History of China. Chapter IV

1. The Rise and Fall of the Qin Empire

It was now, at the end of the long Zhou era, at the final stage of the Zhangguo period in the Celestial Empire (the specific outlines of which by this time had practically merged with Zhongguo, because the fundamental difference between the civilized middle kingdoms and the semi-barbarian periphery had basically disappeared) the contours of a single empire began to emerge. This empire, the foundation of which took almost a thousand years to form, cannot be called precocious. On the contrary, its main mechanisms and details were carefully thought out and in their totality almost perfectly corresponded both to the semi-utopian projects of generations of wise reformers and to some general sociological patterns of politogenesis.

First of all, we are talking about the fact that, if we recall the theories of the “Asiatic” (state) mode of production, we have before our eyes the emerging giant machine of a well-thought-out bureaucratic administration within the framework of an ever-increasing empire due to conquests. Based on the principles of power-property and centralized redistribution, the apparatus of the bureaucratic administration of this empire was already ready to take all the levers of absolute power into its own hands. But how to manage these levers? And it was here that two models of ancient Chinese society, which were improving in parallel, collided.

It is worth noting right away that much in these models was of the same type and quite adequately reflected the realities of late Zhou China. Both were characterized by the concentration of power in the hands of the ruling elites, using the usual Marxist terms, a state-class that stood firmly above the rest of society, intending to govern it in its own (but above all, of course, in its own) interests. The only question was how to manage. And at this point verbal disputes could not help. Only the practice of the historical process could solve the problem. Practice, however, at the beginning was clearly on the side of force, the Legalist whip within the framework of the Qin model.

It was the military successes of Qin that laid the foundation for the superiority of this kingdom over others. The growth of its military power goes back to Shang Yang's reforms, the meaning and purpose of which was precisely to ensure that by strengthening the rigid administrative-bureaucratic power and providing benefits to farmers to create; conditions for military-political expansion. The results of the reforms (which so impressed Xun Tzu, who visited Qin at the beginning of the 3rd century BC) affected military successes. The greatest achievements in this regard are associated with the commander Bai Qi, who in the middle of the 3rd century. BC. won a number of decisive victories over neighboring kingdoms, culminating in unheard-of cruelties. So, for example, after the battle of Changping in 260 BC. all four hundred thousand warriors of the Zhao kingdom were executed (the figure is so incredible that it is sometimes called into question by researchers).

Qin's successes, as mentioned, prompted a desperate attempt by the surviving kingdoms to create a coalition, the vertical - zong (including all the kingdoms from northern Yan to southern Chu), against western Qin. The House of Zhou also supported the coalition. But it was already too late. Qin's opponents were defeated one by one. The house of Zhou also collapsed, and nine tripods - a symbol of the power of the son of Heaven - passed to Qin. Already in 253 BC. it was the Qin wang, instead of the Chou son of Heaven, who brought another official sacrifice in his capital in honor of the heavenly Shandi. This, in fact, formally ended the Zhou era. However, the final blows that finally crushed Qin's rivals in the struggle for the empire fell on subsequent Qin Shi Huang decades and were associated with the name and activities of the last ruler of the Ying Zheng kingdom, the future Emperor Qin Shi Huang Ti (259-210 BC). .).

Becoming in power in 246 BC. at the age of 13, he initially relied on the help of Chief Minister Lü Buwei (Sima Qian gives a legend according to which Ying Zheng was the son of a concubine given to his father by this Lü, hinting at the dubious origin of the emperor), but then decisively removed him from office and assigned to her legist Li Si, the already mentioned student of Xun Tzu. Li Si had a great influence on the young ruler, and some experts, not without reason, believe that it was he, and not Ying Zheng, who should be considered the true creator of the Qin empire.

Judging by the available data, Li Si was determined and cruel. He slandered his talented fellow student Han Fei-tzu, a brilliant theoretician of late legalism, whom he clearly envied, and thereby brought him to death (later, after reading Han's works, Ying Zheng regretted that he had imprisoned him, where, according to legend, he took poison obtained from Li Si).

Ying Zheng and Li Si continued successful wars with rivals in the east. In 230 BC the kingdom of Han was destroyed, in 225 - Wei, in 223 - Chu, in 222 - Zhao and Yan, and in 221 - Qi. After that, the entire Celestial Empire was in the hands of Ying Zheng. He founded a new Qin dynasty and began to call himself its first ruler (Shi Huangdi, First Holy Emperor). Actually, it was this 221 BC. and put an end to the Zhangguo period with its rivalry of kingdoms and bloody wars. Naturally, the new emperor immediately faced the question of how to manage the empire he had won in battles.

On the advice of Li Si Shi-huangdi resolutely rejected the idea of ​​creating inheritances for his relatives, which was insisted on by advisers who respected tradition. And it was easy to understand - the appanage system fully proved its destructiveness during the periods of Western Zhou and Chunqiu, so there was no point or need to revive it when striving for rigid centralization. As for traditions, Shi Huangdi was ready to neglect it. Instead, the emperor created a harmonious system of centralized administration, tested by Shanyan legalism. He abolished the privileges of the hereditary nobility, forcibly moving about 120 thousand of their families from all the kingdoms of Chou China to his new capital in order to tear off the aristocrats and descendants of the former rulers from their native places, deprive them of contact with former subjects and thereby weaken this most dangerous for him power social stratum. The whole empire was divided into 36 large regions, the borders of which did not coincide with the outlines of the former kingdoms and principalities, and governors, junshou, were placed at the head of these regions. The regions, in turn, were divided into counties (xian) headed by county chiefs, xianlings and xianzhangs, and the counties were divided into volosts (syak), consisting of small administrative formations - tings, with a dozen villages-communities in each of them.

All officials of the empire, whether officials at the level of ting, xiang, xian or jun, employees of the central departments or the censorship-prosecutor's office, had the corresponding administrative ranks, indicating the place and status of their owner. If the lower of these ranks could have ordinary commoners, then the middle ones, starting from the 8th, belonged only to officials who received salaries from the treasury for their service, and the highest (19th and 20th ranks had a few units) even assumed the right to food. Prosecutors in this system of administration had a special status and exclusive powers. They were a kind of personal representatives of the emperor, obliged to closely monitor and truthfully report to him about everything that happens in the country. Thus, the system of Shanyanov's denunciations was implemented on a nationwide scale. However, regardless of the sovereign's eye, the entire mass of bureaucracy was, according to Shanyan's recipes, bound by mutual responsibility with mutual surveillance and punishment for failure to report, with the responsibility of guarantors for their delinquent protégés.

In the empire, administrative orders and decrees that had previously been in force in all kingdoms and principalities were canceled, and new rigid legislation was introduced instead. The essence of this legislation (again, elementary in Shanyanov's way) was reduced to unquestioning obedience to the orders of the authorities under pain of severe punishments for the slightest offense. A new system of measures and weights was introduced, monetary units were unified (the main one was a round copper coin with a square cutout and the name of the ruling emperor on the front side, which has been preserved from then until the 20th century), measures of length (half a mile) and area ( mu). Instead of the complicated Zhou script, a simplified one (lishu) was introduced, which in its main parameters survived until the 20th century.

The entire administrative apparatus of the country, designed to monitor the implementation of innovations and to manage at all levels, had a number of important privileges, in particular, they were exempt from taxes and duties and were well paid. For better control over it, a double system of subordination was introduced: local officials were subordinate both to the heads of larger territorial-administrative associations in which they were included, and to the ministers and officials of the relevant central departments, whose demands they were obliged to reckon with (as, incidentally, , and with the requirements and instructions of the censors-procurators). Military units were also included in the general administrative scheme and deprived of isolation, which could unnecessarily strengthen the power of their leaders. It is worth noting that immediately after the creation of the empire, Shi Huangdi ordered to collect weapons in all kingdoms (meaning weapons made of bronze, the best of what the armies possessed) and bring them to the capital, where bells and massive statues were cast from it. This gesture, of course, had a symbolic character, because in general the emperor attached great importance to weapons, as well as to the army.

Following legalist norms, Qin Shih Huangdi encouraged agricultural pursuits. All the peasants of the empire received allotments of land, taxes and duties were quite moderate, at least at first, and the farmers even had the right, as already mentioned, to administrative ranks - this gave them prestige, aroused respect from fellow villagers, and also gave them a chance during elections for the position of elders (san-lao), etc. Crafts and trade, which were already largely private, although they continued to serve the needs of the court and the treasury, did not enjoy open support from the authorities. However, they were not pursued, as Shang Yang once called for. On the contrary, the richest of the artisans and merchants could become tax-farmers, organize the production of ore, salt or wine, albeit under the control of the authorities. Prices for the most important foodstuffs, especially for grain, were also controlled. A network of state workshops was created, where the best artisans were selected to perform labor duties for a certain period, who knew how to make weapons or other high-quality products necessary for the ever-expanding prestigious needs of the upper classes.

In mines, in the construction of roads and other hard work, including the construction of the capital with its hundreds of luxurious palaces and a mausoleum for the emperor, as well as in the construction of the Great Wall, both ordinary subjects who were obliged to bear labor service, and enslaved for crimes, of which there were quite a lot, were used . Millions of criminals, mobilized peasants and artisans were sent annually to these construction sites, especially to the north, where the wall was being built. The ramparts that existed there before, erected by the rulers of the northern kingdoms of Zhongguo against the raids of nomads, were rebuilt, connected together and turned into a giant stone-lined wall with towers, loopholes and gates precisely under Shi Huang, in a little over ten years. Over the same years, a network of strategic roads was built, connecting the capital with the far outskirts of the empire. The emperor himself traveled along them with inspection trips, installed steles from time to time in various regions of the empire, on which he recorded his deeds and merits.

It should be noted that, in general, the Legist system of administrative reforms and the methodology for their implementation had an effect, and quite quickly and clearly. The Empire was transforming very quickly, acquiring an unconditional Order, but not caring too much about inner Harmony. Perhaps this was her weak point. Confucians and other opponents of the emperor criticized him a lot and openly for the rejection of traditions, the cruelty of punishments, neglect of the very spiritual potentialities of morality and virtue, which were almost the main thing in the teachings of Confucius and in many respects corresponded to the already established mentality and fundamentals of the worldview of the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire. The emperor reacted aggressively to criticism. In 213 BC he ordered to burn all ancient books, in 212 - to execute 460 of the most active opponents. This increased the hatred towards him. Assassination attempts were made on Shi Huang, he was afraid to sleep twice in the same palace and did not tell where he intended to spend the next night.

Hatred of the new order and its living personification, Shi Huang, intensified as the first results of the reforms that had an economic effect began to overlap with the discomfort caused by the Shang Yang-style army-barracks orders, to which the vast majority of the population of the Celestial Empire was not accustomed. Departure for the construction of the Great Wall was perceived in the country as a reference to hard labor, from which few people return. Long wars against the Xiongnu in the north and in the Vietnamese lands in the south were also something of an indefinite exile. With the lack of funds in the treasury, requisitions from the population increased, which caused protests. Discontent was brutally suppressed, and the guilty - whether criticizing Confucians or rebellious peasants - were severely punished. More and more funds were required for construction and wars, they could only be taken by increasing taxes and labor duties. And the tax burden was shamelessly increased, regardless of whether the already destitute people would endure it. In addition, cruelty towards Confucians and Confucianism deprived people not so much of the right to appeal to tradition as of spiritual comfort. As a result, order without harmony turned into extremist arbitrariness, into a kind of lawlessness that can only cause despair and push to extreme measures for the sake of violated principles and ideals.

It is easy to see that the Qin model of a centralized state, brought to life through the efforts of Shi Huang and Li Si, differed markedly from the Confucian model in the style of Zhouli's ideal scheme. If among the Confucians paternalism and the constant petty, even obsessive concern of the ruling elites for the controlled lower classes, to which the Chou people had become accustomed to a certain extent over the long centuries and which was sanctioned by tradition, played a huge role, then everything was different here. Of course, in fairness, it should be noted that in the legalist scheme of Qin Shi Huang there was a certain place for a tradition based precisely on Confucian values: on the topic of humanity and justice, even on the deeds of the ancient sages. In other words, the Qin emperor was to some extent involved in the idea of ​​synthesis of Confucianism and legalism, even if in the closest form to hard legalism. And yet, from such a synthesis, Shi Huang was left basically with only stereotyped phrases. As for specific cases, and even more so for the strategy of building an empire, here the Legist administrative model appeared in its most inhuman version.

This is clearly seen in all the activities of the emperor, who obviously did not understand enough and, most importantly, practically did not take into account the traditional socio-psychological orientation of his subjects. The phrases from the steles, addressed to the descendants, had no effect on softening the policy, where unconditional administrative dictate prevailed and there was practically no place for the traditional Confucian paternalism familiar to people. The gigantic apparatus of bureaucratic administration skillfully built by Shi Huang and Li Si put pressure on the subjects. Those who criticized the emperor, Shi Huang angrily put in their place, and even mercilessly executed.

All this led to the collapse of the empire. As long as Shi Huang was alive, no one dared, and indeed could not seriously oppose the apparatus of state coercion. But after his death (in 210 BC), the situation changed dramatically. Er Shi Huangdi, who inherited the throne, not only did not have the abilities, character and authority of his father, but was hardly suitable for rulers at all (before his death, Shi Huang himself bequeathed to transfer power to his eldest son who criticized his orders, which Li Si and other close associates did not want to do ). As a result, the empire entered a period of court intrigue and political instability, which in turn gave strength to the opposition of the emperor's court. The uprisings began. They were still brutally suppressed, but they no longer had the strength to do so. Discontent grew rapidly in the country. The frightened Er Shi-huang tried to resort to executions of dignitaries and close associates, the most hated by the people and dangerous to the throne and to him personally. But nothing could help the empire.

In the autumn of 209 BC. Chen Sheng's uprising broke out, followed by others. Er Shi Huang announced a large amnesty in the Celestial Empire and began to mobilize troops against the rebels. Expenditures on expensive construction projects were cut, some other prominent dignitaries were accused of crimes and executed, including Li Si. But, despite all the efforts, the movement of the rebels expanded and gained strength. It was headed by Xiang Yu, a native of the former kingdom of Chu. The eunuch Zhao Gao, who replaced Li Si as the chief adviser to the emperor, tried to take power into his own hands. On his orders, Er Shi was forced to commit suicide. However, soon Zhao Gao himself was stabbed to death in the palace. The Qin court agonized, and soon the Qin dynasty ceased to exist.

Meanwhile, Xiang Yu had rivals, the strongest of which was a native of the peasants, Liu Bang. A long internecine struggle ended with the victory of Liu Bang, who became the founder of the new Han dynasty.

The story of the death of the Qin Dynasty is instructive and deserves special attention. As you know, this topic was of interest to many, starting with contemporaries of the events. So, in the sixth chapter of Sima Qian's work, devoted to the biography of Qin Shi Huangdi, an essay by Chia Yi is included, concerning the reasons for the fall of a seemingly powerful empire that lasted less than 15 years. Jia Yi reproached Shi-huang for excessive self-confidence, cruelty and excesses, condemned him for refusing to heed criticism and correct mistakes. He believed that the discontent and revolt of the people in such a situation were inevitable. In his opinion, the rejection of traditions, the neglect of them, ultimately became the cause of the collapse of Qin.

One can largely agree with Jia Yi. But it is more important to pay attention to the fact that the Qin empire became a kind of gigantic socio-political experiment in the history of China. It was the triumph of rigid legalism, which unexpectedly demonstrated at the moment of its highest triumph all its inner weakness. It would seem - here it is, the desired goal! The country is united and pacified, the enemies are defeated, the people are enjoying the benefits of effective economic reforms, the empire is almost flourishing. True, some more efforts are needed for the final triumph - it is necessary to complete the construction of the capital with its 270 palaces and magnificent mausoleum, strategic roads are needed, the Great Wall is needed to protect against raids and demonstrate the greatness of the empire. Expensive military expeditions are also needed against the barbarian tribes in the north and south, so that everyone knows about Qin and trembles. At the same time, the legist rulers of the empire were not embarrassed by the fact that the people were not accustomed to the dramatically changed way of life, that the new standards contradicted rooted traditions, and the first economic results were eaten up by the unbearable subsequent costs and expenditure of the vitality of the subjects of the empire.

