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from commerce and toward a more tr aditional emphasis

on agriculture, awa y from the exotic lands to the south and

toward the heartland of the country in the Yellow River

valley. The imperial capital was moved from Nanjing, in

central China, back to Beijing.

Why the Ming government discontinued Zhenghe’s

voyages and turned its attention back to domestic con-

cerns has long been a matter of scholarly debate. Was it

simply a consequence of court intrigues or the replace-

ment of one emperor by another, or were deeper issues

involved? A recent theory that has attracted wide atten-

tion and scholarly debate even speculated that the Chi-

nese fleets did not limit their explorations to the Indian

Ocean but actually circled the earth and discovered the

existence of the Western Hemisphere. The voyages, and

their abrupt discontinuance, remain one of the most

fascinating enigmas in the history of China.

In Search of the Way

Focus Question: What roles did Buddhism, Daoism,

and neo-Confucianism play in Chinese intellectual life

in the period between the Sui dynasty and the Ming?

By the time of the Sui dynasty, Buddhism and Daoism

had emerged as major rivals of Confucianism as the

ruling ideology of the state. But during the last half of the

Tang dynasty, Confucianism revived and once again be-

came dominant at court, a position it would retain to the

end of the dynastic period in the early twentieth century.

Buddhist and Daoist beliefs, however, remained popular

at the local level.

The Rise and Decline of Buddhism and Daoism

As noted earlier, Buddhism arrived in China with mer-

chants from India and found its first adherents among

the merchant community and intellectuals intrigued by

the new ideas. During the chaotic centuries following the

collapse of the Han dynasty, Buddhism and Daoism ap-

pealed to those who were searching for more emotional

and spiritual satisfaction than Confucianism could pro-

vide. Both faiths reached beyond the common people and

found support among the ruling classes as well.

The Sinification of Buddhism As Buddhism attracted

more f ollowers, it began to take on Chinese c haracter-

istics and divided into a number of separate sects. So me,

like the Chan (Zen in Japanese) sect, called for mind

training and a strict regimen as a means of seekin g en-

lightenment. Others, like the Pure Land sect, stressed

the role of devotion, an approach that was more ap-

pealing to ordinary Chinese, who lacked the tim e and

inclination for strict monastic discipline . Still others

were mystical sects, like Tantrism, which emphasized

the importance of magical symbols and ritual in seeki ng

a preferred way to enlightenment. Some Buddhist

groups, like their Daoist counterparts, had political

objectives. The White Lotus sect, founded in 1133, often

adopted the form of a rebel movement, seeking politi cal

reform or the overthrow of a dynasty and forecasting a

new era when a ‘‘savior Buddha’’ would come to earth t o

hera ld the advent of a new age. Most believers, however,

assimilated Buddhism into thei r daily lives, where it

joined Confu cian ideology and spirit worship as an

element in the highly eclec tic and tolerant Chinese

worldview.

The burgeoning popularity of Buddhism continued

into the early years of the Tang dynasty. Early Tang rulers

lent their support to the Buddhist monasteries that had

been established throughout the country. But ultimately,

Buddhism and Daoism lost favor at court and were in-

creasingly subjected to official persecution. Envious

Daoists and Confucianists made a point of criticizing

the foreign origins of Buddhist doctrines, which one

prominent Confucian scholar characterized as nothing

but ‘‘silly relics.’’ But another reason for this change of

heart may have been financial. The great Buddhist

monasteries had accumulated thousands of acres of land

and serfs that were exempt from paying taxes to the state.

Such wealth contributed to the corruption of the monks

and other Buddhist officials and in turn aroused popular

resentment and official disapproval. As the state at-

tempted to eliminate the great landholdings of the aris-

tocracy, the large monasteries also attracted its attention.

During the later Tang, countless temples and monasteries

were destroyed, and more than 100,000 monks were

compelled to leave the monasteries and return to secular

life.

