From the Remote Antiquity to the Slave Society (1.7 million years ago - 476 B.C.)
China, one of the world's most ancient civilizations, has a recorded history of nearly 4,000 years.
A fossil anthropoid unearthed in Yuanmou in Yunnan Province, "Yuanmou Man", who lived approximately 1.7 million years ago, is China's earliest primitive man known so far. "Peking Man", who lived in the Zhoukoudian area near Beijing 600,000 years ago, was able to walk upright, make and use simple tools, and knew how to make fire. The Neolithic Age started in China about 10,000 years ago, and relics from this period can be found all over the country. Artificially-grown rice and millet as well as farming tools have been found in the remains of Hemudu in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province, and Banpo, near Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, respectively. These relics date back some 6,000-7,000 years.
The Xia Dynasty was founded in 2070 B.C. The center of its activities was the western section of modern Henan Province and the southern section of modern Shanxi Province, and its sphere of influence reached the northern and southern areas of the Yellow River. Starting from the Xia Dynasty, China entered slave society. The following Shang (1600-1046 B.C.) and Western Zhou (1046-771 B.C.) dynasties saw further development of the slave society. This era was followed by the Spring and Autumn (770-476 B.C.) and Warring States (475-221 B.C.) periods, characterized by the decline in power of the ruling house and struggles for power among regional powers, marking the transition from the slave society to the feudal society.
Chinese had mastered the technology of smelting bronze approximately 5,000 years ago and iron tools came into use during the Shang Dynasty, 3,000 years ago. White pottery and glazed pottery were produced. Silk production was considerably developed and the world's first figured inlaid silk weaving technique appeared. During the Spring and Autumn Period steel production technologies made their debut. In these periods, there was a great upsurge of intellectual activity, producing many famous philosophers, such as Lao Zi, Confucius, Mencius and Mo Zi, and the well-known military scientist Sun Wu.
Qin Shi Huang (259 - 210 B.C.) and His Empire
In 221 B.C., Ying Zheng, the ruler of the State of Qin and a man of great talent and bold vision, ended the 250-odd years of rivalry among the independent principalities during the Warring States Period, establishing the first centralized, unified, multi-ethnic feudal state in Chinese history?athe Qin Dynasty (221-207 B.C.). He called himself Qin Shi Huang or "First Emperor of Qin". He standardized the written script, weights and measures, and currencies, and established the system of prefectures and counties. The sovereigns of the next 2,000-odd years followed the feudal governmental structure established by him. He mobilized more than 300,000 people over a period of a dozen years to build the Great Wall, which stretches for 5,000 km in northern China. Qin Shi Huang had work on his enormous mausoleum started early in his reign. The terracotta warriors of the "underground army" guarding the mausoleum, unearthed in 1974, amazed the world. 8,000 vivid, life-size pottery figures, horses and chariots have been called the "eighth wonder of the world".
The Han Dynasty (206 B.C. - 220 A.D.) and the "Silk Road"
Liu Bang established the powerful Han Dynasty in 206 B.C. During the Han Dynasty, agriculture, handicrafts and commerce flourished, and the population reached 50 million. During his reign (140-87 B.C.), the most prosperous period of the Han Dynasty, Liu Che, Emperor Wudi, expanded the territory of the empire from the Central Plain to the Western Regions (present-day Xinjiang and Central Asia). He dispatched Zhang Qian twice as his envoy to the Western Regions, and in the process pioneered the route known as the "Silk Road" from Chang'an (today's Xi'an, Shaanxi Province), through Xinjiang and Central Asia, and on to the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Chinese silk goods were traded to the West along the Silk Road. As contacts between the East and West increased, Buddhism spread to China in the first century. In 105, an official named Cai Lun invented a technique for making fine paper, which is considered to have been a revolution in communication and learning.
The Tang Dynasty (618 - 907)
After the Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms Period (220-265), the Jin Dynasty (265-420), the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589), the Sui Dynasty (581-618) and the Tang Dynasty (618-907) succeeded. The Tang Dynasty was established by Li Yuan in 618. Li Shimin, or Emperor Taizong (r. 626-649), son of Li Yuan, adopted a series of liberal policies, pushing the prosperity of China's feudal society to its peak: agriculture, handicrafts and commerce flourished; technologies for textile manufacturing and dyeing, pottery and porcelain production, smelting and shipbuilding were further developed; and land and water transportation greatly improved. By the 660s, China's influence had firmly taken root in the Tarim and Junggar basins and the Ili River valley, and even extended to many city-states in Central Asia. During this period, extensive economic and cultural relations were established with many countries, including Japan, Korea, India, Persia and Arabia.
Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties (960 - 1911)
The period of the Five Dynasties and Ten States, which succeeded the Tang Dynasty, was one of almost continual warfare. In 960, Zhao Kuangyin, a general of the State of Later Zhou, established the Song Dynasty (960-1279), historically known as the Northern Song Dynasty. When the Song Dynasty moved its capital to the south, historically called the Southern Song Dynasty, it brought advanced economy and culture to the south, giving a great impetus to economic development there China in the Song Dynasty was in the front rank of the world in astronomy, science and technology and printing technology as evidenced, for example, by Bi Sheng's inventing movable type printing, a great revolution in printing history.
In 1271, Kublai, a grandson of Genghis Khan, conquered the Central Plain, founded the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), and made Dadu (today's Beijing) the capital. Kublai wrote finis to the centuries-long situation in which many independent regimes existed side by side, and formed a united country that brought Xinjiang, Tibet and Yunnan under its sway. During the Song-Yuan period, the "four great inventions" in science and technology of the Chinese people in ancient times?apapermaking, printing, the compass and gunpowder?awere further developed, and introduced to foreign countries, making great contributions to world civilization.
In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in Nanjing, reigning as Emperor Taizu. When his son and successor Zhu Di (r. 1360-1424) ascended the throne, in 1360, he built and expanded the palaces, temples, city walls and moat in Beijing on a large scale. In 1421, he officially moved the capital to Beijing. During his reign, he dispatched a eunuch named Zheng He to lead a fleet of many ships to make seven far-ranging voyages. Passing the Southeast Asian countries, the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and Maldives Islands, Zheng He explored as far as Somalia and Kenya on the eastern coast of Africa. These were the largest-scale and longest voyages in the world before the age of Columbus.
The Manchus of northeast China established the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) in 1644, under the leadership of Nurhachi. Kangxi (r. 1661-1722) was the most famous emperor of the Qing Dynasty. He brought Taiwan under his rule, and resisted invasions by tsarist Russia. To reinforce the administration of Tibet, he also formulated the rules and regulations on the confirmation of the Tibetan local leaders by the Central Government. He effectively administered over 11 million sq km of Chinese territory.
Modern Period (1840 - 1919)
During the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty declined rapidly. Britain smuggled large quantities of opium into China, making the Qing government impose a ban on the drug. In an effort to protect its opium trade, Britain launched a war of aggression against China in 1840. The Qing government finally signed the Treaty of Nanking, a treaty of national betrayal and humiliation, with the British government. Many countries, including Britain, the United States, France, Russia and Japan, forced the Qing government to sign various unequal treaties following the Opium War. China was gradually relegated to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country.
The Revolution of 1911 led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen was one of the greatest events in modern Chinese history, as it overthrew the over-200-year-old Qing Dynasty, ending over 2,000 years of feudal monarchy, and established the Republic of China.
New-Democratic Revolution (1919 - 1949)
The May 4th Movement of 1919 is regarded as the ideological origin of many important events in modern Chinese history. Its direct cause was the unequal treaties imposed on China after the First World War. Out of strong patriotism, students initiated the movement, and it further developed into a national protest movement of people from all walks of life. It also marked the introduction into China of various new ideologies, among which the spread of Marxism-Leninism was worthy of special mention. Under the influence of Russia's October Revolution of 1917, 12 delegates, including Mao Zedong, representing communist groups in different places throughout the nation, held the First National Congress in Shanghai in 1921 to found the Communist Party of China (CPC).
The Chinese people led by the CPC underwent successively the Northern Expeditionary War (1924-27), War of Agrarian Revolution (1927-37), War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-45) and War of Liberation (1946-49). Owing to the cooperation and joint resistance of the CPC and Kuomintang the Japanese aggressors were defeated. But shortly after the anti-Japanese war, the Kuomintang launched a civil war again. After the three-year War of Liberation led by the CPC, the Kuomintang government was finally overthrown in 1949.
People's Republic of China (1949- )
On October 1, 1949 a grand ceremony was witnessed by 300,000 people in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, and Mao Zedong, chairman of the Central People's Government, solemnly proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
During the initial post-Liberation period, the Chinese government successfully carried out land reform in areas accounting for over 90 percent of the total national agricultural population, and 300 million farmers were granted approximately 47 million ha of land. Amazing achievements were made during the First Five-Year Plan period, from 1953 to 1957. The average annual increase rate of the national income reached over 8.9 percent. China established basic industries necessary for full industrialization hitherto non-existent domestically, producing airplanes, automobiles, heavy machinery, precision machinery, power-generating equipment, metallurgical and mining equipment, high-grade alloy steels and non-ferrous metals.
The ten years from 1957 to 1966 was the period in which China started large-scale socialist construction. Though China suffered from the mistakes in its policies during the period, it also accomplished a great deal. The nation's total industrial fixed assets quadrupled between 1956 and 1966 and the national income increased by 58 percent in constant prices. The output of essential industrial products increased by several or even a dozen times. Large-scale agricultural capital construction and technical transformation got underway. Unfortunately, the "cultural revolution", which lasted for ten years (May 1966-October 1976), made the state and its people suffer the most serious setbacks and losses since its founding.
