State Building in SONG CHINA [AP World History Review—Unit 1, Topic 1]

Hi everyone and welcome back to Heimler’s History. In this video we begin our exploration proper of AP World History. And what better place to begin than figuring out what was going on in China during 1200-1450.

Let’s get to it. In terms of World History, China had always been kind of a big deal. For all sorts of reasons that will become clear in this video, China was kind of like the Texas of the ancient world: DOn’t mess with China.

By 1000CE China is still the world’s preeminent power. In 960, CHina was split into regional kingdoms as the power of the Tang Dynasty was gradually waning. Now let me introduce you to Zhoa Kuangyin.

He was the ruler of one of those kingdoms and took it upon himself to gather them all up into a unified dynastic empire known as the Song Dynasty, which remained in China from 960-1279. And when it comes to state-building, the Song rulers knew what they were doing. Building on the innovations of Tang rulers, the Song emperors built a state structure that would last for another thousand years.

They divided oversight of the state into six departments: personnel, finance, rites, army, justice, and public works. And then overseeing all of these departments was the Censorate who made sure no one in these bureaucratic departments was behaving like a turd. And if they were behaving like a turd, they got flushed.

One of the things that helped organize the government was Confucianism, which is one of the great continuities of Chinese culture over the years. According to the COnfucian understanding of the world, reality is fundamentally hierarchical. Everyone has their place, and society only works if everyone behaves rightly in their place.

The people were subject to rulers. Women were subject to their husbands. Children were subject to their fathers.

This way of seeing the world meant that the government was structured accordingly. One of the major achievements of the Song government, deeply influenced by Confucian ideals, was the revival and expansion of the civil service exam. This was a test that you had to pass if you hoped to work in the imperial bureaucracy.

And a major part of that exam was being well versed in Confucian ideals. And the implementation of that exam had the effect of shifting power from a hereditary form of aristocracy to a new class of scholarly leaders. Now with such a highly organized government, the Chinese could focus on what every empire wants to focus on: the accumulation of the boom boom.

Chinese merchants participated heavily in the robust system of long distance trade across Afro-Eurasia. Okay, stop. What is Afro-Eurasia?

Despite what it sounds like, it’s not Eurasia with a seventies-style haircut. It’s referring to the African, European, and Asian landmass, which, when we’re talking about World History, we often treat as an interconnected whole. So as I was saying, Chinese merchants crisscrossed Afro-Eurasia carrying goods to be bought and sold en masse.

The result of this trade was an increasingly commercialized Chinese society. And what that means is this. For most of world history before this, people largely produced goods for their own use, or at least for use in their home region.

Now, Chinese manufacturers began producing goods not for local consumption but for distant markets. As such, Chinese manufacturing flourished during this period. For example, China’s production of iron around 1200 rivaled Europe’s iron production in the 18th century.

But I get ahead of myself. By the 11th century… Okay, stop again. When I say the 11th century, I mean the 1000s.

The 12th century is the 1100s. The 13th century is the 1200s. We good?

Okay, back to iron production. By the 11th century, CHina’s iron industry, according to their meticulous records, was producing 32,000 suits of armor and 16 million iron arrowheads, ANNUALLY. And because Chinese commerce was expanding rapidly during this time, it also transformed the role of money.

As the economy grew, there was not enough precious metal available for minting coins to keep up with the demand. And this led to the introduction of paper money, which soon became more popular than minted coins. And I’ve always wondered: who was the first guy to try to buy a bunch of stuff with paper?

All right, that’ll be four thousand gold coins. Well, I don’t got no gold coins, but what I do have is this piece of paper. Ima fight you.

Also during this period of technological innovation, the Chinese invented a new kind of boom boom for the world: gunpowder. It was actually an accidental discovery by some Daoist alchemists who were trying to discover the elixir of immortality. And one day when that mixture blew up in their faces, they knew they had discovered something explosive.

Now despite what you may think, the CHinese didn’t immediately apply the use of gunpowder to military contexts. The first application was fireworks and pyrotechnic displays for the imperial court. But eventually Song military leaders got wise, and realized as they watched the colorful explosions in the sky, wait a minute, I wonder if we can use that stuff that blows up in the sky to blow people up.

And, spoiler alert: the answer is yes, turns out they found a way to blow a lot of people up with it. And because China was sort of the grand poo-bah of this era, we should expect that their culture and ideals would influence neighboring regions. And wouldn’t you know it?

They did. Let’s take Japan as an example. Japan, being in close proximity to China, was always contending with the growing influence of CHinese culture.

And the Japanese worked hard to form their own identity in order to keep from getting swallowed whole by Chinese influence. Even so, China’s influence was all over Japanese culture. For example, here’s a picture of the architecture in Japan’s capital city, Heian.

And here’s a picture of the architecture in China’s capital city, Chang’an. I’m just kidding. THAT’S Heian, and THAT’S Chang’an.

How did you not catch that? The point is, as much as the Japanese tried to resist China’s influence, if you were standing in Heian, it’d be hard to tell, at least according to the architecture, whether you were in Japan or China. Now let’s briefly talk religion.

Because China was at the crossroads of major trade highways, there was a significant fusion of religion and cultural influences. As such, China not only influenced other regions, but was itself influenced. Maybe one of the most significant influences was Buddhism.

Buddhism, of course, came to China from India. But new forms of Buddhism found their way into China along trade routes. A Vietnamese form of Buddhism known as Mahayana Buddhism was among the most significant.

Now Buddhism in its original form was strictly atheistic. But the Mahayana form of it had transformed into a religion consisting of many deities, veneration of relics, and multiple heavens and hells. And as merchants from Vietnam carried this new form of Buddhism into China, it found many willing converts.

Okay, so to sum everything up: China’s huge population PLUS their strong agricultural base PLUS their innovations in manufacturing made Song China the wealthiest empire on the planet. But a common language PLUS Confucian ideals PLUS a culture with deep roots made China the most unified nation on the planet. And probably the biggest take-away from all of this is: Don’t mess with China.