The Song Dynasty

The Song dynasty was founded in 960 after the era of the Ten kingdoms and increased civilian rule (currency/gunpowder/navy) and was a time of growth and prosperity, inventions like gunpowder and fireworks. We also get the start of paper currency and a standing navy, which made it more defended and fewer attacks. No one messed with the Song, except the Ji in the ji-song wars and it limited growth.

Even though they were pushed back, they still expanded. They made the movable type and had a commercial revolution. The first emperor was Taizu. The song learned what the citizens were good at and put them in that job, The Giver style. They put citizens where they fit best.

The song fought the mongols, Genghis khans son, and ushered in the Yuan dynasty

The Silk Road

The Silk Road was the way goods traveled around in Asia, but ideas also traveled. Marco Polo is one of the reasons we know a lot about it because he traveled down the roads and wrote it all down, especially trade relationships. . Then Europe got on the Silk Road to trade and to spread disease. Marco Polo did that under the Yuan dynasty.

The Rise of Buddhism

Buddhism was an Indian religion that spread to China where a prince lived behind the palace walls and he left and sat under a tree until he forgot everybody dies and reached Nirvana (look up). He made the Eightfold path. Read journey to the west. The point is to chill. It ended up in China through trade routes. Trade routes made a lot of things travel, like goods and religions and disease.

Words

Song dynasty:: A dynasty of prosperity from 960-1279, founded after the ten kingdoms.

Yuan dynasty:: the dynasty after the Song, formed after conflict with the Mongols.

Silk Road:: A road where goods, ideas, disease, and religion, etc, traveled all around Asia and, eventually, Europe.

Marco Polo:: The guy who traveled around the Silk Road and wrote it down.

The Jurchen::

Globalization:: Where all the countries are connected in some ways.

Buddhism:: A religion about Buddha and reaching Nirvana

Confucianism:: The philosophies of Confucius.

Trade Routes:: Stuff like the Silk Roads

The Ji-Song wars:: a civil war between the Ji and Song dynasty where china was split into two, before a peace treaty was signed in 1142, but the Song was pushed south.