12.6 The far east: 300 to 201 b.c.  (Page 2/2)

The era of Warring States continued until 230 B.C. when Shih Huang-ti began a campaign of conquest and unification of China which was completed by 222 B.C., establishing the Ch'in Dynasty. Coming from the Wei Valley, a true frontier country, the leader adopted this title of Huang-ti, meaning "August Lord", but usually translated "Emperor", and "Shih" simply means "first". He began as King Zheng of Qin at thirteen years of age, when the country was initially ruled by the chancellor, Lu Buwei. This First Emperor built the Great Wall of China, one of the greatest construction feats of all time, to protect the nation against barbarians. Seven hundred thousand forced laborers were used in building the wall and thousands of them died, crushed beneath some of the massive gray rocks. The wall was roughly 1,500 miles long and wide enough for six horses to gallop abreast along the top. The nation's first standing army, consisting of perhaps millions, was created to guard the wall from northern invaders and it did discourage the Huns, who then turned west into Europe.

Shih Huang-ti spent thirty-six years building a subterranean palace in which he could spend eternity and used seven hundred thousand conscripts to build this, also. Recent excavations of his tomb indicate that a guardian army of six thousand life-size pottery men and horses were constructed to stand eternal guard at his tomb. In addition, however, he did build great highways and encouraged science while discouraging letters and especially Confucian scholars. He buried 460 of the latter alive. China was divided into provinces with civil and military officials in a hierarchy of ranks; writing was standardized and there was an elaborate postal system and a great irrigation system in the Chengtu region of Szechwan. It was the Chinese written language in ideographic characters whose meaning is totally unrelated to local variations in pronunciation and spoken dialects, and which can therefore be understood throughout, that provided an important unifying instrument, even in the south which was occupied by people of non-Chinese origin.

The Yangtze Valley and other southern territories, although under political domination by the Chinese, could not be fully incorporated into the Chinese social structure because of disease barriers

In the countryside south and west of the canal one-third of the people even today belong to minority groups such as the Zhuang, considered barbarians by the Hans.

Following the death of the First Emperor, disorder and civil war broke out, with nature adding its bit by floods and droughts. Shih's son was killed and chaos reigned until Koa-tsu, a petty official, turned general and emerged as the supreme ruler and founder of the Han Dynasty in 202 B.C.. The Formative Age of China had ended.

Huang-ti is generally regarded as the author of the canon of internal medicine called "NeiChing", but this may have originated much earlier . This work says that the blood current flows continuously in a circle and never stops. It describes acupuncture with needles from 1" to 10" long, a system which is still used to restore the balance of Yin and Yang in the body. It was in this century that iron weapons finally became common in China almost a thousand years after its use in Thailand and in the West, although the metal had been introduced some two centuries before. An interesting point is that when the Chinese did start to use iron it was cast, rather than wrought iron, and cast iron requires a heat of 1,400 degrees Centigrade at which temperature the iron melts and the slag is drawn off, allowing the molten iron to be poured into molds, like bronze. From the beginning the Chinese smiths knew only this method, and the heat required, which needs some type of blast furnace, was not produced in the West until many centuries later. (Ref. 89 , 219 , 69 , 221 , 215 , 140 , 211 ) Additional Notes

Japan

About 300 B.C., a new wave of Mongoloid immigrants from the mainland introduced rice culture, bronze, and if it was not already there, the potter's wheel to Japan, beginning the Yayoi Period. Although Chinese rulers had kept the seri culture secret until this century it now came to Japan, perhaps through Korea. (Ref. 19 , 122 ) Bergamini (Ref. 12 ) states that in addition to the bronze and rice, traders brought in iron at this time.

Korea

The Korean people are related racially, linguistically and culturally to the ancient peoples of Manchuria and Siberia as well as to the Japanese, but their post-Neolithic civilization came largely from China. In this century, among several existing states, the most civilized was Chosen, a semi-sinicized community in the northwest. (Ref. 119 )

SOUTHEAST ASIA

Distinctive, massive, bronze drums decorated with images of animals and men date to 300 B.C. at Dong Son (North Vietnam). From the study of material in the National Archeological Museum in Tripoli, North Africa, Barry Fell (Ref. 66 ) writes that inscriptions copied from a cave in northwestern New Guinea in 1974 appear to be the work of a Libyan navigator who signed his name M-W (Egyptian "Mawi" means "navigator") sounding like Polynesian "Maui". The date of the New Guinea inscription was "the 15th year of Ptolemy III of Egypt" or 232 B.C. Further comments regarding the possible significance of this finding will be given in the next section. In 218 B.C. the Chinese Huang-ti, in his conquests, took over the Red River delta area (now Hanoi and Haiphong) and brought strong Chinese influences as well as Chinese blood to this area.

Forward to The Far East: 200 to 101 B.C.

Choose different region

• Intro to Era
• Africa
• America
• Central and Northern Asia
• Europe
• The Indian Subcontinent
• The Near East
• Pacific