were just and equitable.

The Sui succeeded in reunifying China because of the wise policies of its founder but also because despite partition, the Chinese shared a common written language, common ideology and etika values in Confucianism, and by now a religion that was deeply embedded throughout the land: Buddhism.

Qing Dynasty, Rise and Zenith

Qing Dynasty

The Qing (1644–1911) was China’s last imperial dynasty and the second of nomadic origin that ruled the entire Chinese world. Its success is due to capable and wise founders and their long-reigning immediate successors, whose admiration for Chinese culture led them to assimilate rapidly, and to retain most of the existing government institutions with few modifications. The dynasty remained prosperous and dynamic until the end of the 18th century.

The Qing is also called the Manchu dynasty. The Manchus were nomads descended from the Jurchen tribal people who lived in northeastern China (Manchuria). They had conquered and ruled northern China under the Jin (Chin) dynasty (1115–1234) but had retreated to their original homeland when the dynasty ended. They forgot their short-lived written language and reverted to a life of hunting, fishing, and raising livestock.

Manchuria was part of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and became an area of mixed residence of Jurchen and other nomadic tribal people amid the sedentary Han Chinese. Jurchen and other tribal people were responsible to Ming officials in Manchuria and went to Beijing (Peking) at stipulated times to render tribute to the Ming court.


The decline of the Ming dynasty coincided with the rise of strong leaders among the Jurchens, the first a minor tribal chief named Nurhaci, who began significant reforms and innovations that would lead his people to power. They included the creation of a written language and the militarization of all Jurchens into a banner system whereby all males were organized into fighting units and given land to farm and administer.

As a result of successful campaigns, the defeated people became serfs, liberating the bannermen into full time warriors and administrators. Nurhaci created a state called the Later Jin, which his son Abahai changed to Qing (which means “pure”) 1635. Abahai also changed his people’s name from Jurchen to Manchu.

Continuing his father’s ambitious policies Abahai expanded the banner system to include units of Mongols and Han Chinese, conquered most of Manchuria, subdued Korea and forced it to change allegiance and tribute relations from the Ming to Qing, and began attacking Ming territories near the Great Wall of China. Abahai died in 1643 and was succeeded by a young son, but his work was continued by his capable brother Dorgon, who acted as regent.

Formation of a National Dynasty

A great stroke of luck catapulted the frontier Manchu state to a national Chinese dynasty. In 1644, rebel bandits attacked and captured the Ming capital, causing the emperor to commit suicide. In the ensuing confusion Wu Sangui (Wu San-kuei), a Ming frontier general guarding the eastern extremity of the Great Wall, requested Manchu assistance to drive out the rebels, with which Dorgon happily complied.

After liberating Beijing and while Wu’s forces chased the rebels to their destruction Dorgon placed his nephew on the vacant Ming throne and proclaimed the Qing as a national successor dynasty to the Ming.

He won over many people in northern China by burying the last Ming emperor and empress with honor, restoring order, and keeping most of the Ming institutions and officials in place. Ming loyalists resisted in southern China and warfare continued until 1683, when Taiwan, the last Ming loyalist bastion, was captured.

Dorgon died in 1651 and his nephew the emperor Shunzi (Shun-chih, r. 1644–61) continued his policies but had little impact because of the brevity of his reign. Then came three great emperors: Kangxi (K’ang-hsi, r. 1662–1722), Yongzheng (Yung-Cheng, r. 1723–35), and Qianlong (Ch’ien-lung, r. 1736–1796). These three reigns totaled 134 years, during which traditional Chinese culture enjoyed its last great flowering and Chinese power attained great heights.

Capable Rulers

Kangxi was seven when he ascended an as yet insecure throne. A remarkably intelligent, ambitious, and hardworking boy, he freed himself from the tutelage of his regents at age 13 and began his personal rule, which was noted for its success in war and peace. Frugal in personal habits and in administration he repeatedly reduced taxes and permanently fixed them at a low level.

He also took a personal interest in agricultural improvements, introducing early ripening strains of rice to promote food production. He advocated vaccination against smallpox, a dreaded childhood disease that he had recovered from, and quinine (called Jesuit bark) against malaria.

He also took several tours of inspection to be personally acquainted with his realm. He worked long hours personally reading and responding to reports and memorials of officials and conscientiously fasting before reviewing capital cases, showing respect for life and the awesome responsibilities that were vested in him.