But much has changed since then, including the kingdom of Qin, where in the second half of the 3rd century. BC. private property already existed and trade, cities, and even intellectual and cultural traditions were sufficiently developed. The states of other parts of Zhou China changed even more in this regard, especially Zhongguo, where crafts and trade, cities and private property, intellectual life and the game of thought, sometimes very subtle and sophisticated, have long become the norm. And all this variety of life Qin Shi-huang and Li Si wanted to subordinate to their harsh legalist laws.

In contrast to the Confucian tradition, which harmoniously absorbed innovations and, moreover, gave them an image enriched by a highly moral tradition that was acceptable to everyone, legalism was sharply negative about other doctrines. He rejected everything that was born in accordance with the spirit of the ethical tradition of Confucianism, that fit into this tradition and enriched the intellectual potential of the Celestial Empire. Thus, legalism, in addition to its rigidity and inhumanity, became openly reactionary. He frankly denied everything new and did not meet his standards. He did not like surprises, because they were dangerous for him, he did not tolerate remarks and, moreover, criticism from his opponents, because this undermined the strength of his position. That is, in the conditions that had already developed in China by the end of Zhangguo, legalism turned out to be unviable. This statement may seem harsh - after all, Shi Huang managed to achieve a lot in the few years of his power. Suffice it to recall the Great Wall! But there is a clear answer to this: a cruel regime is capable of much, but at the cost of an incredible effort, at the cost of the life of a generation. However, the extreme can never become the norm. Any extremism inevitably generates a response, and rather quickly. Society cannot bear prolonged overexertion. Relaxation in a society of the Legalist type means the collapse of everything on which the rigidity of Legalism rests. And as soon as the foundations collapse, everything else perishes. This is the main reason for the collapse of a seemingly strong and great empire. In this, the unviability of legalism was manifested, which inevitably had to be replaced by a different structure, softer, more humane and therefore viable. Such a structure in China was the Confucian Empire - the Empire of Han.

2. Han Empire. Wudi and its transformations

The Chinese empire evolved as a centralized state over a number of centuries. In principle, an empire is the highest stage of the process of politogenesis. It can exist only on the basis of a centralized apparatus of power, which, in turn, must rely on force. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the Chinese empire arose in legal form. It was a kind of apotheosis of cynical power. However, one force is not enough to form a stable empire. We need institutions that would contribute to the stabilization of society and the economic balance. The legists paid little attention to both - and lost. They were replaced by a new dynasty, which made great efforts to create social stability and economic stability. Both were objectively necessary for the structure, within the usual framework of which, based on power-property and centralized redistribution, new institutions of a market-private property character arose that opposed both.

These institutions, as already mentioned, were inscribed in the former ones, but the legalists did not care in the least to create some kind of stable balance between the haves and the have-nots, the city and the countryside, the ruling upper classes and the disadvantaged lower classes. And it was the masses of the dispossessed - the landless and farm laborers, tenants and mercenaries, slaves and servants - that played a significant role in creating the instability that manifested itself after the death of Shi Huang and the loss by his successors of the main thing that they had, i.e. brute force. It fell to the rulers of the Han dynasty to create a truly stable empire, which would rely not only and even not so much on strength, but on a skillfully built administrative-political and socio-economic structure that ensured conservative stability for both society and the state.

The Han Empire did not emerge immediately after the 207 B.C. The Qin Dynasty ended. China has for several years been the scene of a fierce political struggle between the contenders for the vacant imperial throne. The warlords who led the warring regions in vigorous battles settled scores with each other, creating more and more principalities and kingdoms on the lands they conquered, the names of which sometimes coincided with the former ones that existed in the same territories before Qin, and sometimes sounded new. The strongest among them, as mentioned, were the newly created political formations of the Xiang and Han houses. The struggle between them ended in 202 BC, when the Han Liu Bang (Gaozu) who assumed the title of Emperor actually seized power in the entire Celestial Empire.

But what kind of empire did Liu Bang get?! The country lay in ruins, for by no means all the defeated opponents agreed to unconditional surrender. Many of them, on the contrary, continued to resist, leading the cause to more and more devastation. However, the main thing was that the force of centripetal factors and tendencies, which had matured for centuries in the bowels of Chou China and to a large extent ensured the unification of the country into a gigantic empire by Qin Shi Huang, not only dried up, but also, as it were, turned into its opposite. The obvious negative experience of Shi Huang's short-lived Legalist experiment and the subsequent collapse of his empire were the reality faced by Liu Bang (the founder of the Han Dynasty) who defeated his rivals and again tried to unite the empire together Liu Bang. Of course, long-term factors and trends played a positive role in this, because they objectively reflected what was the result of a long historical process: China was ready for unification, and the only question was who and how to achieve this. But Qin's failure didn't just slow down the positive process. It seemed to turn it back, sharply slowed down its course, forced many things to be created anew, and in the most unfavorable conditions for this, general devastation and collapse.

It is important to remember here that Li Si's legalism as implemented in the Qin Empire was extremely intolerant. He set as his goal to eradicate from the memory of people everything that in one way or another did not coincide with his norms and thus was in opposition to them. It is clear that at the same time the entire vast administrative-bureaucratic system was created from those who were blindly obedient to the Legalist doctrine and zealously implemented its standards in practice. And this was precisely the inheritance that the not very educated native of the peasantry, Liu Bang, received when he sat on the throne and faced the need to rule the empire. How to manage? Who to manage? Who and what to rely on? These questions were all the more urgent for him because, judging by the data of the eighth chapter of Sima Qian's work, which is specially devoted to Gaozu, almost all the few years of his reign as emperor of the new Han dynasty were spent in battles with rebels, who now and then tried to challenge his victory and status as emperor. And although Liu Bang eventually defeated all his enemies and, in the words of the same Sima Qian, "pacified the Celestial Empire", turning the state "on the right path", it was not easy for him, and even more so for the country.

Of course, Liu Bang had knowledgeable and experienced advisers, including from among the surviving Confucians. However, they could do little during the life of the emperor in the conditions of constant wars and rebellions, devastation and collapse, without having a sufficient number of like-minded assistants who were destroyed back in Qin. In addition, in institutional terms, they had practically nothing to oppose to the dilapidated, but still somehow existing Legist administrative system. The texts of "Jouli" could not help here. That is why Gaozu was in no hurry with radical reforms, he did not try too hard to oppose his new regime to the bankrupt Legalist one. On the contrary, he tried to rely on the remnants of the legalist administrative structure that had survived from the time of Qin, while doing everything necessary to soften the rigidity of Li Si and Qin Shih Huang's legalism.

Already in 202 BC. on the occasion of the inauguration, Liu Bang proclaimed a broad amnesty, calling on all the fugitives and exiles to return home and receive their lands and dwellings. He abolished the harsh punishments of the Qin era and placed emphasis on the lower level of administration, on the village elders - sanlao, among whom there were ancient traditions. Having retained the Legist system of administrative ranks, the lowest, eight of them, he ordered to continue to assign common people, including Sanlao. In 199 BC The construction of the Weiyangung palace complex in the new Han capital of Chang'an began. However, the main weakness of Han power continued to be the lack of a reliable centralized administrative system. To create it instead of the collapsed Qin was not an easy task and required a lot of time. In addition, Gaozu was aware of the need to reward everyone who helped him win the victory, who was next to him in the harsh years, who were among his relatives and close associates. The method of remuneration, known from ancient Chinese history, was one - to distribute titles, ranks and corresponding land awards to deserved people, for the most part with noticeable immunity rights, which turned all of them into powerful specific rulers.

It is difficult to say which of the factors in this decision played the greatest role, perhaps, the scales in case of doubts - and there could not be any doubts: it was too well known what dangers were fraught with the creation of a large number of semi-independent destinies within the country, - the link outweighed to a tradition that Qin Shi Huang had neglected in his time, but which Liu Bang firmly decided to reckon with. In any case, a fundamental decision was made already in the first years of his power, when 143 inheritances were created in the Celestial Empire. On average, these were appanages of 1-2 thousand households, sometimes smaller, but sometimes much larger, up to 10-12 thousand. Each of the owners of the appanage and only he had the title of hou, which was inherited along with the appanage. The closest successors of Liu Bang continued his policy in this sense, granting dozens of new destinies to their close relatives and honored assistants. Over time, many representatives of the specific nobility became so entrenched in their possessions that the closest of them, in terms of kinship with the emperor, began to be called the title of van. The Vans and Hou felt secure in their domains and sometimes started rebellions against the legitimate ruler of the Celestial Empire.

However, on the scale of the Celestial Empire as a whole, the specific nobility, both in number and in the number of subjects, occupied a not very noticeable place. Although there were a lot of troubles with her, she did not influence the politics of the country as a whole so much. The lion's share of the territory and subjects of the ruler of the Celestial Empire remained under the rule of the center, and therefore perhaps the most important task was to create a reliable system of centralized administration on which the empire could rely. Actually, this was the main goal of the activities of several of Liu Bang's closest successors, up to his great great-grandson Wu Di, who finally solved the problem of managing the empire. But before U-di there were still rulers about whom it is necessary to say at least a few words.

From 195 to 188 the country was ruled by one of the sons of Liu Bang - Hui-di. After him, power passed into the hands of Liu Bang's widow, Empress Lu, who surrounded herself with relatives from her Lu clan. Many of them received the highest titles of vans and hous, hereditary destinies and high positions. Empress Lu died in 180 BC. from a mysterious illness, which Sima Qian, as far as he can understand, was inclined to consider heavenly punishment for her crimes. After Lu's death, the temporary workers from her clan were destroyed.

In the history and historical tradition of China, the attitude towards Empress Luihou is purely negative. She is condemned for cruelty towards rivals, for the murders of statesmen, the deposition of legitimate heirs, the elevation of relatives from the Lu clan, and much more. Of course, after carefully reading the ninth chapter of Sima Qian's work dedicated to her, one can agree that she was an imperious, cruel and ambitious ruler. But the final lines of the same chapter say: “... the ruler Gao-hou exercised control ... without leaving the palace chambers. The sky was calm. Punishments of any kind were rarely used, and there were few criminals. The people were diligently engaged in arable farming, there was plenty of clothing and food.

This means that court intrigues and bloody showdowns around the throne did not really affect the state of affairs in the country. On the contrary, Liu Bang's reforms, including lowering taxes on landowners, conducting irrigation works, imposing heavy taxes on wealthy merchants, and caring about maintaining the status of ordinary officials, gradually yielded positive results. Softened legalist methods of administration and encouragement of Confucian traditions led to the replenishment of the administration at the expense of active Confucians. Connoisseurs of Confucianism were able to restore from memory the texts of the books destroyed by Qin Shi Huang, and first of all the entire Confucian canon, now overgrown with numerous commentaries. And the fact that neither Hui-di nor Lü-hou, immersed in palace entertainments and intrigues, interfered much in the affairs of the Celestial Empire, as if entrusting them to representatives of traditional culture, who replaced the compromised Legist dignitaries, went (together with timely and reasonable reforms of Liu Bang) for the benefit of the Celestial Empire. This became especially evident when one of Liu Bang's sons, Wen-di, took the throne.

During the 23 years of his reign (179-157 BC), Wen-di did a lot for the revival of Confucian traditions and the prosperity of Han China. He began by declaring a general amnesty, generously awarded next ranks to almost all of their holders, noted with special awards and awards those who played a major role in eradicating the Lü clan and restoring order in the country. Wen-di abandoned the cruel practice of punishing the relatives of the criminal for the crimes. At the same time, he referred to the Confucian thesis that officials are obliged to educate the people, and not harm them with unjust laws. On the occasion of the appointment of his son as heir and the elevation of his mother to the rank of empress, Wen-di again generously rewarded many and especially singled out the poor, widows and orphans, the poor and lonely, as well as the elderly over eighty, who were granted silk, rice and meat. Awards were also given to veterans close to Liu Bang.

On the day of the solar eclipse in 178 BC. Wen-di made a repentant appeal to the people, grieving for his imperfection and suggesting, according to the ancient custom, to nominate wise and worthy people who are ready to serve for the benefit of the people. In the same year, he personally made a furrow in the temple field and announced the right of everyone to speak critically of the highest authorities. In 177 BC Wen-di concluded an agreement on brotherhood with the northern neighbors of the Xiongnu, who worried the Celestial Empire from time to time. He allowed part of the Xiongnu to settle in the Ordos region, i.e. on the lands of the Celestial Empire south of the wall, where nomads lived from ancient times and farming was a risky business.

Wen-di was generous with mercy, he forgave the rebellious aristocrats who rebelled against him, advocated mitigation of punishments, especially corporal ones, canceled in 166 BC. land tax, while at the same time increasing duties and taxes from the urban population, merchants and artisans (the tax was restored after his death in 156 BC). The emperor took care of the timely offering of sacrifices, the prosperity of the people, and the appeasement of the Xiongnu. In the lean year 159 B.C. he greatly reduced the prestigious expenses of the court, opened state barns for distribution to the starving and allowed the sale of ranks, as well as poor peasants with ranks to give way to their more prosperous neighbors. Things got to the point that at the end of his life, Wen-di demanded that his family dress in simple clothes, not wear expensive jewelry, and bequeathed after his death not to spend too much money on expensive mourning rites.

Wen-di died in 157 BC. Subsequently, he was very much appreciated by his descendants, who praised his virtues. It is worth noting that the virtues of Wendi fit well into the traditional ideas of a wise and virtuous ruler, and it was he who was the first of the Han emperors, who can be considered exemplary from the point of view of Confucianism. This means that in about a third of a century, Han China has changed a lot. Legalism, compromised by cruel years of hard experiments, is a thing of the past, leaving the territory of the Han Empire before the aggressive campaigns of Wu Di inherited a centralized bureaucratic system and a considerable number of institutions associated with it. Through the efforts of the Confucians, this heritage was seriously transformed, and by the Wen-di era it quite easily fit into those paternalistic traditions glorified by Zhouli's schemes, which began to clearly come to the fore.

The years of reign of Wen-di's son and Liu Bang's grandson Emperor Jing-di (156-141 BC) were marked by amnesties that showed mercy to the fallen. Jing-di pacified the Xiongnu, put down the rebellions of the specific princes, was engaged in streamlining the administration, and in his posthumous edict he granted everyone the next administrative rank. It is important to note that during the years of his reign, a systematic attack began on the rights of specific princes, whose lands were cut, which sometimes served as a pretext for rebellions.

Jing-di's successor was his son and great-grandson Liu Bang Wu-di (140-87 BC). It was during the years of his reign, which was one of the longest and most fruitful in the history of China, that Confucianism not only finally came to the fore and became the basis of the Chinese way of life, but also turned out to be the foundation of the entire mature Chinese civilization. From that time, from the reign of the Han Wudi, almost a thousand and a half years of ancient Chinese history - the history of urban state formations and the formation of civilizational foundations - completes its journey and passes the baton to the history of the developed and established Confucian empire.

Han China of the times of Wu Di is the heyday of the recently recreated empire from the ruins, a little more than half a century ago. Agriculture flourished in the country, and taxes were relatively low, usually no more than 1/15 of the crop. True, they were supplemented by a poll tax, as well as various kinds of working off and duties, but on the whole, all this was usual and therefore tolerable. The population of the country increased sharply, reaching in the 1st century BC. BC. 60 million people. The development of new lands gave impetus to the development of agricultural technology, including plowing with the use of draft animals (however, remained the property of only a few), as well as the bed system of tillage by hand (it was with this method of cultivation that the vast majority of peasants received good harvests from their fields). The old irrigation systems were carefully maintained and new ones were created as needed. The roads were in order, and new cities were rising along the roads, the number of which had been continuously increasing since the beginning of the imperial period of Chinese history.

