What is the basic difference between Confucianism and Daoist philosophy?

Review: What was the impact of iron on the area we now call China? Iron implements are much cheaper to make than bronze implements. Once the people in China learned how to work with iron, they were able to make many more effective weapons and agricultural tools than they could earlier when they only worked with bronze, wood, and stone. This allowed them, first of all, to farm land that was difficult to farm with wood and stone tools. As a result, they brought a lot more land under under cultivation, which allowed them to feed a lot more people, creating larger concentrations of people in a limited area. And some of those people could become soldiers with weapons. The ability to make iron weapons meant they could equip much larger armies. Some of the warring states were more successful than others in using iron in both agriculture and armies (Qin was the most successful!), and that led to those more successful states conquering the others. The number of warring states shrank until, finally, there was only one: Qin. What is the basic difference between Confucianism and Daoist philosophy? In a nutshell, Confucianism emphasized harmony with society while Daoism emphasizes harmony with nature. That means the Confucianism promoted ritual and moral principles, both of which encourage the subordination of individual desires to the good of the community. Daoism, on the other hand, argued that both ritual and moral principles were artificial creations, since they were created by human beings, and encouraged people to instead withdraw from the larger society to pursue a life of harmony with nature. For Confucians, society defined what was real and therefore defined what we should take seriously. For Daoists, nature defined what was real and therefore nature determined what we should pay the most attention to. Daoist religion and Daoism philosophy are not the same thing. Daoist religion is all about harmony with the gods, and also emphasizes acting in accordance with certain moral rules, many of which are derived from Confucianism Why do we say the Qin Shihuang created China? First of all the word China comes from Qin (pronounced Chin ). Sen, p. 27) (But, more important, before Qin there were a number of different kingdoms in the area we now call China. Qin was the first to bring central China and beyond under the control of one government. (That s why Qin Shihuang is called The First Emperor of China ) The Qin also standardized writing, axle widths, weights and measures, etc., giving China an economic and cultural unity along with political unity. That why we say Qin Shihuang created China. 1

New Material: China s Neighbors: I. The Xiongnu Ebrey, 41-42; Sen, 30-32. Who were they? A non-chinese horse-riding north central Asian nomadic peoples who were a constant threat to the Qin and later to the Han. Why were they considered a barbarian people? (See Sen, pp. 84-86) Because they didn t dress like the Chinese (even their hats were not the same), they didn t have the same notion of the family or the same marriage customs, they did not rely on agriculture and were not a sedentary people, etc. In other words, they were barbarians because they didn t act Chinese. This is a cultural, not a racial, category. Yet it was from such people that the peoples of China learned how to ride and fight on horseback! (Sen, p. 30) Chinese even learned from them how to alter their clothing so that it would be easier for them to sit on, and fight from, a horse. (Ebrey, the boxed material, p. 25). II. The Han 206 B.C.E--220 CE. Why does the narrator of the video say that the Han dynasty was a multi-ethnic country? How is an empire different from a mere kingdom? (See the Key terms page for definitions of a kingdom and an empire.) Does the narrator say which ethnic groups, besides the Han, were part of the Han empire? The Han Dynasty: a population of about 60 million. Its capital Chang an (capital of Western Han) had 250,000 people. Luoyang (capital of Eastern Han ) About 200,000 inhabitants 75% of the population lived in North China (The Wei and Yellow River valleys, plus another center of population in Sichuan). Few Han lived along Yangzi then. Because of the prevalence of malaria in the south at that time, the population in the south did not outstrip the north until the Sung dynasty. The founder of the Han was a commoner named Liu Bang. He succeeded in establishing a dynasty that lasted much longer than the Qin by slowly establishing a centralized bureaucracy that nonetheless respected the power of the aristocracy. At first, created fiefdoms but slowly his successors found excuses to remove the heads of those fiefdoms one by one and bring them under central government control. In 144 BCE, for example, the Han decreed that sons were coheirs to the fiefdoms with their fathers, and that the land must be divided among them. (Ebrey, p. 42) 2