Buddhism Under Threat Yet there were probably deeper

political and ideological reasons for the growing antagonism

between Buddhism and the state. By preaching the illusory

nature of the material world, Buddhism was denying the

very essence of Confucian teachings---the necessity for filial

piety and hard work. By encouraging young Chinese to

abandon their rice fields and seek refuge and wisdom in the

monasteries, Buddhism was undermining the foundation

stones of Chinese society---the family unit and the work

ethic. In the last analysis, Buddhism was incompatible with

the activi st element in Chinese society, an orientation that

was most effectively expressed by State Confucianism. In the

competition with Confucianism for support b y the state,

Buddhism, like Daoism, was almost c ertain to lose.

254 CHAPTER 10 THE FLOWERING OF TRADITIONAL CHINA

Neo-Confucianism: The Investigation

of Things

Into the vacuum left by the decline of Buddhism and

Daoism stepped a revived Confucianism. Challenged by

Buddhist and Daoist ideas about the nature of the uni-

verse, Confucian thinkers began to flesh out the spare

metaphysical structure of classical Confucian doctrine

with a set of sophisticated theories about the nature of the

cosmos and humans’ place in it.

The fundamental purpose of neo-Confucianism,

as the new doctrine was called, was to unite the

metaphysical speculations of Buddhism and Daoism

with the pragmatic Confucian approach to societ y. In

response to Buddhism and Daoism, neo-Confucianism

maintained that the world is real, not illusor y,

and that fulfillment comes from par ticipation, not

withdrawal.

The primary contributor to this intellectual effort

was the philosopher Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi). Raised during

the southern Song era, Zhu Xi accepted the division of

the world into a material world and a transcendent

world (called by neo-Confucianists the Supreme

Ultimate, or Ta i Ji). The latter was roughly equivalent

to the Dao, or Way, in classical Confucian philosophy.

To Zhu Xi, this Supreme Ultimate was a set of abstract

principles governed by the law of yin and yang and the

five elements.

Human beings served as a link between the two

halves of this bifurcated universe. Although human

beings live in the material world, each individual has an

identity that is linked with the Supreme Ultimate, and

the goal of individual action is to transcend the material

world in a Buddhist sense to achieve an essential

identity with the Supreme Ultimate. According to Zhu

Xi and his followers, the means of transcending the

material world is self-cultivation, which is achieved by

the ‘‘investigation of things.’’ During the remainder of

the Song dynasty and into the early years of the Ming ,

Zhu Xi’s ideas became the central core of Confucian

ideology and a favorite source of questions for the civil

service examinations.

Neo-Confu cianism remained the state doctrine

until the end of the dynastic system in the twentieth

century. Some historians have asked whether the doc-

trine can help to explain why China failed to experience

scien tific and industrial revolut ions of the sort that oc-

curred in the West. In particular, it has been suggested

that neo-Confucianism tended to encourage an em-

phasis on the elucidation of moral prin ciples rather than

the expansion of scientific knowledge. Thou gh the

Chinese excelled in practical technology, inventing

gunpowder, the compass (first used by seafarers during

the Song dyna sty), printing and paper, and cast iron,

among other things, they had less interest in scientific

theory. Their relative backwardness in mathematics is a

good example. Chinese scholars had no knowledge of

the principles of geometry and lagged behind other

advanced civilizations in astronomy, physics, and optics.

Unti l the Mongol era, they had no knowledge of Arabic

numerals and lacked the concept of zero. Even after that

time, they continued to use a cumbersome numbering

system based on Chinese characters.

Furthermore, intellectual affairs in China continued

to be dominated by the scholar-gentry, the chief up-

holders of neo-Confucianism, who not only had little

Longmen Cave s Buddh ist Sculpture. The Silk

Road, which stretched across Central Asia from the

Middle East to China, was an avenue for ideas as well as

trade. Over the centuries, Christian, Buddhist, and Muslim

teachings came to China across the sandy wastes of the

Taklimakan Basin. In the seventh century, the Tang

emperor Gaozong commissioned this massive temple

carving as part of the large complex of cave art devoted

to Buddha at Longmen in central China. Bold and

grandiose in their construction, these statues reflect the

glory that was the Tang dynasty.



