History Curriculum/Book 19
Book nineteen of the curriculum
The History of Ancient China
The nineteenth book in the curriculum and the ninth of the Ancient Civilizations set. Sixteen chapters across four weeks — from the Yellow and Yangtze rivers and the first farming villages, the Xia kings of tradition, the Shang of the oracle bones and the Zhou and their Mandate of Heaven; through the Spring and Autumn period and the thinkers it produced, Confucius, Laozi and the Legalists; the Warring States, the First Emperor of Qin and the Han from Liu Bang to Emperor Wu and the Silk Road; and last life, belief and learning under the Han, the end of the Han in AD 220, and China's frontiers set beside the end of the western Roman emperors. TWO THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START. First, the first-person accounts in both printed editions are HISTORICAL FICTION — written to tell the story, informed by archaeology and the surviving record, and not the words of the people named. Most of the narrators are real people, a few are figures of tradition, and some are invented. The Chinese record is long: the oracle bones and bronze inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou, the Book of Documents and the Book of Songs, the Zuozhuan, the Analects, Mencius, the Dao De Jing, Zhuangzi, Xunzi and Han Feizi, Sima Qian's Shiji, Ban Gu's Han shu and the Hou Han shu — and the ground has added the rest, from Banpo and Anyang to the terracotta army, the bamboo slips of Shuihudi and the silk books of Mawangdui. The earliest kings are known only from what those later books say, and this course says so. Second, at the back of the Ultimate Guide, after the chapters (pages 291–327), there are Cross-Curricular sections — Math, Science, Social Studies and English — and Cross-Curricular Testing questions with answer keys, to use alongside this course. They are not a fifth week and there is nothing to hand in for them.
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4 Weeks, 16 Chapters, Choose 8+ to Read
Pick the chapters you want to read each week. The living books and the sources are one click away.
Week 1
The Foundation of Ancient China, 2400–256 BC
the two great rivers and the land between the mountains, the farming villages of Banpo and Erlitou, the Xia kings the Shiji and the Book of Documents remember from Yu and the flood to Jie, the Shang kings of the oracle bones and the bronzes of Anyang, and the Zhou conquest at Muye and the Mandate of Heaven
Pick two or more of these chapters to read. Finish two of the ones you choose to open Week 2.
K–5th Grade
Ancient China for Kids
Daily Life in Shang Dynasty China
6th–8th Grade
The Ancient Chinese (People of the Ancient World)
Life in Ancient China (Peoples of the Ancient World)
9th–12th Grade
Early China: A Social and Cultural History
The Book of Songs
The Rivers and the First Villages
- Painted pottery basin with fish and human face, Yangshao culture (National Museum of China) Neolithic, Yangshao culture; excavated at the Banpo village site; National Museum of China, BeijingWHAT THE GROUND SHOWS. A red pottery basin, 39.8 cm across, painted inside in black with two round human faces wearing fish, and two large fish chasing each other between them. The museum's page says "The ancient Banpo people painted fish patterns and net patterns on many pots", that the Banpo people "built settlements on the terraces of the river valley" and farmed, and that basins like this one were found "mostly used as the lids of children's ossuary" — burial jars for children.
- Painted jar (guan), Majiayao culture, Machang phase (Metropolitan Museum of Art 1992.165.8) Neolithic, Machang phase, c. 2350–2050 BC; Gansu, upper Yellow River; Charlotte C. and John C. Weber Collection, given 1992; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkAn earthenware jar 31.5 cm high, painted with pigment, from the farming villages of the upper Yellow River. The Met's label: "Large and small two-handled jars, pitchers, bowls, and beakers are the most common forms produced in the Machang phase of the Majiayao (or Gansu Yangshao) culture"; in the centre of this one is a figure with "Four limbs, bent in the center, … attached to a long torso, capped by a small head." Made more than a thousand years before writing appears in China.
- Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City (UNESCO World Heritage Centre) a walled city of c. 3300–2300 BC on the Yangtze delta, near Hangzhou; inscribed on the World Heritage List 2019THE SOUTHERN RIVER. The ruins of Liangzhu "reveal an early regional state with a unified belief system based on rice cultivation in Late Neolithic China". The site has four parts — the Yaoshan site, a high dam at the mouth of a valley, a low dam on the plain, and the city itself — with "socially-graded cemeteries (including an altar)" and many jades. Set beside the millet villages of the Yellow River: two river valleys, two ways of farming, both before the first kings named in the books.
- Ritual jade cong, Liangzhu culture (Metropolitan Museum of Art 2004.52) Neolithic, Liangzhu culture, c. 2400 BC; jade (nephrite), 25.4 cm high; purchased 2004; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkOne of the carved jades of the kind found in the graded graves of Liangzhu. The Met describes the form: "a cylindrical tube encased in a square prism that gently tapers from top to bottom", with "Simple masks with circular eyes and bar-shaped mouths" at the corners.