He preserved the Qin institution of direct taxation on individual households (both in grain and in labor) rather than going through aristocratic middlemen. (Taxes were supposed to be about 7% of the crop yield plus a head tax of 120 copper cash per adult.) [Powerful families illegally kept their land, and the people working their land, off the tax rolls.] The government also established monopolies in salt, iron, and wine, and ran "ever-normal granaries," giving it a more secure economic base. (Ebrey, p. 43) Ever-normal granaries were supposed to purchase grain at a normal price at times of a surplus, when prices would normally drop, and sell it at a normal price when there was a bad harvest, when prices would normally rise. The idea was to even out the incomes of the farmers and prevent starvation during bad harvest years. The most powerful figure in Former Han (202 BCE 8AD) was Wu Di (r. 141 BCE 87 BCE). To eliminate in-law interference with government, he had all of his wife's family killed. He is called Wu Di, the military emperor, because of his many conquests (Korea, Vietnam, etc.) Wang Mang tried to establish a new dynasty (9-23) mid-way through the Han. He tried to strengthen the power of the central government. For example, he tried to take land from the rich and give it to the poor, and also tried to outlaw the buying and selling of slaves. This was all intended to reduce the power of the wealthy. He was the nephew of one Han empress and the father-in-law of another Han emperor, as well as his regent before he seized power in his own right. (Ebrey, p. 44) What doesn t the narrator of the video mention the 14-year period when Wang Mang was the ruler, splitting the Han dynasty in two? Later (Eastern) Han 25-220 dropped taxes to 1/30th of crop and freed many slaves. Fell because too much power and wealth had fallen into hands of private families in local areas, making the central government poor, impotent, and largely irrelevant. How did the Han manage to survive longer than the Qin? Qin took the blame for many of the harsher administrative measures. Han also used Confucian rhetoric to soften the blow of its Legalist policies. The Han talked Confucian but acting legalist, but in a more gradual and less obvious fashion than the Qin. Also, the Han was lucky. The weather in China was warmer then (2nd century B.C-3 or 4th century A.D) than it is now, helping agricultural production The Han had three main centers of political power: the emperor, the bureaucracy, and powerful families (aristocracy).(the civil service exam was not yet an important factor in the selection of 3

government officials) In the second half of the Han, eunuchs were also a powerful force in government. Eunuchs gained power because emperors and members of the imperial family tended to trust then since, they believed, eunuchs didn t have a family to house and feed and therefore had less incentive to steal from the government. Eunuchs first became powerful as a group in 92 CE when they sided with one of two rival claimants to the throne, and the person they supported won. The non-eunuch officials resented the power wielded by eunuchs and finally, in 189, massacred many of them, putting government administration back in the hands of the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy was substantial in size. It is estimated that there may have been as many as 130,000 officials at any one time in the Han government, of whom 30,000 worked in the capital and 100,000 worked in the provinces. (This includes both civil and military officials, since there was no clear line between an official s military and civil responsibilities.) Why doesn t the narrator of the video mention the rise of eunuch power in the 2nd half of the Han? One thing the Han did to ensure the loyalty of those who established it was to combine feudalism with bureaucracy, giving fiefdoms to loyal supporters but later declaring that all the sons of the fief-holder had to be given some of his land as their inheritance, cutting back on the size of fiefs. The Han then began requiring fief holders to live in the capital rather than on their fiefs. Also, the Han understood the need for a wide base of support. It created a sense of a common Chinese cultural identity something China did not have earlier. It did that with Confucianism. The last century of the Han saw a breakdown of authority at the centre as more and more military power fell into the hands of regional authorities. This has been labeled by some as a resurgence of feudalism. III. Relations with neighboring peoples (Ebrey, 53-55) What is a barbarian? nomadic or semi-nomadic, non-agricultural. a cultural rather than a racial or ethnic definition. Rather than eradicating non-chinese forces on its border, China tried to bring them under control by granting them official titles which implied they were officials of the Han. Moreover, China allowed the local leaders to present tribute to the Emperor, which the Emperor then reciprocated, allowing a form of trade profitable to both sides to take place. China thus became the suzerain and those offering tribute were the vassals. This is the language of feudalism, but it is not true feudalism since it was not a system of internal 4