William J. Duiker

IN SEARCH OF THE WAY 255

interest in the natural sciences or economic change but

also viewed them as a threat to t heir own d ominant

status in Chinese societ y. The commercial middle class,

who lacked social status and an independent position in

society, had little say in intellectual matters. In contrast,

in the West, an urban middle class emerged that was a

source not only of wealth but also of social prestige,

political power, and intellectual ideas. The impetus for

the intellectual revolution in the West came from the

members of the commercial bourgeoisie, who were in-

terested in the co nquest of nature and the development

of technology. In China, however, the scholar-gentry

continued to focus on the sou rces of human behavior

and a correct understanding of the relationship between

humankind and the universe. The result was an intel-

lectual environment that valued continuity over c hange

and tradition over innovation.

The Apogee of Chinese Culture

Focus Question: What were the main achievements in

Chinese literature and art in the period between the

Tang dynasty and the Ming, and what technolo gical

innovations and intellectual developments contributed

to these achievements?

The period between the Tang and the Ming dynasties was

in many ways the great age of achievement in Chinese

literature and art. Enriched by Buddhist and Daoist im-

ages and themes, Chinese poetry and painting reached the

pinnacle of their creativity. Porcelain emerged as the

highest form of Chinese ceramics, and sculpture flour-

ished under the influence of styles imported from India

and Central Asia.

Literature

The development of Chinese literature was stimulated by

two technological innovations: the invention of paper

during the Han dynasty and the invention of woodblock

printing during the Tang. At first, paper was used for

clothing, wrapping material, toilet tissue, and even armor,

but by the first century

B.C.E., it was being used for writing

as well.

In the seventh centur y

C.E., the Chinese developed

the technique of carving an entire page of text into a

wooden block, inking it, and then pressing it onto

a sheet of paper. Ordinarily, a text was printed on a long

sheet of paper like a scroll. Then the paper was folded

and stitched together to form a book. The earliest

printed book known today is a Buddhist text published

in 868

C.E.; it is more than 16 feet long . Although the

Chinese eventually developed movable type as well,

block printing continued to be used until relatively

modern times because of the large number of Chinese

characters needed to produce a lengthy text. Even with

printing, books remained too expensive for most Chi-

nese, but they did help popularize all forms of literar y

writing among the educated elite.

During the post -Han era, historical writing and

essays continued to be favorite forms of literary activity.

Each dynasty produced an official dynastic history of its

predecessor to elucidate sober maxims about the quali-

ties of good and evil in human nature, and local gaz-

ette ers added to the general knowledge about the various

regions .

Poetry But it was in poetry, above all, that Chinese of

the Tang to the Ming dynasties most effectively ex-

pressed their literar y talents. Chinese poems celebrated

the beauty of nature, the changes of the seasons, the joys

of friendship and drink, and sadness at the brevity of

life, old age, and parting. Love poems existed but were

neither as intense as Western verse nor as sensual as

Indian poetry.

The nature of the Chinese language imposed certain

characteristics on Chinese poetry, the first being com-

pactness. The most popular forms were four-line and

eight-line poems, with five or seven words in each line.

Because Chinese grammar does not rely on case or gender

and makes no distinction between verb tenses, five-

character Chinese poems were not only brief but often

cryptic and ambiguous.

Two Tang poets, Li Bo (Li Po, sometimes known as

Li Bai or Li Taibo) and Du Fu (Tu Fu), symbolized the

genius of the era as well as the two most popular styles.

Li Bo was a free spirit. His writing often centered on

nature and shifted easily between moods of revelry and

melancholy.

Whereas Li Bo was a carefree Daoist, Du Fu was a

sober Confucian. His poems often dealt with historical

issues or ethical themes, befitting a scholar-official living

during the chaotic times of the late Tang era. Many of his

works reflect a concern with social injustice and the plight

of the unfortunate rarely to be found in the writings of

his contemporaries (see the box on p. 257). Neither the

poetry nor the prose of the great writers of the Tang and

Song dynasties was written for or ever reached the ma-

jority of the Chinese population.