Yao, Yu and the Flood: What the Books Say
- The Shu King (Book of Documents): the Canon of Yao, the Yi and Ki, and the Tribute of Yu (tr. James Legge, Sacred Books of the East 3, Internet Archive) documents of the Zhou court and later, gathered by the 4th century BC, telling of rulers placed before 2000 BC; Legge's translation, 2nd ed. 1899THE TRADITION, as the oldest Chinese book of documents tells it. The ruler Yao complains that "destructive in their overflow are the waters of the inundation" and appoints Kun, who labours nine years and fails. In 'The Yi and Ki' Yu describes his own work: "I (also) opened passages for the streams (throughout the) nine (provinces), and conducted them to the four seas." 'The Tribute of Yu' then walks through the nine provinces, their soils and their tribute. These are what the Documents say; no writing survives from Yu's time.
- The Shu King: the Speech of Thang — the Shang overthrow the last Xia king (tr. James Legge, Sacred Books of the East 3, Internet Archive) a speech the Documents assign to Tang, founder of the Shang; Legge's translation, 2nd ed. 1899The Documents give Tang, founder of the Shang, a speech to his army before he attacks the last Xia ruler: "It is not I, the little child, who dare to undertake a rebellious enterprise; but for the many crimes of the sovereign of Hsia, Heaven has given the charge to destroy him." Here, in a text written down long after, is the idea later called the Mandate of Heaven. It is what the Documents report about the Xia, not a record from the Xia.
- The Zuo Zhuan, Duke Xuan year 3 (606 BC): the Nine Tripods of the Xia (tr. James Legge, The Chinese Classics 5.1, Internet Archive) the Chunqiu with Zuo's narrative, compiled in the 4th century BC; Legge's translation, Hong Kong 1872A Spring and Autumn court tells the story of the Xia. When the viscount of Chu, camped on the Zhou border, asked about the size and weight of the royal tripods, the Zhou envoy Wangsun Man answered that the kingdom "depends on the [sovereign's] virtue, and not on the tripods": when the Xia were virtuous "the nine pastors sent in the metal of their provinces, and the tripods were cast"; under the last Xia king they passed to the Shang, and later to the Zhou. "The weight of the tripods may not yet be inquired about."
- Black pottery cups and box, Longshan culture (National Museum of China) Neolithic, Longshan culture, c. 2500–2000 BC; Shandong; National Museum of China, BeijingWHAT THE GROUND SHOWS for the same centuries in which the later books place Yao, Shun and Yu. The museum describes these thin black cups as "typical pottery of Longshan culture", "produced through rapid throwing on a wheel". The spade gives villages, potters' wheels and graves; it does not give the names of kings — keep the two apart.
The Shang: Oracle Bones and Bronzes
- Oracle-bone inscriptions of the late Shang (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) inscribed c. 1200–1046 BC at the Shang capital near Anyang; found from 1899; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999THE OLDEST CHINESE WRITING. The Shang kings put questions to their ancestors and to the high god Di by heating cattle shoulder-blades and turtle shells and reading the cracks; the questions were carved on the bones. "Crack-making on yiwei (day 32), Gu divined" that "Father Yi" — the king's dead father — "is harming the king". Another pair asks whether, "If we build a settlement, Di will not obstruct (but) approve." These are the king's own records, made at the time.
- Oracle bones on the childbearing of Lady Hao (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) inscribed in the reign of Wu Ding, c. 1200 BC; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999A divination about Fu Hao ("Lady Hao"), a consort of King Wu Ding: The diviner Que asked whether "Lady Hao's" childbearing "will be good". The king read the cracks and forecast that if she gave birth on a ding day there would be "prolonged luck"; and the bone then records what happened thirty-one days later. Question, forecast and result, written on one bone at the time. Fu Hao is also named on bronzes from her tomb (below).
- Yin Xu, the late Shang capital at Anyang (UNESCO World Heritage Centre) capital of the late Shang, 1300–1046 BC; inscribed on the World Heritage List 2006WHAT THE SPADE FOUND where the oracle bones came from. "A number of royal tombs and palaces … have been unearthed" here, including "the only tomb of a member of the royal family of the Shang Dynasty to have remained intact, the Tomb of Fu Hao." The page lists the finds: "oracle bone inscriptions, bronze vessels, jade carvings, pottery and bone objects". The ancient name Yin is the one the Zhou and Han writers used for the Shang.
- The Hou Mu Wu bronze ding, Anyang (National Museum of China) late Shang, c. 13th–11th century BC; reported dug up at Wuguan Village, Anyang, in the 1930s; National Museum of China, BeijingThe largest bronze vessel known from ancient China: a square cauldron weighing 832.84 kg. The museum says it "is reported to have been unearthed at Wuguan Village, Anyang, Henan Province in the 1930s, with its abdominal inscription giving it its name" — Hou Mu Wu, which the museum explains as the temple title of a Shang king's mother. The museum adds that it "fully demonstrates the massive production scale and outstanding technical achievements of the bronze casting industry at that time".
