Vintage Images Of Chinese History

China

The People's Republic of China is an East Asian country situated in the Northern and Eastern hemispheres. China shares its borders with 14 countries: Russia, India, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Vietnam. China covers roughly one-fourteenth of the land area of Earth, with a land mass of approximately 3,705,406 square miles, making China the third largest country in the world. Due to China's expansive longitude, latitude, and altitude, it possesses arguably the most diverse weather climate in the world, with weather fluctuations that vary from tropical in the far south, subarctic in the far north, and alpine on the Tibetan plateau. When this publication was written, China's population was the largest of any country in the world, with roughly 1,425,671,352 people. The official language in China is standard Mandarin, followed by Yue (Cantonese) and Xiang. Interestingly, China is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world, with officially 302 different spoken languages within its borders. Shanghai is the financial hub and wealthiest city in China, while Beijing is the nation's capital and the most popular foreign tourist attraction within China. Also, the great Himalaya Mountains (the tallest and largest mountain range in the world, which spans India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, and China, including Tibet) majestically acrosses China's borders, adding to the nation's aura of mystique and attraction. In addition, the Great Wall of China is one of the world's fascinating tourist attractions, with over 10 million people from across the globe visiting it each year. China is also known for its variety of exotic foods, restaurants, martial arts, and ancient Chinese monuments and architecture.

Ancient Dynasties Of China

The first dynasty in Chinese history was the Xia dynasty, which existed somewhere around 2070 BC until 1600 BC. The Xia dynasty brought about the foundation of Chinese rule, namely, that of family succession with sons following fathers to the throne. The Xia dynasty was overthrown in 1600 BC by the Shang leader (Cheng Tang). The Shang dynasty, also known as the Yin dynasty, ruled from 1600 BC until roughly 1045 BC. The Shang dynasty ruled in the Yellow River valley, which is commonly known to be the cradle of Chinese civilization. However, it is generally agreed by historians that the Qin dynasty (221-206 BC) was the first empire or imperial dynasty of China. Shi Huangdi, also known as Qin Shi Huang (born 259 BC - died 210 BC), was the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty. It is also said that the Qin Dynasty was the first unifier of China proper, in other words, the very first original eighteen provinces that were founded within China. In Chinese history, the Qin dynasty was the first centralized state power and from which China derives its name Qin, which is pronounced Chin. The Qin government standardized regional written language into a single national one, and they founded an imperial academy to oversee the translated texts. Importantly, the Qin dynasty was the first to initiat the long and arduous tradition of constructing, expanding, and reinventing the Great Wall of China, which was built over many centuries by successive Chinese dynasties, the work for this structure was particularly undertaken across the northern regions of China, where China was incessantly plagued with attacks from nomadic tribes, whose great armies originated from the Eurasian Steppes.

The Terracotta Army

The Qin emperor Ying Zheng, also known as Qin Shi Huang, created an elaborate underground complex at the foot of the Lishan Mountain, which famously features 13,000 terracotta statues of warriors and horses. The terracotta army is a collection of highly artistic brownish-red unglazed clay sculptures, which represented the armies of Qin Shi Huang (born 259 BC - died 210 BC), who was the first emperor of China. The terracotta armies are a collection of commemorative artworks that were buried with the emperor Qin Shi Huang between 210 and 209 BC. It is believed that this artwork was created for the idealistic purpose of protecting the emperor in his imagined afterlife. The Qin dynasty ended in 206 BC, its important legacy being the first regime to lay the foundations of the unified boundaries for China proper, and it provided the bases for a universal administrative system that all subsequent Chinese dynasties were to follow, and build upon for the next two thousand years.

The Silk Road

The Silk Road was established in China (130 BC) by the Han Dynasty (206 BC- 220 AD), and this vast and complicated network was founded because of Chinese territorial expansion. The Silk Road was not a single road or single route as such, but an ancient international and vast network of pathways across land and sea, which was utilized for transporting goods and commerce, and to exchange ideas and innovations. The Silk Road, also known as the Silk Route, formed complicated trading networks between China, Southeast Asia, Somalia, Egypt, the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian Peninsula, and Europe. The Silk Road was an important commerce network that spanned roughly 4,000 miles, and it was said to have played a central role in facilitating cultural, economic, political, and religious interactions between China, the Far East, the Middle East, and Europe, including the Roman Empire. China exported tea, salt, sugar, spices, silk, porcelain, ornate bronze mirrors, medicines, paper, Chinese gunpowder, and many other items. In return, China imported a wide range of products such as horses, weapons, woollen products, ivory, glassware, gold, silver, as well as precious stones and jewels. Many different religions were also exported and imported via the Silk Road to and from many different nations across the world, some of which were Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam. The Silk Road ceased as an international trading route around 1453 AD, when the Ottoman Empire closed off trade with China. It has been over 600 years since the Silk Road was used for international trade; nevertheless, many scholars claim that the Silk Road has left a lasting impact on commerce, politics, religion, culture, and history that has resonated across the globe to this day.