Popular Culture By the Song dynasty, China had 60

million people, with one million in Hangzhou alone.

With the growth of cities came an increased demand for

popular entertainment. Although the Tang dynasty had

imposed a curfew on urban residents, the Song did not.

256 CHAPTER 10 THE FLOWERING OF TRADITIONAL CHINA

The city gates and bridges were closed at dark, but food

stalls and entertainment continued through the night. At

fairgrounds throughout the year, one could find come-

dians, musicians, boxers, fencers, wrestlers, acrobats,

puppets and marionettes, shadow plays, and especially

storytellers.

The Chinese Novel During the Yuan dynast y, new

forms of literar y creativit y, including p opular theater

and the novel, began to appear. One of the most famous

novels was Tale of the Marshes, an often violent tale of

bandit heroes who at the end of the northern Song

banded together to oppose government taxes and offi-

cial oppression. They stole from those in power to share

with the poor. Tale of the Marshes is the first prose

fiction that describes the daily ordeal of ordinar y Chi-

nese people in their own language. Unlike the pica-

resque novel in the Wes t, Tale of the Marshes does not

limit itself to the exploits of one hero, offering instead

108 different stor y lines. This multitude of plots is a

natural outgrowth of t he tra dition of the professio nal

storyteller, who attempts to keep the audience’s atten-

tion by recounting as many adventures as the market

will bear.

Ar t

Although painting flourished in China under the Han

and reached a level of artistic excellence under the Tang,

little remains from those periods. The painting of the

Song and the Yuan, however, is considered the apogee of

painting in traditional China.

Like literatur e, Chinese painting found part of its in-

spiration in Buddhist and Daoist sources. Some of the best

surviving examples of the Tang period are the Buddhist

wall paintings in the caves at Dunhuang, in Central Asia.

TWO TANG POETS

Li Bo was one of the great poets of the Tang

dynasty. The first selection, Quiet Night Thoughts,

is probably the best-known poem in China and has

been memorized by schoolchildren for centuries.

The second poem, Drinking Alone in Moonlight, reflects the

poet’s carefree attitude toward life.

Du Fu, Li Bo’s prime competitor as the greatest poet of

the Tang dynasty, was often the more reflective of the two.

In Spring Prospect, the poet has returned to his home in the

capital after a rebellion against the dynasty has left the city

in ruins.

Historians often contrast the personalities and a pproach

to life of these two famous p oets. Can you see any differ-

ences in their po ints of view as conveyed in these short

poems?

THE APOGEE OF CHINESE CULTURE 257

Text not available due to copyright restrictions

Like the few surviving Tang scroll paintings, these wall

paintings dis play a love of color and refinement that are

reminiscent of styles in India and Iran.

Daoism ultimately had a greater influence than

Buddhism on Chinese painting. From early times,

Chinese artists removed themselves to the mountains

to w rite and paint and find the Dao, or Way, in nature.

In the fifth century, one Chinese painter, who was too

old to travel, began to paint mountain scenes from

memory and announced that depicting nature could

function as a substitute for contemplating nature itself.

Painting, he said, could be the means of realizing the

Dao. This explains in part the emphasis on nature in

traditional Chinese painting. The word landscape in

Chinese means ‘‘mountain-water,’’ and the Daoist

search for balance between earth and water, hard and

soft, yang and yin, is at play in the tradition of Chinese

painting.

To represent the totality of nature, Chinese artists

attempted to reveal the quintessential forms of the

landscape. Rather than depicting the actual realistic shape

of a specific mountain, they tried to portray the idea of

‘‘mountain.’’ Empty spaces were left in the paintings be-

cause in the Daoist vision, one cannot know the whole

truth. Daoist influence was also evident in the tendency

to portray human beings as insignificant in the midst of

nature. In contrast to the focus on the human body and

personality in Western art, Chinese art presented people

as tiny figures fishing in a small boat, meditating on a

cliff, or wandering up a hillside trail, coexisting with but

not dominating nature.