The Zhou and the Mandate of Heaven
- The Li gui: King Wu's conquest of the Shang, in bronze (National Museum of China) Western Zhou, reign of King Wu, c. 11th century BC; National Museum of China, BeijingTHE CONQUEST, IN BRONZE CAST IN THE CONQUEROR'S OWN REIGN — the museum calls it "one of the few bronzes that can be identified as artifacts made in the reign of King Wu". The museum: the inscription "records King Wu's conquest over the Yin. In the early morning of the first day of the Chinese calendar, with Sui Xing (Jupiter) visible in the sky above, the battle to destroy the Shang Dynasty ended in one day." It agrees with the account in the Documents' 'Speech at Mu'.
- The Classic of Odes, 'King Wen' (Ode 235) (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) a Zhou court hymn, compiled by about 600 BC; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999A hymn the Zhou sang to their founder. "King Wen is on high, Oh, he shines in Heaven! Zhou is an old people, but its Mandate is new." It says the Shang descendants "bowed down to Zhou" because "the High God gave his Mandate", and warns the Zhou themselves: "The Mandate is not easy to keep; may it not end in your persons." The Zhou's own statement of why they ruled.
- Spouted ritual water vessel (he) from a Zhou altar set found in 1901 (Metropolitan Museum of Art 24.72.5) late 11th century BC, around the Zhou conquest; from a tomb uncovered in 1901; Munsey Fund, 1931; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gallery 207)One of a set of wine and water vessels that, the Met says, "is said to have come from a tomb uncovered in 1901" and then belonged to the Qing official and collector Duan Fang. The bronze altar table they stood on still carries the corrosion outlines of the three main vessels, so their arrangement can be partly reconstructed; eleven of the pieces are inscribed. Offering vessels, the Met says, "Created around the time of the Zhou conquest of the Shang".
- The Da Yu ding: King Kang's charge to Yu (National Museum of China) Western Zhou, 23rd year of King Kang; excavated at Licun, Meixian, Shaanxi, in the early Daoguang reign (1821–1850); National Museum of China, BeijingA bronze cauldron weighing 153.5 kg whose inside carries "291 characters in 19 lines, recording that King Kang of the Western Zhou Dynasty conferred a title on Yu in the 9th month of the 23rd year of his reign." The museum sets the text beside the Documents' charge that the last Shang king "gave himself up to drink": in the inscription King Kang tells Yu how the Shang lost the realm. A Zhou king's own words, cast at the time.
Week 2
Conflict and Philosophy, 770–221 BC
the Zhou court in the east and the great states of the Spring and Autumn period, Guan Zhong and Duke Huan of Qi, Duke Wen of Jin and the battle of Chengpu; Confucius and his followers as the Analects records them, Laozi and Zhuangzi and the Dao De Jing, and Shang Yang, Shen Dao, Xunzi, Han Feizi and Li Si
Pick two or more of these chapters to read. Finish two of the ones you choose to open Week 3.
K–5th Grade
Confucius: Great Teacher of China
The Legend of Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching
6th–8th Grade
Confucius: The Golden Rule
Taoism (World Religions)Selected chapters
9th–12th Grade
The Analects
A Short History of Chinese PhilosophySelected chapters
The Spring and Autumn Period
- The Zuo Zhuan, Duke Zhao year 6 (536 BC): Zichan casts the laws in bronze, and Shuxiang's letter (tr. James Legge, The Chinese Classics 5.2, Internet Archive) compiled in the 4th century BC; Legge's translation, Hong Kong 1872In the state of Zheng the minister Zichan had tripods cast "with descriptions [of crimes and their] punishments" on them — a law code written out where everyone could read it. Shuxiang of Jin wrote to him in protest: the ancient kings "did not make [general] laws of punishment, fearing lest it should give rise to a contentious spirit among the people", and "When the people know what the exact laws are, they do not stand in awe of their superiors." Both sides of an argument the next four chapters continue.
- Bronze sword of King Fuchai of Wu (National Museum of China) Spring and Autumn period, state of Wu, early 5th century BC; National Museum of China, BeijingA bronze sword 59.1 cm long, inscribed with the name of Fuchai, the last king of Wu, which the museum notes "was destroyed by the Yue in 473 BC". It adds that the Wu and Yue swordsmiths' craftsmanship was "far superior" to that of the central plain, and that nine "Wu Wang Fuchai" swords "have been unearthed and recorded to date". A king's own weapon from the last years of the Spring and Autumn period.
- The Classic of Odes: 'Quince' and 'Big Rat' (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) songs of the Zhou states, compiled by about 544 BC; tr. Paul Rouzer and Arthur WaleyTwo songs from the 'Airs of the States', the part of the Odes said to have been collected from the people. In 'Quince' a young man repays a gift: "She tossed a quince to me— I repaid with a precious girdle-gem." In 'Big Rat' farmers speak to a lord who takes their grain: "Big rat, big rat, Do not gobble our millet! Three years we have slaved for you, Yet you take no notice of us." Ordinary voices from the age of Confucius.