government but a way or carrying out foreign relations. We find archaeological evidence of this system in the seals and mirrors the Han granted its vassals. The expansion of Chinese territory and influence Into Central Asia Into Vietnam Under Chinese control until tenth century A.D. Yueh is the same word Vietnamese pronounce Viet, Nam is South. Into Korea: Lelang--A Chinese city on the Korean peninsula (it was located where the North Korean capital of Pyongyang is now).. The Min-yue remained unassimilated in the Fujian area. They actually had a separate kingdom until around 110 BCE. They were defeated by the Han but were not really absorbed into the Chinese cultural sphere until much later. They were able to resist Han control because of their command of the waterways, and because they were protected by mountains between them and the Yangzi river region. Vietnam Southern Yue (Nan Yue, pronounced Nam Viet in Vietnamese) conquered in 111 BC. Had been established in 208 BCE by a Chinese rebel against the Qin. This is a state which straddles the current border between southern China and northern Vietnam. It is correct to call it Vietnam? It was based in what is now Guangdong. The people in the southern part later became Vietnamese (after the 10th century), while those in the northern part of this kingdom became Chinese. The Yue resisted Chinese control, once in 40 CE with a rebellion led by two sisters. Korea Yan [one of the warring states Qin conquered) refugee took over the city-state of Chosŏn. In108 BC Han forces conquered Chosŏn and established 4 commandaries in and around the peninsula, one (Lelang, also known as Nangnang) of which survived for four centuries. Why doesn t the narrator of the video mention the Han conquest of northern Vietnam and its establishment of outposts on the Korean peninsula? Xiongnu an Altaic (maybe Turkish)-speaking nomadic people. Formed a tribal federation. The Xiongnu empire reached from Liaoning to Xinjiang by the 2nd c. BCE. Han Gaozu tried to attack the Xiongnu in 200 BCE but was surrounded for 7 days by 40,000 of their horsemen. The Han then agreed to offer tribute (silk, wine, rice, etc) as well as brides to the Xiongnu to reserve the peace. Relations were relatively friendly until Wu Di, in 141 BCE, tried to ambush the chief of the Xiongnu federation. 5

Battles against them were costly. For example in 90 BCE, China's battlefield casualties rose as high 60 70%. In another costly victory, in 119 BCE, China lost most than 90,000 horses out of a force of 140,000. But the Han were able to push the Xiongnu farther north and farther west. The Xiongnu split in 55 BCE into five groups, making it easier for China to deal with them. In 33 BCE the Han Emperor sent a beautiful lady-in-waiting from his court to become the bride of a friendly Xiongnu chieftain, strengthening peaceful ties. The Xiongnu empire finally collapsed in 91 CE when, weakened by internal splits and Han attacks, they were forced west by attacks from their erstwhile subjects, the Xianbei (The Xianbei may have become the Huns who invaded Europe in the 5th century and then became Hungarians). Before they collapsed, the Xiongnu also attacked the Yuehzhi, who were to the west of them, forcing the Yuehzhi to move father west, where some of them became known as the Kushanas (See Trautmann, 65-67) and founded an empire to the north of India. What sort of relations did the Han have with the Xiongnu (sometimes called the Hun in the videoa)? Does the video tell you? Why do you think the Han sent a Han princess to marry a Xiongnu ruler? Was it to try to get him to stop attacking the Han? The Silk Road--trade through Central Asia to the Kushan capital The Kushan empire reached as far as into what is now Xinjiang province). There was also a sea route which went around the Malay peninsula. Silk went West. Buddhism came East. The Kushana and the Silk Road linked China to both India and Rome. The Silk Road was more important culturally than economically. (Ebrey, 52, Sen, 29-43) What role did the Silk Road play in China s rise to prosperity? Does the video say anything about the various peoples who carried goods to and from China along the Silk Road? IV. Establishing the pattern for governance in China The Mandate of Heaven again The emperor was a secular leader who nonetheless used ritual to claim legitimacy. Founding emperors were portrayed as virtuous men 6