He finished the work of suppressing Ming loyalist revolts and the formidable revolt of the Three Feudatories. He campaigned against the Mongols and negotiated a treaty with Russia that defined part of the borders between the two empires and put part of Outer Mongolia under Qing control. He also installed a friendly cleric as the Seventh Dalai Lama, thus extending Qing authority over Tibet.

Although personally friendly with Jesuit missionaries, some of whom were his teachers and employees, he rejected the papacy’s attempt to claim authority over Chinese Catholics and definition of what rites Chinese Catholics should follow. The defeat of the Jesuits’ position on Chinese rites by their opponents in the Catholic curia ended over a century of cultural exchange between China and Europe.

Kangxi was both a keen student and a patron of the arts and learning. He sponsored numerous projects that included the compiling of a multivolume history of the Ming dynasty, a comprehensive dictionary, and other publications. His court was filled with literary men and artists.

Although his last years were clouded with problems of finding a worthy successor among his many sons, Kangxi’s long reign ended with the Qing dynasty firmly established. To many of his subjects, he approached the ideal ruler.

Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735) was Kangxi’s fourth son and his successor. Because he was already 44 when he ascended the throne, his reign was a short one. Like his father, Yongzheng was able, conscientious, and hardworking.

He focused on making his government efficient by weeding out incompetence and corruption and making all officials accountable. The civil service, recruited on merit through exams, enjoyed high morale under his reign. He concentrated military power in his own hands and personally commanded all the Manchu banner units, sidelining the Manchu tribal and clan chiefs and imperial princes.

Although he did not personally command campaigns, Yongzheng continued to consolidate his empire’s borders with expeditions against the Mongol tribes that had not submitted, and by a second treaty with Russia that completed the drawing of borders between the two empires. Yongzheng’s legacy was a more efficient and tightly controlled empire than the one he inherited and one that was institutionally stronger.

Yongzheng was followed on the throne by his fourth son, then aged 24 and well prepared for his role, who reigned as Emperor Qianlong, a keen student of history. His paragons were Taizong (T’ai-tsung, r. 627–47, statesman and general) and his grandfather Kangxi, and he abdicated in 1796 so that his reign would not be longer than that of his revered grandfather. Qianlong excelled in war, personally leading some campaigns.

Under him Qing arms finally reduced the troublesome Olod Mongols and Turkic tribes, extending Chinese control into Central Asia as had the great Han, Tang (T’ang), and Yuan (Mongol dynasty) dynasties. Peace and prosperity prevailed, education and culture flourished, and the civil service exams recruited capable men to serve the government.

As had his grandfather, Qianlong made numerous tours of inspection throughout his realm, and as had both his predecessors, he lavishly patronized the arts, including many Jesuit artists and architects who gathered at his court. He was also an avid collector, who added a vast array of arts to the imperial collection.

A great literary project that distinguished his reign was the compilation of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries. It contained more than 36,000 volumes consisting of 10,230 titles divided into four categories: the classics, history, philosophy, and belles-lettres.

Seven complete sets of the compilation were printed and deposited in different libraries throughout the realm. However the emperor also had an ulterior motive in sponsoring this project—to weed out works that were hostile to the Manchus.

Qianlong’s reign both saw the culmination of Qing greatness and was the forerunner of dynastic decline because of corruption during his later years. He abdicated in 1796 but continued to wield power until his death in 1799 even as his son was nominally in control.

The long and successful reigns of three great and ambitious emperors took the Qing dynasty and China to the height of power and prosperity. While the monarchs were of nomadic Manchu origin, they had almost totally assimilated to and identified with Chinese culture.

The Manchu written script, proclaimed as one of two official languages of the empire (together with Chinese), was soon relegated to the background. All of the three rulers considered themselves cultured Chinese rulers and patrons of the arts.

Despite certain favoritism shown to Manchus in the highest ranks of government, Chinese occupied the bulk of the civil service positions and most gradually became reconciled to Manchus for sharing and honoring their culture and traditions. However splendor bred complacency that led to degeneration. By the beginning of the 19th century, changing world conditions and the accumulation of domestic problems would lead to rapid decline of the Qing dynasty.

Marco Polo

Marco Polo Journey

Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant, lived for many years in Mongol-ruled China and wrote about what he witnessed there. He is the best known of the many medieval European traders and priests who traveled in Asia beyond its Mediterranean and Black Sea ports.