Wudi borrowed a lot from the Legalist experience, adopting and developing those aspects of it that turned out to be viable and even necessary for managing the empire. He restored the state monopoly on salt, iron, coin casting and wine production, established back in the time of Qin Shih Huang, and the mechanism for implementing this monopoly, which was very beneficial for the treasury, was the system of farming out. Wealthy merchants and artisans from among wealthy urban and especially metropolitan residents paid huge sums of money to the treasury for the right to engage in salt production, metallurgical trade, distillation or the manufacture of coins and for receiving income from all these industries. There were also state-owned enterprises in the cities, where the best artisans of the country worked (most often in the order of working off, that is, labor service). They made the most exquisite products for the prestigious consumption of the upper classes, as well as weapons and equipment for the army, and much more. All this contributed to the development of the economy and an increase in the number of private owners. The attitude towards private proprietors and especially wealthy merchants in Han China did not differ from the Zhou times, although it was not as uncompromising as in Shangyan's legalism. Wealthy merchants were tightly controlled by the authorities, the possibilities for realizing their wealth were legally limited, although they were allowed to spend money on buying a socially prestigious rank or a certain - not too high - position.

Wu Di took a lot from the administrative system of legalism. The country was divided into regions headed by governors responsible to the center. An important role, as in Qin, was played by the system of daily control in the person of censors-prosecutors vested with the highest powers. Criminals were subjected to severe punishments, often they, and even members of their families, were turned into convict slaves used in hard work, mainly construction and mining. In order to strengthen the centralization of power in 121 BC. a decree was issued that actually eliminated the system of appanages - each owner of an appanage was legally ordered to divide his property among all his numerous heirs, which was intended to finally eliminate the influential layer of hereditary nobility, which at times gave rise to rebellions and general instability in the empire.

Being a strong and intelligent politician, U-di paid great attention to foreign policy problems, the main of which were the same Xiongnu, who became more active on the northern borders. In search of allies in the fight against them as early as 138 BC. Zhang Qian was sent to the northwest, who at first was captured by the Xiongnu for a long ten years, but then managed to escape and fulfill the assignment entrusted to him. Having explored the territory and studied the peoples who lived to the west of the Xiongnu, Zhang Qian returned home after many years of wandering and compiled a detailed account of his journey for the emperor. This report, being included as a special chapter in Sima Qian's consolidated work, has survived to this day and is of great help to specialists studying the history of the non-literate peoples who lived north of China in the Han time.

Wu Di was satisfied with the information received from Zhang Qian. And although the expedition did not achieve the main goal - creating a coalition against the Xiongnu - it provided a lot of material for assessing the political situation on the northwestern borders of Han China. Having received information about the magnificent Davan (Fergana) horses, Udi sent military expeditions to the Ferghana Valley. In addition to horses, which were brought to the imperial stables as a result, campaigns against Davan made it possible to open regular trade relations with the peoples who lived on the territory of modern East Turkestan. These connections, which ultimately owed their origin to Zhang Qian, later received the name of trade along the Silk Road, because from China to the west, along the newly opened trade routes, mainly highly valued silk was transported, which reached Rome in transit. Since then, the Great Silk Road has functioned for centuries, albeit irregularly, linking China, cut off from other developed civilizations, with the countries of the West. Wu Di also sent successful military expeditions to the east, where part of the Korean lands were subordinated to them, and to the south, to the Vietnam region, where part of the Vietnamese lands was annexed by the Chinese.

The successful foreign policy of Wu Di contributed not so much to the development of trade relations with distant countries (they were given little importance in China), but to the expansion of the territory of the empire and the strengthening of its borders. Both in foreign and even more so in domestic policy, the emperor pursued the goal of strengthening the foundation of imperial power and reviving the glory of the great and prosperous Celestial Empire, which was perhaps the most important element of the highly revered Chinese tradition. It is not surprising, therefore, that Wu Di himself spent a lot of effort not only to revive the influence of Confucianism in the empire (this process had been going on successfully for a long time after the collapse of Qin and without his efforts), but to recreate a new, imperial, or, as it is sometimes called , Han, Confucianism. The fundamental difference between imperial Confucianism was not so much in the doctrine, which remained practically unchanged, but in a new approach to the newly formed realities, in a new attitude towards the world that had changed since the time of Confucius. Or, in other words, in its greater tolerance for other doctrines, all the more prostrate, not withstood the test of history. And the point here is not only in synthesis as an idea that has been making its way for a long time, for centuries. Much more important was the very principle of practical benefit, pragmatic perception of the world, which was formed in China largely under the influence of the same Confucianism.

Wu Di wanted the new official imperial ideology to absorb everything useful that helped the country and him personally, the entire Han dynasty to establish the management of the empire and rely on the people brought up on ideals and traditions, but at the same time respecting strength and subject to authority. First of all, this meant the convergence of pre-Han Confucianism with legalism, more precisely, with those elements of legalism that could well coexist with Confucianism and even reinforce its sometimes well-meaning postulates. After all, both the Confucians and the Legalists believed that the sovereign with his ministers and officials should govern the Celestial Empire, that the people should respect the authorities and obey its representatives, and that all this ultimately contributes to the good and prosperity, peace and happiness of the subjects. It is worth remembering that Qin Shi Huang spoke in approximately the same language in his steles. The difference between the doctrines and especially their implementation was in what methods should be used to achieve the goals. Confucians emphasized the self-consciousness and self-improvement of people, the education in them of humanity, virtue, a sense of duty and respect for elders. Legists - intimidation, submission and severe punishments for disobedience. In this situation, the skillful combination of the Confucian gingerbread with the Legalist whip could and did produce very positive results. But that was far from all.

Wu-di gathered around him about a hundred eminent boshi scholars (boshi is an honorary academic title, a kind of professor), who from time to time, as it is narrated in the 56th chapter of the dynastic history of Han-shu, asked important questions for him about how the empire should be run, what criteria should be used to select assistants and officials, how to interpret ancient wisdom in relation to the tasks of today, etc. As far as it is clear from the text of the chapter, most; Clever and precise answers to the questions posed were given by Wu's senior contemporary, the outstanding Confucian of the Han time, Dong Chung-shu.

Dong Zhongshu was not just a great connoisseur and zealous adherent of the teachings of Confucius, whose sayings he constantly referred to and whose chronicle Chunqiu made the basis of his own composition Chunqiu fanlu. The historical merit of this outstanding thinker was that he was able to weave into the fabric of Confucianism new non-Confucian ideas that arose and came into use, gained popularity and recognition, be it the concepts of yin-yang and wu-xing associated with the name of Zou Yang, some ideas of Mo- zi (for example, about heavenly signs) or Taoists with their category of qi and other elements of cosmogony in the ancient Indian style, i.e. with a lot of mysticism. It was in this outwardly very eclectic ideological-philosophical-religious doctrine that the synthesis, which has already been mentioned more than once, found its completion.

Noteworthy is the fact that this synthesis was unobtrusive, it was only woven into patterns in the Confucian fabric; that Confucianism was the basis of the teachings of Dong, which then formed the foundation of the state official ideology of the Chinese empire and was called Han Confucianism. It is interesting to note that it was Dong who first voiced the idea that Confucius himself had all the virtues so that Heaven would pay attention to him and give him the Great Mandate to rule the Middle Kingdom. Although this, as is known, did not happen, which Confucius himself lamented in his time, such an assumption only exalted the great sage in the eyes of generations.

It cannot be said that after the innovations of Dong Chung-shu in the Chinese empire there were no more disputes affecting the priority of Confucianism. They showed themselves, for example, during a lively discussion about state monopolies, held in 81 BC. under Wu-di's successor Emperor Zhao-di and recorded a little later by Huan Kuan in the treatise "Yan te lun" (Dispute about salt and iron). The struggle over whether to leave monopolies or abolish them resulted in an open dispute between those who leaned in favor of legalistic methods of government (state monopolies) and Confucians, who believed that it was not the strength of the state, but the virtues of the sovereign that should attract people. What is important here is not even the discussion itself (although it is very, interesting, because it paid a lot of attention to the arguments of the parties), but the fact that, in the end, the dispute between representatives of different approaches to managing the empire made a significant contribution to the creation of that very gigantic hierarchical system centralized bureaucratic administration, which in its ideal form was proposed by the Confucians in the treatise Zhouli. Of course, now the Zhouli scheme, enriched with well-developed management institutions borrowed from the Legists, has ceased to be an ideal construction, but, on the contrary, has acquired flesh and blood, has become a reality. Actually, with the acquisition of this reality, imperial China became the state that it continued to be, with minor ideological and institutional changes, until the 20th century.

Thus, the ancient Chinese period of the formation of the foundations of civilization and statehood, the creation of a mature and sufficiently perfect in its main parameters apparatus for the administration of a centralized state has come to its logical conclusion. In Wu-di Han China, the Confucian-Legist apparatus of power, with its well-trained officials, who were carefully selected before being appointed to office from among well-established experts in the official Confucian doctrine, was the result of a long process of synthesis of ideas and the evolution of political and social institutions. The necessary element of coercion within the imperial administration was harmoniously combined with traditional paternalism, and the social discipline of centuries-old respect-oriented subjects was reinforced by the Confucian spirit of rivalry and self-improvement, which in the conditions of imperial China was always the engine that allowed the huge administrative machine not to stagnate, not to rust. And although after Wu Di Han China entered a period of protracted crisis (in general, the subsequent history of the country developed in cycles, from prosperity and stability to crisis and decline, and then to the next flourishing), laid down by tradition, mainly Confucianism, the potential was quite enough to ensure that Chinese civilization and statehood have retained their viability.

3. Han Dynasty after Wu. Wang Mang's reforms

After Wu's death, Han China, as mentioned, entered a long period of stagnation and then crisis. If during the years of strong centralized power, the functions of specially appointed inspectors (the same censors-prosecutors that existed during the Qin dynasty) included, among other things, to ensure that “the lands and houses of local powerful families did not exceed” the established norm, and the rulers places "justly ruled the court and did not oppress the people", then with the collapse of the effective power of the center, the situation changed dramatically. The weak and weak-willed successors of Wu Di proved unable to control local power. Moreover, the weakness of the Han empire was the insufficient degree of institutionalization of precisely the lowest level of administration. A firm and proven practice of training and skillful use of cadres of officials of this very mass grass-roots level has not yet been established. In addition, the bitter rivalry of the local elite with the emerging imperial bureaucracy contributed to the weakness of the unsettled system of recruiting officials.

The fact is that in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. the nature of the ancient Chinese village-community has changed significantly. If before that the village-community was a collection of households approximately the same in terms of prosperity, and the property difference between them, as soon as it became noticeable, was extinguished due to the sporadic redistribution of communal land, then with the development of the process of privatization and commodity-money relations, inequality, if not immediately became noticeable in the village. Especially social and property inequality began to manifest itself precisely in the Han time, when the strict standards of legalism, severely restricting the private owner, were significantly weakened and a lot depended on how effectively the state apparatus, the imperial power of the center, exercised control over the country.

While power, especially under Wu-di, was strong, equality in the countryside was artificially maintained (which, as was just mentioned, was the responsibility of special inspectors to follow). But as soon as the authorities began to weaken, the centrifugal forces in the localities began to show their capabilities more and more actively. Strong farms arose in the villages, which quickly grew rich and took over more and more lands, turning their yesterday's owners into tenants and mercenaries. The so-called “strong houses” that arose on this economic basis (in the texts they were called by various terms) divided power and influence among themselves (sometimes in the course of fierce rivalry). Disadvantaged peasants often had to leave their native places and go to new ones, where they found themselves in the position of dependent clients (ke, lit. - “guest”) from all the same village rich. Forced in the conditions of the inefficient power of the center to take care of their own well-being, strong houses were overgrown with house guards (butqu) recruited from the poor and newcomers, which in a critical situation could act as a fully combat-ready military formation.

Turning over many millions and even tens of millions of coins, which is often mentioned in the sources, powerful houses not only became the generally recognized elite of the empire with real power, but also gained opportunities to influence the administration apparatus. Moreover, the apparatus of administration at the county and district level was mainly staffed precisely from representatives of these strong houses and, in any case, strongly depended on their “common opinion”.

Why did the strong houses in the period of the decline of the empire turn out to be such an influential force in the Han village? The fact is that in addition to purely economic factors (the enrichment of the rural minority in the conditions of a commodity economy), some other factors actively contributed to the power of the rich clans in the rural community. First, as soon as it became possible to acquire communal lands by hook or by crook, all highly paid officials and owners enriched by market transactions began to try to invest their income in land, which was not so profitable as prestigious and reliable. This, of course, contributed to the practical merging of the village elite with all the powerful of this world, and above all with the influential elite of officials. Secondly, the weakening of power as such played an important role.

In the conditions of effective power of the center, anyone involved in power was first of all an official and only secondarily - an owner. The fundamental postulate that power generates and preserves its own property and that the property of the person in power is mediated precisely by his involvement in the administrative apparatus was understandable to everyone, because it went back to the ancient principle of power-property. But as soon as there was a crisis of power and the treasury was correspondingly empty, and the interests of the official were significantly affected, the situation changed. Officials, on the one hand, began to put more severe pressure on the village, which was already groaning from the blows of the crisis, which led to the ruin of the peasants and the deepening of the crisis, and on the other hand, they increasingly felt the interests of the owners as their own and even (in the changed situation) as paramount .

The interweaving of the interests of the rural property elite and the local administration apparatus, in turn, sharply aggravated the economic crisis, which entailed a further weakening and political decentralization of the state. It was this process that was observed at the end of the first Han Dynasty. It manifested itself primarily in a tangible decrease in the role of the state administrative principle in the country, and also in the fact that the functions of power actually ended up in the hands of strong houses with their vast lands, financial resources, abundant clientele, and, moreover, with claims to high moral potential, aristocracy. spirit and high Confucian standards.

Having perceived the Confucian ideal of a noble husband (jun-tzu) as a social and moral basis and striving to demonstrate by their way of life the highest standards of being glorified in Confucian treatises of the “Ili” type of a layer of aristocratic officials shi, representatives of the village elite (all the same strong houses) precisely they considered themselves the guardians of the virtuous foundations of an empire collapsing under the blows of the crisis. It was they who increasingly called themselves "the hope of the people" and "worthy men" with the moral purity of true shi. In an effort to retain the right to express a “general opinion” and speak from the standpoint of “pure criticism”, powerful houses jealously followed each other, which objectively contributed to the preservation and cultivation of the high standard of the Confucian norm in their midst, moreover, to the formation of a kind of aristocracy of the spirit . This aristocracy differed from the corresponding standard of the Chunqiu feudal structure in that it relied not so much on the realities of the socio-political prerogatives of the hereditary nobility, but on a high reputation, on the creation and preservation of the Confucian "face". "Losing face", i.e. losing a reputation was an unbearable blow for an ardent Confucian, which not every one of them could endure.

Of course, all these features and the most important characteristics of the elite were formed in Han China gradually, honed over the centuries. But it was they who meant that the ideas and plans of Wu-di and Dong Zhongshu, laid in the foundation of the post-Qin empire, began to acquire traditions. The very Confucian traditions that were destined to survive for centuries and exert their influence on China up to the present day. And it should be emphasized that these traditions realized themselves with the greatest strength and effectiveness only under conditions of strong power of the center, while when this power was weakened, they only persisted, and first of all and mainly at the grassroots level, at the level of the same local elite. .

The result of this kind of trend was the reforms that the rulers of the Chinese empire usually resorted to during periods of weakening of their power, stagnation, and even more so crises. The meaning of all the reforms known to experts in the history of the empire was reduced to using traditional Confucian recommendations and appropriate mechanisms to restore the order lost by society and thereby actively resist destruction and chaos. The first of such reforms is associated with the name of the famous Han ruler Wang Mang.

