HIST 19A "History of Asia: China & Japan to 19th cent." Unit 1 Quiz Terms

Xiao

the Confucian concept of filial piety

the Dao

the Way in Daoism, doing what is good and not doing too much

• “The Way of Heaven is to bring benefit and not to harm. The Way of the sage is to do things without contending.” (Laozi)

• Often the best course of action is nonaction (wuwei)

Mozi

Chinese philosopher who advocated universal love and trained a band of followers in defensive warfare to protect small states from foreign aggression

Oracle bones

animal bones or shells (like turtle shells) that were cracked, then the cracks would be interpreted as answers to divination questions of Shang Dynasty rulers that were then inscribed on them in Chinese characters

• Some of the earliest known examples of Chinese-language writing

terracotta army

thousands of life-sized clay soldiers that were buried with Qin Shi Huang/Shi Huangdi, the founder/first emperor of the Qin Dynasty in his tomb

Shi Huangdi

the first Chinese emperor, founded the Qin dynasty

• Standardized writing systems, coins, legal codes, and weights and measures

• Created many fortifications along the northern border

• Conquered much of what is now southeast China, may have extended into modern northern Vietnam

Liu Bang

founding emperor of the early Han Dynasty (202 BCE-9 CE, 25-220 CE)

Xiongnu

a people made up of a large, imperial confederation of nomads from the steppes in modern Mongolia that were commonly at war with Qin and early Han China

Han Wudi

the sixth Han emperor “the Martial Emperor”, took the throne in 141 BCE, ruled for 54 years, longest reigning Chinese monarch until 18th century

• Challenged the appeasement policy towards the Xiongnu (sending them lavish gifts and women from the Han imperial family to become their leaders’ brides) through hosting formal debates, decided to end it because it didn’t stop them from raiding anyway

• Sought allies to the west dispatching an embassy, as far as Persia, established garrisons and fortifications in the northwest, which disrupted Xiongnu sources of tribute, and ultimately led to the disintegration of the Xiongnu Empire (73 BCE)

• First emperor to establish Confucianism as imperial belief

Wang Mang

usurped the Han throne, 9-23 CE

• Was regent for 2-year-old emperor in 6 CE

• Introduced massive reforms, dubbed “the socialist emperor”

• Attempted to redistribute land, but was poorly handled

• Social chaos

• Assassinated 23 CE

Luoyang

late Han capital (destroyed by the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 191 CE) and Western Jin (265-316) capital (fell 311 CE to civil wars of Western Jin princes)

Chang’an

alternate Western Jin imperial capital (captured 316 CE), modern Xi’an

Equitable Field System

an intrusive economic system of per capita state farmland allocation by the Northern Wei government that would continue in at least North China from roughly 485-780 CE

Amaterasu

the sun goddess that the Japanese imperial lineage claimed descent from

Jomon culture

period of prehistoric Japan, started around 11000 BCE

• The name Jomon derives from decorative patterns produced by making impressions in wet clay with cords

• Some of the earliest known pottery in the world

• Primarily hunter-gatherers and fishers

• Sparse population

• Diet largely consisted of seafood

• Built homes out of wood that were elevated above the ground using posts

• Rice cultivation (from Chinese and Southeast Asian influences) appeared near the end of the Jomon period

• Ritual tooth extraction to celebrate rites of passage

• Fascination with magatama - comma-shaped decorative beads

• Fondness for boats and seamanship

Empress Suiko

niece of the Soga dynasty head who, in 592 CE, assassinated the reigning monarch and instated her as empress

• With her regent Prince Shōtoku helped bring in major innovations that transformed Yamato into a more centralized state, such as Chinese titles like “emperor”

• 604 - Prince Shōtoku issued a Seventeen-Article Constitution that outlined a new ethical and political order based on Confucian and Buddhist ideals

• Also asserted an unprecedented royal monopoly on ultimate authority over Japan

Mencius

great Confucian philosopher (382-300 BCE)

• Said that the Mandate of Heaven allows for a nonvirtuous/just plain bad ruler to be overthrown by the people just like any other criminal would be imprisoned

• Main principle that he established: people are naturally good, but like water, tends to flow downward though it can be manipulated in any direction

• The inherent goodness of people can be destroyed by what one does during the day, which may lead some to assume that people never had the capacity for goodness in the first place

Mandate of Heaven

a Confucian principle of rule by virtue + that if a dynasty’s administration is not virtuous it might lose its legitimacy and thus its right to rule, allows the right to overthrow a ruler if they are not virtuous

Duke of Zhou

King Wu of Zhou’s (the founder of the Zhou dynasty who defeated the Shang) younger brother, who assumed power as regent on behalf of the new child king

• Three of his own brothers rebelled out of suspicion of his motives, but he crushed the rebellion, killing one and exiling another in the process

• According to the Book of Documents (a Confucian classic), later, a young king opened a box that had been sealed by the Duke of Zhou that contained a record of a ritual in which he had offered his own life in exchange for his ailing brother’s (King Wu) in prayer

• The story then continues that he voluntarily gave up his regent status after stabilizing the dynasty

• Story reveals that he was actually selfless and did not think of personal advantage through his actions

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms

a very famous, beloved premodern Chinese novel written, at the latest, in 1522, that glorifies the military strategy, cunning intrigue, battles, and dramatic political rivalries of the era and casts Cao Cao as the main villain

• The Three Kingdoms period (220-280 CE) was also an age of notable awakening in thought and literature and of unprecedented individualism

Context:

• by 196 CE there were 13 major independent warlord regimes within the ruins of the Han Empire (Holcombe 56)

• One warlord, Cao Cao, managed to gain custody over the puppet Han emperor and leveraged this control to dominate all of northern China

• By 207, he may have controlled half the population of China

• After Cao Cao’s death in 220, his son finally formally deposed the Han monarch and declared himself the founding emperor of a new dynasty, Wei (or Cao-Wei to differentiate itself from other states called Wei)

• Soon after, the various warlord states managed to form 3 quite substantial empires

• Wei Dynasty (220-265) - ruled by Cao Cao’s family in the north

• Wu Dynasty (222-280) - ruled over the lower Yangtze River region in the southeast; its capital established in modern Nanking

• Shu-Han Dynasty (221-263) - ruled over the southwest, in modern Sichuan region