When he was a child, his father and an uncle visited China. They returned with a letter from the emperor to the pope. When the two Polo brothers made a second journey to China, they took Marco with them, then in his teens. He spent nearly two decades, from the early 1270s to the early 1290s, in China, where he became a favorite of Kubilai Khan, of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1279–1368).

After Marco Polo returned to Italy, he introduced Europe to the wonders of Cathay, his name for China. Using notes as well as memory, he described what he had learned in a book written in collaboration with an experienced writer, Rustichello of Pisa, while both men were prisoners of war in Genoa.


Writing in a French-Italian dialect, Rustichello adapted Polo’s story to the fashionable genre of chivalric romance. Immediately popular, the book was translated into Latin and several vernacular languages during Polo’s lifetime.

In some ways the book written by Polo with Rustichello is not as informative as another well-known book by a medieval traveler, Ibn Batuta. It is a frustratingly impersonal book.

Marcopolo traveling map

Despite the title Travels of Marco Polo, it offers few details about the routes by which Polo traveled to China and back to Europe, or the dangers and discomforts that he experienced. Probably the claim that each of the journeys took several years is a literary device to emphasize how distant China was from Europe.

If someone traveled continuously, such a journey probably took about nine months. In the book there is a bit of ethnography (for instance, religions practiced) and economics (such as the use of paper money), but most of its pages comprise a geographical map of China, especially its rich cities.

Marco Polo in tartare costume

Europeans learned from Polo that, compared with their own societies, China was an enormous country, much more wealthy and much more advanced in methods of technology, government, and warfare. Although inaccurate in what he said about Japan, Polo was the first European to mention the existence of the island country.

Scholars have sometimes doubted that Polo traveled farther east than Persia, where he could have obtained secondhand news about China. He ignored topics that modern readers would expect, such as the Great Wall of China, foot binding, tea drinking, and the Chinese method of writing.

Old Marco Polo

Although he claimed to have been a great favorite of the emperor, Chinese governmental records say nothing about him. Polo provided Persian names for Chinese places, not Chinese names.

On balance the evidence supports the truthfulness of the book, although a few passages are inventions, perhaps attempts by Rustichello to add interest to what otherwise could have been dull lists of facts. Although Polo spoke and read several languages, he did not know Chinese or, for that matter, Latin.

He mostly lived at the Mongol court in northern China, where Persian was widely used, and where the Mongol emperor often trusted foreign adventurers more than he did his Chinese subjects. When Polo died, he left mementos of his travels, including the gold tablet that served as a kind of pass from the emperor or great khan to help the Polo family in their westward journey.

Grand Canal

Grand Canal

Next to the Great Wall of China the Grand Canal was the most important engineering feat in ancient China and was undertaken during the Sui dynasty (581–618). Earlier, during the Qin (Ch’in) dynasty and Han dynasty major canals had been built for land reclamation and irrigation and short canals for transportation.

Sui Wendi (Sui Wen-ti), unifier of China after three centuries of division, began the Grand Canal. He rebuilt and extended the old canals to link up the Yellow River with his capital Chang’an (Ch’ang-an) on the Wei River, then southward to the Yangzi (Yangtze) River at Yangzhou (Yangchow) in central China.

His son Yangdi (Yang-ti) expanded the system to Hangzhou (Hangchow) on the coast south of the Yangzi, and northward to near modern Beijing, totaling 1,250 miles. The Grand Canal, completed in 605, symbolized the reunification of the empire, economic growth, and integration. Over the centuries the growing wealth of the south became crucial to the defense of the nation’s vulnerable northern frontier.


China was politically divided during the Song (Sung) dynasty. With the loss of all northern China at the end of the Northern Song in 1127, the Grand Canal fell to disuse. In 1264 Kubilai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, proclaimed himself grand khan and ruler of a new Yuan dynasty in China, with the capital city at modern Beijing, which he named Dadu (T’a-tu, meaning Great Capital).

Kubilai needed grain from the Yangzi valley for his capital and had two choices for routes, by sea, where ships were subject to loss in storms, or via a safer inland waterway, the Grand Canal. He chose the canal route, which entailed repairing the old canal including a 135 mile-long section near Dadu.

Three million laborers were drafted for the task, which was completed in 1289. Maintenance was expensive and the canal again fell to disuse as the Yuan dynasty declined. The silted up sections were repaired in the early 15th century under the Ming dynasty.

