Ch. 10 Eastern Asia 600 C.E to 1200 C.E.
I. The Early Tang Empires, 618–755
A. Reunification Under the Sui and Tang
1. The Sui Empire reunified China and established a government based on Confucianism but heavily influenced
by Buddhism. The Sui’s rapid decline and fall may have been due to its having spent large amounts of
resources on a number of ambitious construction, canal, irrigation, and military projects.
2. The Tang Empire was established in 618. The Tang state carried out a program of territorial expansion, avoided
over-centralization, and combined Turkic influence with Chinese Confucian traditions.
B. Buddhism and the Tang Empire
1. The Tang emperors legitimized their control by using the Buddhist idea that kings are spiritual agents who
bring their subjects into a Buddhist realm. Buddhist monasteries were important allies of the early Tang
emperors; in return for their assistance, they received tax exemptions, land, and gifts.
2. Mahayana Buddhism was the most important school of Buddhism in Central Asia and East Asia. Mahayana
beliefs were flexible, encouraged the adaptation of local deities into a Mahayana pantheon, and encouraged the
translation of Buddhist texts into local languages.
3. Buddhism spread through Central and East Asia, following the trade routes that converged on the Tang capital,
Chang’an. These trade routes also brought other peoples and cultural influences to Chang’an, making it a
cosmopolitan city.
C. To Chang’an by Land and Sea
1. Chang’an was the destination of ambassadors from other states sent to China under the tributary system. The
city of Chang’an itself had over a million residents, most of them living outside the city walls.
2. Foreigners in Chang’an lived in special compounds, urban residents in walled, gated residential quarters.
Roads and canals, including the Grand Canal, brought people and goods to the city. With Chinese control over
South China firmly established, Islamic and Jewish merchants from Western Asia came to China via the Indian
Ocean trade routes.
3. Large Chinese commercial ships plied the sea routes to Southeast Asia, carrying large amounts of goods.
Bubonic plague was also brought from West Asia to China along the sea routes.
D. Trade and Cultural Exchange
1. Tang China combined Central Asian influences with Chinese culture, bringing polo, grape wine, tea, and
spices. In trade, China lost its monopoly on silk, but began to produce its own cotton, tea, and sugar.
2. Tang roads, river transport, and canals facilitated a tremendous growth in trade. Tang China exported far more
than it imported, with high quality silks and porcelain being among its most desired products.
II. Rivals for Power in Inner Asia and China, 600–907
A. The Uigur and Tibetan Empires
1. In the mid-eighth century, a Turkic group, the Uigurs, built an empire in Central Asia. The Uigurs were known as
merchants and scribes, had strong ties to both Islam and China, and developed their own script. The Uigur
Empire lasted for about fifty years.
2. Tibet was a large empire with access to Southeast Asia, China, South and Central Asia. Tibet was thus open to
Indian, Chinese, Islamic, and even (via Iran) Greek culture.
3. In the early Tang, relations between China and Tibet were friendly. The Tibetan king received a Chinese
princess and Mahayana Buddhism was brought to Tibet and combined with the local religion. But by the late
600s, friendly relations had given way to military rivalry in which Tibet allied with the southwestern kingdom of
Nanchao against the Tang.
4. In the ninth century, a Tibetan king attempted to eliminate Buddhism, but failed. Tibet then entered a long period
of monastic rule and isolation.
B. Upheavals and Repression, 750–879
1. In the late ninth century the Tang Empire broke the power of the Buddhist monasteries and Confucian ideology
was reasserted. The reason for the crackdown was that Buddhism was seen as undermining the family system
and eroding the tax base by accumulating tax-free land and attracting hundreds of thousands of people to
become monks and nuns.
2. Buddhism also had been used to legitimize women’s participation in politics. The most significant example of
this is the career of Wu Zhao, who took control of the government and made herself emperor with the ideological
and material support of Buddhism.
3. When Buddhism was repressed, Confucian scholars concocted accounts that painted highly critical portraits of
Wu Zhao and other influential women in Chinese history. The crackdown on Buddhism also brought the
destruction of many Buddhist cultural artifacts.
