China

The earliest Chinese dynasty to leave a securely documented historical record is the Shang, conventionally dated from about 1600 to 1046 BCE. From its late capital at Anyang in the Yellow River valley, Shang kings ruled a Bronze Age society remembered for spectacular ritual bronzes and for the oracle bones, inscribed turtle plastrons and ox shoulder blades used in divination, that carry the oldest recognizable Chinese writing, dating to roughly 1200 BCE. These inscriptions, of which more than 150,000 have been recovered, are the foundation of Chinese historical and linguistic memory.

Around 1046 BCE the Zhou, a people from the western frontier, defeated the Shang at the Battle of Muye and founded a dynasty that would last in name nearly eight centuries, the longest in Chinese history. To justify their conquest the Zhou advanced the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven, the idea that the right to rule was granted by heaven to virtuous kings and could be withdrawn from tyrants. This concept of conditional, morally accountable sovereignty became a permanent feature of Chinese political thought.

The Zhou is divided into the Western Zhou (1046-771 BCE), the period of strongest royal authority centered near modern Xi'an, and the Eastern Zhou (770-256 BCE), when the court moved east to Luoyang and royal power steadily dissolved into competing states. The later Eastern Zhou, the eras of the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States, was politically chaotic but intellectually brilliant: it produced the 'Hundred Schools of Thought,' including the Confucianism of Confucius (551-479 BCE), Daoism, Mohism, and Legalism, whose ideas shaped Chinese civilization ever after.

Turning points

1. c. 1600 BCEFormation

   Shang dynasty rules the Yellow River valley

   The Shang, the first Chinese dynasty with historical records, governs from cities such as Anyang and produces ritual bronzes and the oracle-bone script, the earliest known Chinese writing.

   [1] [8] [11]

2. c. 1200 BCECulture & Ideas

   Oracle-bone divination records

   Shang diviners inscribe questions to ancestors and deities on ox bones and turtle shells; these inscriptions are the oldest unambiguous Chinese writing and a primary source for early history.

   [1]

3. c. 1046 BCEPolitics & Power

   Zhou conquest and the Mandate of Heaven

   King Wu of Zhou defeats the Shang at the Battle of Muye and founds the Zhou dynasty, justifying the overthrow with the Mandate of Heaven, a doctrine of morally conditional rule that endures for millennia.

   [8] [12]

4. 771 BCEWar & Rupture

   Western Zhou collapses; Eastern Zhou begins

   Nomadic invasions force the Zhou court to flee east to Luoyang in 771 BCE, beginning the Eastern Zhou and a long decline of royal authority into the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.

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   [8] [12]

5. 551 BCECulture & Ideas

   Lifetime of Confucius

   Confucius (551-479 BCE) teaches that social order rests on moral cultivation, ritual, and proper human relationships; his thought becomes the dominant ethical tradition of imperial China.

   [8] [1]

Figures of the era

In 221 BCE the state of Qin completed a decade-long conquest of the rival Warring States, and its king proclaimed himself Shi Huangdi, First Sovereign Emperor. With his chancellor Li Si, the First Emperor abolished the old feudal order, divided the realm into centrally administered prefectures and counties, and standardized the writing system, currency, weights, measures, and axle widths. He linked and extended earlier frontier walls into a precursor of the Great Wall and was buried near Xi'an in a vast funerary complex guarded by an army of some 8,000 life-sized terracotta soldiers. The bureaucratic structure he institutionalized became the foundation of every subsequent dynasty.

The Qin's harsh laws and forced labor provoked revolt, and the dynasty fell in 207 BCE, soon replaced by the Han (206 BCE-220 CE), which gave its name to China's majority ethnicity. Under the Han the imperial system matured: an educated bureaucracy loyal to the state, recruited increasingly through examinations on Confucian texts, governed the empire, and Confucianism was adopted as the official ideology under Emperor Wu (reigned 141-87 BCE).

Emperor Wu's armies drove back the Xiongnu nomads and pushed Chinese power deep into Central Asia, opening the network of overland trade routes later known as the Silk Road, which carried silk, ideas, and religions between China and the Mediterranean world. The Han is divided by a brief usurpation into the Western Han (206 BCE-9 CE) and the Eastern Han (25-220 CE); its collapse in 220 CE ushered in centuries of division, but its institutions and its very name remained the model of a unified Chinese state.

Turning points

1. 221 BCEFormation

   Qin unifies China; the First Emperor is proclaimed

   Qin completes its conquest of the Warring States and its king takes the title Shi Huangdi, founding the first unified Chinese empire and the centralized bureaucratic system that defines imperial China.

   [2] [1]

2. c. 214 BCEWar & Rupture

   Frontier walls joined into the Great Wall

   Under the First Emperor, earlier northern fortifications are connected into a unified defense against steppe invasions, the origin of the Great Wall that later dynasties would expand.

