Turning Point in Chinese History

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的assignment代写范文- Turning Point in Chinese History，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了唐朝和宋朝。唐朝的经济发展得益于开明的外交政策，丝绸之路的贸易在唐代非常繁荣，而且对思想和文化的交流也很重要。唐人改进了文官考试，把诗歌作为选拔官吏的考试题目，诗歌成为唐代文学的重要类型。宋朝被认为是中国历史上的转折点，是中国经济、文化和教育最繁荣的朝代。与唐朝相比，宋朝最繁荣的时候人口超过1亿，而唐朝最繁荣的时候人口只有5000万左右。北宋有52个城市，人口超过10万。然而，只有17个城市的人口超过10万。此外，与唐人相比，宋人在城市化、经济、教育、思想、文学等各个领域都有了长足的发展。宋朝在各个方面都进入了一个辉煌的时代。

In Chinese history, Tang Dynasty was be admitted as the one of prosperous dynasties.

Li Yuan, the emperor who founded Tang Dynasty, since he ruled the region, Tang became to one of the powerful country in the world. Economic growth in Tang was flourishing with enlightened policies for diplomacy, and the trade of Silk Road was prosperous during Tang Dynasty. Trade of Silk Road was the vital relationship between China and the West, it was not only essential to business transactions, but also important to exchanges of ideas and cultures. Tang improved the civil-service examination, poetry was utilized to be the test questions to select officials, poetries became the crucial literary type during Tang, and some famous poets were arouse at that, such as Li Bai and Du Fu.

Since that mental slavery was eliminated during Tang, people could free their mind and literature was venerated at that time, and the cosmopolitan of Tang was appeared. Literary achievements, civil-service examinations and education were rose, science and technology was also developed with rapid race. Based on the open-mind during Tang, people were easy to learn outstanding culture from other countries. Xuan Zang, who was the Tang monk, he was sent to India to learn Buddhist sutras, he translated Buddhist sutras into Chinese and spread to later generations (Sen 24). In addition, the music and dancing of western, the literature of Japan and Chinese culture had the ability to interpenetrate, the artistic and literary achievements were thriving during Tang Dynasty. Furthermore, the artistic style of Tang was splendid and still in use today. Nowadays, some constructions and temples in Japan are still designed with artistic style of Tang Dynasty, especially in Kyoto and Nara, such as Yasaka Shrine and Toshodaiji Temple.

Song Dynasty was regarded as the turning point in Chinese history, Song was the most prosperous dynasty of economy, culture and education. Contrasted to Tang Dynasty, Song had more than one hundred million people during the most flourishing period, but Tang just had about fifty million people during the most prosperous days. There were 52 cites with more than one hundred thousand people in the Northern Song. However, there were only 17 cites with more than one hundred thousand people in Tong. In addition, compared to Tang, Song developed much better in various fields, such as urbanization, economy, education, ideology, literature and so on. Song Dynasty became to a brilliant age in diverse aspects as followings.

Urbanization: The earliest urbanization was happened in Song Dynasty, the most typical feature was the rapid development of business. The residential area and commercial area were enclosed, business hours and locations were limited in Tang. Before Song, most cites in Chinese history were military and political field. The symbol of city in Song was no longer the city wall, but the market. Commercial prosperity led to the collapse of the political limitation in the city. There were full of shop stores and restaurants in the street, the dwelling district and commercial district were exoteric, and business hours and locations were not limited. Stores could not be opened in the street during Tang Dynasty, there were only two small markets in Chang'an and Luoyang, which were capital cities in Tang Dynasty (Schinz 140). On the other side, Kaifeng, the capital city in Song, people could purchase anything to meet their demands in streets. Most of people were out from agriculture to urban living, they run the business or manufacture to make a living, and the commercial cities were established gradually.