C. The End of the Tang Empire, 879–907
1. As its territory expanded and as it was faced with internal rebellions, the Tang dynasty relied on powerful
provincial military governors to maintain peace. In 907, the Tang state ended and regional military governors
established their own kingdoms.
2. None of these smaller kingdoms was able to integrate territory on the scale of the Tang. As a result, East Asia
was cut off from communication with the Islamic world and Europe.
III. The Emergence of East Asia, to 1200
A. The Liao and Jin Challenge
1. After the fall of the Tang a number of new states emerged in the former Tang territory: the Liao, the Jin, and the
Chinese Song. As the Liao and Jin cut the Chinese off from Central Asia, the Song developed seafaring and
strengthened contacts with Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia.
2. The Liao state included nomads and settled agriculturalists. The Liao kings presented themselves to their
various subjects as Confucian rulers, Buddhist monarchs, and nomadic leaders. The Liao rulers were of the
Kitan ethnic group.
3. The Liao Empire lasted from 916–1121. The Liao had a strong military and forced the Song to give them annual
payments of cash and silk in return for peace.
4. In order to rid themselves of the Liao, the Song helped the Jurchens of northeast Asia to defeat the Liao. The
Jurchens established their own Jin Empire, turned on the Song, and drove them out of north and central China in
1127. The Song continued to reign in south China as the Southern Song Empire (1127–1279).
B. Song Industries
1. During the Song period the Chinese made a number of technological innovations, many of them based on
information that had been brought to China from West Asia during the cosmopolitan Tang era. Many of these
innovations had to do with mathematics, astronomy, and calendar making.
2. In 1088 the engineer Su Song constructed a huge, chain-driven mechanical clock that told the time, the day of
the month, and indicated the movements of the moon and certain stars and planets. Song inventors also
improved the previously invented compass, making it suitable for seafaring.
3. In shipbuilding, the Song introduced the sternpost rudder and watertight bulkheads. These innovations were
later adopted in the Persian Gulf.
4. The Song also had a standing professionally trained, regularly paid military. Iron and coal were important
strategic resources for the Song military. The Song produced large amounts of high-grade iron and steel for
weapons, armor, and defensive works. The Song also developed and used gunpowder weapons in their wars.
C. Economy and Society in Song China
1. Song society was dominated by civilian officials and put higher value on civil pursuits than on military affairs.
Song thinkers developed a sophisticated Neo-Confucian philosophy, while certain Buddhist sects, particularly
Chan (Zen) continued to be popular.
2. The civil service examination system, introduced in the Tang, reached its mature form in the Song. The
examination broke the domination of the hereditary aristocracy by allowing men to be chosen for government
service on the basis of merit. However, men from poor families were unlikely to be able to devote the necessary
time and resources to studying for the rigorous examinations.
3. With the invention of moveable type, the Song government was able to mass-produce authorized preparation
texts for examination-takers. Printing also contributed to the dissemination of new agricultural technology
and thus helped to increase agricultural production and spur population growth in South China.
4. During the Song period China’s population rose to 100 million. Population growth and economic growth fed the
rise of large, crowded, but very well-managed cities like Hangzhou.
5. The Song period saw the wide use of an interregional credit system called "flying money" and the introduction
of government-issued paper money. The paper money caused inflation and was later withdrawn.
6. The Song government was not able to control the market economy as closely as previous governments had
done. Certain government functions, including tax collection, were privatized, and a new merchant elite thrived in
the cities, their wealth derived from trade rather than land.
7. Women’s status declined during the Song period. Women were entirely subordinated to men and lost their
rights to own and manage property; remarriage was forbidden. Painfully bound feet became a mandatory status
symbol for elite women. Working class women and women from non-Han peoples of southern China did not
bind their feet and had more independence than elite Han Chinese women did.
IV. New Kingdoms in East Asia
A. Chinese Influences
1. Korea, Japan, and Vietnam were all rice-cultivating economies whose labor needs fit well with Confucian
concepts of hierarchy, obedience, and discipline. While they all adapted aspects of Chinese culture, the political
ideologies of the three countries remained different. None of them used the Chinese civil service examination
system, although they did value literacy in Chinese and read the Chinese classics.