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   [6] [2]

3. 210 BCECulture & Ideas

   Death of the First Emperor and the terracotta army

   Qin Shi Huang dies and is entombed near Xi'an in a colossal mausoleum guarded by roughly 8,000 terracotta warriors, rediscovered in 1974 and now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

   [7] [2]

4. 206 BCEPolitics & Power

   Han dynasty consolidates the empire

   After the Qin collapse, the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) institutionalizes Confucian-trained bureaucracy and the civil service, giving China its enduring model of imperial government and the name of its majority people.

   [9] [11] [1]

5. c. 138 BCEEconomy & Trade

   Silk Road trade routes open under Emperor Wu

   Emperor Wu's campaigns against the Xiongnu and missions into Central Asia open the overland Silk Road, linking China to India, Persia, and the Mediterranean in exchange of goods and ideas.

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   [9] [11]

Figures of the era

The fall of the Han in 220 CE opened nearly four centuries of division, the Three Kingdoms and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, during which Buddhism spread widely through China. The short-lived Sui dynasty (581-618) reunified the realm and built the Grand Canal linking north and south, but exhausted itself in labor and war, paving the way for the Tang.

The Tang dynasty (618-907), founded by Li Yuan, is remembered as one of China's most brilliant and cosmopolitan ages. From its capital at Chang'an, then perhaps the largest city in the world, the Tang projected power across Central Asia, welcomed foreign merchants and religions along the Silk Road, refined the civil service examinations, and presided over a golden age of poetry. Woodblock printing emerged in this period, and gunpowder was first formulated.

After a half-century of fragmentation, the Song dynasty (960-1279) reunified most of China and presided over a commercial and technological revolution. The Song saw movable-type printing, the world's first government-issued paper money, the magnetic compass applied to navigation, advances in shipbuilding, and the military use of gunpowder in bombs and fire-arrows. Together the Tang and Song are often called China's golden age, an era of unmatched cultural and economic sophistication, even as the Song were eventually pressed and then overrun by powerful northern empires.

Turning points

1. 220 CEWar & Rupture

   Collapse of the Han and centuries of division

   The Han empire fragments into the Three Kingdoms and successive Northern and Southern Dynasties, a long era of disunion during which Buddhism takes deep root in China.

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   [1]

2. 589 CEPolitics & Power

   Sui dynasty reunifies China

   The Sui (581-618) reunite north and south and build the Grand Canal, restoring a centralized empire after centuries of division and setting the stage for the Tang golden age.

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3. 618 CECulture & Ideas

   Tang dynasty and a cosmopolitan golden age

   The Tang dynasty (618-907) builds a vast, outward-looking empire centered on Chang'an, refining the examination system and producing a flowering of poetry; woodblock printing and gunpowder first appear.

   [10] [14]

4. 960 CEEconomy & Trade

   Song dynasty and a commercial revolution

   The Song dynasty (960-1279) presides over an economic and technological boom, introducing movable-type printing, government paper money, the navigational compass, and gunpowder weapons.

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   [14] [1]

Figures of the era

In 1271 Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, declared the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) and by 1279 had completed the Mongol conquest of the Song, making China for the first time part of a vast Eurasian empire. The Yuan moved the capital to Dadu, modern Beijing, opened China to greater overland exchange, and is the era in which the Venetian Marco Polo claimed to have traveled. Mongol rule, however, rested on a small foreign elite over a resentful Han majority and was undone within a century by rebellion and natural disaster.

In 1368 the rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang expelled the Mongols and founded the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), restoring Han Chinese rule. The Ming rebuilt and largely completed the Great Wall in its familiar stone form, constructed the Forbidden City in Beijing, and in the early fifteenth century dispatched the admiral Zheng He on seven grand maritime expeditions across the Indian Ocean before retreating into a more inward stance.

In 1644 the Manchus, a people from the northeast, seized Beijing and established the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), China's last imperial house. Under emperors such as Kangxi and Qianlong the Qing expanded the empire to its greatest territorial extent and oversaw cultural flowering and population growth. From the nineteenth century, however, the dynasty was battered by internal rebellions such as the catastrophic Taiping Rebellion, by the Opium Wars and unequal treaties imposed by Western powers, and by defeat to Japan, leaving the empire weakened and exposed to revolution.

Turning points

1. 1271 CEWar & Rupture

   Kublai Khan founds the Mongol Yuan dynasty

   Kublai Khan declares the Yuan dynasty in 1271 and completes the conquest of the Song by 1279, ruling China from Dadu (Beijing) as the first foreign-led dynasty to govern all of China.

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   [3] [13]

2. 1368 CEFormation

   Ming dynasty restores Han rule

   Zhu Yuanzhang overthrows the Yuan and founds the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), which rebuilds the Great Wall in stone, constructs the Forbidden City, and revives Han Chinese imperial governance.

   [1] [13]

3. 1405 CEEconomy & Trade

   Zheng He's maritime voyages

   The Ming admiral Zheng He leads seven vast treasure-fleet expeditions across Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the coast of Africa, projecting Chinese power before the dynasty turns inward.

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   [1]

4. 1644 CEPolitics & Power

   Manchus establish the Qing dynasty

   The Manchus capture Beijing and found the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), China's last imperial dynasty, which expands the empire to its greatest extent under the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors.