Economic Growth: Song Dynasty opened up wasteland widely, and focused on improving farm implements, so that agriculture was developed in the rapid race. The cultivated acreage during Song was eight hundred million acres, but the cultivated acreage was six hundred million acres during Tang. Tang stood for agriculture economy, and the agricultural tax was essential for national tax revenue. Nevertheless, Song advocated for commercial economy, although the agriculture developed well at that time, and the commercial tax was the fundament for national tax revenue. Urbanization and commercialization in Song had changed the tradition in Chinese history. Meanwhile, the short supply of urban spaces made the opportunity of realty, most business men preferred to invest the real estate and earn rent from leasing stores.

There were more than 140 trades in Tang, but there were more than 440 trades in diverse fields in Song. Industrial structures in Song was more multiple and elaborate than Tang. The value of inventing a new business type was hard to estimate, every emerging business could state the flourish of Song. Furthermore, Tang implemented curfew, so that cities were dark and silent in the night. However, cities in Song were busy and bright in the night. Since that business trades could run during the whole day, and people lighted lanterns in the rooms, houses and gates of yards, so that cities were bright during the whole night. Since that there were artistic performance in entertainment venues, delicious foods and drinking in the restaurants during the night, people preferred to watching shows or having late snack instead of spending time at home. Even in the winter, the streets were busy and full of people. Hence, economic prosperity of Song could be shown everywhere, even in the night.

Innovative age: The economic prosperity promoted the development of innovation. The typography, ships, firearms, compass, grenades, cash and so on were invented in Song. Due to the innovation of compass, so that the voyage could become true. Typography effectively reduced the cost of printing, and increased the circulation of presswork. Presswork were widely used to spread knowledge, it benefited that more and more people had the ability to read and learn knowledge. Hence, it could say that typography promoted the development of civilization. Chinese in Song was more well-educated, cultured, humorous, romantic and patriotic than people in Tang. Jacques Gerne, who was the sinologist in France, he said that "Chinese in thirteenth century were more romantic and sensitive than ancestors. Meanwhile, Chinese in thirteenth century showed the curiosity and broadened horizons, these features could not be found from  ancestors. The lifestyle of free in Song could make people in Tang to be surprised. On account of being polite, humorous and sociable, people in Song became the most ingenious and cultivated people in the Chinese history. According to the daily life in Song, we could obtain the impression that they could control themselves very well, and they own the happy life at the same time (Bae 114-15)." The earliest cash in the world was Jiao Zi, it was utilized in Song for payment, and it indeed facilitated the development of economy. Innovations of firearms and cannon represented the beginning of thermal weapons period. In order to progress the commercial operation, the advertising was utilized in Song, which was early than the West. Cuju, which was the earliest soccer in the Song, was also invented in Song. FIFA was published that soccer was originated from China in 2004 (Lorenzi).

The expansion of civil-service examinations: The literature was more important than learning kung fu during Song, so that the civil-service examination was valuable at that time. The civil-service examination in Song was similar to Tang, but the form and content of examination were changed. First of all, the admission was expanded, and the influence and coverage of civil-service examination were broadened at the same time. Due to the expansion of admission, the education in Song was motivated. In the second, Song established the policy of three-level examinations, only if the one passed the foregoing level examination, the people could be qualified to the next level examination. The examination policy helped to select the indeed talented person to be officials. In the third, when graded paper from examinees in civil-service examination, names and other information of examinees needed to be hided since Song Dynasty. By using that measure, it avoided cheating effectively, and eliminated that powerful ministers to evaluate their children or relatives with great grades on civil-service examination. The measure made the competition of civil-service examination to be fair to the public, and provided the equally opportunities to poor people to take working position for government. On the other side, the content of civil-service examination was also changed, Wang Anshi, the officer in Song Dynasty, he canceled the test content of poetry and prose, and use the content of Confucian books to test the understanding of theories. The meaning of the examination was testing examinees to put theories into practices in the reality.