B. Korea
1. The Korean hereditary elite absorbed Confucianism and Buddhism from China and passed them along to
Japan. The several small Korean kingdoms were united first by Silla in 668, and then by Koryo in the early 900s.
Korea used woodblock printing as early as the 700s, and later invented moveable type, which it passed on to
Song China.
C. Japan
1. Japan’s mountainous terrain was home to hundreds of small states that were unified, perhaps by horse-riding
warriors from Korea, in the fourth or fifth century. The unified state established its government at Yamato on
Honshu Island.
2. In the mid-seventh century, the rulers of Japan implemented a series of political reforms to establish a
centralized government, legal code, national histories, architecture and city planning based on the model of
Tang China. However, the Japanese did not copy the Chinese model uncritically: they adopted it to the needs of
Japan and maintained their own concept of emperorship. The native religion of Shinto survived alongside the
imported Buddhist religion.
3. During the Heian period (794–1185), the Fujiwara clan dominated the Japanese government. The Heian period
is known for the aesthetic refinement of its aristocracy and for the elevation of civil officials above warriors.
4. By the late 1000s, some warrior clans had become wealthy and powerful. After years of fighting, one warrior clan
took control of Japan and established the Kamakura Shogunate with its capital at Kamakura in eastern Honshu.
D. Vietnam
1. Geographical proximity and a similar irrigated wet-rice agriculture made Vietnam suitable for integration with
southern China. Economic and cultural assimilation took place during Tang and Song times, when the elite of
Annam (northern Vietnam) modeled their high culture on that of the Chinese. When the Tang Empire fell, Annam
established itself as an independent state under the name Dai Viet.
2. In southern Vietnam, the kingdom of Champa was influenced by Malay and Indian as well as by Chinese culture.
During the Song period, when Dai Viet was established, Champa cultivated a relationship with the Song state
and exported the fast-maturing Champa rice to China.
3. East Asian countries shared a common Confucian interest in hierarchy, but the status of women varied from
country to country. Foot-binding was not common outside of China. Before Confucianism was introduced to
Annam, women there had a higher status than women in Confucian China. Nowhere, however, was the
education of women considered valuable or even desirable.
A. Reunification Under the Sui and Tang
1. The Sui Empire reunified China and established a government based on Confucianism but heavily influenced
by Buddhism. The Sui’s rapid decline and fall may have been due to its having spent large amounts of
resources on a number of ambitious construction, canal, irrigation, and military projects.
2. The Tang Empire was established in 618. The Tang state carried out a program of territorial expansion, avoided
over-centralization, and combined Turkic influence with Chinese Confucian traditions.
B. Buddhism and the Tang Empire
1. The Tang emperors legitimized their control by using the Buddhist idea that kings are spiritual agents who
bring their subjects into a Buddhist realm. Buddhist monasteries were important allies of the early Tang
emperors; in return for their assistance, they received tax exemptions, land, and gifts.
2. Mahayana Buddhism was the most important school of Buddhism in Central Asia and East Asia. Mahayana
beliefs were flexible, encouraged the adaptation of local deities into a Mahayana pantheon, and encouraged the
translation of Buddhist texts into local languages.
3. Buddhism spread through Central and East Asia, following the trade routes that converged on the Tang capital,
Chang’an. These trade routes also brought other peoples and cultural influences to Chang’an, making it a
cosmopolitan city.
C. To Chang’an by Land and Sea
1. Chang’an was the destination of ambassadors from other states sent to China under the tributary system. The
city of Chang’an itself had over a million residents, most of them living outside the city walls.
2. Foreigners in Chang’an lived in special compounds, urban residents in walled, gated residential quarters.
Roads and canals, including the Grand Canal, brought people and goods to the city. With Chinese control over
South China firmly established, Islamic and Jewish merchants from Western Asia came to China via the Indian
Ocean trade routes.
3. Large Chinese commercial ships plied the sea routes to Southeast Asia, carrying large amounts of goods.
Bubonic plague was also brought from West Asia to China along the sea routes.
D. Trade and Cultural Exchange
1. Tang China combined Central Asian influences with Chinese culture, bringing polo, grape wine, tea, and
spices. In trade, China lost its monopoly on silk, but began to produce its own cotton, tea, and sugar.
