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The wolrd has become a place filled with great diversity of cultures. Every singlle country has slowly developed into a somewhat dependent society all because of pre-modern events, even if such events did not contribute to each other. There are various types of religions and ideas which spread and changed each part of the world, such as the silk roads. IF it would have not been for the great divergence we would not have the society we currently have. If it had not been for Ming China and the centuries of xenophobia among their people and empire, our whole word today could have been dominantly Chinese ruled.
Ming China in premodern times was not as populated and geographically large as it is today, but it was still quite large in both aspects, especially comparing to other empires around such era. About hlaf of chinas population worked for the government in some form. These people known as bureocracts were highly educated and knew how to read and write. Education aided the country to be smart in trade, foreing aspects, and army tactics. Having most of the country educated in political manners also meant their strong army would be intelligent enough to come up with techniques to defend the territory as well as invading sorrounding lands.
Hung-Wu, Ming China's first emperor, created a very different type of national guard that differed from traditional ones. This new type of army called Wei-So resembled today's United States National Guard. These men were trained to be soldiers in case they were needed at any time for battle. Pensions would be given to them in return for their service. Heavy-duty armies required large amounts of weopons, but most of all they needed sizable ships to get around bodies of water. It is easy to...
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...hina would have most likely spread outside its borders and taken over each country. It is seen how other empires like the Roman and Mongolian also spread but had problems due to the lack of population and availability. For the Ming, population was not a problem. Their main issues was that they simply did not bother dealing wiht other countires who did not pose as a threat to them. All these examples can really show how it is minb-blowing that we are not under Chinese rule today.
Everyone should be grateful to the phobie carried on by Ming China for centuries. It is hard to imagine how different the wolrd would be if it was under chinas rule. Thnakfully it did not happen or we all would be one boring and similar society. Events such as xhenophobic period in china might seem senseless and unimportant, but in fact was what influenced the way history went about.
Ancient China was split into two principle regions, Inner and Outer China. The land of Inner China contained fertile land and could sustain a larger population than could the land of Outer China. Most of the population of China settled here for that reason. These regions then were each divided into five sub regions. Outer China contained three of these regions, the Tibet- Qinghai Plateau, the Northwestern Deserts, and the Northeastern Plain. Inner China held the remaining two, the North China Plain and the Chang Jiang Basins. Each of the regions had their own reasons why they were desirable or not to the nomads passing though China. The Tibet- Qinghai Plateau was an unwanted area of land because of many geographic factors that were stacked against it. One such reason was that the Plateau was very rocky and mountainous which discou...
As in terms of economics, China grew prosperous through trade, military expansion, invention of tools and other means of convenience and through the market economy. From the Han Dynasty China began to build again. The Sui Dynasty constructed the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal was an artificial canal that extended 1,240 miles. It enabled merchants and farmers to travel by water, selling an abundance of rice and other crops. This canal was extremely expensive but throughout the years paid itself off by providing travel routes north and south of China. The Sui Dynasty also built palaces, granarie...
Americans “thought [the] Chinese had some kind of superpower since they worked for such low wages and lived in small crowded areas” (“The Chinese Experience in 19th Century America”). The Chinese just wanted to have a better life since that was the reason they came to America and they were just working hard to achieve their American Dream of living a better life than the one in their country. They did not mind working hard for what they wanted and they did, but they were just thought of as different and as exorcists for doing this. There were Yellow Peril novels written about how the Chinese wanted to take over the American government so they could put in place their own culture. On the other hand there were groups of people who did feel the Chinese were welcomed.
During the early Ming Dynasty, China was one of the most economically and technologically advanced countries in the world. As Ebrey pointed out, “Europe was not yet a force in Asia and China continued to look at the outer world in traditional terms.” China was regarded as the center of Asia at the beginning of the 15th century and the idea of “Middle Kingdom” (Zhong guo) began to take off at that time. The early Ming Emperors were not interested in promoting commercial trade at all. Emperor Hongwu, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, implemented the Hai jin policy which forbade maritime shipping and private foreign trade outside of the tributary system (Ebrey, p. 209).