Somewhere in the Grand Canal China

The Grand Canal fulfilled several functions. It brought grains, cloth, tea, wine, and other products of the increasingly developed southeast to the politically dominant north. In integrating the country economically, it also played a vital role in the political unification of China. The Grand Canal was built and maintained at a huge cost.

Sui Yangdi conscripted over a million people for this project during his reign and labor became so short that women were also conscripted. However the million plus number was the grand total of all laborers, not the number at work at any time, because each laborer had to work for the government for only 20 days per year.

Life along side of grand canal

Nevertheless the huge labor demands for Yangdi’s many projects caused widespread discontent that brought down his empire. Silting, currents, and the need to pull canal boats in areas of steep elevation posed difficult problems for supplying Chang’an’s 2 million people during the height of the Tang (T’ang) dynasty.

The fact that boats were fully laden on the journey north but returned south mostly empty posed economic problems that were never solved. The difficulty of supplying Chang’an was a major factor in abandoning it as the capital of China after the 10th century in favor of Luoyang (Loyang), Kaifeng (K’ai-feng), and Beijing.

Grand canal nowdays

Ming Dynasty

Ming dynasty map

The Ming dynasty, which spanned 1368–1644, can be divided into two segments. The first part, between 1368 and c. 1450, was a period of great achievement, growth, stability, and prosperity; the latter part, from c. 1450 to 1644, was characterized by weak and unstable rulers, corruption, and abuse of power that culminated in rebellions and overthrow.

The Ming dynasty has an important place in Chinese history because of its longevity and rule over unified China, and because it was the last Chinese imperial dynasty not founded and ruled by peoples of nomadic origin.

Ming Taizu (T’ai-Tsu)

China was in ruins by the mid-1300s under the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). It suffered from a collapsing economy, wrecked by financial mismanagement, runaway inflation, natural disasters, famine, and plague. Numerous rebel movements rose to topple the Yuan dynasty, among them one led by an impoverished peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang (Chu Yuan-chang).


Zhu focused on consolidating his power in the Yangzi (Yangtze) River valley in southern China, establishing his capital in Nanjing (Nanking), a city rich with historic significance, from which he invaded the north, sending the last Yuan emperor in flight to Mongolia in 1368.

It was the second time in Chinese history that a commoner had ascended the throne (the first was Liu Bang, who founded the Han dynasty in 202 b.c.e.). He chose the dynastic name Ming, which means “brilliant.”

He reigned for 30 years (1368–98), chose for himself the reign title Hongwu (Hung-wu), which means “bounteous warrior,” and is also known by his posthumous title Taizu, which means “Grand Progenitor.” He and his immediate successors worked to restore Chinese prosperity and prestige after the humiliation and exploitation of Mongol rule.

Ming Taizu (T’ai-Tsu)

Emperor Hongwu’s policies put his stamp on the dynasty. He restored the economy by freeing people enslaved by Mongols and resettling them on ravaged lands, especially in northern China. He gave tax breaks to the peasants, repaired irrigation works, rebuilt granaries, and adopted a tax policy that favored the poor.

He gave much authority to localities for maintaining law and order by organizing them into the baojia (paochia) system: 10 families formed a jia under a leader and were responsible for each other, and 10 jia formed a bao in which 100 families were responsible for each other. This system of local organization persisted in China into modern times.

Confucian Education

Confucian Education

Hongwu ordered the founding of schools throughout the empire, based the curriculum on Confucian teachings, and reinstated the examination system to recruit officials. His son the emperor Yongle (Yung-lo) followed up on this by ordering the foremost scholars to compile an official version of the Confucian classics and commentaries to guide students in their studies.

In 1415 The Great Compendium of the Five Classics and the Four Books was published, followed by the publication of The Great Compendium of the Philosophy of Human Nature in 1417.

These works reflected the officially accepted Neo-Confucian philosophy as interpreted by the Song philosopher Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi) and became textbooks in schools in China, Korea, and Japan. Another major contribution to learning was the Yongle Dadian (Yung-lo ta-tien) or Great Literary Repository of the Yongle Reign.

It contained 22,277 volumes, whose index alone ran to 60 volumes. Too large to be printed, it was preserved in manuscript sets in imperial libraries. Such great government-sponsored works reflected and resulted in huge national interest in learning, which made the Ming a great period in human history. Economic prosperity permitted wider and growing literacy, from which the printing industry also benefited.