- Bronze bell (niuzhong), Eastern Zhou (Metropolitan Museum of Art 1988.20.7) early 5th century BC; Charlotte C. and John C. Weber Collection, given 1988; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkA clapperless bronze bell, 38.3 cm high; bells of this family were hung in graduated sets. The Met explains that such bells "were used in musical accompaniment for ritual ceremonies and for less solemn occasions" and were "sounded with mallets"; each face has three rows of bosses shaped like coiled serpents. The Analects return again and again to ritual (li) and music.
Confucius
- The Analects of Confucius: general selections (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) sayings of Confucius (551–479 BC) recorded by his disciples' followers, 5th–4th century BC; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999Confucius's own words, as his school wrote them down. It opens: "To learn, and at due times to practice what one has learned, is that not also a pleasure?" and in 2:3 compares two ways of ruling — "Lead them by means of regulations and keep order among them through punishments, and the people will evade them and will lack any sense of shame"; lead them by moral force and rites, and "they will have a sense of shame".
- The Analects: on government (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) 5th–4th century BC; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999What Confucius told rulers. "One who governs through virtue may be compared to the polestar, which occupies its place while the host of other stars pay homage to it" (2:1). Asked by Duke Ding of Lu how ruler and ministers should treat each other, he answered: "The ruler should employ the ministers according to ritual; the ministers should serve the ruler with loyalty" (3:19).
- The Analects of Confucius, complete (tr. James Legge, Project Gutenberg) 5th–4th century BC; Legge's translation from The Chinese Classics, 1861The whole book in Legge's 19th-century translation, twenty books of short sayings. Book 1 begins "Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?" and Book 2.4 is Confucius's account of his own life: "At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning." … "At thirty, I stood firm." … "At forty, I had no doubts."
- Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion in Qufu (UNESCO World Heritage Centre) Qufu, Shandong, the capital of the state of Lu; temple first built 478 BC; inscribed on the World Heritage List 1994The philosopher's home town. UNESCO's page: the temple was "Built to commemorate him in 478 B.C.", the year after his death; it "has been destroyed and reconstructed over the centuries". The cemetery "contains Confucius' tomb and the remains of more than 100,000 of his descendants" — a family that has kept his name for more than two thousand years.
Laozi, Zhuangzi and the Dao
- The Laozi (Daodejing): selections (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) the book attributed to Laozi; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999The opening lines: "The Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way; The name that can be named is not the constant name." Chapter 2 gives the sage who "accomplishes things by doing nothing (wuwei)", and chapter 3 advises the ruler: "Do not exalt the worthy, and the people will not compete." Short verses, very different in manner from the Analects.
- The Tao Teh King, complete (tr. James Legge, Project Gutenberg) attributed to Laozi; Legge's translation, Sacred Books of the East 39, 1891All eighty-one short chapters in Legge's translation. It begins: "The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao." Compare it, line by line, with the modern Columbia translation above: two translators, one text.
- The Texts of Taoism, part 1: Sima Qian's account of Laozi and Zhuangzi's butterfly dream (tr. James Legge, Sacred Books of the East 39, Internet Archive) Shiji written c. 100 BC; Zhuangzi 4th–3rd century BC; Legge's translation 1891Legge's introduction gives what the historian Sima Qian reported, about four centuries after Laozi: that he "had been a curator of the Royal Library" of Zhou, left for the west by the pass, was asked by the warden Yin Xi for a writing, wrote the Dao and De "containing more than 5000 characters", and went his way — "nor is it known where he died." The Zhuangzi in the same volume ends Book 2 with Zhuang Zhou, who "dreamt that I was a butterfly, a butterfly flying about".
- The Zhuangzi, chapter 3: 'The Secret of Caring for Life' — Cook Ding (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) Zhuangzi, 4th–3rd century BC; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999"Your life has a limit but knowledge has none." Then the story of Cook Ding, who cut up an ox for Lord Wenhui "in perfect rhythm" and explained: "What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill." "I've had this knife of mine for nineteen years and have cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone." Zhuangzi's way of teaching was the story, not the rule.
Law and Punishment: Lord Shang, Xunzi and Han Fei
- The Book of Lord Shang: 'Making Orders Strict' (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) the school of Shang Yang (d. 338 BC), minister of Qin; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999The book of Qin's great reformer. It lists "six parasites" a state must reject — among them "rites and music, odes and history", "filial devotion and brotherly love", "humaneness and rightness" — and lays down the rule that "light offenses should be punished heavily; if light offenses do not appear, heavy offenses will not come." Read it straight after the Analects.