2. Tang roads, river transport, and canals facilitated a tremendous growth in trade. Tang China exported far more
than it imported, with high quality silks and porcelain being among its most desired products.
II. Rivals for Power in Inner Asia and China, 600–907
A. The Uigur and Tibetan Empires
1. In the mid-eighth century, a Turkic group, the Uigurs, built an empire in Central Asia. The Uigurs were known as
merchants and scribes, had strong ties to both Islam and China, and developed their own script. The Uigur
Empire lasted for about fifty years.
2. Tibet was a large empire with access to Southeast Asia, China, South and Central Asia. Tibet was thus open to
Indian, Chinese, Islamic, and even (via Iran) Greek culture.
3. In the early Tang, relations between China and Tibet were friendly. The Tibetan king received a Chinese
princess and Mahayana Buddhism was brought to Tibet and combined with the local religion. But by the late
600s, friendly relations had given way to military rivalry in which Tibet allied with the southwestern kingdom of
Nanchao against the Tang.
4. In the ninth century, a Tibetan king attempted to eliminate Buddhism, but failed. Tibet then entered a long period
of monastic rule and isolation.
B. Upheavals and Repression, 750–879
1. In the late ninth century the Tang Empire broke the power of the Buddhist monasteries and Confucian ideology
was reasserted. The reason for the crackdown was that Buddhism was seen as undermining the family system
and eroding the tax base by accumulating tax-free land and attracting hundreds of thousands of people to
become monks and nuns.
2. Buddhism also had been used to legitimize women’s participation in politics. The most significant example of
this is the career of Wu Zhao, who took control of the government and made herself emperor with the ideological
and material support of Buddhism.
3. When Buddhism was repressed, Confucian scholars concocted accounts that painted highly critical portraits of
Wu Zhao and other influential women in Chinese history. The crackdown on Buddhism also brought the
destruction of many Buddhist cultural artifacts.
C. The End of the Tang Empire, 879–907
1. As its territory expanded and as it was faced with internal rebellions, the Tang dynasty relied on powerful
provincial military governors to maintain peace. In 907, the Tang state ended and regional military governors
established their own kingdoms.
2. None of these smaller kingdoms was able to integrate territory on the scale of the Tang. As a result, East Asia
was cut off from communication with the Islamic world and Europe.
III. The Emergence of East Asia, to 1200
A. The Liao and Jin Challenge
1. After the fall of the Tang a number of new states emerged in the former Tang territory: the Liao, the Jin, and the
Chinese Song. As the Liao and Jin cut the Chinese off from Central Asia, the Song developed seafaring and
strengthened contacts with Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia.
2. The Liao state included nomads and settled agriculturalists. The Liao kings presented themselves to their
various subjects as Confucian rulers, Buddhist monarchs, and nomadic leaders. The Liao rulers were of the
Kitan ethnic group.
3. The Liao Empire lasted from 916–1121. The Liao had a strong military and forced the Song to give them annual
payments of cash and silk in return for peace.
4. In order to rid themselves of the Liao, the Song helped the Jurchens of northeast Asia to defeat the Liao. The
Jurchens established their own Jin Empire, turned on the Song, and drove them out of north and central China in
1127. The Song continued to reign in south China as the Southern Song Empire (1127–1279).
B. Song Industries
1. During the Song period the Chinese made a number of technological innovations, many of them based on
information that had been brought to China from West Asia during the cosmopolitan Tang era. Many of these
innovations had to do with mathematics, astronomy, and calendar making.
2. In 1088 the engineer Su Song constructed a huge, chain-driven mechanical clock that told the time, the day of
the month, and indicated the movements of the moon and certain stars and planets. Song inventors also
improved the previously invented compass, making it suitable for seafaring.
3. In shipbuilding, the Song introduced the sternpost rudder and watertight bulkheads. These innovations were
later adopted in the Persian Gulf.
4. The Song also had a standing professionally trained, regularly paid military. Iron and coal were important
strategic resources for the Song military. The Song produced large amounts of high-grade iron and steel for
weapons, armor, and defensive works. The Song also developed and used gunpowder weapons in their wars.
