Notes

Chapter 4 Section 1
Silk Road- A chain of trade routes stretching from China to the Mediterranean Sea.
Dynasty- A series of rulers from the same family.
Tang- A dynasty that ruled China for almost 300 years.
Song- A dynasty that ruled China after the Tang.
Merit System- A system of hiring people based on their abilities.

Silk Road routes stretched about 4,000 miles all the way from China to the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
The Han dynasty ruled China from 206 B.C to A.D 220. After the collapse of the Han dynasty China broke up into several kingdoms.
In 581, the Sui dynasty came to power. The Sui ruled only until 618, but they united the north and south of China for the first time in centuries. In 618, the Sui dynasty was overthrown.
The Tang dynasty came to power and ruled China for almost 300 years. Under the Tang dynasty, China grew in both area and population.
The Grand Canal was a waterway that linked the Huang and Chang river. The Grand Canal was more than 1,000 miles long. The Grand Canal made it able to supply the capital with large amounts of grain grown in the south.
The greatest ruler of the Tang dynasty was Tang Taizong. During his rule from 626 to 649, he was not only a successful general, but also a scholar and historian. In addition, Tang Taizong was a master of calligraphy, the art of beautiful handwriting. Tang Taizong worked to strengthen law and order by promoting the teachings of Confucius. Tang Taizong began to reform the government according to Confucius’s ideas.
After 850, China’s control of its most westermost lands weakened. Fighting among different groups within China ended the Tang dynasty. Order was restored about 50 years later by the Song dynasty.
The Song rulers made many advances in government. They expanded the merit system. The merit system is a system of hiring people based on their abilities.
One of the new Song inventions was the new way to print books. For centuries, the Chinese had carved the characters of each page onto a wood block. Around 1045, Bi Sheng developed a printing method that used movable type. He made many separate characters out of clay and rearranged them to make each page.
The Mongols were nomads from the plains of Central Asia, north of China. By the 1200’s, they were a tough military force. Under the leadership of Genghis Khan, they began forging an empire that eventually included China and Korea in the east, stretched into Russia and Eastern Europe in the west, and extended to the southwest as far as the Persian Gulf.
Genghis Khan conquered all of northern China by 1215. The southern continued to resist. Genghis Khan, grandson Kublai Khan completed the conquest of China.
Kublai Khan came to power in 1259. Within 20 years, he had toppled the last Song emperor. From his capital at the present day Beijing, Kublai declared himself emperor of China. He named his new dynasty Yuan which meant beginning.
The Mongols centralized government in China. High government positions were reserved for Mongols and were given to foreigners rather than to Chinese. The Mongols also kept their own language and customs rather than adopting Chinese culture. They did, however, allow the practice of many religions.