When an emperor was too young to effectively govern, then his mother or grandmother (the oldest queen would become the Dowager) would rule in his name. She would be known as the Empress Dowager. Among the powers of an Empress Dowager was the power to name the next occupant of the throne if the previous emperor had died without naming an heir. An example is the widow of the founder of the Han. When he died, she became the regent for her son. She used her power to have one of her rivals for her husband s affection killed (and thrown in the privy). She is even said to have killed her eldest son when he was about old enough to rule in his own right so that she could continue to rule as regent. Another is Empress Teng of the Eastern Han (in control 106--121) She is described as moral from her earliest days, giving her the same legitimacy through virtue emperors enjoyed. That may be because she was lucky in that the first child she put on the throne died before he was old enough to rule in his own right. He was replaced by another child, a 10 year old. She maintained to control the Han for 16 years, exercising power even after that second child grew up. Legalistic Confucianism (Ebrey, p. 44) Confucian rhetoric, but accompanied by a strong legal code Confucian influence on legal codedifferential punishments differing according to social status. Law was harsh--included a death penalty, sometimes by beheading, sometimes by being cut in two at the waist. For the worse offenses, the family of the offender would be executed as well. Bureaucracy instead of feudalism What is bureaucracy: a government staffed by officials appointed by the government who, therefore, can be dismissed by that same government (they don t inherit their posts). Moreover, the positions in a bureaucracy are clearly defined and distinguished from other positions in that same bureaucracy. It is a more rational form of government, with people assigned responsibilities according to their abilities. (There may have been as many as 130,000 government officials! Official Confucian academy established by Wu Di. By late in Later Han it had 30,000 students and 240 buildings with 1,850 rooms. The Emperor and the bureaucrats needed each other. And the out-of-office gentry played an essential role as well.. They were caught up in relationships of mutual dependency. Who are the gentry (literati)? the educated, wealthy class from whom officials are chosen recommended each other for public office Where does their income come from? Land holdings and public office Where does their status come from? Scholarship and heredity. 7

Land-owning necessary to support studies, but without success in studying a man could not get into the public office he needed to protect his land holdings. Often formed into cliques, since there was strength in numbers. Goal was to gain control of the Emperor through his Queen Like chess: don t capture the king, but control him. How did the gentry distinguish themselves from commoners? Etiquette How did they rule? 1) Law codes, but no equality under the law. law is for the state, not for the people. No commercial law or civil rights. Law says what the state can do to you, not what the people can demand of the state. Laws were enforced through the mutual responsibility 5-family system. Society was divided into five family units. If one member of one of those families committed a crime, all five families would be punished. There were slaves, both government slaves and private slaves. Slaves were not used much in agriculture, since it was more profitable to rent out land and have the tenant assume the costs of production. So there were not many slaves, maybe less than 1% of the entire population. Some people sold themselves into slavery as a way of escaping starvation. How did the Han keep local officials from building up a local power base and rebelling? The law of avoidance and frequent transfers. People could not serve in any one post, particular in local government, for very long. Overlapping assignments. An official would share much of his responsibilities with one or more other officials. Eunuchs were used as counterweight to Confucian officials (Ebrey, p. 44-45.) Confucian governments were unfriendly to merchants--the Han dynasty forbad merchants from serving in the government, and make it against the law for them to wear silk or ride in carriages. Why? Merchants did not produce anything (or so Confucianism taught), so they were held responsible when there were food shortages, though food shortages later in the Han were probably caused more by population growth than by commerce pulling people off the land. Merchants were seen as people who simply took what other people, such as peasants and artisans, produced and used it to gain profit for themselves. What role did the Han government play in the markets of the capital city Chang an? Does the video tell you? 8

What role did the Han government play in the economy overall? Starting in 118 BCE, the government established monopolies in essential goods such as salt, iron, and wine. It also manipulated the price of grain through the ever-normal granaries The traditional social hierarchy was scholars, peasants (90% of the populationo, artisans, and (at the bottom) merchants. Note that, unlike India s social ranking, warriors are not specifically included in this list. Solders would ranks alongside peasants. Generals were usually chosen from the scholar/official class. (Ebrey, 49-51) V. Ideological Legitimization: Establishing the Pattern Perspective (Ebrey, 45-47) Which of the many philosophies available to Han China became the officially-promoted philosophy? Does the video tell you? Under what ruler did that happen? Does the video tell you? The governing world view was based on belief in organic unity of the cosmos-- everything is related to everything else. This is what I call "the pattern perspective," the belief that patterns of interaction and change are more important than the objects which are interacting and changing. Others call this "correlative cosmology" for the connections that are drawn linking things as different as smell, organs in the body, and the visible planets in the sky. For example, a goatish smell is associated with the spleen, and with the planet Jupiter. (Ebrey, 470 A fundamental assumption WAS that if human beings act in accordance with the natural order, things will go well. If, however, human beings try to act against the natural flow of events, things will not go well. This meant, among other things, that the lack of virtue by the ruler would be reflected in disorder in nature (earthquakes, floods, drought, etc.) Moreover, the rectification of a injustice might bring an end to disorder in nature, for example, bringing an end to a drought and causing rain to fall. There was a strong assumption of a the link between virtue and natural phenomenon. Why did correlative cosmology arise? It emerged from attempts to understand the processes of change, to make the unpredictable predictable, the unexplainable explainable, and even he unpreventable preventable. Key concepts: The Yi Jing patterns (The 64 hexagrams that reflect the patterns of change in the universe. The hexagrams consist of consists of six line (some short, considered to represent yin, and some long, considered to represent yang) which reflect whether yin or yang is dominant at that time, in which direction, toward more yin or more yang, the cosmos is moving at that particular time. 9