The Chinese displayed their paintings on long

scrolls of silk or paper that were attached to a wooden

cylindrical bar at the bottom. Varying in length from

3 to 20 feet, the paintings were unfolded slowly so that

the eye could enjoy each segment, one after the other,

beginning at the bottom with water or a v illage and

moving upward into the hills to the mountain

peaks and the sky.

By the tenth centur y, Chinese painters began to

eliminate color from their paintings, preferring the

cha llenge of capturing the distilled essence of t he

landscape in washes of black ink on white silk.

Borrowing from calligraphy, now a sophisticated

and revered art, they emphasized the brush stroke

and created black-and-white landscapes character-

ized by a gravity of mood and dominated by over-

powe ring mountains.

Second only to painting in creativity was the

field of ceramics, notably, the manufacture of por-

celain. Made of fine clay baked at unusually high

temperatures in a kiln, porcelain was first produced

during the period after the fall of the Han and be-

came popular during the Tang era. During the Song,

porcelain came into its own. The translucent char-

acter of Chinese porcelain represented the final

product of a technique that did not reach Europe

until the eighteenth century.

Emperor Ming-huang T raveling to Shu. Although the

Tang dynasty was a prolific period in the development of Chinese

painting, few examples have survived. Fortunately, the practice

of copying the works of previous masters was a common tradition

in China. Here we see an eleventh-century copy of an eighth-

century painting depicting the precipitous journey of Emperor

Ming-huang after a revolt forced him to flee from the capital

into the mountains of southwest China. Rather than portraying

the bitterness of the emperor’s precarious escape, however, the

artist reflected the confidence and brilliance of the Tang dynasty

through cheerful color and an idyllic landscape.



The Art Archive/National Palace Museum, Taipei

258 CHAPTER 10 THE FLOWERING OF TRADITIONAL CHINA

TIMELINE

100

300 500 700 900 1100 1300 1500

Era of anarchy

and division

Construction of Grand Canal

Buddhist penetration of China Golden age of Tang poetry Tale of the Marshes

Invention of woodblock printing

Reforms of

Wang Anshi

Creation of the formal civil service examination

Tang dynasty

Song dynasty

Yuan (Mongol)

dynasty

Early development of

firearms in China

Voyages of

Zhenghe

Ming dynasty

CONCLUSION

TRADITIONALLY CHINESE HISTORIANS believed that

Chinese history tended to be cyclical. The pattern of history was

marked by the rise and fall of great dynasties, interspersed with

periods of internal division and foreign invasion. Underlying the

waxing and waning of dynasties was the essential continuity of

Chinese civilization.

This view of the dynamic forces of Chinese history was long

accepted as valid by historians in China and in the West and led

many to assert that Chinese history was unique and could not be

placed in a European or universal framework. Whereas Western

history was linear, leading steadily away from the past, China’s

always returned to its moorings and was rooted in the values and

institutions of antiquity.

In recent years, however, this traditional view of a changeless

China has come under increasing challenge from historians who see

patterns of change that made the China of the late fifteenth century

a very different place from the country that had existed at the rise of

the Tang dynasty in ithe early seventh century. To these scholars,

China had passed through its own version of the ‘‘middle ages’’ and

was on the verge of beginning a linear evolution into a

posttraditional society.

As we have seen, China at the beginning of the Ming had

advanced in many ways since the end of the great Han dynasty more

than a thousand years earlier. The industrial and commercial sector

had grown considerably in size, complexity, and technological

capacity, while in the countryside, the concentration of political and

economic power in the hands of the aristocracy had been replaced

by a more stable and equitable mixture of landed gentry, freehold

farmers, and sharecroppers. In addition, Chinese society had

achieved a level of stability and social tranquillity that was the envy

of observers from other lands near and far. The civil service

provided an avenue of upward mobility that was unavailable

elsewhere in the world, and the state tolerated a diversity of beliefs

that responded to the emotional needs and preferences of the

Chinese people. In many respects, China’s achievements were

unsurpassed throughout the world and marked a major advance

beyond the world of antiquity.

