Technological Advancement In Ancient China

This chapter shows the trade over the ocean in 1000 ce. The ship was carrying raw materials and goods from all across Asia, containing tin and many more valuable metals.This shows the importance of tin in southeast Asia. Also Tin as a part of another important metal, bronze, was necessary for the production of everyday objects in many areas in Asia. This chapter shows how important metal was at this time and how much of use it was. The maps made it easy to show how Asia connected around other parts of the Asian world."Finally, trade was essential to the everyday practice of culture in the Asian world." [Page 73] this quote shows how trade was good for Asia in bringing it together

After studying the provided documents (#1-8) its come to my understanding that both the Han and Roman empires thought of technology as useful and somewhat revolutionary, but both of them had somewhat different feelings of it. The Han dynasties attitude toward technology was that they thought it was very benefical, and they admired it. The reason this was because they though it to be very helpful in agriculture and construction purposes. Evidence of the positive effects of this can be seen in Document 4: History of the Early Han Dynasty which tells of a governer of Nanynay and as the very generous and loving person he was his policies also refelcted his personality. He had so much love for his people he wanted to lift weight of their

The Europeans who dreamt of conquering Asia were under the impression that Asia was a blank slate, isolated with no history and traditions. However, that is their misconception for Asia from 500-1500 CE “was a vast world of contrast… [and] bewildering variety” thriving with many empires, capital cities, religions, and cultures (Gordon, 177). Because of this, Asia then can be classified as a compilation of many key eras such as the Medieval Age in China and the Golden Age. Such prosperous times for Asian states and empires are to be accredited to the notable networking in Asia at this time period. People who utilized the establishment of fundamental institutions such as the religions of Islam and Buddhism and various modes of trading and traveling were able to facilitate the diffusion of ideas and cultures therefore indirectly contributing to the overall connection of Asian states and empires during 500-1500 CE.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, power is the ability or right to control people or things. This definition is apparent throughout the history of China and through historical figures. Confucius is one of the most influential historical figures of Chinese history. In Confucius’s mind, the government should retain power, however, not to the extent that they do today. According to The Confucian Ethic and More About Confucius, “the government’s most important job was to inspire people [...] to feed and protect the people and gain their admiration” (The Confucian Ethic 13) . Confucius’ beliefs differ from what is going on now because he is calling for the government to treat the people with respect and take care of them. This may exist somewhat in China today, but China is known for killing political prisoners and silencing people who disagree with them. Mao Zedong, another historical

Early china become very resourceful, using silk worms to create cloth, pounding soil into wooding frames until it became packed and hard as cement, and making pottery.

The Han and Roman civilizations both took a deep pride in their technological breakthroughs as it made their people’s lives easier by decreasing the time and labor it took to complete a job. Document 2, talks about the creation of the pestle and the mortar by, Huan Tan. The pestle and mortar were tools

Mao Zedong, the leader of China during the third quarter of the 20th century, organized two movements in his country in an attempt to develop China 's economy through the establishment of communism. Through The Great Leap Forward, Mao planned to change the layout of the Chinese economy by forcing collectivism on his country and implementing other ways to speed up production. Since this movement failed, he then implemented The Cultural Revolution. It consisted of the same goals but was carried out through violence and was also an utter failure. These two movements failed because of the lack of organization with which they were performed. This lack of organization manifested itself in a number of different ways. The government did not care about their people, the reforms themselves were not planned out in detail, the government did not think about the spontaneity of young people, they did not consider the effect violence would have on their country, they did not realize the decline in education that would result from the participation of students in the revolution, they did not plan well economically, they did not examine the negative effects of communes, and they did not foresee the large number of deaths that would plague their country. Although designed to rapidly increase China 's economic growth through communism, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution had the opposite effects and significantly diminished China 's economy. The two direct causes of the failure

The civilization of ancient China was the most successful civilization with their inventions,food,and religion. They had the best inventions like fireworks these were amazing because some inventions they’ve made are fireworks. Fireworks were used for many things in China, and now in many countries. reason we use them is for celebrations or 4th of July. China made fireworks around 2,000 years ago. people say that a chinese cook created it in a field kitchen and accidentally mixed, charcoal, sulphur, and saltpeter. Which he found in his kitchen all so commonly to make something so amazing that we use today.