   [1] [13]

5. 1839 CEColonisation

   First Opium War and the 'unequal treaties'

   War with Britain over the opium trade ends in Qing defeat and the Treaty of Nanjing (1842), ceding Hong Kong and opening treaty ports, the start of a century of foreign encroachment China calls its century of humiliation.

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   [1]

Figures of the era

The Wuchang Uprising of 10 October 1911 triggered the Xinhai Revolution, which swept aside the Qing dynasty. On 1 January 1912 Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated provisional president of the new Republic of China at Nanjing, and on 12 February 1912 the child emperor Puyi abdicated, ending more than two thousand years of imperial rule. Sun soon ceded the presidency to the general Yuan Shikai in a bid for unity.

Yuan's death in 1916 left no legitimate central authority, and China fractured into the Warlord Era, a period of regional military rule and instability. The Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), reorganized by Sun Yat-sen and later led by Chiang Kai-shek, nominally reunified much of the country by 1928 but was locked in a bitter rivalry with the young Chinese Communist Party.

From 1937 Japan launched a full-scale invasion, the Second Sino-Japanese War, marked by atrocities including the Nanjing Massacre of December 1937, in which Japanese forces killed many tens of thousands of civilians and prisoners and committed mass rape. The war devastated China and merged into World War II. Japan's defeat in 1945 reopened the Chinese Civil War between Nationalists and Communists, which the Communists won in 1949, driving Chiang Kai-shek's government to Taiwan.

Turning points

1. 1911 CEIndependence

   Xinhai Revolution erupts

   The Wuchang Uprising of 10 October 1911 sparks the Xinhai Revolution against the Qing, rapidly spreading across the provinces and bringing down China's last imperial dynasty.

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   [1]

2. 1912 CEFormation

   Republic of China founded; last emperor abdicates

   Sun Yat-sen becomes provisional president of the Republic of China on 1 January 1912, and on 12 February the child emperor Puyi abdicates, ending more than two millennia of imperial rule.

   [1]

3. 1916 CEWar & Rupture

   Warlord Era of political fragmentation

   The death of Yuan Shikai in 1916 plunges China into the Warlord Era, with regional militarists ruling much of the country until the Nationalists reassert partial unity by 1928.

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   [1]

4. 1937 CEWar & Rupture

   Second Sino-Japanese War and the Nanjing Massacre

   Japan's full-scale invasion from July 1937 brings catastrophic violence, including the December 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which Japanese forces murdered many tens of thousands of civilians and prisoners and committed mass rape.

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   [4] [1]

5. 1946 CEWar & Rupture

   Chinese Civil War resumes; Communist victory

   After Japan's surrender, full-scale civil war between Nationalists and Communists resumes, ending in 1949 with Communist victory and the retreat of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government to Taiwan.

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   [1]

Figures of the era

On 1 October 1949 Mao Zedong stood atop the Tiananmen gate in Beijing and proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China, with Zhou Enlai as premier. The new state consolidated Communist Party control, redistributed land, and aligned with the Soviet Union, while the defeated Nationalists held Taiwan.

Mao's drive to accelerate socialism brought catastrophe. The Great Leap Forward, launched in 1958 to industrialize the countryside through collectivization and backyard furnaces, triggered one of the deadliest famines in history from 1959 to 1961, with scholarly death-toll estimates ranging from roughly 15 million to tens of millions. From 1966 Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, a decade of political terror, persecution, and social chaos aimed at purging perceived enemies and bourgeois influences, that lasted until his death in 1976.

After Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping emerged as paramount leader and from 1978 launched the policy of 'reform and opening,' dismantling collective farming, welcoming foreign investment, and unleashing market forces while keeping the Communist Party's monopoly on power. The reforms produced decades of extraordinary growth that lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and made China the world's second-largest economy. The era has also been marked by tight political control, exemplified by the violent suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, and by China's rise to global power under later leaders including Xi Jinping.

Turning points

1. 1949 CEFormation

   People's Republic of China proclaimed

   Mao Zedong proclaims the People's Republic of China from the Tiananmen gate in Beijing on 1 October 1949, with Zhou Enlai as premier, after Communist victory in the civil war.

   [1] [15]

2. 1958 CECatastrophe

   Great Leap Forward and the great famine

   Mao's Great Leap Forward forces rapid collectivization and crude industrialization, causing a famine from 1959 to 1961 that killed an estimated 15 million to tens of millions of people.

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   [5] [16]

3. 1966 CEPolitics & Power

   Cultural Revolution

   Mao launches the Cultural Revolution, a decade of political persecution, purges, and social upheaval that convulses Chinese society until his death in 1976.

   [1] [17]

4. 1978 CEEconomy & Trade

   Deng Xiaoping launches reform and opening

   Under Deng Xiaoping, China begins 'reform and opening' in 1978, decollectivizing agriculture and embracing markets and foreign investment, igniting decades of rapid economic growth.

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   [1] [18]

5. 1989 CEPolitics & Power

   Tiananmen Square crackdown

   The army violently suppresses pro-democracy demonstrations centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June 1989, killing many protesters and reasserting tight Communist Party political control.

   [1]

Figures of the era