In fact, an attempt at reforms aimed primarily at curbing the appetites of wealthy strong houses was made during the reign of Ai-di (6-1 BC), but was not successful. Soon after this failure, power in the country was seized by Wang Mang, father-in-law of Emperor Ping-di (1-5 years) and regent for his young son. In 8 AD, he deposed the infant emperor Ying-di and proclaimed himself the founder of a new Xin dynasty. After becoming emperor and showing himself to be a zealous Confucian, an ardent supporter of traditions, Wang Mang began reforms that were a bizarre mixture of idealized designs with real and even harsh measures aimed at undermining the omnipotence of the autocratic elite on the ground. The first and main task of the new emperor was to strengthen state power and the entire system of centralized redistribution closely related to it. It was for this purpose that Wang Mang declared all the lands in the empire to be state lands and strictly prohibited their sale and purchase. The possessions of powerful houses confiscated in this way were intended for distribution among all those privately dependent who did not have their own land and were in the position of tenants, clients, or even just slaves in the households of powerful village clans. As a normative principle for distribution, the Meng-tzu o jing-tian scheme was chosen, and its utopian nature did not in the least embarrass the reformer, for whom the most important were not strictly divided into clear squares of 100 mu (about 7 hectares) of the field, but the principle itself included in this schema. The principle proceeded from the fact that there are only two types of land ownership - peasant and state, and, thus, in the relationship between the farmer and the treasury there is no place for any intermediaries, yesterday's rich owners.

In addition to reforms in the field of land relations, Wang Mang issued a special decree on the elimination of private slavery and the prohibition of buying and selling people. All slaves automatically acquired the status of dependents and, accordingly, were under certain protection from the state, which was also a severe blow, primarily to strong houses and their households. Slaves - in accordance with ancient tradition - remained only criminals, and the number of slaves of this category under Wang Mang increased sharply due to severe punishments for all those who violated the new laws or actively opposed them. By special decrees, Wang Mang introduced state monopolies on wine, salt, iron, and even credit, which had already lost their strength. A new type of coin was put into circulation in the country, the casting of which also became the monopoly of the state.

The reforms met with desperate resistance from those who, by decree of the emperor, were deprived of almost all their property, all the wealth accumulated by generations. In an effort to suppress discontent, the reformer did not hesitate to resort to repression, while relying, which is important to emphasize, on the administration apparatus. Using new orders; the administrative apparatus derived considerable benefits for itself from the expropriation of other people's wealth. And since considerable expenses were required to carry out reforms and to strengthen the apparatus of power in such a difficult situation for the empire, Wang Mang had to take some unpopular measures - he increased taxes and introduced a number of new taxes and duties from various categories of the population. This latter, apparently, played an almost decisive role in the growth of dissatisfaction with the reforms.

Assessing the reforms as a whole, it should be noted that, in principle, they were sufficiently thought out and, if they were skillfully carried out, could well lead the country out of a state of crisis. True, in any case, it would have cost the country quite dearly. But easy and painless reforms, and even at the time of a severe crisis, are hardly ever. Therefore, it cannot be considered that Wang Mang acted ineptly and therefore lost. A decisive role in its fate, as well as in the fate of the empire, was played by something else: in 11 AD, the wayward Yellow River changed its course, which led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people, flooding of fields, destruction of cities and towns.

The Huang He has repeatedly changed its course over the course of several thousand years of written Chinese history, which was due to the abundance of silt (loess) that this not accidentally named Yellow River carried in its waters. Usually, its waters were closely monitored by officials who were responsible for cleaning the channel and building dams. But during the years of stagnation and crisis, in moments of destruction and weakening of power, this important function of the Chinese administration also weakened. The rivers were stopped, they could not carefully monitor. And retribution was not long in coming. And if we take into account that for the population brought up within the framework of a certain tradition, including Wang Mang himself, the breakthrough of the Huang He and the great disasters associated with it clearly indicated that Heaven is dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the Celestial Empire and warns of its dissatisfaction with precisely this kind of global cataclysms, then there is no need to argue about the conclusions that everyone made after the change in the course of the Yellow River: the great Sky is against Wang Mang's reforms.

Realizing this, the emperor was forced not only to openly repent, but also to cancel a significant part of his decrees. This kind of forced action played a fatal role. Opponents of the reforms rejoiced, the situation in the country changed decisively again, which once again gave rise to chaos and confusion. The crisis began to deepen, the dissatisfied and the disadvantaged again took up arms, uprisings began in the country. As a result of these numerous uprisings, the most prominent of which was played by the uprisings of the so-called "red-browed" (the fighters belonging to this movement painted their eyebrows red in order to distinguish themselves from the rest), the armies of the empire lost ground under their feet and retreated to the capital. In 23, Chang'an fell and Wang Mang was killed. Shortly thereafter, in the course of a showdown between the rebels of various movements, the red-browed ones took over. But this was their last success. Taking advantage of the civil strife between the leaders of the rebels, the Han generals defeated the red-browed and nominated one of the representatives of the House of Han - Liu Xiu - as the new emperor.

4. Second Han Dynasty (25-220)

Having become emperor and taking the name of Guan Wudi, the new ruler of the same Han dynasty actually continued the transformations initiated by the unsuccessful Wang Mang, aimed at strengthening the power of the state and weakening the positions of strong houses, the local power elite. Guang Wudi considered his main concern to be the need to give all farmers fields and give them the opportunity to feed themselves, giving the treasury a modest share, officially reduced at first to 1/30 of the crop. In order for every plowman to get his own field, almost all the land that fell into the hands of the state after Wang Mang's reforms was distributed, including a significant part of the fields of those powerful houses that resisted the reforms and whose lands were confiscated. In parallel with this, the officials of the new dynasty carried out vigorous measures to put in order the irrigation system of the country, which had suffered greatly during the years of crisis and uprisings. Criminal convicts and the majority of private slaves were freed from the slave state, who were also given land plots.

All these measures played a positive role, and in a short time the Second Han Dynasty brought the country out of a state of severe crisis and provided it with the basis for prosperity, which manifested itself in various fields - in the field of agricultural technology (for example, the spread of the bed system and plowing with oxen, the use of a new agricultural systems), irrigation, trade (including along the Great Silk Road) and, finally, foreign policy (wars with the Huns, development of distant southern lands, etc.). Considerable successes were also achieved in the field of science and culture - the flourishing of mathematics (the treatise "Mathematics in Nine Chapters", summing up all the knowledge of the ancient Chinese in the field of operations with numbers, including negative ones, as well as the beginnings of geometry and algebra), the creation of hardly not the world's first seismograph, advances in urban planning and architecture, including the ability to build buildings with several floors, or such an important innovation for a country that respects the written text as the invention of paper.

In a word, a series of reforms, skillfully carried out by the first emperor of the second Han dynasty, Guang Wu-di (25-27) and his successors, especially Ming-di (58-75), yielded results and contributed to the stabilization of the empire, the flourishing of its production and culture. , the successes of both domestic and especially foreign policy. Suffice it to mention the successful campaigns of the famous Chinese commander and diplomat Ban Chao, who in the 70s. 1st century managed with a small detachment to subjugate to Han China a significant part of the small state formations located along the Turkestan part of the Great Silk Road (the Chinese called these lands the term "Si-yu" - the Western Territory), which not only promoted trade with foreign countries, but also significantly strengthened the position empire in its opposition to the Huns (Xiongnu).

So, the desired stability has finally come to the suffering country. The time has come, if not for utopian Harmony and Order, then at least for peace and contentment. However, this did not last too long. Already at the turn of the I-II centuries. the situation in the empire began to deteriorate. In order to understand the reasons for this (let us recall that something similar happened with the first Han dynasty after Wu Di; similar processes were also characteristic of almost all subsequent dynasties of imperial China), it is necessary to consider the features of the Chinese dynastic cycle, which manifested themselves very clearly. from the first imperial dynasty - Han.

The cycles in question usually began and ended in an environment of severe economic crises, social turmoil, and political destabilization, most often manifested outwardly in the form of uprisings by the poor and the dispossessed. Regardless of whether the crisis ended with the victory of the rebels or their defeat, in any case, the new dynasty that replaced the collapsed one (even if it was foreigners invading from the north) began its rule with reforms. The mechanism of the cycle that began with reforms and ended with another crisis, for all its standardity, has always been, in general, quite complex, because a variety of factors, the strength and impact of which were by no means the same, exerted their influence on it. Therefore, each cycle had its own characteristics and different duration. However, their common feature was the interaction of a number of economic, socio-demographic and ecological processes, the resultant of which created a quite definite critical impulse. Usually it all started with violations in the field of agriculture and the traditional norms of the existence of a communal village, which turned out to be the starting point of the crisis.

How exactly did it look like? We have already said that since the reforms of Shang Yang in the kingdom of Qin and Shi Huang, administrative and social corporations from artificially created five- or ten-yards have been planted throughout China. During the period of the empire, these corporations included both poor and very rich households, including the so-called strong houses, and each within the five-yards was obliged to be responsible for neighbors on the principle of mutual responsibility. And although this system did not always act harshly, it was always remembered when it was necessary to strengthen the position of the power of the center. In practice, this meant that just during periods of weakening of this power, i.e. in moments of crises and even stagnation that usually preceded them, the communal village found itself in a state of destruction: everyone was responsible for himself, as a result of which the poor easily became a victim of a rich neighbor.

During the period of reforms or the emergence of a new dynasty, i.e. in the midst of a severe crisis or after it was overcome, as was the case in the Han during the time of Liu Bang, Wang Mang or Guan Wu-di, a radical redistribution of land took place. The traditional Chinese state from ancient times and almost until the 20th century. rightly considered itself the supreme subject of power-property and centralized redistribution, so that not a single reformer ever had a shadow of doubt about his right, even the obligation to wisely dispose of the land, namely, to make sure that every plowman had his own field and paid taxes accordingly. Land was allocated to all able-bodied farmers. Moreover, officials sought every opportunity to increase their number, for which the dependents were released or additional allotments were given to households, including sometimes slaves. These lands in the empire were traditionally called the lands of min-tian (people's), which, however, should not be misleading: it was not the right of the peasants to freely dispose of their allotments, but the right of the state to distribute these allotments, and, if necessary, redistribute them among community members.

Along with the lands of min-tian, there was also a category of service lands - guan-tian. They were intended as a reward for officials and the nobility, who were given a certain amount of these lands in the form of feeding with the right to use tax revenues from the peasants who cultivated these lands. All lands were usually distributed among the farmers, taking into account their location, fertility and general availability in a particular county. On average, a family had about 100 mu until the late Middle Ages. It was believed that the fields were distributed among the peasants more or less evenly and for a long period of time, and it was at this time that five- and ten-yards with mutual responsibility usually functioned. However, stability of this kind, as a rule, did not exist within the framework of a dynastic cycle for too long, most often for no more than a century.

The laws of the market, albeit limited in its capabilities, acted inexorably, and over time, other factors began to have an impact, primarily demographic and environmental. The essence of the process boiled down to the fact that the increasing population (its average value for China from the turn of the new era until the Ming dynasty fluctuated within 60 million, but during the crisis it usually decreased by three to four times, and in moments of prosperity it could increase significantly ) already in the first decades after the reforms absorbed all the free arable land, and this led to the fact that the rich in the countryside, by hook or by crook, began to take away their plots from their poor neighbors. Formally, it was forbidden to sell the land, but in fact it was possible to mortgage your plot or simply transfer it to a wealthy neighbor, remaining on your former land as a tenant. Sooner or later, but the transaction acquired legal force, and the treasury lost the taxpayer. As for those who acquired peasant lands, they usually had close ties with the district authorities and either enjoyed tax privileges or paid off higher taxes. This, of course, led to the fact that revenues to the treasury decreased.

The apparatus of power, in an effort to maintain the volume of tax revenues, due to which it existed, illegally increased the exactions from those who could give something else. The result was the ruin of an increasing number of farmers and a deepening crisis in the spheres of the economy (the decline of the economy, the death of the poorest peasant households), social relations (the discontent of the peasants, the emergence of robber gangs, rebellions and uprisings) and, finally, politics (the inability of the ruling elite to cope with the crisis, the dominance of temporary workers, a clear weakening of the effectiveness of the apparatus of power). This is where the dynastic cycle usually ended, and after the crisis and the accompanying uprisings or enemy invasions, the country found itself in a state of devastation, but at the same time a kind of catharsis, a kind of purification that opened the way to rebirth. Sometimes the cycle was lengthened due to well-timed and successfully carried out reforms that “blew off steam” and extended the existence of a particular dynasty, sometimes for a long time, for a century and a half. But in the end, the situation repeated itself, and another crisis swept away the dynasty.

The socially cleansing function of the dynastic cycle was very important for the empire as a viable structure, because it was precisely this function that guaranteed the stability of the system as a whole, even at the cruel cost of the suffering of millions. The change of dynasties was always convincingly explained by references to the theory of the Mandate of Heaven, and the realities were quite consistent with the letter and spirit of this ancient theory: who, if not bad rulers who had lost their de, were guilty of a crisis in the country?! Who better than them to pay for this with the loss of the mandate, which was transferred by Heaven into new hands?

Until the turn of the I-II centuries. the second Han empire was on the rise. Its administrative apparatus functioned successfully, the problem of recruiting which also deserves serious attention. In addition to the practice of nominating the wise and capable from the field, dating back to ancient times (for which all officials were responsible and which were most actively used by people from rich families and powerful houses), competent administrators were trained in special schools in provincial centers and especially in the capital (the Tai Xue school). ), where graduates were subjected to strict examination and divided into categories. Of importance, especially in the Han, was the practice of patronage, personal recommendation, for which the guarantors were responsible. Representatives of the highest nobility were in a special position, before whom all roads were easily opened. Later, such forms of career as the right to “shadow” (higher dignitaries could contribute to the promotion of one of their close relatives) or even the purchase of a rank, degree and position, though not from among the highest, gained some popularity.

The administration of the empire, formed in this way, had several levels. The highest level consisted of metropolitan dignitaries who managed the chambers (administrative, control, palace) and ministries (ceremonies, ranks, public works, military, financial, etc.). These departments also had their representations at the middle level of provinces and districts. The lower level of power was usually represented by only one nomenklatura official, the head of the county (counties in the empire usually numbered about one and a half thousand), whose functions included organizing management based on the rich and influential local elite. And although officials, as a rule, were not appointed to the places where they were from (moreover, they usually moved on average once every three years, so as not to grow in position and not get bogged down in abuses), elements of corruption in the empire always existed, and in moments of stagnation and crises increased a hundredfold. True, there were also control inspectors who opposed them, endowed with enormous powers. This has always served as a serious counterbalance to corruption, not to mention the fact that the traditional norms of Confucianism were irreconcilable towards their violators, which also largely limited the appetites of those in power, prompting them to act cautiously and comply with the measure.

All these institutions, which took shape over the centuries, were worked out by practice and existed during the Han period in their most elementary and imperfect form, nevertheless contributed to the strengthening of the administration of the empire. It was thanks to them and the underlying Confucianism with its strict and uncompromising principles that at least the first half of the dynastic cycle had periods of stability and prosperity. They, to the best of their ability, restrained destructive phenomena during the second half of the cycle, stagnation and crisis, and within each dynasty, these processes proceeded depending on the specific situation. During the reign of the second Han dynasties, events developed in such a way that already from the beginning of the Yi century, when the process of land absorption and, accordingly, the strengthening of the positions of all the same strong houses, became noticeably stronger and more clearly manifested, the rulers of the empire were not only unable to counteract the crisis, but they also frankly withdrew from public affairs, leaving their management to temporary workers from among the relatives of the empresses and influential eunuchs who were in collusion with them, whose political weight and real significance were constantly growing.

As a result, the court of the empire began to drown in intrigues, eunuchs and temporary workers, organized in cliques, sought to destroy each other and enthrone the next emperor from among their proteges. Naturally, the Confucian bureaucracy, which was gaining political power, but remote from the court, could not reconcile itself to this. Its representatives in the capital complained about the excessive spending of the court and the money-grubbing of temporary workers and eunuchs. In the provinces, dissatisfaction with relatives and proteges of court eunuchs and temporary workers, who felt impunity and committed arbitrariness, sharply increased. In an active political struggle in the middle of the II century. students of Confucian schools, especially the capital's Tai Xue, joined in. The already mentioned movement of “pure criticism” unfolded in full force in the country, aiming to glorify the names of the honest and incorruptible, opposing them to the reckless court. In response to this, influential eunuchs and courtiers attacked the ideological leaders of the Confucian opposition with cruel repressions. In the 70s. 2nd century the confrontation took on an open character, and the temporary workers clearly prevailed over their opponents.