- The Xunzi: 'Human Nature Is Evil' (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) Xunzi (c. 310–c. 219 BC), teacher of Han Fei and Li Si; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999"Human nature is evil; its good derives from conscious activity." Xunzi, a Confucian, answers Mencius: people are born fond of profit, so they must be shaped by teachers and ritual, as "warped wood must be laid against a straightening board, steamed, and bent into shape before it can become straight". His two most famous students, Han Fei and Li Si, took the argument further.
- The Han Feizi, chapter 49: 'The Five Vermin' (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) Han Fei (d. 233 BC); tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999Han Fei's parable of the farmer of Song who saw a rabbit break its neck on a stump and then "laid aside his plow and took up watch beside the stump": "Those who think they can take the ways of the ancient kings and use them to govern the people of today all belong in the category of stump-watchers!" His case for law and power suited to the present age, in his own words.
- The Zuo Zhuan, Duke Zhao year 29 (513 BC): Jin casts penal tripods, and Confucius objects (tr. James Legge, The Chinese Classics 5.2, Internet Archive) compiled in the 4th century BC; Legge's translation, Hong Kong 1872Two Jin ministers levied iron "in order to cast penal tripods, on which they inscribed the penal laws". The Zuo Zhuan gives Confucius's comment: "Tsin is going to ruin!" — when such tripods replace the old rules, "the people will study the tripods, and not care to honour their men of rank." Written law against rule by ritual and rank: the argument of this chapter, in Confucius's lifetime.
Week 3
Imperial Unity and Expansion, 475 BC–AD 220
the Warring States, the crossbow and the long walls, Changping; the First Emperor's unification in 221 BC, his roads, weights and script and the terracotta army; the fall of Qin, Xiang Yu and Liu Bang, and the Han from Liu Bang to Emperor Wu, Zhang Qian's journeys and the Silk Road, Sima Qian and Cai Lun
Pick two or more of these chapters to read. Finish two of the ones you choose to open Week 4.
K–5th Grade
The Great Wall of China
The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China
6th–8th Grade
The Han Dynasty (Lost Civilizations)
Secrets of the Terracotta Army
9th–12th Grade
The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han
China's Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and CultureSelected chapters
The First Emperor of China
The Warring States
- Sunzi, The Art of War (tr. Lionel Giles, Project Gutenberg) the book of Master Sun, in its present form by the 4th century BC; Giles's translation 1910The military manual of the warring states, in thirteen chapters. Chapter 1 sets out the five factors a general weighs and states: "All warfare is based on deception." Giles's introduction translates Sima Qian's short biography: "Sun Tzŭ Wu was a native of the Ch'i State", and his Art of War brought him to the notice of Ho Lu (Helü), King of Wu. The book itself names no date.
- The Mencius: on the duty of ministers to reprove a ruler (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) Mencius (c. 372–289 BC) at the court of King Xuan of Qi; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999A Confucian at a warring king's court. King Xuan of Qi asks whether it was right for Tang to banish the last Xia king and King Wu to attack the last Shang king: "For a minister to slay his ruler — can this be countenanced?" Mencius answers: "I have heard of the punishment of the fellow Zhou but never of the slaying of a ruler." The conversation as Mencius's school recorded it.
- Zi Hezi's bronze measuring cauldron (fu), state of Qi (National Museum of China) Warring States, cast between 404 and 385 BC; National Museum of China, BeijingA standard measure, holding 20,460 ml, cast for Tian He of Qi before he became its ruler. Its nine-line inscription orders that "The granary fu shall be the standard unit for all fu measures" and that "If any official attempts to cheat, he must be stopped." Each state kept its own weights and measures — the confusion the First Emperor ended.
- Mount Qingcheng and the Dujiangyan Irrigation System (UNESCO World Heritage Centre) Sichuan; begun around 256 BC under the state of Qin; still in use; inscribed on the World Heritage List 2000WHAT THE ENGINEERS BUILT. The irrigation works on the Min River, which UNESCO calls "an ecological engineering feat originally constructed around 256 BC", divide the river and carry water to the Chengdu plain "without the use of dams". It was built by the state of Qin in the last decades before unification.
The First Emperor of Qin
- Li Si's memorials on the conquest and on the burning of books, as recorded by Sima Qian (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) memorials of Li Si, chancellor of Qin; recorded in the Shiji, written c. 100 BC; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999Two state papers the Shiji preserves. In the second (213 BC), Li Si proposes "that all books in the imperial archives, save the memoirs of Qin, be burned", and that private copies of "the Classic of Odes, the Classic of Documents, and discourses of the hundred philosophers" be handed to the governors and burned. Columbia's introduction notes that books "on technical subjects, such as medicine, agriculture, and forestry" were excepted. The words are Li Si's, as Sima Qian copied them a century later.
