Developments in East Asia
- Government Developments in the Song Dynasty * Imperial Bureaucracy * Qin Dynasty (221 BCE - 207 BCE) * Continuity across centuries and dynasties * Expanded under the Song * Meritocracy and the Civil Services Exam * Emperor Song Taizu * Expanded educational opportunities to the lower class * Based on Confucian texts * Upward mobility * Good pay used up surplus of wealth
- Economic Developments in Postclassical China * Gunpowder * Innovators during the Song Dynasty were the first to make guns * Agricultural Productivity * Champa rice * Quick maturing rice that can allow two harvests in one growing season * Manure * Water wheels, pumps, and terraces * Manufacturing and Trade * Coal * Also known as “black earth” * Steel * Bridges, gates, ship anchors, and agriculture * Proto-industrialization * Taxes * Workers paid for labor, leading to increased circulation of money * Tributes * Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia were tributary states * Stimulated trade
- Social Structures in China * Filial Piety * Respect and care of parents and elders * Scholar Gentry * New class created by bureaucratic expansion * Outnumbered the aristocracy * Educated in Confucian philosophy * Role of Women * Respected, but expected to defer to men * Foot binding among aristocratic families
- Intellectual and Cultural Developments * Paper and printing * Woodblock printing * Reading and poetry * Studied and produced by Confucian scholars
- Religious Diversity in China * Buddhism * Theravada * Personal spiritual growth * Meditation * Self-discipline * Southeast Asia * Mahayana * Spiritual growth and service * China and Korea * Tibetan * Chanting * Tibet * Neo-Confucianism * Combined rational though with the abstract ideas of Daoism and Buddhism * Emphasized ethics * Popular in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam
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