Yet there were also some key similarities between the China of

the Ming and the China of late antiquity. Ming China was still a

predominantly agrarian society, with wealth based primarily on the

ownership of land. Commercial activities flourished but remained

under a high level of government regulation and by no means

represented a major proportion of the national income. China also

remained a relatively centralized empire based on an official

ideology that stressed the virtue of hard work, social conformity,

and hierarchy.

Thus, the significant change that China experienced during its

medieval era can probably be best described as change within

continuity, an evolutionary working out of trends that had first

become visible during the Han dynasty or even earlier. The result

was a civilization that was the envy of its neighbors and of the

world. It also influenced other states in the region, including Japan,

Korea, and Vietnam. It is to these societies along the Chinese

rimlands that we now turn.

CONCLUSION 259

SUGGESTED READING

General For an authoritative overview of the early

imperial era in China, see M. Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese

Past (Stanford, Calif., 1973). A global perspective is presented in

S. A. M. Adshead, China in World History (New York, 2000).

For an informative treatment of China’s relations with its neighbors,

see C. Holcombe, The Genesis of East Asia, 220

B.C.E.--A.D. 907

(Honolulu, 2001).

A vast body of material is available on almost all periods of

early Chinese history. For the post-Han period, see A. E. Dien, ed.,

State and Society in Early Medieval China (Stanford, Calif., 1990);

F. Mote, Imperial China (Cambridge, 1999); and D. Twitchett and

M. Loewe, Cambridge History of China, vol. 3, Medieval China

(Cambridge, 1986).

The Sui, Tang, and Song Dynasties For a readable treatment

of the brief but tempestuous Sui dynasty, see A. F. Wright, The Sui

Dynasty (New York, 1978). On the Tang, see C. Benn, China’s

Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty (Oxford, 2004).

The Song dynasty has been studied in considerable detail. For an

excellent interpretation, see J. T. C. Liu, China Turning Inward:

Intellectual Changes in the Early Twelfth Century (Cambridge,

Mass., 1988). Song problems with the northern frontier are

chronicled in Tao Jing-shen, Two Sons of Heaven: Studies in

Sung-Liao Relations (Tucson, Ariz., 1988).

The Mongol Period Among a number of good studies on the

Mongol period in Chinese histor y is W. A. Langlois, China Under

Mongol Rule (Princeton, N.J., 1981). M. Rossabi, Kh ubilai Khan :

His Life and Times (Berkeley, Calif., 1988), is a good biography of

the dynasty’s greatest emperor, while M. Rossabi, ed., China

Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors (Berkeley,

Calif., 1983 ), deals with foreign a ffairs. For a provocative

interpretation of Chinese relations with nomadic peoples, see

T. J. Barfield, The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China

(Cambridge, 1989). An analytical account of the dynamics of

nomadic society is A. M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside

World (Cambridge, 1983).

Miscellaneous Topics The emergence of urban culture during

the Mongol era is analyzed in C. K. Heng, Cities of Aristocrats and

Bureaucrats: The Development of Medieval Chinese Cityscapes

(Honolulu, 1999). For perspectives on China as v iewed from the

outside, see J. Spence, The Chan’s Great Continent: China in a

Western Mirror (New York, 1998). China’s contacts with foreign

cultures are discussed in J. Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing

(New York, 1999). On the controversial suggestion that Chinese

fleets circled the globe in the fifteenth century, see G. Menzies,

1421: The Year China Discovered America (New York, 2002).

Chinese Women’s Issues For an introduction to women’s

issues during this period, consult P. B. Ebrey, The Inner Quarters:

Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period

(Berkeley, Calif., 1993); Chu Hsi’s Family Rituals (Princeton,

N.J., 1991); and ‘‘Women, Marriage, and the Family in Chinese

History,’’ in P. S. Ropp, Heritage of China: Contemporary

Perspectives on Chinese Civilization (Berkeley, Calif., 1990).