- Eight-catty bronze weight with the First Emperor's edict on weights and measures (National Museum of China) Qin dynasty, from 221 BC; National Museum of China, BeijingTHE EMPEROR'S OWN DECREE, ON THE THING IT REGULATED. This balance weight carries "a 40-character imperial edict on the unification of weights and measures issued in the 26th year of the reign of the First Emperor of Qin" — 221 BC, the year of unification — and the words "Eight catties". Weighed today, one Qin catty comes to about 258 grams.
- Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor and the terracotta pits (UNESCO World Heritage Centre) Lintong, near Xi'an; the emperor died 210 BC; pits found 1974; inscribed on the World Heritage List 1987"No doubt thousands of statues still remain to be unearthed at this archaeological site, which was not discovered until 1974." UNESCO describes the First Emperor buried "surrounded by the famous terracotta warriors, at the centre of a complex designed to mirror the urban plan of the capital", and notes that "The small figures are all different; with their horses, chariots and weapons".
- The Great Wall (UNESCO World Heritage Centre) walls of the warring states joined c. 220 BC; rebuilt to the Ming; inscribed on the World Heritage List 1987UNESCO's page begins with the Qin: "In c. 220 B.C., under Qin Shi Huang, sections of earlier fortifications were joined together to form a united defence system against invasions from the north." "Construction continued up to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644)", so most of the wall standing today is far later than the Qin.
The Early Han
- Edict of Emperor Wen on the primacy of agriculture (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) issued by Emperor Wen (r. 180–157 BC); tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999An emperor asks what he has done wrong. "For the past several years there have been no good harvests, and our people have suffered the calamities of flood, drought, and pestilence." He asks whether his government has erred, whether "too much grain is used to make wine", and asks his officials to propose remedies. A Han ruler's own words, very different in tone from the Qin edicts.
- Chao Cuo, Memorial on the encouragement of agriculture (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) a memorial to Emperor Wen (r. 180–157 BC); tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999A minister's answer. Yao and Yu had nine years of flood and Tang seven of drought, yet no one starved, "because provisions had been stored up in plenty". Chao Cuo argues that "Poverty is bred of insufficiency that is caused by lack of agriculture" — "If men do not farm, they will not be tied to the land".
- Dong Zhongshu, 'The Responsibilities of Rulership' (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) Dong Zhongshu (c. 195–c. 105 BC), Confucian scholar under Emperor Wu; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999The scholar whose thought, Columbia's introduction says, made his version of Confucianism "the orthodox philosophy of government in China". "Heaven, Earth, and humankind are the foundation of all living things. Heaven engenders all living things, Earth nourishes them, and humankind completes them." A ruler who neglects this foundation, he warns, cannot unite the people "even if he institutes strict punishments and heavy penalties".
- Sima Qian, Letter to Ren An (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) written by the Grand Historian, c. 91 BC; recorded in the Han shu; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999The man who wrote the Shiji explains, in his own words, why he accepted castration rather than death when Emperor Wu condemned him: to finish the history his father had begun. "A man has only one death. That death may be as weighty as Mount Tai, or it may be as light as a goose feather. It all depends upon the way he uses it." Every Shiji passage in this course comes through him.
Han Expansion: Envoys, Horses and the Silk Roads
- Zhang Qian's mission to the west, from the Shiji and Han shu (tr. Friedrich Hirth and Alexander Wylie; Silk Road Seattle, University of Washington) Zhang Qian travelled c. 138–126 BC; Shiji c. 100 BC, Han shu 1st century AD; Hirth's translation 1917, Wylie's 1874–1882The report of the envoy Emperor Wu sent to find allies against the Xiongnu. "When Chang K'ien started on his journey, his caravan consisted of more than a hundred men; thirteen years later, only two lived to return." In Bactria he saw "a stick of bamboo of Kiung" and "some cloth of Shu" from his own country, brought by way of India. The same page describes Ferghana's horses that "sweat blood".
- Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an–Tianshan Corridor (UNESCO World Heritage Centre) routes formed between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD; thirty-three sites; inscribed on the World Heritage List 2014"This property is a 5,000 km section of the extensive Silk Roads network, stretching from Chang'an/Luoyang, the central capital of China in the Han and Tang dynasties, to the Zhetysu region of Central Asia." UNESCO notes that the corridor "is directly associated with Zhang Qian's diplomatic mission to the Western Regions" and lists among its sites "capital cities and palace complexes", passes such as Yumen near Dunhuang, "beacon towers, sections of The Great Wall".
- A Record of the Debate on Salt and Iron, 81 BC (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) the court debate of 81 BC, written up by Huan Kuan; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999How Emperor Wu paid for his wars: state monopolies of salt, iron and liquor. In 81 BC, after his death, the court summoned scholars to argue the policy with the chancellor's men. The scholars: "Never should material profit appear as a motive of government"; the Imperial Secretary Sang Hongyang answers that the monopolies were set up "to raise more funds for expenditures at the borders". Both sides are given, at length.
