AP World History pg 51-55

Civilizations in Korea, Vietnam, and Japan borrowed from China’s culture.

Civilizations in 1492 would be tied more closely together than ever.

Around 1200, East Asia was the most sophisticated and dynamic region in the world, at its core was Chinese civilization.

In 1200, the Song dynasty was a stable political rule. It was a ‘golden age’.

Six major ministries were overseen by the censorate, an agency that exercised surveillance over the rest of the government.

To staff the bureaucracy, an examination system first established by the Han dynasty was revived and made more elaborate.

After China’s economic revolution, the population jumped from 50 million or 60 million in the ninth century, to 120 million by 1200, because of Vietnamese fast-ripening and drough-resistant Champa Rice.

China has become the most urbanized country in the world.

Hangzhou was home to more than a million people, the Song dynasty’s capital.

By the eleventh century, China’s metallurgy industry provided the government with 32,000 suits of armor and 16 million arrowheads each year, also supplying metal for coins, tools, construction, and bells for Buddhist monasteries.

The growth was fueled by coal.

Inventions in printing, both woodblock and movable type, led to the world’s first printed books, by 1000 relatively cheap books became widely available in China.