While the political struggle at the top of the empire developed and became more and more acute, the crisis phenomena in the economy took on their completed form. Peasant lands passed into the hands of powerful houses, the number of tax-paying farmers was reduced, and, accordingly, the flow of taxes to the treasury decreased. The ruined community members joined the ranks of the dissatisfied, and there was less and less order in the country. In such a situation, many of the rural population preferred to give up their rights to land and go under the protection of those rich fellow villagers who could provide themselves and them with reliable protection in an increasingly alarming time. In the coming period of stagnation and confusion, and besides, against the background of sharp clashes at the court, the situation in the empire became unstable and uncontrollable. It was during these years that the social discontent of the people began to gain strength, which this time took the form of a sectarian-religious movement under the slogans of Taoism.

The philosophical doctrine of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu at the turn of our era was more and more definitely transformed into an inherently religious search for salvation and prosperity. Of course, Taoism as a doctrine in imperial China did not lose its religious and philosophical idea, which ultimately boiled down to merging with Tao, to achieving Tao. But at the mass national level, high philosophy was more and more clearly overwhelmed by religious and sectarian ideas, which were based on the natural desire of everyone to prolong life and achieve immortality (both through magical elixirs and talismans, and as a result of severe asceticism, dematerialization of the body) , and the age-old peasant ideals of great equality in a simplified organized society, free from pressure from the state and its bureaucracy.

The ideas of equality were reflected in the Taiping Ching treatise, which in turn became the foundation of the Taoist sect Taiping Dao. The head of this sect, Zhang Jue, who became famous for the art of healing and, according to legend, saved many people during the years of the epidemic, at the turn of the 70s and 80s. 2nd century unexpectedly found himself at the head of a numerous and politically active movement of supporters of the new “yellow” sky, which in 184 (the beginning of the next 60-year cycle, which played the role of a century in China) was supposed to replace the “blue” sky of the Han Dynasty mired in vices. The supporters of the sect, who covered their heads with yellow scarves, planned to raise an uprising at this sacred moment, which, of course, soon became known to everyone in China.

The popular uprising, or rather, the rumors about its preparation were like a bolt from the blue for the ruling elites, mired in internecine struggle. Accusing and suspecting each other of collaboration with the rebels, they eventually almost united in the fight against the new enemy. With the uprising of the "yellow bandages", which broke out, as expected, at the beginning of 184, the authorities dealt with it quite quickly, especially since its suppression began even before the fatal moment arrived. And although individual detachments of the rebels who retreated to the far regions of the empire continued to remind themselves of themselves for quite a long time, the main result of the failed uprising was that it, as it were, put an end to the protracted confrontation at the top and forced the most active and energetic forces in the empire to resort to the tactics of open struggle. which practically meant the end of the Han Dynasty.

Not only army generals intervened in the struggle at the highest level, but also the most powerful of the powerful houses in the field. During the hostilities, Luoyang was completely destroyed and burned, and the court moved to Chang'an, the ancient capital of the country. New leaders came to the fore in the political struggle, among whom one of the representatives of the local elite, Cao Cao, became the most influential. He contributed to the return of the emperor to Luoyang and thus became the pillar of the throne. Soon it was Cao Cao, who held the emperor almost as his hostage, who managed to defeat his rivals. At the same time, naturally, he skillfully used his advantageous political face as the defender and savior of the empire and its symbol, the emperor. Having achieved the actual position of dictator already at the turn of the 2nd-3rd centuries, Cao Cao ruled the agonized empire for quite a long time. He frankly relied on force, and it was with the help of military force that he succeeded.

Here we should pay attention to the fact that, relying on strength, a skillful politician and a highly educated intellectual from among the Confucian elite Cao Cao skillfully flirted with shi scholars, using their authority, supported the tradition of conversations in the style of "pure criticism", attracted to management the country of the eminent intellectuals of the empire. But he clearly foresaw the coming collapse of the Han Dynasty, moreover, he himself prepared it. Having become the highest official and having appropriated all conceivable ranks and titles, Cao Cao accustomed his entourage to the fact that soon power in the empire would pass to a new dynasty. Before his death in 220, he unequivocally compared himself with the great Chou Wen-wang, making it clear that he entrusted his son Cao Pei with the task of completing the work he had begun and founding this dynasty. This is exactly what Cao Pei did. In 220, shortly after the death of his father, he seized the Han throne and founded the Wei dynasty. However, at the same time, two other contenders for the imperial throne founded two more states, Shu and Wu, in the southwest and southeast of the country. Subsequently, a millennium later, she was colorfully sung in the novel of the same name.

Assessing the four-century rule of the Han Dynasty and the role of the “yellow bands” uprising in the collapse of the centralized empire, which was replaced by a four-century period of political fragmentation and almost incessant wars, not to mention the invasion of nomads, it is necessary to note the main thing: created by Confucius and adapted by the efforts of Wudi and Dong Zhongshu to the needs of a vast empire, the official ideology not only withstood all the hard tests that befell the country, but also proved its viability in practice. Moreover, despite the promotion of the military function and, accordingly, some belittling of the role of bureaucratic bureaucracy, despite the invasion of nomads and the long process of barbarization of the northern part of the country, finally, despite the strengthening of the positions of religious Taoism and Buddhism, which penetrated China just at the time described, with With its powerful intellectual potential, the Confucian tradition continued to be the foundation of Chinese civilization. Destructive processes were going on at the upper level of the empire, millions died in the fire of wars and barbarian invasions, but those who continued to live under these conditions remained not just Chinese, but, above all, Confucians. And the leading force in this regard was the very local elite, the very layer of educated shi, who preserved and developed the tradition.

The Confucianization of the local elite during the Han period, followed by the constant concentration of its best representatives in the bureaucratic administration, led to the emergence of a fundamentally new quality, i.e. to the transformation of the ancient service-shi into zealous guardians of the great achievements of centuries of self-improving civilization. It was on this basis that a rigid stereotype was developed, a kind of Confucian genotype, the carriers of which were the aristocrats of culture and which with honor passed all the tests of timelessness. Ultimately, he, this genotype, played a decisive role in the revival of the great empire with its successfully functioning bureaucratic administration, the composition of which was recruited from top to bottom mainly through a competitive system of state examinations, which only a few and the most capable of the same Confucian-shih withstood. .

Abstract on the topic:

Plan:

Introduction

• 1 prehistoric period
• 2 State of Shang-Yin
• 3 State of Zhou (XI-III centuries BC)
• 4 Qin Empire
• 5 Han Empire
• 6 The State of Jin and the Nan Bei Chao period (4th-6th centuries)
• 7 State of Sui (581-618)
• 8 Tang State
• 9 State of Song
• 10 The Mongols and the State of Yuan (1280-1368)
• 11 State of Ming (1368-1644)
• 12 State of Qing
  • 12.1 Outward Qing expansion
  • 12.2 Qing Empire and Russia
  • 12.3 Opium Wars
  • 12.4 War with France
  • 12.5 Japanese-Qing War 1894-1895
  • 12.6 Triple intervention
  • 12.7 Successes of Russian policy in the Qing Empire
  • 12.8 Capture of Jiaozhou by Germany
  • 12.9 One Hundred Days of Reforms
• 13 XX century
  • 13.1 Boxer Rebellion
  • 13.2 Russo-Japanese War
  • 13.3 Death of Cixi
  • 13.4 Revolution of 1911 and the establishment of the Republic of China
  • 13.5 World War I
  • 13.6 The era of militarists
  • 13.7 Kuomintang victory
  • 13.8 Japanese occupation and World War II
  • 13.9 Republic of China and People's Republic of China
Literature

Introduction

Chinese civilization is one of the oldest in the world. According to Chinese scientists, its age may be five thousand years, while the available written sources cover a period of at least 3500 years. The presence of administrative management systems that were improved by successive dynasties, the early development of the largest agrarian centers in the basins of the Yellow River and Yangtze, created advantages for the Chinese state, whose economy was based on developed agriculture, in comparison with its neighbors, nomads and highlanders. The introduction of Confucianism as a state ideology (1st century BC) and a unified writing system further strengthened Chinese civilization.

It should be understood that the study of such a time span is associated with a strong asymmetry in the number of sources of historical information, while the relative unity of Chinese civilization has led to the fact that the late era actively correlates itself with its predecessors, interprets traditions. To facilitate an objective perception of the entire length of Chinese history, the following division is used, based on traditional Han historiography:

• Pre-imperial China (Xia, Shang, Zhou - before 221 BC)
• Imperial China (Qin - Qing)
• New China (1911 - present)

The first period, sparingly documented, occupies about the same time span as the second; the second period, in turn, is sometimes divided into Early (until the end of the Tang) and Late (until the end of the Qing). At the same time, it should be taken into account that traditional Chinese historiography includes the sovereign states of other peoples (Mongols, Manchus, etc.) in the chronicle-dynastic history of China proper, ignoring the own historical traditions of these peoples and considering their states as parts of China.

1. Prehistoric period

Chinese civilization (ancestors of the state-forming Han ethnos) - a group of cultures (Banpo 1, Shijia, Banpo 2, Miaodigou, Zhongshanzhai 2, Hougang 1, etc.) of the Middle Neolithic (c. 4500-2500 BC) in the Yellow River basin, which are traditionally united by the common name Yangshao. Representatives of these crops grew cereals (chumiza, etc.) and bred pigs. Later, the Longshan culture spread in this area: Middle Eastern types of cereals (wheat and barley) and livestock breeds (cows, sheep, goats) appeared.

2. State of Shang-Yin

State of Shang-Yin (商殷）(Shang dynasty, Chinese 商, pinyin shang), which arose in con. 14th century BC e. in the middle reaches of the Yellow River in the village of Anyang, was the first state formation of the Bronze Age in China, the existence of which is supported by reports from archaeological, narrative and epigraphic sources. According to the modern view, he had predecessors in various areas of the river basin. Yangtze Wucheng and others and in the river basin. Huanghe Erlitou, Erligan. As a result of wars with neighboring peoples, by the 11th century BC. e. the influence of the Shan rulers spread to the territories of the modern provinces of Henan and Shanxi, as well as part of the territories of the provinces of Shaanxi and Hebei. Then there was a lunar calendar and writing was used - the prototype of modern hieroglyphic Chinese writing. The Yin people were much superior to the surrounding peoples from a military point of view - they had a professional army that used bronze weapons, bows, spears and war chariots. The Yin people practiced human sacrifice - most often prisoners were sacrificed.

In the XI century BC. e. The Shang state was conquered by a coalition of peoples led by the ruler of the early state formation of Zhou - Wu-wang.

3. State of Zhou (XI-III centuries BC)

Chinese copper coin in the form of a hoe. Luoyang, V-III c. BC e. (The image is flipped upside down.)

The vast territory of the state of Zhou (Chinese 周, pinyin Zhōu), covering almost the entire Huang He basin, eventually broke up into many competing independent state formations - initially, hereditary destinies in territories inhabited by various tribes and located at a distance from the capitals - Zongzhou (western - near the city of Xi'an) and Chengzhou (eastern - Loi, Luoyang). These allotments were given into the possession of relatives and close associates of the supreme ruler - usually the Chou people. In the internecine struggle, the number of original destinies gradually decreased, and the destinies themselves strengthened and became more independent.

The Zhou population was heterogeneous, with the largest and most developed part of it being the Yin people. In the state of Zhou, a significant part of the Yin people were settled in new lands in the east, where a new capital was built - Chengzhou (modern Henan province).

The Zhou period as a whole is characterized by active development of new lands, resettlement and ethnic mixing of people from different regions, destinies (later - kingdoms), which contributed to the creation of the foundation of the future Chinese community.

The Zhou period (XI-III centuries BC) is divided into the so-called Western and Eastern Zhou, which is associated with the relocation of the Zhou ruler in 770 BC. e. under the threat of invasion of barbarian tribes from Zongzhou - the original capital of the state - to Chengzhou. The lands in the area of ​​the old capital were given to one of the allies of the ruler of the state, who created a new destiny of Qin here. Subsequently, it was this lot that would become the center of a unified Chinese empire.

The Eastern Zhou period, in turn, is divided into two periods:

• Chunqiu (“Period of Spring and Autumn” VIII-V centuries BC);
• Zhangguo (“The Period of the Warring States”, V-III centuries BC).

During the Eastern Zhou period, the power of the central ruler - Wang, the son of Heaven (tian-tzu), ruling the Celestial Empire according to the Mandate of Heaven (tian-ming), gradually weakened, and strong destinies began to play the leading political role, turning into large kingdoms. Most of them (with the exception of the outlying ones) called themselves "middle states" ( jung-go), leading their origin from the Early Zhou appanages.

During the Eastern Zhou period, the main philosophical schools of Ancient China were formed - Confucianism (VI-V centuries BC), Moism (V century BC), Taoism (IV century BC), Legalism .

In the V-III centuries. BC e. (Zhanguo period) China enters the Iron Age. Agricultural areas are expanding, irrigation systems are expanding, handicrafts are developing, revolutionary changes are taking place in military affairs.

During the Zhangguo period, seven major kingdoms coexisted in China - Wei, Zhao and Han (previously all three were part of the Jin kingdom), Qin, Qi, Yan and Chu. Gradually, as a result of fierce rivalry, the westernmost - Qin - began to gain the upper hand. Having annexed one by one the neighboring kingdoms, in 221 BC. e. The ruler of Qin - the future emperor Qin Shi Huang - united all of China under his rule.

So in the middle of the III century BC. e. The Eastern Zhou period ended.

4. Qin Empire

Main article: Qin

Having united the ancient Chinese kingdoms, Emperor Qin Shi Huang (Chinese 秦始皇 , pinyin Qin Shǐ Huang) confiscated all weapons from the population, resettled tens of thousands of families of hereditary nobility from various kingdoms to the new capital - Xianyang and divided the huge country into 36 new regions, which were headed by appointed governors.

Under Qin Shi Huang, the defensive walls (shafts) of the northern Zhou kingdoms were connected and the Great Wall of China was created. Several strategic roads were built from the capital to the outskirts of the empire. As a result of successful wars in the north, the Huns (Xiongnu) were pushed back behind the Great Wall. In the south, significant areas of the Yue tribes were annexed to the empire, including the northern part of modern Vietnam.

The construction of the Great Wall of China, stretching for more than 6700 km, was started in the 3rd century BC. e. to protect the northern regions of China from nomadic raids.

Qin Shi Huang, who built all his reforms on the foundations of legalism with barracks discipline and cruel punishments for the guilty, persecuted Confucians, putting them to death (burial alive) and burning their writings - because they dared to speak out against the most severe oppression established in the country.

The Qin Empire ceased to exist shortly after the death of Qin Shi Huang.

5. Han Empire

The second empire in the history of China, called Han (Chinese trad. 漢, ex. 汉, pinyin Han; 206 BC e.-220 AD e.) was founded by a native of the middle bureaucracy, Liu Bang (Gaozu), one of the military leaders of the revived Chu kingdom, who fought against Qin after the death of Emperor Qin Shi Huang in 210 BC.

China at that time was experiencing an economic and social crisis caused by the loss of control and wars between the commanders of the Qin armies and the elites of the previously destroyed kingdoms, who were trying to restore their statehood. Due to migrations and wars, the rural population in the main agricultural areas has significantly decreased.

An important feature of the change of dynasties in China was that each new dynasty replaced the previous one in an environment of socio-economic crisis, weakening of the central government and wars between military leaders. The founder of the new state was the one who could capture the capital and forcibly remove the ruling emperor from power.

From the reign of Gaozu (206-195 BC), a new period of Chinese history began, which was called the Western Han.

Under Emperor Wudi (140-87 BC), a different philosophy was adopted - the restored and reformed Confucianism, which became the dominant official ideology instead of legalism, which had discredited itself with its harsh norms and inhuman practices. It was from this time that the Chinese Confucian empire originated.

Under him, the territory of the Han Empire expanded significantly. The Vietnamese state of Namviet (the territory of the modern province of Guangdong, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the north of the Indochinese Peninsula), the Vietnamese states in the southern parts of the modern provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian, the Korean state of Joseon were destroyed, the lands in the southwest were annexed, the Xiongnu were pushed further in the north.