The Great Wall Of China

In world history, the Great Wall of China is said to be one of the most extraordinary feats of human endeavour and accomplishment. The Great Wall was constructed, fortified, renovated, and refortified on countless occasions by successive Chinese dynasties spanning many centuries. Although ancient Chinese rulers began the partial construction of the Great Wall of China in the 7th century BC, historically, it is the Qin dynasty (221-210 BC) that first created the Great Wall as a defensive structure. This process of construction and the reconstruction of the Great Wall over greater distances across China's terrain was an ongoing process, which spanned more than 2,000 years by successive dynasties. The total length of the Great Wall is approximately 13,171 miles, and it is recorded as the longest wall in history. The workforce for constructing the Great Wall included convicts, soldiers, and forced labourers, but some people did receive wages. Old Chinese records state that over 400,000 people lost their lives while working on the Great Wall, and many are buried beneath the structure of the Great Wall. Moreover, there were many occurrences of civil uprising and revolts against each subsequent Chinese regime spanning hundreds of years, due to successive dynasties implementing certain policies relating to the continual construction of the Great Wall, which sometimes resulted in extreme poverty for large sections of the then Chinese community, indeed, in some instances, mass starvation caused the deaths of many thousands of Chinese people. Officially, it was during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) that the process of rebuilding the Great Wall was finally discontinued. The Ming dynasty was said to be the most prolific and creative designers of the Great Wall of China, as compared to the previous imperial Chinese dynasties.

The Mongolian Empire

The Great Wall was initially built as a defensive structure against persistent invasions by Mongolian nomadic tribes emerging from the northern regions of the Eurasian steppe. It is important to mention that China owned vast territories that were more suitable for the cultivation of various crops, when compared to Mongolian regions. According to Chinese historical texts, the Mongolians originated in Central Asia, and their ancestry can be traced back to the Donghu people of the 7th century BC. The historical wars between China and the Mongolian nomadic tribes began because China possessed goods which the nomadic people greatly desired, some of which were silk, cotton, tea, rice, alcohol, whole grains, barley, oats, and spices. If the nomadic tribes could not receive those goods by trading with the Chinese for them (usually horses and furs), then the Mongolians resorted to warfare by invading parts of China. But conflict also occurred between the two nations because of China's political ambitions for territorial expansionism further into the Eurasian steppe. Genghis Khan (born 1162 - died 1227), was the great warmonger and Emperor, who founded the Mongolian Empire in 1206. Under Genghis Khan's command, Mongolian forces invaded and eventually claimed partial control of northern China, and then parts of western China, including the Western Xia and the Qara Khitai kingdoms. However, a major victory was achieved by the Mongolian forces over the Jin Dynasty by the third son of Genghis Khan, Ögedei Khan, in 1234. Kublai Khan (born 1215 - died 1294) was a Mongolian general and statesman who was the grandson and great successor of Genghis Khan. Kublai Khan became the fifth emperor (reigned 1260 - 1294) of the Yuan dynasty. But after Kublai Khan and his armies defeated the Song dynasty in 1279, he then proclaimed himself the Emperor of China, and became the first Mongolian Emperor to govern and unite China proper, which was also known as inner China or the original 18 provinces.

The Ming Dynasty

After Kublai Khan achieved complete victory over the Yuan dynasty in 1279, he went on to unify China and then brought Mongolia, Siberia, parts of Europe, and the Middle East under his Empire. However, by 1351, certain sections of the civilian population began to rise up against the Yuan dynasty because of their failed government policies, which resulted in widespread poverty for many people. A mass mobilization of people (approximately 150,000) from across different regions joined forces with an army called the Red Turbans, and ultimately, their combined efforts and attacks resulted in the overthrow of the Yuan Empire in 1368. It is important to mention that over the previous decades, a series of natural disasters, epidemics, and government internal conflicts had also contributed to the collapse of the Yuan dynasty. The Yuan dynasty was eventually superseded by the Ming dynasty, whose founder was Emperor Hongwu (reigned 1368 - 1398), and the Ming dynasty ruled China between 1368 and 1644. The main factors that led to the overthrow of the Ming dynasty were economic failures, in conjunction with government corruption and internal rebellions, natural disasters, and epidemics, which contributed to widespread famine, and this prolonged situation led to peasant uprisings. The Qing dynasty (Manchu Aisin Gioro clan originated from Manchuria) was assisted by many thousands of defectors from the Ming dynasty, and eventually they overthrew the Ming dynasty and established sovereignty as the Manchu dynasty in 1644.

The Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911)

The Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911 ), also known as the Manchu dynasty, was the last of the imperial dynasties of China. The Qing dynasty was founded by Manchurian people, who were an ethnic minority living in China. Manchuria is a north-eastern region situated between China, Mongolia, and Siberia. The Manchus originated from a history, culture, and identity distinct from the then Chinese civilisation. The Qing dynasty discarded the isolationist policies used by its predecessor (Ming dynasty 1368 - 1644), and decided to modernise its government by creating new polices, as well as stimulate trading relations with a variety of Western nations. The Qing dynasty had also successfully expanded its borders to include Tibet, Xinjiang, and Outer Mongolia, claiming the most territories of any previous dynasty in China's history, which made China the forth largest Empire in the world at that moment in history. China's population increased dramatically during this era from roughly 150 million to about 450 million. Also, a substantial quantity of the non-Chinese minorities within the Qing Empire became assimilated into China's identity, which resulted in a very successful integrated national economy that increased economic growth and prosperity across many regions of the nation.

The Opium Wars

The first Opium War between the Qing dynasty of China and Britain occurred between 1839 and 1842, this conflict proved to be one of the most critical junctures in modern Chinese history. The opium war was started by the Qing dynasty's campaign against the British merchants who sold opium in large quantities to Chinese citizens starting from the late 18th century. In the decades prior to the first Opium War, trade between the Qing dynasty of China and Western nations occurred within the confines of the Canton System, which was a political system devised by the Qing dynasty based upon one trading location for conducting all international trade with foreign powers. The trade transactions were undertaken via the southern port of Canton city, now known as Guangzhou, which is a city situated in southern China. As the city of Canton was the only port used for foreign trade at that time, it was relatively easy for the Qing government to impose regulations and carry out checks on foreign goods entering China. But this process was also a favourable trading arrangement for the Qing regime because they exported more Chinese goods to Western nations than they imported from Western nations into China. It is said that the British and American governments were unhappy with their trading arrangements with China at that time, and as a consequence, their governments had encouraged the controversial opium trade as a means to correct the trading imbalance with China. It was stated that a significant number of British and American citizens and their respective media had voiced strong opposition to their respective governments' involvement and support for the opium trade in China in the 19th century, but these protests had been to no avail.

After the Qing administration became aware that opium was becoming a serious social and economic problem across China, it imposed a nation-wide ban across China on the production and importation of opium into China around the 1800s. However, the crisis remained stubbornly unresolved, therefore, the Qing government enacted harsher punishments for criminal smugglers and outlawed the ingestion or smoking of opium in China. By 1839, the drug affliction upon the Chinese population had worsened, which prompted the Qing regime to undertake additional drastic action by ordering the blockade of any foreign ships on the Pearl River, while instructing Chinese officials to confiscate and destroy all opium supplies belonging to British merchants, some of which were involved in illegally smuggling opium into China. When the British government received news about what it considered to be unlawful actions carried out by the Qing government, it expressed outrage and declared war against China on the grounds that China violated the principles of free trade and that China had illegally confiscated and destroyed goods that were the property of British merchants.

The Unequal Treaties

In the first Opium War (1839 - 1842) the British Empire eventually defeated the Chinese army in August 1842. In that war the British forces were triumphant due to their greatly superior technologically advanced ships and weapons. After China had conceded defeat, a controversial peace treaty was imposed upon the Qing regime by the British government, namely, 'The Treaty of Nanjing', which was the first of what the Chinese later termed the unequal treaties. The Treaty of Nanjing compelled China to give up the ownership of Hong Kong to Britain. In addition, China had to pay 21 million in currency to Britian, and its allies, supposedly, as compensation for damages incurred. In addition, the Qing government were forced to legalize opium in China and allow British merchants to sell even greater amounts of Opium to Chinese citizens, but to add insult to injury, China was compelled to open new treaty ports for the requirements of certain other Western nations as well as lower the tariff costs for each of those nations. The Qing regime was coerced into opening the following five treaty ports; Shanghai, Canton, Ningbo, Fuzhou and Amoy. However, the Qing regime had failed to satisfy some of the demands that had been stated in the Treaty of Nanjing, and this refusal to comply eventually led to the second Opium War (1856 - 1860), whereby China had to do battle against both the British and French forces, and that war resulted in China's second devastating defeat in October 1860, immediately following that war China was compelled to sign 'The Convention of Peking', unfortunately, this event resulted in the Qing regime making even greater concessions to foreign nations.