- Tiger-shaped bronze tally issued to the Prefect of Zhangye (National Museum of China) Western Han; tallies of this kind from 178 BC; National Museum of China, BeijingHow a Han emperor sent an army out of a far frontier command. The museum explains that the tiger was cast in two halves: "the right half was kept in the capital" and the left half went to the prefecture, and no order to march took effect until the two halves fitted. This is the left half, inlaid in silver with the words "Zhangye, the left one".
Week 4
Culture, Legacy and Daily Life
life in the Han — farmers, artisans, merchants and officials, families and schools, Ban Zhao's Lessons for Women; the old worship of Heaven and the ancestors, Daoist teachers and the first Buddhists; the Yellow Turbans, Dong Zhuo and the end of the Han in AD 220; and the Han frontier generals beside the end of the western Roman emperors in AD 476
Pick two or more of these chapters to read.
K–5th Grade
Everyday Life in Ancient ChinaHistorical fiction
Culture of the Qin and Han Dynasties of China
6th–8th Grade
The Silk Road: An Enthralling Overview of the Ancient Trade Routes That Connected China to Europe
The Han Dynasty (Life During the Great Civilizations)
9th–12th Grade
The Silk Roads: A New History of the WorldSelected chapters
China: A HistorySelected chapters
Family and Daily Life under the Han
- Ban Zhao, Admonitions for Women (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) written by Ban Zhao (c. AD 48–c. 116), historian and teacher at the Eastern Han court; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999Ban Zhao wrote it for her own daughters: "I dread that you will lose face [when you are living behind] another's gate and bring shame on our lineage." She completed her brother Ban Gu's history of the Former Han and taught the empress. Her seven sections describe the duties expected of a wife in a Han household.
- The Classic of Filiality (Xiaojing) (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) written in the Former Han, 2nd–1st century BC; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999A short book cast as a talk between Confucius and his disciple Zengzi. "Filiality is the root of virtue and the wellspring of instruction." "Our body, skin, and hair are all received from our parents; we dare not injure them. This is the first priority in filial duty." It ties duty to parents to duty to the ruler.
- Pottery granary tower from an Eastern Han tomb (Metropolitan Museum of Art 13.100.11) Eastern Han, 1st–early 3rd century AD; green lead-glazed earthenware; John Stewart Kennedy Fund, 1913; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gallery 207)A model granary, 30.8 cm high, made to be buried. The Met: "Pottery models of houses and farm structures were commonly included in Eastern Han burials to provide for the afterlife." The Met holds other models from such tombs — a well-head with its bucket, a mill, animal pens and watchtowers: the farmstead of the living, in clay.
- Pottery storyteller beating a drum (National Museum of China) Eastern Han; 56 cm high; National Museum of China, BeijingA laughing entertainer with a drum under one arm and a drumstick raised, made for a tomb. The museum explains that Han comedians "usually attended upon their masters and performed improvisations by beating their drums while singing", and that it was popular among the royal family and officials "to raise comedians"; it quotes the Discourses on Salt and Iron on the subject.
Heaven, Ancestors, Spirits and the Buddha
- Mount Taishan (UNESCO World Heritage Centre) the sacred mountain of Shandong; Qin and Han imperial sacrifices from 219 BC; inscribed on the World Heritage List 1987The mountain where emperors reported to Heaven. UNESCO says it was "an important object of the cult worship of mountains" even before 219 BC, the year the First Emperor "paid tribute to the mountain in the Fengshan sacrifices to inform the gods of his success in unifying all of China." The mountain holds "12 historically recorded imperial ceremonies in homage to Heaven and Earth".
- Bronze mirror with the Queen Mother of the West and the Lord of the East (Metropolitan Museum of Art 17.52) Eastern Han, 2nd–3rd century AD; Rogers Fund, 1917; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkA bronze mirror, 18.1 cm across, cast on the back with gods and mythical creatures. The Met: "The seated figure with two attendants is the Queen Mother of the West, as indicated in the inscription. Seated across from her is her consort, the Lord of the East." The Met adds: "According to Han dynasty mythology, they jointly ruled the universe."
- Wang Chong, Lun-heng, 'On Death' (tr. Alfred Forke, Internet Archive) written by Wang Chong (AD 27–c. 97); Forke's translation, Leipzig and London 1907A Han scholar records the belief of his day and argues with it. "People say that the dead become ghosts, are conscious", and can hurt the living. Wang Chong answers that when a man dies "this vital fluid is exhausted" and the body "turns into earth and clay". The chapter records both the common belief of his day and one writer who doubted it.
- Mouzi, Disposing of Error (Lihuo lun) (Columbia University, Asia for Educators) a defence of Buddhism set in the last years of the Eastern Han; tr. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. 1999The new religion from India meets the old learning. A questioner asks: "If the way of the Buddha is the greatest and most venerable of ways, why did Yao, Shun, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius not practice it?" Mouzi answers from the Chinese classics themselves: "What accords with rightness is to be followed, what heals the sick is good."