For an overview of Chinese foot binding, see C. F. Blake, ‘‘Foot-

Binding in Neo-Confucian China and the Appropriation of

Female Labor,’’ Signs 19 (Spring 1994).

Central Asia On Central Asia, two popular accounts are

J. Myrdal, The Silk Road (New York, 1979), and N. Marty, The Silk

Road (Methuen, Mass., 1987). A more interpretive approach is

found in S. A. M. Adshead, Central Asia in World History (New

York, 1993). See also E. T. Grotenhuis, ed., Along the Silk Road

(Washington, D.C., 2002). Xuan Zang’s journey to India is re-

created in R. Bernstein, Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of

an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of

Enlightenment (New York, 2000).

Chinese Literature On Chinese literature, consult S. Owen,

An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (New York,

1996), and V. Mair, The Columbia Anthology of Traditional

Chinese Literature (New York, 1994). For poetry, see Liu Wu-Chi

and I. Yucheng Lo, Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of

Chinese Poetry (Bloomington, Ind., 1975), and S. Owen, The Great

Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang (New Haven, Conn., 1981),

the latter presenting poems in both Chinese and English.

Chinese Art For a comprehensive introduction to Chinese art,

see the classic M. Sullivan, The Arts of China, 4th ed. (Berkeley,

Calif., 1999); M. Tregear, Chinese Art, rev. ed. (London, 1997); and

C. Clunas, Art in China (Oxford, 1997). The standard introduction

to Chinese painting can be found in J. Cahill, Chinese Painting

(New York, 1985), and Yang Xin et al., Three Thousand Years of

Chinese Painting (New Haven, Conn., 1997).

Visit the website for The Essential World History to access study

aids such as Flashcards, Critical Thinking Exercises, and

Chapter Quizzes:

www.cengage.com/history/duikspiel/essentialworld6e

260 CHAPTER 10 THE FLOWERING OF TRADITIONAL CHINA

261

CHAPTER 11

THE EAST ASIAN RIMLANDS:

EARLY JAPAN, KOREA, AND VIETNAM

CHAPTER OUTLINE

AND FOCUS QUESTIONS

Japan: Land of the Rising Sun

How did Japan’s geographic location affect the course of

its early history, and how did the location influence the

political structures and social institutions that arose

there?

Korea: Bridge to the East

What were the main characteristics of economic and

social life in early Korea?

Vietnam: The Smaller Dragon

What were the main developments in Vietnamese

history before 1500? Why were the Vietnamese able to

restore their national independence after a millennium

of Chinese rule?

CRITICAL THINKING

How did Chinese civilization influence the societies that

arose in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam during their early

history?

Turtle Island, Hanoi



William J. Duiker

262

THERE IS A SMALL body of water in the heart of the

Vietnamese national capital of Hanoi that is known affectionately

to local city-dwellers as Returned Sword Lake. The lake owes its

name to a legend that Le Loi, founder of the later Le dynasty in the

fifteenth century, had drawn a magic sword from the lake that en-

abled him to achieve a great victory over Chinese occupation forces.

Thus, to many Vietnamese the lake symbolizes their nation’s histori-

cal resistance to domination by its powerful northern neighbor.

Ironically, however, a temple that was later erected on tiny

Turtle Island in the middle of the lake reflects the strong influence

that China continued to exert on traditional Vietnamese culture. After

Le Loi’s victory, the sword was supposedly returned to the water, and

the Vietnamese ruler accepted a tributary relationship to his ‘‘elder

brother,’’ the Chinese emperor in Beijing. China’s philosophy, political

institutions, and social mores served as hallmarks for the Vietnamese

people down to the early years of the twentieth century. That is why

for centuries Vietnam was known as ‘‘the smaller dragon.’’

Le Loi’s deferential attitude toward his larger neighbor should

not surprise us. During ancient times, China was the most techno-

logically advanced society in East Asia. To its north and west were

pastoral peoples whose military exploits were often impressive but

whose political and cultural attainments were still limited, at least by

Japan: Land of the Rising Sun

Focus Question: How did Japan’s geog raphic location

affect the course of its early history, and how did the

location influence the political structures and social

institutions that arose there?

