The Sui Empire was not able to maintain their authority in China because they could not support the massive undertakings in military expansion and public works that was required. This overextension led to the transition to the Tang Empire. The changes in this period of Chinese history was the reunification of China, and the massive public works projects that they undertook including the Grand Canal, irrigation projects and improvements to the Great Wall. The continuity that took place during this era was a return to the Confucian state philosophy and the strong political influence of the Buddhist philosophy. In 618 the powerful Li family ended Sui rule and created the Tang Empire.
So the best any empire could do was to establish regional hegemony. During this time period, China was the richest and most powerful of all, and extended its reach over most of Asia. 1 Tang & Song China THE "GOLDEN ERA" OF THE TANG AND SONG During the period after the fall of the Han Dynasty in the 3rd century C.E., China went into a time of chaos, following the established pattern of dynastic cycles. During the short-lived Sui Dynasty (589-618 C.E. ), China began to restore centralized imperial rule.
1. Compare and contrast the Roman and Chinese empires. Which do you find more striking their similarities or their differences? After hundreds of years fighting the Qin dynasty defeated everyone which unified north China and created first Chinese Empire. During this time China created political and cultural forms that would last a very long time even till this day.
Chinese rulers started to isolate themselves for other countries in order to stop westernization and promote their former cultures and traditions. Trade was then limited and technology didn’t become more advanced, therefore changing the success of their economy. Advances in technologies promoted trade with other countries and with far away societies. Maritime traded provided the Chinese economy the ability to trade with local societies easier and farther away countries faster. During the Sui dynasty, the Grand Canal was built and it was a waterway that connected Northern china to Southern China.
Qin Shi Huang’s greatest achievement was unifying China. He ended the opposition among the independent kingdoms during the Warring States Period, unifying China, however to achieve unification he had to centralize power and standardize administration, law, language, and weights and measures which improved the economy. Supported by intelligent and inventive advisors, Yingzheng carried out a series of improvements to develop agriculture and the military, and he rose rapidly in that period. During his reign he accomplished settling internal rebellions, and, managed to unify the other six states. He led the Chinese State of Qin to conquer Han, Zhao, Yan, Wei, Chu and Qi.
The years between 1792 and 1850 were a crucial period for both the British and Chinese empires; Britain expanded to become the greatest maritime empire while China, which had been the greatest land mass empire, became a shadow of its former self as the two fought for supremacy and control of trade. As Britain was a relatively small nation, its empire was by necessity outward looking. Characterised by a series of informal settlement colonies, economic policy was the key to expansion and it focussed on trade relationships between the metropole and peripheries; these were supported by a strong bureaucracy and powerful naval fleet. Cultural ideology had a role to play, but it could be argued that it was never as important. On the other hand, the autarkic Chinese empire was formal, insular, economically self-sufficient and relied heavily on both bureaucracy and an ethnocentric ideology to sustain itself.
During the period of 600-1450, China rose as the most influential state in East Asia. This is because, and because of this, many other states borrowed heavily from Chinese culture. Japan and Southeast Asia were two of those that borrowed a lot from China. They both borrowed rituals and the religions, Buddhism and Confucianism from China. They also borrowed the system of a bureaucracy from China.
The Roman Empire’s major reason in why it failed politically is that the Empire was never able to find an effective way to pick the proceeding emperor resulting in the empire having crazy, profligate emperors. Because of this, the military stepped in, complicating things even more than they were before. The military would try to sell the throne to the highest bidder. This meant that the throne did not go to a person who could truly run the Empire, but went to a crazy, profligate man who just wanted to party and live an extravagant life. Meanwhile, in China they were suffering from similar political issues.
This means that they were always bettering themselves. China was separated during the warring states era but was later brought together (around 221 BC. )by Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of the in. This emperor was known for his cruelty and intolerance, which went against tradition but was also effective. Qin Shi created the great wall of china in order to protect the Chinese civilization from barbarians.
A reason for the fall of the Qing Dynasty was Imperialism, or the practice of conquering and developing another area usually for trading purposes. The Sino-Japanese war was very humiliating for the Chinese people because it once again highlighted defeat on China by a foreign power, and as well internal troubles, this increased the prejudiced feeling toward outsiders, which resulted in a lot of resentment for foreigners, which meant that leaders such as Cixi who were opposed to foreigners and modernization gained a lot of support from the population. There was a high demand for China's tea in Great Britain but a low demand for Britain's goods in China. Great Britain was in debt with China and they had to do something to get out. As a result, they turned to selling silver to make the imbalance