Defense Against the Mongols

Emperor Hongwu established a highly centralized administrative system that combined features from the previous Tang (T’ang) dynasty, Song dynasty, as well as the Yuan dynasty. But he abolished the position of chief minister, so that the autocratic ruler held all the reins of power.

Recognizing that abuse of power by eunuchs contributed to the decline and fall of earlier dynasties, he forbade eunuchs to interfere in government. He established a million-man professional standing army that was hereditary.

He gave governmen towned land to each garrison, requiring the soldiers to till the land in their spare time so that they would not be a burden on the treasury. This did not work in practice and the treasury had to allocate funds to the army regularly.

The army units were rotated in guarding the capital region, the Great Wall, and at strategic locations throughout the empire and were trained by special tactical officers. The division of authority between garrison commanders and tactical commanders prevented the development of warlordism and precluded revolts by the army during the dynasty.

Reflecting the deep resentment most Chinese felt toward Mongols, he forbade Mongol dress and customs among Chinese and ordered those Mongols remaining in China to adopt Chinese names and to become assimilated.

Emperor Hongwu, his sons, and generals led campaigns that drove remnant Mongols to the Lake Baikal region in present-day Russia. They also regained all Chinese lands including modern Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Sichuan (Szechwan), and Xinjiang (Sinkiang) and accepted the vassalage of Korea, Vietnam, and Central Asian states.

Emperor Yongle (Yung-Lo)

Emperor Yongle (Yung-Lo)

Hongwu left the throne to his young grandson, who was, however, ousted by his uncle the prince of Yan (Yen), fourth son of Hongwu. After a civil war that lasted between 1399 and 1402 and ended with the burning of the palace in Nanjing it was presumed that the young emperor and his family had died.

The victorious prince of Yan became the emperor Yongle (Yung-lo), r. 1402–24. Yongle is also known by his posthumous title Chengzu (Ch’eng-tsu), “successful progenitor,” and is sometimes called the second founder of the Ming dynasty.

He moved the national capital to Beijing (Peking) in 1421, after rebuilding it from the ruined Yuan capital Dadu (Ta-tu); the palaces, temples, and city walls of that city date to his reign. He had repaired the silted up Grand Canal to connect to Beijing to bring supplies from the south to the capital.

A seasoned general, he personally led five campaigns into Mongolia to prevent the resurgence of Mongol power. Another Ming army intervened in Vietnam in 1404, annexing that area to the Ming Empire. However Vietnam regained its autonomy after 20 years and became a Ming vassal state.

Troubled by Japanese pirates he intimidated the shogun of Japan into accepting vassalage for the first time in history. Yongle was also famous for authorizing huge armadas to show the flag, promote trade, and enroll vassal states across Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, to as far as the northeastern coast of Africa.

The eunuch admiral Zheng He (Cheng Ho) commanded seven expeditions (the last one set out after Yongle had died). In appointing Zheng He and other eunuchs to high positions Yongle violated his father’s strong injunction.

Although he kept them under firm control, later weak Ming rulers would rely on them for advice, undermining the bureaucracy and resulting in corruption and abuse of power, with disastrous effects.

For example, in 1449 a weakling emperor appointed his favorite eunuch commanding officer, and together they went to war against a Mongol chief, only to suffer defeat and capture, throwing the government into chaos in the process.

China Recovers

Government policies that favored land reclamation and economic activities resulted in growing prosperity, and the gradual repopulation of northern China and migration to the south and southwest, driving aboriginal peoples to remote mountainous regions.

Production of silk was encouraged and became widespread in areas south of the Yangzi River. Women and girls were in charge of growing mulberry trees and tending silkworms and also worked in silk weaving factories, bringing additional income to farm families.

The cultivation of cotton and manufacture of cotton cloths also expanded during the Ming, providing clothes for ordinary people. Crafts also flourished, with metal, lacquer, and paper industries leading the way. True porcelains were first made in China during the Song dynasty, hence the name china.

Its manufacture continued to advance during the Yuan, but it was under the Ming that Chinese porcelain manufacture reached its apogee. Under state encouragement, Jingdezhen (Ching-te-chen), the porcelain manufacturing center, had 3,000 government and privately owned factories.

Four emperors followed Yongle up to 1450. They and most subsequent Ming rulers were mediocre; many were also eccentric. They abandoned the militant foreign policy of the dynastic founders and resorted to defensive tactics, mainly reflected in rebuilding the Great Wall into the formidable monument that survives to the present. Although later Ming lost its earlier dynamism, the institutions and policies set by the dynastic founders worked to continue its survival until 1644.