The geographic environment helps explain some of the

historical differences betw een Chinese and Japanese soci-

ety. Whereas China is a continental civilization, Japan is an

island country . It consists of four main islands (see

Map 11.1): Hokkaido in the north, the main island of

Honshu in the center, and the two smaller islands of

Kyushu and Shikoku in the southwest. Its total land area is

about 146,000 square miles, about the size of the state of

Montana. Japan ’s main islands are at appro ximately the

same latitude as the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Like the eastern United States, Japan is blessed with a

temperate climate. It is slightly warmer on the east coast,

which is washed by the Pacific current that sweeps up

from the south, and has a number of natural harbors that

provide protection from the winds and high waves of the

Pacific Ocean. As a consequence, in recent times, the

majority of

the Japanese

people have

tended to live

along the east

coast, espe-

cially in the

flat plains sur-

rounding the

cities of Tokyo ,

Osaka, and

Kyoto. In these

favorable envi-

ronmental con-

ditions, Japa-

nese farmers

have been able to harvest two crops of rice annually since

early times.

By no means, however, is Japan an agricultural par-

adise. Like China, much of the country is mountainous, so

only about 20 percent of the total land area is suitable for

cultivation. These mountains are of volcanic origin, since

the Japanese islands are located at the juncture of the

Asian and Pacific tectonic plates. This location is both an

advantage and a disadvantage. Volcanic soils are extremely

fertile, which helps explain the exceptionally high pro-

ductivity of Japanese farmers. At the same time, the area is

prone to earthquakes, such as the famous earthquake of

1923, which destroyed almost the entire city of Tokyo.

Kanto Plain

HONSHU

HOKKAIDO

KYUSHU

SHIKOKU

KOREA

JAPAN

Heian (Kyoto)

Nagasaki

Edo (Tokyo)

Osaka

Pacific

Ocean

Inland

Sea

(

)

0 200 400 Miles

0 200 400 600 Kilometers

MAP 11.1 Earl y Ja pan. This map shows key cities in Japan

during the early development of the Japanese state.

What was the original heartland of Japanese civilization on

the main island of H onshu?

View an animated version of this map or related maps

www .cengage.com/history/duikspiel/essentialworld6e

Gulf of

Tonkin

CHINA

Modern boundary

of Vietnam

Hanoi

100 Miles0

0 150 Kilometers

Early Vietnam

JAPAN:LAND OF THE RISING SUN 263

comparison with the great river valley civilizations of the day. In in-

land areas south of the Yangtze River were scattered clumps of rice

farmers and hill peoples, most of whom had not yet entered the era

of state building and had little knowledge of the niceties of Confu-

cian ethics. Along the fringes of Chinese civilization were a number

of other agricultural societies that were beginning to follow a pattern

of development similar to that of China, although somewhat later in

time. One of these was in the Red River valley, heartland of early

Vietnamese civilization, where a relatively advanced agricultural civili-

zation had been in existence for several hundred years before the area

was finally conquered by the Han dynasty in the second century

C.E.

(see the spot map below). Another was in the islands of Japan, where

an organized society was beginning to take shape just as Chinese

administrators were attempting to consolidate imperial rule over the

Vietnamese people. On the Korean peninsula, an advanced Neolithic

society had already begun to develop a few centuries earlier.

All of these early agricultural societies were eventually influenced

to some degree by their great neighbor, China. Vietnam remained

under Chinese rule for a thousand years. Korea retained its separate

existence but was long a tributary state of China and in many ways

followed the cultural example of its larger patron. Only Japan retained

both its political independence and its cultural uniqueness. Yet even

the Japanese were strongly influenced by the glittering culture of their

powerful neighbor, and today many Japanese institutions and customs

still bear the imprint of several centuries of borrowing from China. In

this chapter, we will take a closer look at these emerging societies

along the Chinese rimlands and consider how their cultural achieve-

ments reflected or contrasted with those of the Chinese Empire.