Yin-yang reality is composed of complementary opposites the Five Phases (Five manifestations of yin and yang) are earth, metal, fire, wood, water. Don't confuse the Five Phases with actual fire, wood, water--the Five Phases are five different patterns of action and interaction. They relate to each other in two ways: A cycle of production: wood fire earth metal water A cycle of overcoming: fire water earth wood metal For example, the Qin was linked with water, since it had conquered the Zhou, which was linked with fire. Therefore the Han was linked with earth, which can overcome water. Correlational causation does not require direct physical contact for something to make something happen to something else. Therefore China was able to make scientific and technological advances in some areas long before Europeans did. Technological accomplishments of Han China paper invented 105 CE seismograph in 132 CE action at a distance. invented "south-pointing needle"--the compass. action at a distance used in geomancy (fengshui) long before it was used in navigation. the wheelbarrow (not used in Europe until 13th century) stern-post rudder (not used in Europe until 12th century) ridge and furrow farming: plant in the furrows, then use the ridges for furrows the next season. shoulder collar for horses, which allowed horses to pull a plow. In mathematics: decimal system (with placement of counting rods) solutions of higher numerical equations decimal fractions, with refined value of pi to 5 places. algebra to solve geometric problems (square and cubic roots) Magic square shows that all reality is intertwined and what happens to one part of the cosmic network affects the entire network: 4 9 2 3 5 7 8 1 6 In this magic square, any straight line in any direction will join 3 numbers which add up to 15. Change the placement of any one of those numbers, and that no longer is the case. This magic square reveals that everything is related to everything else, and that everything must play its assigned role (stay in its proper place) the the universe to operate properly Other achievements: 10

Hemp was the main fiber for clothing (what did they do with the leaves?), until cotton was introduced in the Song dynasty How was China under the Han different from China before 250 B.C E.? centralized, no longer feudal More peaceful, less civil strife (though there were episodes) More unified culturally (written script), economically, etc. new ruling elite: gentry/literati (at this time, a landed hereditary aristocracy) Confucianism adopted as the official ideology by Han, but with legalist principles operating in the background It is important to remember that the common people at this time continued to believe in supernatural personalities, and that they could seek help from those gods and spirits in solving the problems of everyday life, and that shamans could help them appeal to those gods. There is also evidence among both commoners and the elite of an interest in immortality, and in divination. They also believed in life after death, though that life was not all the different from life before death. What is the legacy of the Han? Established the vision of what a unified China should look like. and established the importance of the writing of history. Sima Qian provided the model for future histories, the 130 chapter Records of the Grand Historian. One of the great Han historians was the woman Ban Zhao who completed the History of the Han Dynasty after her brother died before he could complete it. (Ebrey, 47-49) The Han established the pattern for official histories--history as moral lesson chapters on omens and on effective fortune-tellers also on music and ritual. Sima Qian was a dedicated historian, continuing to work on his history of China from the Yellow Emperor up to the Han even after he was castrated for daring to defend a general the Emperor was not pleased with. Role of Confucianism in the social order: Civil service exams don t yet play a significant role in the selection of government officials. Instead, recommendations from respected families and officials determined who was considered qualified for public office. However, respect for learning was important, though that learning 11

tended to be associated with certain powerful and wealthy families rather than with individual performance on exams. 12