Song (Sung) dynasty

Nothern Song

The Song dynasty (960–1279) was founded by Zhao Kuangyin (Chao K’uang-yin), r. 960–976, and is known posthumously as Song Taizu (Song T’ai-tsu) or Grand Ancestor of Song.

After the fall of the Tang (T’ang) dynasty in 907 China had been divided with the northern part ruled by a succession of short-lived regimes called the Five Dynasties of China, while southern China was divided between 10 province-sized minor ruling houses. Zhao Kuangyin was an important general serving the last of the Five Dynasties, the Later Zhou.

He became emperor as a result of a mutiny conducted by his troops. Fearful that the same soldiers and their officers could depose him as easily as they had raised him to the throne, he immediately set out to persuade the leading generals to retire on generous pensions, replacing them with anabawang officers loyal to him.


In forming his new government Taizu made the military subordinate to civilians and rotated commanders and garrisons to discourage the formation of strong bonds between them.

He also made the army a professional one based on long-term enlistment and fostered policies that discouraged martial pursuits. According to a popular saying, “Good iron is not used to make nails; good men do not become soldiers.” No military uprisings or significant domestic revolts troubled the dynasty.

Northern Song, 960–1127

Taizu used a combination of persuasion and military action to annex the 10 states in the south. However he did not take on two border states: Liao in the nort heast, ruled by nomadic people called Khitan, and Xixia (Hsi Hsia) in the northwest, ruled by seminomads called Tangut, even though they occupied territories that had been part of the Tang empire.

Song Taizu

To prevent a repetition of the Song dynasty’s falling after Taizu’s death because of no able heir to take over, Taizu’s mother made him promise to make his younger brother his heir, rather than his young son, when she lay dying in 961.

The younger brother, who was already a seasoned general, succeeded in 977 and reigned until 997 as Taizong (T’ang-tsung). When Taizong died the Song dynasty had been in power for almost four decades and was well established.

Taizong twice attempted to recover lands inside the Great Wall that Liao had seized; they totaled 16 prefectures and included an important city that is today called Beijing. He failed both times.

In 1004 Liao and Song concluded the Treaty of Sangyuan, which defined the boundary, established frontier markets, and stipulated annual payment by Song to Liao of 100,000 ounces of silver and 200,000 bolts of silk (the amount was increased by 100,000 units each later) that Song called gifts and Liao called tribute.

Except for minor wars the two sides lived in peace for a century. Song also fought an inconclusive war against Xixia between 1040 and 1044, which ended when Song agreed to give Xixia annual gifts of 200,000 ounces of silver and 200,000 bolts of silk.

Song was willing to buy peace rather than fight, arguing that the total gifts amounted to no more than 2 percent of its annual income. The Song government focused on defense, rebuilding sections of the Great Wall, fortifying frontier towns, and deploying a large army of 1,250,000 men.

Finding good horses for a cavalry was a duduk perkara because Song had inadequate horse breeding lands and Liao and Xixia, which did, would not sell horses to Song. An alternate policy of subsidizing farmers to raise horses, which the government could requisition in war, failed.

Taizu and his successors strengthened the central government by expanding the school and examination systems from which the bulk of civil servants were recruited. Advancement in printing and a fast growing economy produced a large and prosperous middle class whose educated sons found honor in serving the government.

A Confucian revival that began in the late Tang dynasty gained dynamism under Song. Confucian scholar-officials reinterpreted the teachings of Confucius and his early followers that successfully challenged Buddhist teachings.

Cut off from contact with India, Buddhism’s original home, by Muslims and others who ruled Central Asia, Chinese Buddhism lost its vitality during the Song era. The reinterpreted Confucianism that matured during Song is called Neo-Confucianism and was accepted as orthodox in China, Korea, and Japan until the 20th century.

Song scholar-officials formed two parties called Conservatives and Innovators that debated each other on taxation and other government policies. Each party implemented policies according to its ideals when in ascendancy.

At its height around 1100 the Song population totaled around 100 million, more than that of the larger earlier Han and Tang empires. Urban centers flourished, a national market system boosted trade, new seeds and crops increased food production, and many crafts provided a wide range of products.

True porcelain was produced for the first time in the world with high temperature kilns; the products of the many kilns were exported by land and sea throughout Japan, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Egypt.