The Chinese traveler Zhang Qian penetrates far to the west and describes many countries of Central Asia (Fergana, Bactria, Parthia, etc.). Along the route he passed, a trade route was laid through Dzungaria and East Turkestan to the countries of Central Asia and the Middle East - the so-called "Great Silk Road". The empire for some time subjugates the proto-state oases along the Silk Road and spreads its influence to the Pamirs. In the 1st century n. e. Buddhism begins to penetrate China from India.

In the period from 8 to 23 years. n. e. Wang Mang seizes power, proclaiming himself emperor and founder of the Xin state. A series of transformations begins, which is interrupted by an ecological catastrophe - the Yellow River has changed its course. Because of the three-year famine, the central government weakened. Under these conditions, the red-browed uprising and the movement of representatives of the Liu clan for the return of the throne began. Wang Mang was killed, the capital was taken, power returned to the Liu dynasty.

The new period was called the Eastern Han, and it lasted until 220 AD. e.

6. State of Jin and the period of Nan-bei Chao (IV-VI centuries)

The Eastern Han was replaced by the Three Kingdoms period (Wei, Shu and Wu). During the struggle for power between the warlords, a new state of Jin was founded (traditional Chinese 晉 , ex. 晋 , pinyin jin; 265-420).

At the beginning of the 4th century, China was invaded by nomads - the Xiongnu (Huns), Xianbei, Qiang, Jie, and others. All of Northern China was captured by nomads who created their kingdoms here, the so-called 16 barbarian states of China. A significant part of the Chinese nobility fled to the south and southeast, the state founded there was called the Eastern Jin.

Nomads come in waves, one after another, and after each of these waves, new kingdoms and ruling dynasties arise in Northern China, which, however, take on the classical Chinese names (Zhao, Yan, Liang, Qin, Wei, etc.).

At this time, on the one hand, there is a barbarization of the way of life of the settled Chinese - rampant cruelty, arbitrariness, massacres, instability, executions and endless coups. And on the other hand, nomadic aliens actively seek to use Chinese management experience and Chinese culture to stabilize and strengthen their power - the power of the Chinese Confucian civilization ultimately extinguishes the waves of invasions of barbarian tribes that are subjected to Sinification. By the end of the VI century, the descendants of the nomads are almost completely assimilated with the Chinese.

In the north of China, the Xianbei state of Toba Wei (Northern Wei) takes the upper hand in the century-old struggle between non-Chinese kingdoms, uniting the entire Northern China (Huanghe basin) under its rule and by the end of the 5th century, in the struggle against the southern Chinese state of the Song, it extended its influence to the banks of the Yangtze. At the same time, already in the 6th century, as it was said, the Xianbei invaders assimilated with the vast majority of the local population.

With the beginning of the barbarian invasions in northern China, accompanied by the mass destruction and enslavement of the local population, up to a million local residents - primarily noble, wealthy and educated, including the imperial court - moved south, to areas relatively recently annexed to the empire. Newcomers from the north, having settled in the river valleys, actively engaged in the cultivation of rice and gradually turned South China into the main agricultural region of the empire. Already in the 5th century, two crops of rice per year began to be harvested here. The sinicization and assimilation of the local population, the colonization of new lands, the construction of new cities and the development of old ones have sharply accelerated. The center of Chinese culture was concentrated in the south.

At the same time, Buddhism is strengthening its positions here - several tens of thousands of monasteries with more than 2 million monks have already been built in the north and south. To a large extent, the spread of Buddhism is facilitated by the weakening of the official religion - Confucianism - in connection with barbarian invasions and civil strife. The first Chinese Buddhists who contributed to the popularization of the new religion were adherents of Taoism - it was with their help that ancient Buddhist texts were translated from Sanskrit into Chinese. Buddhism gradually became a flourishing religion.

7. State of Sui (581-618)

The process of Sinification of the barbarized north and the colonized south creates the prerequisites for a new unification of the country. In 581, the northern Chinese commander Zhou Yang Jian unites all of Northern China under his rule and proclaims a new Sui dynasty (Chinese 隋, pinyin Sui; 581-618), and after the destruction of the southern Chinese state, Chen leads a united China. At the beginning of the 7th century, his son Yang Di waged wars against the Korean state of Goguryeo (611-614) and the Vietnamese state of Van Xuan, built the Great Canal between the Huang He and the Yangtze to transport rice from the south to the capital, created luxurious palaces in the capital Luoyang, restored and built new sections of the Great Wall of China, which fell into disrepair over a thousand years.

The subjects cannot endure hardships and hardships and revolt. Yang Di is killed, and the Sui dynasty is replaced by the Tang dynasty (618-907), the founder is the Shan feudal lord Li Yuan.

8. State of Tang

The rulers of the Liu Dynasty put an end to the speeches of the nobility and carried out a series of successful transformations. There is a division of the country into 10 provinces, the "allotment system" was restored, administrative legislation was improved, the vertical of power was strengthened, trade and city life were revived. Significantly increased the size of many cities and urban population.

By the end of the 7th century, the increased military power of the Tang Empire (Chinese 唐, pinyin Tang) leads to the expansion of the territory of China at the expense of the Eastern Turkic and Western Turkic Khaganates. The states located in Dzungaria and East Turkestan become tributaries of China for some time. The Korean state of Goguryeo is subjugated and becomes the Andong Viceroy of China. The Great Silk Road has been reopened.

In the VIII-X centuries. in China, new crops are spreading - in particular, tea, cotton.

Maritime trade is developing, mainly through Guangzhou (Canton), with India and Iran, the Arab Caliphate, the Korean state of Silla and Japan.

In the 8th century, the Tang Empire was weakened by conflicts between the central government and military governors on the periphery. Finally, the rule of the Liu dynasty is undermined by the Huang Chao war for the throne 874-901.

For a long time (907-960) the country failed to restore a unified state power, which is associated with internecine wars, especially in the north of the country.

9. State of Song

The return home of a herd of bulls in bad weather, artist Li Di, XII century

In 960, the commander Zhao Kuang-yin founded the Song dynasty (Chinese 宋, pinyin Song; 960-1279). All three centuries of the Song passed under the sign of successful pressure on China from the northern steppe peoples.

As early as the beginning of the 10th century, the development and consolidation of the proto-Mongolian ethnic community of the Khitans, which neighbored China in the northeast, intensified. The Khitan state, founded in 916 and existing until 1125, received the name Liao. Actively gaining ground on the northern borders, the Khitans seized part of the Chinese territories (part of the modern provinces of Hebei and Shanxi). The foundations of government in the Liao state were created by the Chinese and Koreans, writing was created on the basis of Chinese characters and Chinese writing elements, cities, crafts, and trade developed. Unable to cope with its neighbors and return the lost territories, the Sung Empire was forced to sign a peace treaty in 1004 and agree to pay tribute. In 1042 the tribute was increased, and in 1075 China gave the Khitan another part of its territory.

At the same time, on the northwestern outskirts of the Sung Empire, west of the Khitans, at the turn of the 10th-11th centuries. a strong Tangut state, the Western Xia, was formed. The Tanguts seized from China part of the modern province of Shaanxi, the entire territory of the modern province of Gansu and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. From 1047 the Sung Empire had to pay tribute to the Tanguts in silver and silk.

Despite the forced territorial concessions to neighbors, the Song period is considered the era of China's economic and cultural flourishing. The number of cities is growing, the urban population continues to grow, Chinese artisans reach heights in the manufacture of products from porcelain, silk, lacquer, wood, ivory, etc. Gunpowder and the compass are invented, book printing is spreading, new high-yielding varieties of cereals are being developed, and cotton cultivation is increasing. One of the most impressive and effective of these innovations was the very conscious, systematic and well-organized introduction and distribution of new varieties of early-ripening rice from South Vietnam (Champa).

Zhang Zeduan. "By the river on All Souls' Day" (XII century).

In the XII century, China had to give up even more territory to new invaders - the South Manchurian Jurchens, who created (on the basis of the Liao Empire of the Khitans destroyed by them in 1125) the state (later - the empire) of Jin (1115-1234), whose borders passed along the river. Huaihe. At the same time, part of the defeated Khitans went to the west, where a small state of the Kara-Kitais, the Western Liao (1124-1211), was formed in the region of the Talas and Chu rivers.

In 1127, the Jurchens captured Kaifeng, the capital of the Song Empire, and captured the imperial family. One of the emperor's sons flees south to Hangzhou, which later becomes the capital of the new South Sung empire (1127-1280). The advance of the Jurchen army to the south is held back only by the Yangtze River. The border between the Jin and the South Sung empire is established along the interfluve of the Huang He and the Yangtze. Northern China is again for a long time under the rule of foreign conquerors.

In 1141, a peace treaty was signed, according to which the Sung Empire recognizes itself as a vassal of the Jin Empire and undertakes to pay tribute to it.

10. The Mongols and the State of Yuan (1280-1368)

Main article: Mongol Empire

Yang Guifei saddling a horse, artist Qian Xuan (1235-1305 AD)

At the beginning of the 13th century, the Mongols invaded China. Until the 13th century, the Mongols were part of a large steppe community, which the Chinese called "Tatars". Their predecessors, the proto-Mongolian and early Mongolian groups and peoples, one of which was the Khitans, were steppe nomads who bred horses and cattle, roamed from pasture to pasture and organized into small tribal groups connected by a common origin, language, culture, etc. .

The neighborhood of a developed Chinese civilization contributed to the acceleration of the process of creating tribes, and then powerful tribal unions led by influential leaders. In 1206, at the All-Mongolian kurultai, Temuchin, who had won the fierce internecine struggle, was proclaimed the leader of all the Mongols, taking the name and title of Genghis Khan.

Genghis Khan created an organized and combat-ready army, which became a decisive factor in the subsequent successes of the relatively small Mongolian ethnic group.

Having conquered the neighboring peoples of Southern Siberia, Genghis Khan went to war against the Jurchens in 1210 and took Beijing in 1215.

In 1219-1221, Central Asia was devastated and the state of Khorezmshahs was conquered. In 1223 - the Russian princes were defeated, in 1226-1227 - the Tangut state was destroyed. In 1231 the main forces of the Mongols returned to Northern China and by 1234 they had completed the defeat of the Jurchen state of Jin.

The conquests in South China were continued already in the 1250s, after a campaign in Europe. Initially, the Mongols captured the countries surrounding the South Sung Empire - the state of Dali (1252-1253), Tibet (1253). In 1258, the Mongol troops led by Khan Kublai invaded South China from different sides, but the unexpected death of the Great Khan Möngke (1259) prevented their plans from being implemented. Khan Kublai, having seized the khan's throne, in 1260 transferred the capital from Karakorum to the territory of China (first to Kaiping, and in 1264 to Zhongdu - modern Beijing). The Mongols managed to take the capital of the Southern Sung state of Hangzhou only in 1276. By 1280, all of China had been conquered, and the Sung Empire had been destroyed.

After the conquest of China, Kublai Khan proclaims the motto of the reign of Yuan (Chinese 元朝, pinyin Yuanchao, 1271-1368), the Khitans, Jurchens, Turks and even Europeans are attracted to the service of the new government - in particular, at this time the Venetian merchant Marco Polo visits China.

The inheritance of Khubilai and his descendants, the great khans of Mongolia - the Great Yuan State (Mong.: Ikh Yuan uls), was part of the Great Mongol Empire (Mong.: Ikh Mongol uls). China during this period was not a sovereign state and was an integral part of the Mongol empire.

The heavy economic, political and national oppression established by the Mongol feudal lords held back the development of the country. Many Chinese were enslaved. Agriculture and trade were undermined. The necessary work to maintain irrigation facilities (dams and canals) was not carried out, which in 1334 led to a terrible flood and the death of several hundred thousand people. The Great Chinese Canal was built during the Mongol domination.

Popular dissatisfaction with the new rulers resulted in a powerful patriotic movement and uprisings, led by the leaders of the White Lotus (Bailianjiao) secret society.

11. State of Ming (1368-1644)

Court Ladies of the Kingdom of Shu, artist Tang Yin (1470-1523).

As a result of a long struggle in the middle of the XIV century, the Mongols were expelled. One of the leaders of the uprising came to power - the son of a peasant Zhu Yuanzhang, who founded the state of Ming (Chinese 明, pinyin Ming; 1368-1644). China became an independent state again.

The Mongols, pushed back to the north, begin to actively develop the steppes of modern Mongolia. The Ming Empire subjugates part of the Jurchen tribes, the state of Nanzhao (the modern provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou), part of the modern provinces of Qinghai and Sichuan.

The Chinese fleet under the command of Zheng He, consisting of several dozen multi-deck frigates, during the period from 1405 to 1433 makes several sea expeditions to Southeast Asia, India and the east coast of Africa. Having brought no economic benefit to China, the expeditions were stopped and the ships were dismantled.

In the 16th century, the first attempt by a strengthened Japan to invade China and Korea took place. At the same time, Europeans - the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch - penetrate China. In 1557 Portugal seized the Chinese territory of Aomyn (Macau) on a "lease" basis. Christian missionaries, the Jesuits, also appear in China. They brought new tools and mechanisms to China - clocks, astronomical instruments, set up the production of firearms here. At the same time, they are engaged in a thorough study of China.

12. State of Qing

By the end of the 16th century, the northern neighbors of the Ming Empire - the descendants of the Jurchen tribes defeated at one time by Genghis Khan - united around the possession of Manchukuo under the leadership of the leader Nurkhatsi (1559-1626). In 1609, Nurhaci stopped paying tribute to China, and then proclaimed his own Jin dynasty. From 1618 the Manchus intensified their armed pressure on China. For eight years, they go almost to the Great Wall of China (in the extreme east).

Nurhaci's successor Abahai proclaims himself emperor and changes the name of the dynasty to Qing (Chinese 清, pinyin Qing). At the beginning of the 17th century, the Manchus conquered Southern (Inner) Mongolia. A centralized administration is established throughout Southern Manchuria and the occupied khanates of Southern Mongolia.

The Manchurian cavalry, supported by the Inner Mongols, began to make regular raids on China, plundering and enslaving hundreds of thousands of Chinese. Emperor Ming has to send his best army under the command of Wu Sangui to the northern borders. Meanwhile, another peasant uprising is flaring up in China. In 1644, peasant detachments led by Li Zicheng, having defeated all the other armies, occupied Beijing, and Li Zicheng himself proclaimed himself emperor. Wu Sangui lets the Manchurian cavalry into Beijing. The Manchus defeat Li Zicheng in the Battle of Shanghai. On June 6, 1644, the Manchus captured the capital. Li Zicheng soon dies, and the Manchus declare their infant emperor Aisingero Fulin the ruler of all China. Wu Sangui, together with the entire army, goes to the service of the conquerors.

The struggle against the Manchu invaders continues for a long time, but a weakened China is unable to resist a well-armed and organized army. The last stronghold of resistance - Taiwan was captured by the Manchus in 1683. China thus lost state sovereignty and became an integral part of another state - the Manchu Qing Empire.

The Manchu dynasty in the Qing Empire ruled from 1645 to 1911. In the hands of the Manchu nobility were the highest authorities and the leadership of the army. Mixed marriages were forbidden, and yet the Manchus quickly became sinicized, especially since, unlike the Mongols, they did not oppose Chinese culture.

Beginning with Kangxi (r. 1663-1723), the Manchu emperors were Buddhists, and in ethics - Confucians, ruling the country according to ancient laws. China under the rule of the Qing Dynasty in the XVII-XVIII centuries. developed quite rapidly. By the beginning of the 19th century, there were already about 300 million people in the Qing Empire - about five times more than in the same territory on average over the previous two thousand years. Demographic pressure has led to the need to intensify agricultural production with the active participation of the state. The Manchus ensured the obedience of the Chinese population, but at the same time they took care of the prosperity of the country's economy and the well-being of the people.

12.1. Outward Qing expansion

The rulers of the Qing state pursued a policy of isolating China from the outside world. European colonization hardly affected the empire. Catholic missionaries played a prominent role in the imperial court until the end of the 17th century, after which Christian churches were gradually closed and missionaries expelled from the country. In the middle of the 18th century, trade with Europeans was eliminated, with the exception of one port in Canton (Guangzhou). The stronghold of foreign trade remained the island of Macau, which was under the control of the Portuguese.