C. Economy and Society in Song China
1. Song society was dominated by civilian officials and put higher value on civil pursuits than on military affairs.
Song thinkers developed a sophisticated Neo-Confucian philosophy, while certain Buddhist sects, particularly
Chan (Zen) continued to be popular.
2. The civil service examination system, introduced in the Tang, reached its mature form in the Song. The
examination broke the domination of the hereditary aristocracy by allowing men to be chosen for government
service on the basis of merit. However, men from poor families were unlikely to be able to devote the necessary
time and resources to studying for the rigorous examinations.
3. With the invention of moveable type, the Song government was able to mass-produce authorized preparation
texts for examination-takers. Printing also contributed to the dissemination of new agricultural technology
and thus helped to increase agricultural production and spur population growth in South China.
4. During the Song period China’s population rose to 100 million. Population growth and economic growth fed the
rise of large, crowded, but very well-managed cities like Hangzhou.
5. The Song period saw the wide use of an interregional credit system called "flying money" and the introduction
of government-issued paper money. The paper money caused inflation and was later withdrawn.
6. The Song government was not able to control the market economy as closely as previous governments had
done. Certain government functions, including tax collection, were privatized, and a new merchant elite thrived in
the cities, their wealth derived from trade rather than land.
7. Women’s status declined during the Song period. Women were entirely subordinated to men and lost their
rights to own and manage property; remarriage was forbidden. Painfully bound feet became a mandatory status
symbol for elite women. Working class women and women from non-Han peoples of southern China did not
bind their feet and had more independence than elite Han Chinese women did.
IV. New Kingdoms in East Asia
A. Chinese Influences
1. Korea, Japan, and Vietnam were all rice-cultivating economies whose labor needs fit well with Confucian
concepts of hierarchy, obedience, and discipline. While they all adapted aspects of Chinese culture, the political
ideologies of the three countries remained different. None of them used the Chinese civil service examination
system, although they did value literacy in Chinese and read the Chinese classics.
B. Korea
1. The Korean hereditary elite absorbed Confucianism and Buddhism from China and passed them along to
Japan. The several small Korean kingdoms were united first by Silla in 668, and then by Koryo in the early 900s.
Korea used woodblock printing as early as the 700s, and later invented moveable type, which it passed on to
Song China.
C. Japan
1. Japan’s mountainous terrain was home to hundreds of small states that were unified, perhaps by horse-riding
warriors from Korea, in the fourth or fifth century. The unified state established its government at Yamato on
Honshu Island.
2. In the mid-seventh century, the rulers of Japan implemented a series of political reforms to establish a
centralized government, legal code, national histories, architecture and city planning based on the model of
Tang China. However, the Japanese did not copy the Chinese model uncritically: they adopted it to the needs of
Japan and maintained their own concept of emperorship. The native religion of Shinto survived alongside the
imported Buddhist religion.
3. During the Heian period (794–1185), the Fujiwara clan dominated the Japanese government. The Heian period
is known for the aesthetic refinement of its aristocracy and for the elevation of civil officials above warriors.
4. By the late 1000s, some warrior clans had become wealthy and powerful. After years of fighting, one warrior clan
took control of Japan and established the Kamakura Shogunate with its capital at Kamakura in eastern Honshu.
D. Vietnam
1. Geographical proximity and a similar irrigated wet-rice agriculture made Vietnam suitable for integration with
southern China. Economic and cultural assimilation took place during Tang and Song times, when the elite of
Annam (northern Vietnam) modeled their high culture on that of the Chinese. When the Tang Empire fell, Annam
established itself as an independent state under the name Dai Viet.
2. In southern Vietnam, the kingdom of Champa was influenced by Malay and Indian as well as by Chinese culture.
During the Song period, when Dai Viet was established, Champa cultivated a relationship with the Song state
and exported the fast-maturing Champa rice to China.
3. East Asian countries shared a common Confucian interest in hierarchy, but the status of women varied from
country to country. Foot-binding was not common outside of China. Before Confucianism was introduced to
Annam, women there had a higher status than women in Confucian China. Nowhere, however, was the
education of women considered valuable or even desirable.