The rise of Neo-Confucianism: Zhu Xi, who was the founder of Neo-Confucianism. He claimed that people needed to follow Li, which presented to heavenly principles, and restrained Yu, which presented to desires. Zhu Xi thought that everything in the world has respective heavenly principle, and the heavenly principle could be seen as the natural order of everything. Moreover, heavenly principle could also be considered as the essential principle for humans, for example, people need to be kind and be filial to parents. Zhu Xi admitted that people needed to meet the basic demands to live, but he opposed to have excess desires. He declared that if people follow heavenly principles, desires could disappear. If desires of humans win, heavenly principles would be eliminated. The theory of Neo-Confucianism by Zhu Xi was proposed under the specific situation. At that time, the Southern Song Dynasty faced governmental crisis, ruling class was negative to develop the country, and civilians were suffered from poor life. The theory of Neo-Confucianism strived to make people to realize that they need to control themselves and restrain desires, and also made them to recognize that it was significant to develop the country to be much better (Mou 365-68). Neo-Confucianism met demands of the society at that time appropriately, so that the theory of Neo-Confucianism was very popular and widely utilized.

Thriving artistic and literary achievements: Song Dynasty respected artistic and literary works, hence, there were many famous poets in Song, and they created various classical literatures to make the culture to be more flourishing.

Wang Anshi, the famous reformer and litterateur in the Northern Song Dynasty. Wang Anshi conducted a revolution, he had the desire to enhance external defense and consolidated the reign during Song Dynasty. The law of revolution existed for fifteen years and obtain obvious effects. The revolution enhanced the governmental power, maintained social order, strengthened fighting capacity of army, and the production and quality of weapons were improved as well (Drechsler 353-60). Besides, article works of Wang Anshi always revealed the political or social issues. His articles had clear viewpoint, in-depth analysis with refined languages and reasonable logic. Those articles played important role to promote the revolution of poems, and got social identity from the public.

Li Qingzhao, who was the famous female poet in Song. Most of women were not allowed to learn knowledge in the Chinese history, but women during Song had the chance to study. Li Qingzhao's poems were graceful, reflected her real life and expressed her emotions. Most of topics were focused on landscape and farewell, she expressed the profound feelings to her husband and her close friends by creating poems. Based on the Li Qingzhao's poetries, the devotion for nature and the wonderful hope for love and friendship could arouse people's feelings deeply (Li).

Su Shi, who was the outstanding litterateur, calligrapher and artist in Song. He thought that literature needed to have the independent value, literature should not to be the tool to explain theories, and should represent the spiritual worlds of humans. The principle for Su Shi was not only the Confucianism, but also the orders of everything. Therefore, he supported that literature should be treated as the objective world, it could contain everything and to be abundant. Su Shi advocated the diversification and vitality of art, and he opposed stereotyped form of literature. Prose from Su Shi could present a variety of artistic features, he recorded objective things in the reality, and he expressed inner feelings in depth, his literary style could change spontaneously according to the variation of performance object. Su Shi obtained extraordinary achievement in artistic and literary works, he reformed the style of poetry, made the poetry to be independent, and the poetry was no longer the accessory of music. Su Shi enhanced the importance of poetry in the history, and made great contribution to the development of poetry.

As previously mentioned, Song Dynasty had shown great implement, and indeed developed much better than Tang in many fields. Song Dynasty could be identified as the turning point in Chinese history.

References:

SILK ROAD DURING THE TANG DYNASTY (A.D. 618 - 907), Nov. 2016. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

Bae, Jung-Ho. Schinz, Alfred. The Magic Square: Cities in Ancient China. 1996. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. 2013, pp. 114-15. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

Drechsler, Wolfgang. "Wang Anshi and the origins of modern public management in Song Dynasty China." 1 July 2013, pp. 353-60. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

Li, Ch'ing chao. Li Chʻing-chao, Complete Poems. . Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

Lorenzi, Rossella. Soccer's History From Cuju to FIFA, 26 June 2014. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

Mou, Bo. History of Chinese Philosophy. 2009, pp. 365-68.

Schinz, Alfred. The Magic Square: Cities in Ancient China. 1996. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

Sen, Tansen. "The Travel Records of Chinese Pilgrims Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing." EDUCATION ABOUT ASIA, vol. 11, no. 3, 2006, p. 24. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

An Introduction of Toshodaiji Temple, 2006. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

Neo-Confucianism, CHINESE PHILOSOPHY. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

Tang Sheng song time? Wrong!, 1 Nov. 2017. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

The Song Confucian Revival, The Song Dynasty in China. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

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