In the first two centuries of the Qing Dynasty, China, closed from everyday contact with the outside world, manifested itself as a strong independent state, expanding in all directions.

Korea was a vassal of the Qing Empire. At the end of the 17th century, the princes of Outer Mongolia recognized the suzerainty of the Manchu emperors. In 1757, the Dzungar Khanate was destroyed, and its territory, together with East Turkestan, conquered by 1760, was included in the Qing Empire under the name Xinjiang ("New Frontier"). After a series of campaigns of the Manchu-Chinese army against Tibet, this state became dependent on the Qing Empire at the end of the 18th century. The wars of the Qing Empire against Burma (1765-1769) and Vietnam (1788-1789) were unsuccessful and ended in the defeat of the Qing troops.

At the same time, expansion to the north and northeast was carried out, which inevitably led to a conflict with Russia in the Amur region. Within two centuries, the territory of the Qing Empire more than doubled. It is important to note that the Qing Empire is not China: the latter was only one of its parts.

In the Qing Empire, any official representatives of foreign states were considered exclusively as representatives of vassal states - real or potential.

12.2. Qing Empire and Russia

The first steps to establish Russian-Chinese relations were taken by Russia at the end of the existence of the Ming Empire (the mission of I. Petlin in 1618-1619), but the main missions (Fyodor Baikov in 1654-1657, Nikolai Spafari in 1675-1678, etc.) followed during the Qing period. In parallel with the missions, the Russian Cossacks were moving eastward - the campaigns of the pioneers Vasily Poyarkov (1643-1646) and Erofey Khabarov (1649-1653) laid the foundation for the development of the Amur region by the Russian people and led to its annexation to Russia, while the Manchus considered these areas to be theirs. fiefdom.

In the middle of the 17th century, on both banks of the Amur, there were already Russian fortresses-prisons (Albazinsky, Kumarsky, etc.), peasant settlements and arable lands. In 1656, the Daurskoe (later Albazinskoe) voivodship was formed, which included the valleys of the Upper and Middle Amur along both banks.

Although the border of the Qing Empire then ran just north of the Liaodong Peninsula (“Willow Palisade”), in the 1650s and later, the Qing Empire attempted to seize Russian possessions in the Amur basin by military force and prevent the local tribes from accepting Russian citizenship. The Manchurian army forced the Cossacks out of the Albazin fortress for some time. Following the missions of Fyodor Baikov and Nikolai Spafari, in 1686 Russia sent the plenipotentiary embassy of Fyodor Golovin to the border authorities on the Amur for a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

Negotiations were conducted surrounded by thousands of Manchurian army. From the Manchurian side, Jesuit missionaries participated in the negotiations, who opposed the agreement between China and Russia, which further complicated the situation. The Qing Empire refused to define the Russian-Manchurian border along the Amur, demanding for itself the entire Albazinsky Voivodeship, all of Transbaikalia, and subsequently, in general, all the lands east of the Lena.

Threatening to seize Nerchinsk by storm, the Qing representatives forced Golovin to agree to the Russian withdrawal from the Upper and Middle Amur. Under the Treaty of Nerchinsk, Russia was forced to cede to the Qing Empire its possessions on the right bank of the river. Argun and parts of the left and right banks of the Amur. The Cossacks were obliged to destroy and leave Albazin. Due to discrepancies in the texts of the treaty drawn up by each of the parties, however, a large territory turned out to be undelimited and actually turned into a buffer zone between the two states. The delimitation between Russia and Manchuria within this zone ended in the 19th century. Finally, the border of Russia with the Qing Empire in the Far East was determined by the Aigun (1858) and Beijing (1860) treaties; she passed along the Amur and Ussuri rivers through Lake Khanka and mountain ranges to the river. Tumanjiang; the Russian-Qing territorial delimitation in Central Asia was completed by the mid-1890s.

12.3. Opium Wars

Territory of China proper in 1875

By the end of the 18th century, the Qing empire's trade with the outside world began to expand again. Chinese silk, porcelain, tea and other goods were in great demand in Europe, but the Chinese refused to buy anything from the Europeans, so they had to pay in silver for Chinese goods. Then the British began to import opium into China - mainly smuggled from India - and soon introduced the local population to smoking opium, especially in coastal areas. The import of opium steadily increased and became a real disaster for the country, which led to a series of Opium Wars in the middle of the 19th century. Defeat in these wars led to the gradual transformation of China into a de facto semi-colony of European powers. The result of the first opium war was the victory of Great Britain, secured by the Nanjing Treaty of August 29, 1842, the payment by the Qing Empire of indemnity in the amount of 15,000,000 silver liang ($21,000,000), the transfer of Hong Kong Island to Great Britain and the opening of Chinese ports for British trade, including number of opium. It was the first of the so-called unequal treaties.

12.4. War with France

After two Franco-Vietnamese wars (1858-1862 and 1883-1884), France owned South and Central Vietnam. Northern Vietnam was nominally a vassal of the Qing Dynasty. During the Franco-Vietnamese War of 1883-1884. France captured a number of points belonging to the Qing Empire. On May 11 and June 9, 1884, a convention was signed between France and the Qing Empire, obliging it to withdraw from Vietnam the troops introduced there in 1882-1883. China also promised to recognize any treaties that would be concluded between France and Vietnam. On June 6, 1884, France forced Vietnam to conclude a peace treaty, according to which it established a protectorate over all of Vietnam. But the Qing government refused to recognize the Vietnamese-French peace treaty. In June 1884, the Qing troops destroyed the French detachments that arrived in Vietnam in order to occupy it according to the treaty. The French government used this as a pretext for war. The Franco-Chinese war began. Despite the successes of the Qing troops, the emperor invited France to sit down at the negotiating table. The Tientsin Franco-Chinese Treaty of 1885 was signed on June 9, 1885. Under this agreement, the Qing Empire recognized France as the mistress of Vietnam, paid indemnity and provided France with a number of trade privileges in the provinces of Yannan and Guangxi bordering Vietnam.

12.5. Japanese-Qing War 1894-1895

In 1874, Japan captured Formosa, but was forced to leave it at the request of England. Then Japan turned its efforts to Korea, which was a vassal of the Qing Empire, and Manchuria. In June 1894, at the request of the Korean government, the Qing Empire sent troops to Korea to suppress a peasant uprising. Using this pretext, Japan also sent its troops here, after which it demanded that the Korean king carry out "reforms", which meant in fact the establishment of Japanese control in Korea.

On the night of July 23, with the support of Japanese troops in Seoul, a government coup was organized. The new government on July 27 turned to Japan with a "request" for the expulsion of Chinese troops from Korea. However, as early as July 25, the Japanese fleet, without declaring war, began hostilities against China; the official declaration of war followed only on August 1, 1894. The Sino-Japanese War began

During the war, the superiority of the Japanese army and navy led to major defeats for China on land and at sea (near Asan, July 1894; near Pyongyang, September 1894; near Jiuliang, October 1894).

On October 24, 1894, hostilities moved into the territory of Northeast China. By March 1895, Japanese troops captured the Liaodong Peninsula, Weihaiwei, Yingkou, and Mukden was under threat.

On April 17, 1895, in Shimonoseki, representatives of Japan and the Qing Empire signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, humiliating for the latter.

12.6. Triple intervention

The conditions imposed by Japan on the Qing Empire led to the so-called "triple intervention" of Russia, Germany and France - powers that by this time already had extensive contacts with China and therefore perceived the signed treaty as detrimental to their interests. April 23, 1895 Russia, Germany and France at the same time, but separately, appealed to the Japanese government demanding the abandonment of the annexation of the Liaodong Peninsula, which could lead to the establishment of Japanese control over Port Arthur, while Nicholas II, supported by the Western allies, had own views of Port Arthur as an ice-free port for Russia. The German note was the most severe, even offensive to Japan.

Japan had to give in. On May 10, 1895, the Japanese government announced the return of the Liaodong Peninsula to China, however, having achieved an increase in the amount of Chinese indemnity by 30 million taels.

12.7. Successes of Russian policy in the Qing Empire

In 1895, Russia provided Beijing with a loan of 150 million rubles at 4% per annum. The treaty contained a commitment by China not to accept foreign control of its finances unless Russia was involved. At the end of 1895, on the initiative of Witte, the Russian-Chinese Bank was founded. On June 3, 1896, a Russian-Chinese treaty on a defensive alliance against Japan was signed in Moscow. On September 8, 1896, a concession agreement was signed between the Chinese government and the Russian-Chinese Bank for the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway. The CER Society received a strip of land along the road, which came under its jurisdiction. In March 1898, a Russian-Chinese agreement was signed on the lease of Port Arthur and the Liaodong Peninsula by Russia.

12.8. Capture of Jiaozhou by Germany

In August 1897, Wilhelm II visited Nicholas II in Peterhof and obtained consent to the establishment of a German naval base in Jiaozhou (in the then transcription version - “Kiao-Chao”), on the southern coast of Shandong. In early November, German missionaries were killed by the Chinese in Shandong. On November 14, 1897, the Germans landed troops on the Jiaozhou coast and captured it. On March 6, 1898, the German-Chinese agreement was signed, according to which China leased Jiaozhou to Germany for a period of 99 years. At the same time, the Chinese government granted Germany a concession to build two railways in Shandong and a number of mining concessions in that province.

A well-known French cartoon from the late 1890s depicts China being shared like a pie by Queen Victoria (UK), Bismarck (Germany), Nicholas II (Russia), and Emperor Meiji (Japan), and Marianne representing France (a French cartoonist delicately depicted her). without trying to "grab your piece"). In the background, Li Hongzhang tries to stop what is happening, but is powerless.

12.9. One Hundred Days of Reforms

A short period of reforms began on June 11, 1898, with the issuance of a decree by the Manchu emperor Zaitian (the name of the years of reign is Guangxu) "On establishing the main line of state policy." Zaitian enlisted a group of young reformers, disciples and associates of Kang Youwei, to draft a series of reform decrees. In total, more than 60 decrees were issued that concerned the education system, the construction of railways, factories and factories, the modernization of agriculture, the development of domestic and foreign trade, the reorganization of the armed forces, the cleansing of the state apparatus, etc. The period of radical reforms ended on September 21 the same year that Empress Dowager Cixi staged a palace coup and reversed the reforms.

13. XX century

Map of China proper at the beginning of the 20th century from the Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron

13.1. Boxer Rebellion

Cixi, Empress Dowager (1900s).

In May 1900, a great uprising began in China, called the Boxer or Yihetuan uprising. On June 20, the German envoy Ketteler was assassinated in Beijing. Following this, the rebels besieged the diplomatic missions located in a special quarter of Beijing. The building of the Catholic Cathedral of Petang (Beitang) was also besieged. Mass killings of Chinese Christians by the "Yihetuans" began, including 222 Orthodox Chinese who were killed. On June 21, 1900, Empress Cixi (慈禧) declared war on Great Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Italy, Japan, the United States, and Russia. The Great Powers agreed on joint action against the rebels. The German General Waldersee was appointed commander-in-chief of the expeditionary forces. However, when he arrived in China, Beijing had already been liberated by a small advance detachment under the command of the Russian general Linevich. The Russian army took the desired position - Manchuria.

Railway map of China (1908)

13.2. Russo-Japanese War

On February 8, 1904, the Russo-Japanese War began for control of Manchuria and Korea. The war that was going on in China was unsuccessful for Russia: as a result, Russia was forced to cede Port Arthur and the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan, with part of the CER built by that time. In 1910, Japan annexed Korea.

13.3. Death of Cixi

On December 14, 1908, Empress Cixi and Emperor Guangxu, whom Cixi had previously removed from power, died on the same day. Guangxu was poisoned because Cixi didn't want him to survive her. Emperor Pu Yi, who was two years old, ascended the throne. His father, Prince Chun, was appointed regent, but soon power passed to his brother.

13.4. Revolution of 1911 and the establishment of the Republic of China

In 1911, the Wuchang uprising began in China. It was the beginning of the Xinhai Revolution (1911-1913), which resulted in the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty. The Qing Empire collapsed and the Republic of China was proclaimed.

After the fall of the monarchy, the Bogdo Khan of Mongolia refused to obey the republic and declared that his country recognized the suzerainty of the Manchu dynasty, and not the Republic of China. On November 3, 1912, an agreement was concluded between Mongolia and Russia. England took advantage of the internal struggle in China to increase its influence in Tibet. Tibet rose up to fight and forced the Chinese garrison to leave the country. From then until the "peaceful liberation" by China, Tibet remained an independent state. Russia agreed to regard Tibet as an English sphere of influence, and England recognized Russian interests in independent (Outer) Mongolia.

On February 12, 1912, Emperor Pu Yi abdicated. General Yuan Shikai, prime minister and commander-in-chief of the army, came to power. Soon he was proclaimed the President of China.

In 1913, the "Second Revolution" took place under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen. Yuan Shikai suppressed scattered uprisings in the central and southern provinces. The military dictatorship of Yuan Shikai, the founder of the Beiyang (Northern) militarists, is established in the country. Sun Yat-sen was forced to emigrate abroad.

13.5. World War I

After the outbreak of the First World War, the Chinese government declares its neutrality and asks the belligerent powers not to transfer military operations to Chinese territory, including Chinese lands "leased" by the powers. However, on August 22, 1914, Japan declared its state of war with Germany and landed an army of 30,000 north of Qingdao, the center of the German colony in Shandong province. After a two-month military campaign, Japan seized the German possessions in Shandong, and also extended its control to the entire territory of the province.

In 1915, Chinese princes vote to establish a monarchy in China with Yuan Shikai on the imperial throne. Parliament dissolves. The creation of the Chinese empire is announced. This causes a series of uprisings in the provinces of China. The provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi declare independence from Beijing. Then Guangdong, Zhejiang, Sichuan and Hunan are separated.

On March 22, 1916, the republic was restored. Yuan Shikai was forced to relinquish the title.

13.6. The era of militarists

After the death of Yuan Shikai, numerous military-feudal fiefdoms of various militaristic groups began to take shape in China. The largest was the Beiyang group, which later split into the Fengtian group led by the former leader of the Honghuz gang Zhang Zuolin, the Zhili group led by General Feng Guozhang, and the Anhui group led by General Duan Qizhui. In Shanxi province, the militarist Yan Xishan, who flirted with the Beiyang group, dominated, and in Shaanxi province, General Chen Shufan. The camp of the southwestern militarists consisted of two large groups: the Yunnanese led by General Tang Jiyao, and the Guangxi led by General Lu Rongting.

Under the control of the Fengtian group were the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Fengtian, under the control of the Zhili - Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei and part of Zhili. The Fengtian and Anhui cliques were financed by Japan, the Zhili clique by England and the USA. Li Yuanhong was a protege of the southwestern militarists. Vice President General Feng Guozhang was oriented towards England and the United States, while Prime Minister General Duan Qirui was pro-Japanese. In 1917, Japan began to provide Duan Qizhui with large loans, receiving more and more concessions for them, including concessions in Manchuria.

13.7. Kuomintang victory

The Kuomintang Party was founded in 1912 in Guangzhou Province. Almost 10 years later, in 1921, the Communist Party of China was also created, which was small in number and did not enjoy much popularity at that time. On September 8, 1923, at the request of Sun Yat-sen, who asked to send him a person with whom he could speak in English without an interpreter, Comintern agent M. M. Borodin arrived in China, who became a political adviser to the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang and an adviser to Sun Yat-sen. He organized cooperation between the Kuomintang and the CPC. On January 20, 1924, the First National Congress of the Kuomintang was held in Guangzhou. At the congress, a course was adopted for an alliance with the Chinese Communists and the USSR. On June 16, the Whampu Military Academy was established under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek. The first set enrolled 400, the second - 500, the third - 800 and the fourth - about 2600 listeners; Two training regiments were created at the school. A large group of Soviet military advisers arrived at Whampoa Academy. In October 1924, Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher arrived in Guangzhou for the post of chief military adviser.
In March 1926, Chiang Kai-shek carried out a military coup in Canton, expelled the communists from the city, and three months later he was elected chairman of the Kuomintang and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Having achieved high power, Chiang Kai-shek invited German advisers, headed by the former General of the Reichswehr von Seeckt.
German officers acted as advisers to Chiang Kai-shek:

• Colonel W. Bauer (friend of Hitler and student of Ludendorff)
• lieutenant colonel Kriebel (later served as German ambassador in Shanghai)
• Lieutenant General Wetzel
• General Falkenhausen

The Kuomintang diligently adopted the experience of the Germans in restoring order in the country. Chinese officers were sent in an organized manner to study in Germany.
In 1926 Chiang Kai-shek's National Revolutionary Army of China undertook the so-called Northern Expedition. During six months of continuous fighting, the central regions of China were liberated from the power of local military rulers.
At the beginning of 1927, Chiang Kai-shek went on the open collapse of the united front of the KMT and the CPC: his troops began disarming the Shanghai workers' detachments and squads, mass arrests and executions of trade unionists and communists began. In response to this, the Communists organized an uprising of part of the Kuomintang troops on August 1 in the city of Nanchang, which went down in Chinese history as the "Nanchang uprising".