In the late 19th century, a national wide anti-Chinese movement took place in the United States of America. The Chinese immigrants were excluded by the Native Americans. Their stores were stolen; their houses were burned down and even worse, many of them were killed. However, if we refer back the history of America, we will find that the early Chinese immigrants were accepted by Americans and were not the immediate targets of hostility or violence. In addition, the prosperity of America, especially the southern part of it own a lot to the efforts Chinese men had made. Then why was there so significant a change of the Americans' sentiment towards the Chinese people in the late 19th century? I would like to analyze this issue in the following paper.
Now you are probably wondering with all these similar factors that lead to the demise of the empires, how did China recover successfully? The Chinese empire unlike the Roman empire, held on to their cultural identity and tried not to accept diversity in cultures. This is also called cultural homogeneity. Cultural homogeneity create a sense of togetherness. This creates less organization and religious drama. China also had more advanced technological breakthroughs in the fields of agriculture and metallurgy. This is needed to progress and recover so you have ways of keeping up with the economy. The Chinese empire also had one common religion that mostly held up. Confucianism. Having mostly the same religion unifies most people, which is also needed for a recovery. With these main factors, the Chinese empire recovered successfully.
...nd because they cut the rest of the world off, no one was there to help them learn. All they had to learn from was other dynasties. If they would have had more allies, they could have adopted new ways of farming, building, and building their economy.
From 1700 to roughly 220 BCE (before the Common Era), the region currently known as China was divided into six states: Qin, Wei, Zhao, Qi, Yan and Zhongshan, each ruled by different kings. These inter-warring states were already familiar with wall building techniques, each having constructed extensive fortifications to defend their own borders. When Shih Huangdi, the young king of the ancient Chinese state of Qin (also spelled Ch’in, from which the word China derives), conquered each of the remaining five states in 221 BCE, the continuous warring finally came to an end. By conquering these states, Shih Huangdi established the Qin Dynasty, thus creating the first unification of China, and the first Chinese central government. In his efforts to make this new concept of centralized rule “stick”, as well as prevent the reemergence of feudal lords, Shih Huangdi ordered the destruction of the wall sections that divided his empire along the forme...
The rulers of the Ming and Safavid Dynasties strengthened their countries through careful control of their governments and military.
Both the Han and Roman empires emphasized on territorial expansions. By utilizing their powerful militaries, they consolidated their power within and across borders, which created stable trade networks for their economic bases. Land equated to wealth and power. Through integration of the local domains, both empires succeeded in political stability. For the Han Empire, their expansion abroad pushed through ecological limits under Emperor Wu Di ( 181-87 BCE), who made military service compulsory. The army expanded bordered into northern Vietnam and southeastern China. Although there were military threats from the Xiongnu, the nomadic people of the north, Wu launched defense attacks that made ...
Han China and Ancient shared bureaucratic governments. This means that they had a government ruled by unelected officials, giving the people little to no say in government. In Rome the ruler was once a king but then their government transitioned to an oligarchy, which would put the rich people in the highest place in society. On the other hand in Han China, which was an imperial dynasty, and emperors were decided by the Mandate of Heaven. The Mandate gave the common man a chance to become a major ruler during the Han period. The Han government was mainly influenced by confucian government while Romes was based on Roman law and the classics. The Han government spread Confucianism since that was the basis for their government. Rome also relied on local rulers to make sure that their many lands were following rules and not plotting against them. Both the Han and Rome shared a bureaucratic government which affected their social structures in different ways.
...tain, this argument has been shown to be flawed, as it without motivation and analysis, and disregards many critical factors, such as the culture of non-European societies. A more compelling case has been made that, instead, the Great Divergence had very little to do with European superiority, and instead occurred because of geographic advantages.
Throughout history, Western civilization has been an emerging force behind change in foreign societies. This is the concept that is discussed in the article the West Unique, Not Universal, written by Samuel Huntington. The author makes a very clear thesis sentence and uses a variety of evidence to support it. This article has a strong very convincing point. The thoughts expressed in this article can be related to a lot of events throughout history.
The Chinese Empire was large and controlled most of Asia at one point in time. One of the dynasties that ruled the empire was the Ming Family. Ruling from 1368-1644, almost three hundred years, the Ming Dynasty impacted Chinese history very much.