The People's Republic Of China (ROC)

The Opium Wars ended with significant losses for China, and an extremely weakened and discredited Qing Dynasty that was compelled to create a new foreign strategy in relation to the outside world, and with a great urgency to modernize its military and navy as well as its political and economic structures. Millions of disgruntled Chinese people, who had endured natural disasters, pestilence, and poverty spanning decades, lost confidence in their government and took part in mass revolts against it. As a consequence, those tumultuous events culminated in the so-called 'Wuchang Uprising', an armed rebellion against the Qing regime that had taken place in the district of Wuchang, Hubei, China, on 10th October 1911. This event had instigated the 1911 Revolution, also called the Xinhai Revolution, which eventually overthrew China's last imperial dynasty in October 1911. The Republic of China (ROC) was officially established in January 1912, with Sun Yat-sen (born 1866 - died 1925), a revolutionary statesman, appointed as the first President of China. This development marked a new important era in Chinese political history, which introduced ideas of social and economic reforms and justice for the Chinese people, by way of greater independence and democracy.

The Island Of Taiwan

It is important to mention, however, that when the Republic of China (ROC) was founded in January 1912, the island known as Taiwan, which is situated adjacent to mainland China, was already under imperial Japanese sovereignty due to the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki. This peace treaty was signed after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 - 1895, in which the Qing dynasty (the imperial government of China) surrendered to imperial Japan and as a result, China was forced to cede the sovereignty of Taiwan and also recognize the complete independence of Korea by way of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, this agreement was officially signed in the year 1895. However, after Japan had lost the war at the end of World War II, in 1945, the Republic of China (ROC) began attempting to aggressively exert its authority in Taiwan over the ensuing years. Meanwhile, back in mainland China there occurred a Civil War that spanned 1927 to 1949, which was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China, and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party, and that war had concluded in 1949 with a Communist victory under the Communist leader of Mao Zedong (born 1893 died 1976). Henceforth, the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC), also known as the Communist Party of China (CPC) was founded in the same year. When the forces representing the Republic of China was defeated the leadership, and the remnants of its fighting army as well as its supporters retreated to resettle on the island of Taiwan in 1949, where the Republic of China's government was established and proclaimed its independence from mainland China. As a result, to this day both Taiwan and China remain as independent nations that rule under separate independent systems of government.

Confucianism

Confucius, who was also known as Kong Qiu (551–479 B.C), was considered one of the greatest Chinese philosophers in the history of China. But he was also a great poet and politician, who lived during 'The Spring and Autumn Period', known as an important era of social, economic, political, and regional changes across ancient China. Confucius was believed to be a descendant of a noble family associated with the royal house of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 B.C). However, regardless of noble birth, Confucius had suffered a poverty-stricken childhood. His father was said to be a very elderly man called Kong He, who was a military officer during his profession. Unfortunately, Kong passed away at the age of 73, when Confucius was only 3 years old, and just a few years later, Confucius's young mother also died, early tragedies that left Confucius as an orphan to face the harshness of this world. But despite his initial misfortune Confucius overcame the adversities of his early life to eventually become a gifted and accomplished student of the Six Arts. The Six Arts was an ancient Chinese philosophical educational system which was created to provide all-round development for gifted students, by setting them six challenging disciplines to be mastered, namely, rites, archery, chariot racing, calligraphy, music, and mathematics.

Many years later, in 501 B.C, Confucius entered politics, initially, he was appointed to the position of governor in a state called Lu Kingdom, after which he worked his way up through the ranks to achieve a higher status in government. In China, Confucius is traditionally considered by many to be the paragon of Chinese sages who became legendary across China and the world. The Four Books and Five Classics are authoritative literary works on the philosophy of Confucius and other great Chinese philosophers. The text was written in China during the Zhou dynasty before 300BC. Throughout the complex, tumultuous, and fascinating history of China, the philosophy of Confucianism has remained popular. Confucianism is an ancient philosophical Chinese belief system, which has no concept of God, however, it is widely considered to be a secular morality. Successive Chinese governments have embraced the ideas of Confucianism relating to economics and socio-political issues for over 2,000 years, and it remains part of the bedrock of Chinese culture to this day.