The Fall of the Han
- Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian 54–59: the chronicle of AD 157–189, with the Yellow Turban rising of 184 (tr. Rafe de Crespigny, Australian National University) chronicle compiled AD 1065–1084 from the Hou Han shu and other histories; de Crespigny's translation 1989, internet edition 2025 (CC BY-NC-ND)The year-by-year record of the last strong decades of the Han: the Great Proscription of scholars and its end, pestilence in 182, "the teachings and organisation of Zhang Jue" in 183, and in 184 the "rebellion of the Yellow Turbans led by Zhang Jue" and its defeat. Sima Guang wrote nine centuries later from the Han histories; this is his chronicle, translated with notes.
- Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian 59–69: 'To Establish Peace', AD 189–200 (tr. Rafe de Crespigny, Australian National University) compiled AD 1065–1084; de Crespigny's translation 1996, internet edition 2025 (CC BY-NC-ND)The chronicle continues from the death of Emperor Ling: Dong Zhuo's seizure of the capital in 189, the warlords, and Cao Cao's rise to control of the court. Read the years 189–192 for how the dynasty lost its power; the formal end came in AD 220, when the last Han emperor gave up the throne to Cao Cao's son.
- Pottery watchtower from an Eastern Han tomb (Metropolitan Museum of Art 1984.397) Eastern Han, 1st–early 3rd century AD; green lead-glazed earthenware, 104 cm high; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkA tall model of a fortified tower, one of the "Pottery models of houses and farm structures … commonly included in Eastern Han burials". The Met holds another such model, a watchtower with four archers: in the last century of the Han, estates were built to be defended.
- 'Recovering the Tripod from the Si River': rubbing from the Wu family shrine (Metropolitan Museum of Art 20.111.35) stone engraving of c. AD 151, Jiaxiang, Shandong; rubbing 19th century; Rogers Fund, 1920; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkHow the Han remembered the fall of Qin. The Met: this rubbing "was taken from a stone engraving on a chamber wall of the Wu Family Shrine in Jiaxiang, Shandong Province", built about AD 151. It shows the First Emperor's attempt to raise one of the Nine Tripods from the Si River: "A dragon head emerges from the vessel and bites through the ropes." A family shrine carved in the last century of the Han.
Han and Rome: What Each Knew of the Other
- The Hou Han shu on the Western Regions: Gan Ying's journey (AD 97) and the envoys from 'Andun' (AD 166) (tr. John E. Hill; Silk Road Seattle, University of Washington) Hou Han shu compiled by Fan Ye, 5th century AD, from Han records; Hill's translation 2003The Chinese history of the Later Han on Da Qin, the Roman empire. In AD 97, "during the reign of Emperor He, the Protector General Ban Chao sent Gan Ying to Da Qin"; he reached Tiaozhi "next to a large sea" and did not cross it. In 166 "the king of Da Qin … Andun" — whom the translator identifies as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — "sent envoys" by sea through Rinan, offering "elephant tusks, rhinoceros horn, and turtle shell."
- Chinese accounts of Rome: the Hou Han shu and Weilüe on Da Qin (tr. Friedrich Hirth, Fordham East Asian History Sourcebook) Hou Han shu, 5th century AD; Weilüe, 3rd century AD; Hirth's China and the Roman Orient, 1885An older translation of the same Chinese reports, with the third-century Weilüe. Hirth's text of the 166 embassy: they "offered ivory, rhinoceros horns, and tortoise shell. From that time dates the direct intercourse with this country." Read it beside Hill's version above to see how two translators render one record.
- Pliny the Elder, Natural History 6.20: the Seres (tr. John Bostock and H. T. Riley) completed AD 77–79; Bostock and Riley's translation 1855–1857What a Roman knew of the silk people at the far end of the trade. "The first people that are known of here are the Seres, so famous for the wool that is found in their forests": Pliny thought silk was combed from leaves, and that Roman women then unravelled and rewove it. In book 12 (chapter 41) he complains of the hundred million sesterces a year that India, the Seres and Arabia drew out of the empire.
- Florus, Epitome of Roman History 2.34: embassies to Augustus (tr. E. S. Forster, LacusCurtius) written in the 2nd century AD, of the reign of Augustus (27 BC–AD 14); Forster's Loeb translation 1929A Roman writer's boast of the peace of Augustus: the Scythians and Sarmatians sent ambassadors, and "the Seres too and the Indians" came with gifts, reckoning "their long journey, in the accomplishment of which they had spent four years, as the greatest tribute which they rendered". A Roman report, written more than a century after the reign it praises.
What comes with the book
The Ultimate Guide
The textbook itself — the sixteen chapters these lessons are built from.
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Living History
Heroes and Villains Series: Ancient China — Told By Those Who Were There. The Heroes & Villains series, in the first person.
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The Adventure Box
Cards, lesson plans, activities, coloring pages and the craft kit for this era.
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