New agricultural techniques, porcelain, metallurgy, printing, and naval technology were few of the technological elements that reinforced the established features of social order. New agricultural techniques helped in the expand of their agricultural potential, the dynasties gained reputation from porcelain technology which moderately diffused to other societies producing porcelain in large quantities, metallurgical techniques as well diffused to lands beyond China, printing produced texts quickly and popular works appeared in huge quantities, and naval technology included of the magnetic compass which soon became common for mariners to use. Population growth, patriarchal social structures, and gunpowder were technological elements reinforcing established features of political order. Population growth reflected the capacity of economy and distribution of food, patriarchal social structures included of concern to preserve family fortunes and foot binding, and gunpowder was an element used for military effectiveness. These aspects provided a fundamental change in traditions because they changed their whole concepts of how to use goods as in previous Chinese eras.

The origins of tea are rooted in China (Food Timeline). According to legend, the beneficial properties of tea were first discovered by the Emperor Shen Nung in the year 2737 B.C. He drank only boiled water for hygienic purposes, and one day while he drank a breeze rustled the branches of a tree and a few leaves fell into his cup. Creating the first cup of tea. It is challenging to know whether or not the emperor was real or just a part of the spiritual and cultural development of ancient China. China was not unified as an empire until the third century, so it is unlikely emperors existed back then. One thing that is known is that tea was popular in China thousands of years ago. The first written reference of tea is in the third century B.C. A famous surgeon recommended the beverage to patients to increase concentration and alertness. Tea was first written as “tu” in ancient texts. This caused a good deal of confusion because the same Chinese character was used for both tea and Chinese sow thistles. Between 206 B.C. and A.D. 220 a Han Dynasty emperor ruled that when referring to tea, the characters should be pronounced as “cha”. From here on, tracing tea’s history became easier because tea acquired its own individual character (Food Timeline).

Keightley, David N. Sources of Shang History: the oracle-bone inscriptions of bronze age China. Berkeley, University of California press, 1978. Department of Asian Art. Shang and Zhou Dynasties: The Bronze Age of China. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

Another fairly important development for the military during the tenure of the Zhou Dynasty was the introduction of iron weapons. What is particularly interesting about this development was that these iron weapons were produced during the same timeframe that is generally considered the acme of Chinese manufacturing in bronze. However, socially, the production and manufacturing of iron allowed for people to facilitate different

New Technology in China In China during the Tang and Song dynasties, China used wood as their main source of heat for their homes, and heat to cook their food. This method of heat worked well, but later on, problems started to form. The problem was that wood was becoming scarce in China at the time. However, new discoveries and inventions helped to solve this problem. The discovery of coal was the most important invention that helped improve China's society. Coal was used so much that a coal mining industry developed. Once the industry developed, this helped society by creating new jobs for the people in China. This was not the only way that improved China's society. Coal also helped strengthen China's army. When the carbon made from coal mixed

Mark explains in Chapter 4 why the Europeans were able to industrialize and why China and India did not. He says the Europeans were heavily focused on trade, variety of specializations, and improved transportation. While the biological old regime and the particularities of China's situation was pushing it toward an increasingly labor-intensive agri-culture, rather than toward an industrial revolution. He explains that Europe’s coal and colonies propelled them. The author talks about India and how important it was around the 1700. India around 1700 was the largest exporter of cotton textiles in the world and supplied textiles not just to meet English demand, but throughout the world as well... and that India accounted for fully one quarter of

Throughout Chinese history, many dynasties have existed with different practices and aesthetics. This diversity can be seen through ritual bronzes and other good discovered in graves or tombs throughout China. These excavations have revealed Chinese history and the influence of foreign countries in culture, religion, and architecture. Such excavations also reveal how the significance of such objects in Chinese life changed throughout the different dynasties. For example, bronzes and inscriptions which belonged to families and royals from the early Xia dynasty were valued as a status of power, represented China and were used for rituals, but during the Qin and Han dynasty, such bronzes became valued as aesthetic objects.