American military transport "Dollar" with troops in China. 1927

In December 1927, a communist uprising was raised in Canton, which the Kuomintang brutally suppressed after four days of bloody fighting.
After several military operations, by 1927 the Kuomintang troops controlled most of China's territory.

13.8. Japanese occupation and World War II

In autumn 1931, Japan attacked China. On September 18, after a series of provocations, the Japanese went on the offensive, occupying all of Manchuria in a short time. In March 1932, the state of Manchukuo was proclaimed here, headed by Aisingyoro Puyi, the last emperor of the Manchu Qing Empire, which was overthrown during the Xinhai Revolution.

In these difficult conditions, Chiang Kai-shek was forced to fight simultaneously with three enemies: external Japanese aggression, sporadic rebellions of individual militarists on the ground, and the armed forces of the CCP, who claimed to seize power in the country. He chose a policy of compromise with the Japanese, he dealt with the militarists depending on the specific circumstances, but with the communists, no compromise was possible. In 1934, the main CCP forces were blocked in Jiangxi Province. In these difficult conditions, the leadership of the CPC managed to organize a breakthrough, and after a months-long march led troops to the North-West of the country in the so-called. a "special district" centered on the city of Yan'an; these events entered the history of the CCP as the "Long March". Chiang Kai-shek planned to continue the fight against the communists there too, but then a number of his generals rebelled, who considered it a higher priority to reconcile with the communists and jointly fight against Japanese aggression. As a result of the "Xi'an Incident", an agreement was signed on the creation of a united front between the CPC and the Kuomintang.

The government of Chiang Kai-shek received military assistance from Germany during the Weimar Republic. With the advent of Hitler to power, aid was increased in order to fight the communists. Factories for the production of licensed German weapons were created in China, German advisers trained personnel, helmets, Gewehr 88 and 98 rifles, and Mauser pistols were exported to China. China also received a small number of Henschel, Junkers, Heinkel and Messerschmitt aircraft, Rheinmetall and Krupp howitzers, anti-tank and mountain guns such as Pak 35/36, and PzKpfw I light tanks.

On November 25, 1936, Japan and Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact against the USSR and the communist movement. On December 12, 1936, the Xian Incident took place, forcing Chiang Kai-shek to unite with the Communists.

July 7, 1937 The conflict at the Lugouqiao Bridge near Beijing began a "big" war between Japan and China. From that moment, according to Chinese historians, the Second World War begins. On August 21, 1937, the Soviet-Chinese non-aggression pact was signed, after which the USSR began to provide military and economic assistance to the government of Chiang Kai-shek (I-16 aircraft and other military equipment were supplied to China, at first Soviet pilots fought on the side of China). German military aid to China was cut off.

The regularity of the historical process required the strengthening of the feudalization of the ancient Chinese society. And the history of China has taken a course towards increased centralization. The era preceding the unification of the Celestial Empire received a telling name - Zhangguo or the era of the Warring States. About 150 relatively independent states entered this period, and one single state came out.

In 403 BC. e. one of the strongest kingdoms of Jin breaks up into 3 independent entities - most historians consider this event to be the beginning of Zhangguo. Often, a period of fragmentation intensifies competition between neighboring regions, which is reflected in the flourishing of the culture of the entire state. Zhangguo in ancient China was no exception. The cultural traditions laid down in the ancient Chinese society were reflected in subsequent eras and dynasties. In all, one can trace the artistic and historical continuity. The most interesting collections from the time of Zhangguo can be seen in two museums located in the center of the capital of China, next to the square. This is the National Museum of China and the exposition in Gugong, on the territory.

From the perspective of the 21st century, we can say that the weakening of the Zhou house, which coincided with the successful reforms of Shang Yang in the kingdom of Qin, predetermined the events of the Warring States period. All leaders had their own coin, each of which can be considered the ancestor of the modern one. The presence of a monetary system indicates a developed economic sphere with a clear division of labor. Among the numerous competitors claiming leadership, it is customary to single out the 7 most powerful kingdoms, the level of development of which allowed them to keep pace with the new Iron Age.

Kingdom of Han

Deposits of metal ores are the only strong point of the Han, which they took full advantage of. The development of metallurgy made the quality of Han weapons famous throughout scattered China. For trading transactions, a coin inherited from the Jin was used.

The historical perspectives of the Han were limited by natural and geographical boundaries. Soils, mostly unsuitable for agriculture, put the small population in constant food dependence, especially in years of crop failure. Strong neighbors did not allow to expand the territory by military means. To maintain a fragile independence, the Han was helped by various royal alliances or territorial concessions to the invaders. In 230 B.C. e. Han submitted to Qin.

Kingdom of Zhao

Iron production and a strong army, hardened by nomadic neighbors, made Zhao a rival equal to Qin. Among the battles of the Warring States period, Zhao's war with Qin is considered the most brutal. In the first years of battles, the Zhaos, who had mobile cavalry detachments, won victories.

Developing military forces and strengthening the borders with a stone rampart, the northern side of which later became part of, the Zhao kingdom was destroyed by internal betrayal. Tactical military errors due to Qin spies led a huge army into a trap. In 228 BC. e. Zhao submitted to Qin.

Kingdom of Wei

Effective reform activity began in Wei earlier than that of rivals, which contributed to the strengthening and strengthening of the kingdom. The lack of land contributed to the construction of artificial irrigation systems in the Yellow River Valley, the development of the handicraft and trade sectors in the economy. Blade or spade shaped coins were inherited by Wei (as well as Zhao and Han) from Jin.

The weak side of the "third Jin" was the predominance of tribal democracy in high government positions. Many talented sons of Wei from the lower social strata took place outside their homeland, for example, Shang Yang. Decisive Qin aggression united Wei and Han into a military alliance, but divisions within the coalition allowed the Qin army to defeat the allies one by one. And the territory of Wei gradually, in parts, began to be alienated in favor of the conqueror. In 225 BC. e. Wei submitted to Qin.

Realm of Chu

The most influential kingdom, which occupies more than a third of China during the Zhangguo period, was the first to invent iron weapons. The development of various crafts (iron production, bronze casting, woodworking, silk painting, jewelry making, etc.) with a powerful agricultural sector accelerated the economic recovery and flourishing of the trading class. Chu - the only one among the warring kingdoms had gold coins in use.

Chu actively participated in anti-Qin coalitions. But, the high level of corruption allowed the Qin spy network to weaken the kingdom at the state level. In 223 BC. e. Chu submitted to Qin.

Yan realm

The capital of the kingdom - the city of Ji, was located on the territory of modern. Of the seven strongest opponents, Yan was the weakest. But, the strategic border with North Korea and the southern part of Manchuria was of political, trade and economic importance. Yang coins were shaped like a knife.

Yan's independence was conditional, a small kingdom always depended on a stronger neighbor. After a series of military setbacks and the fall of Zhao, the Yan dynasty decided on a desperate step, which became the most famous assassination attempt in the history of the Middle Kingdom. The murder did not take place, but the fact of a daring assassination attempt on the Qin ruler became a convenient pretext for another war. In 222 B.C. e. Yang submitted to Qin.

Kingdom of Qi

The fertile land allowed the development of various branches of agriculture. Qi was especially famous for its silk, linen, and weaving. Qi also had rich mines. In trade transactions, a coin was used, as in Yang, in the form of a knife. The main attraction of Qi was the Jixia Academy - an educational institution where the best representatives of philosophical and political schools worked and studied, which attracted many outstanding minds from all over China to Qi.

At the beginning of Zhangguo, the Qi rulers actively participated in anti-Qin coalitions, often skillfully manipulating the participants in the clashes. However, the defeat of 284 BC. e. and the preventive measures of the Qin agents convinced Qi to abandon any internecine conflicts. Maintaining neutrality did not last long. Having dealt with all rivals, Qin approached the capital of Qi. In 221 BC. e. Qi submitted to Qin without a fight. Which was the end of the Warring States period and the beginning of a new imperial era.

The prerequisites for unification began to be laid long before the Zhangguo period. The development of socio-cultural and trade and economic ties required a single space, the creation of which was prevented by several specific kings, but not by the whole people. The unification was not easy for the country, but the ruler of a united China, Qin Shi Huang, is among the greatest reformers and politicians in world history. The great emperor, a far-sighted military strategist, even went to another world, accompanied by a huge army - eight thousand strong.

Eastern civilization for many centuries kept the country closed from European curiosity. Having opened itself to the world, China instantly became the object of close attention and artistic imitation. Thousands of tourists who love to dilute the rest of the body with intellectual delights prefer. The modern Celestial Empire carefully preserves its traditions, but always friendly offers a fork instead.

Since ancient times, on the Great Plain of China, in the lower reaches of the Yellow River and Yangtze, there were states that in the III century BC. e. united into an empire. China was a huge country, comparable in territory, population, cultural achievements with all of Europe. So, by the beginning of the XIII century, about 100 million people lived in China - more than in Europe at that time.

In the history of China, several periods are distinguished, named after the then ruling imperial dynasties.

At the end of the VI century, the country managed to reunite after a period of fragmentation and civil strife. During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), China traded with countries to its west. The Great Silk Road led there, ending at the Mediterranean Sea.

Caravan of merchants. Fragment of the world map. End of the 14th century

Along with merchants, this route was widely used by pilgrims and missionaries. By that time, Buddhism had spread in China, coexisting peacefully with traditional Chinese Confucianism and with other religions. A characteristic feature of China was religious tolerance and mutual influence of different religions.

In an effort to control the Great Silk Road, the emperors annexed the regions in the west of the country. Chinese troops even invaded Central Asia, but in 751 they were defeated by the Arabs.

In the 9th century, a wave of rebellions of the nobility swept across China. Increasing taxes and abuses in their collection caused a peasant war in 874-884 led by the salt merchant Huang Chao. During the period of unrest and strife after the fall of the Tang dynasty, the northern regions of the empire were conquered by the Khitan tribes (hence the Russian name of the country - China). Then the Song Dynasty (960-1279) managed to reunite almost the entire country.xxx A street in a Chinese city. Scroll fragment. 12th century

Chinese emperor. Fragment of a scroll on silk. 7th century

Although the Song period was the heyday of China, the emperors constantly had to repel external threats, suppress uprisings of peasants and rebellions of the nobility. The empire paid huge tribute to its northern neighbors in silver and silk. In the XII century, nomads captured the entire north of the country. At the beginning of the 13th century, the state of the Mongols was formed near the northern borders of China. Using the empire's enmity with its neighbors, the Mongols first conquered northern China, and by 1279, the entire country. The Mongol Khan Kublai moved his headquarters to Beijing, assumed the imperial title and founded the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). The conquest was accompanied by the devastation of the country and the death of the population. But soon the Mongols restored the former system of governing the empire.

European merchants, diplomats and missionaries have visited China more than once. The most famous of them was Marco Polo. These travels reflected the interest of the West in various contacts with the Far East.

Portrait of an official. Scroll on silk. 16th century

In the middle of the XIV century, an uprising against the Mongols began. One of its leaders occupied Beijing in 1368 and became emperor. The Ming (“Light”) dynasty founded by him ruled the country until the middle of the 17th century.

The emperor was called the Son of Heaven. His person was sacred. He was considered not only the ruler of all people, but also an intermediary between the supreme deity - - Heaven and the "Celestial", that is, the earth.

Each Chinese was considered an executor of the will of Heaven, transmitted through the emperor. Chinese society was characterized by a strict hierarchy. Everyone, from the emperor to a simple servant, took his place in life, to which everything had to correspond: occupations, manners, clothes. Unlike medieval Europe in China, the tribal nobility did not have direct access to the government of the country. The emperor relied on hundreds of thousands of specially trained officials.

Officials were appointed from all walks of life, but only from among those who had received a good education and passed their examinations. Those who passed the most difficult exams occupied the highest positions and received a generous salary. At the exam, they wrote essays in which they had to show knowledge of well-known historical, philosophical, and religious works. All free people were allowed to test, which made it possible to attract talented commoners to the service.

China is one of the largest and most populous countries in the world, it also occupies a leading position in the export of products. In addition, the Celestial Empire can easily boast of a multi-thousand-year history of the state, which, according to various estimates, begins from 3,500 to 5,000 years ago.

History of existence

To a large extent, Ancient China was an imperial country, but some other eras can also be distinguished.

So, the largest periods of existence:

• pre-imperial time (from the beginning of the Paleolithic to the appearance of the first state);
• Ancient China (early forms of government and early empires);
• classical period (from the 3rd century to 1912);
• modern era.

Five emperors and three dynasties

Somewhat mythical is the early history of China during the reign of five emperors, who changed one after another:

• Yellow emperor;
• Zhuan-hsu;
• Gao Xin;
• Shun.

These emperors at various times fought a fierce struggle for power in order to be at the throne. This has been going on since the 27th century BC. e. and up to the 23rd century BC. e.

After that, a lull came in the form of the first Xia dynasty, which ruled from the beginning of the 23rd century BC. e. and until the middle of the 18th century BC.

The eastern country began its active development during the reign of the next dynasty - Shang-Yin, which ruled in the 17-11 centuries. BC e. and was divided into two eras - the early Shang-Yin and the late.

At this time, writing was born, so more is already known about this period. The first political foundations of the state were also formed, and agriculture acquired a new form of soil cultivation.

The struggle for power of the next dynasty - Zhou - led to the fact that Shang-Yin was overthrown.

The Zhou era in the early stages of the Western period (11th century BC - 771 BC) had exclusively central authority. But the decentralization of power gradually took place, especially in the Eastern period (771-475 BC).

The Zhou Dynasty in ancient China is replaced by a period of warring kingdoms, where several independent states begin to struggle for power and territory. The biggest ones were:

• Zhao;
• Qin;
• Han.

The development of the eastern country

Despite the constant struggle that was waged during the time of the warring kingdoms, Ancient China is changing in all areas of life. Bronze is replaced by iron, new crafts appear, cities grow.

Many works of art were created, which are still very popular.

There are two main philosophical and religious schools - Confucianism and Taoism - thanks to Confucius and Lao Tzu. Both schools have grown in popularity over time, and in today's China most of the population professes these teachings.

Unification under the rule of the Qin kingdom

In 221 BC. e. The Qin dynasty manages to unite all the lands in a single state, which was facilitated by a single language, culture, and religion.

The Kingdom of Qin has probably the shortest period of rule - only 11 years, but during this time incredible reforms were carried out that touched almost all spheres of life of ordinary people.

Emperor Qin Shi Huang was able to do what no other early emperor could do. In addition, the construction of one of the wonders of the world, which has survived to this day - the Great Wall of China, began precisely under this emperor.

Han era in Chinese history

The Han Empire quickly replaced Qin, but during this period nothing was lost, but on the contrary, there was a significant expansion of the territory: from the Gobi Desert to the South China Sea, from the Pamir Mountains to the Liaodong Peninsula.

Ancient China was great and militant in the Han era, because it was possible to crush the strong Huns and establish the Great Silk Road, which began to bring great profits to the state.

It is in the Han Dynasty that the history of Ancient China ends and the classical era begins.

If you want to know more about the existence of Ancient China and its rule, we advise you to watch the following video:

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