The many craftsmen required in producing the ceramic wares worked in a fashion that resembled the division of labor of modern assembly lines. Song is also famous for literature of many forms and paintings; they reached their zenith under the eighth emperor, Huizong (Hui-tsung), who reigned between 1101 and 1125.

Huizong’s extravagant patronage of the arts and lavish spending on palaces and gardens strained the treasury, and his neglect of governing resulted in factional conflicts.

Finally his disastrous foreign policy almost ended the dynasty. Huizong stopped appeasing Liao and made an alliance with a new nomadic people called Jurchen in northern Manchuria who had newly established a state called Jin (Chin).

Their common goal was to destroy Liao by a pincer attack and to share the spoils. The war fought between 1118 and 1125 destroyed Liao but the alliance collapsed, and Jin then marched on the Song capital, Kaifeng (Kai-feng).

Ill prepared, Huizong abdicated, leaving his son Qinzong (Ch’in-tsung) to face the consequences. An abortive peace ended when Jin renewed its attack, capturing Kaifeng, then called Bian (Pien), in 1127 and taking both Song rulers and 3,000 members of their family and court to captivity in Manchuria. In retrospect the period 960–1127 is called Northern Song.

Southern Song

Southern Song

The period 1127–1289 is called Southern Song. A younger son of Huizong eluded capture, rallied Song troops, and continued fighting until a peace treaty was signed in 1142 when Jin realized it could not conquer southern China; the new Song ruler, Gaozong (Kaotsung), r. 1127–1162, was resigned to losing northern China.

The most important military jagoan of the Song era, General Yue Fei (Yueh Fei), had been signally successful in resisting Jin forces and had advanced to the Yellow River valley.

But Song appeasers led by Qin Gui (Ch’in K’uei) had General Yue imprisoned on false charges and murdered in jail, perhaps as a peace offering to Jin. Yue became a great Chinese hero, admired and venerated in popular religion for his patriotism, while Qin has been despised for his treachery.

There were two revisions of the Song-Jin treaty, each adjusting the payment Song made to Jin. Gaozong is regarded as a second dynastic founder; he salvaged a desperate situation and gave the Song another lease on life, albeit in a smaller territory. Most of his successors were undistinguished and relied on powerful chancellors and ministers.

The capital of Southern Song was Hangzhou (Hangchou), once called Linan, near the coast south of the Yangzi (Yangtze) River. The Huai River became the boundary between Jin and Southern Song.

Southern Song was required to recognize Jin as a superior state and became its vassal and paid it an annual tribute of 200,000 ounces of silver and 200,000 bolts of silk. Southern Song prospered and Hangzhou became a great metropolis, surpassing Kaifeng.

Learning flourished, and southern China flourished as never before. Many great seaports grew along the southern coast because seaborne trade replaced land trade along the Silk Road (now traversing lands beyond Southern Song control).

Chinese ships, navigated by the compass (first used by Chinese navigators around 1100), with capacity between 200 and 600 tons, dominated the seas, carrying Chinese ceramics and other goods to Japan, Southeast Asia, and southern Asia. Taxes on trade produced the revenues needed to pay the annual tribute to Jin and to pay for the army.

Song dynasty painting

Around 1200 the situation in northern China was dramatically changed by the rise of Mongols under Genghis Khan. After uniting the Mongol tribes under him, Genghis began attacking Jin in 1210. His forces took and destroyed Jin Central Capital (modern Beijing) in 1215 and many other cities in northern China.

Genghis left the Jin campaign unfinished to turn westward, destroying Xixia in 1227. In 1232 Song repeated the mistake that Huizong had made in 1118 when he made a treaty with Jin against Liao—it made an alliance with the Mongols against Jin, which was destroyed in 1234.

However instead of regaining parts of northern China, Song was faced with the formidable Mongols in 1245. Song forces resisted desperately, both sides using gunpowder and firearms.

Mongol forces were initially stymied by the strongly fortified Song cities and had problems fighting in the river- and canal-intersected terrain of southern China. The great Song fortress Xiangyang (Hsiang-yang) in modern Hubei (Hupei) province north of the central Yangzi valley held up for four years in 1273.

Finally Persian siege engineers and starvation forced Xiangyang’s surrender, which opened up the route to conquer the south. The Mongols also built a navy. The last adult Song emperor died in 1274; two years later Hangzhou surrendered without a fight.

Three infant emperors succeeded one another until 1279 when the last one drowned near Guangzhou (Canton) in 1279 as his remnant navy was overwhelmed by the Mongol fleet.