How did Chinese Civilization begin? (Shang and Zhou dynasties) Bronze Age China history explained
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มิ.ย. 2024
- How did Chinese Civilization begin? (Shang and Zhou dynasties) Bronze Age China history explained
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Sources:
Ancient China (by Edward Schafer)
The Shang Dynasty (By George Cottrell)
Historical Atlas of Ancient civilizations (John Hayward)
Lacrousse encyclopedia of ancient and medieval history
China in the Early Bronze Age (By Robert L. Thorp)
"After every victory, one must develop the custom of saying GG EZ to the enemy, demoralizing them and bringing their prestige lower"-Sun Tzu.
lol
"One who repeatedly squats and stands up in short order with his scrotum hanging over the face of his defeated enemy in a fashion called Tea-bagging shall be granted the highest wisdom."
Sun Tzu
lol
@@longyu9336 lol
@@ammaryounis5593 lol
The philosophy of Mohism should have deserved a mention; Mohists they were the numbers and science people - engineers, logicians and maths whiz of the time.
Mohists had very similar ideals with the fictional Jedi. Both groups believed in compassion, frugality and opposed military aggression. Also like the Jedi, Mohists were mostly wiped out, thanks to the ambitions of many other men who weren't as selfless.
@@doodlemecrzy8075 I think, Ive read manga about Mohi monk centered in warring states era. Fascinating stuff.
@@OkurkaBinLadin yea theres Bokkō which was made into a movie starring Hong Kong actor Andy Lau.
Most of them fled to mongolia.
I also find the ancient Chinese history really exciting.
They had all the incidents, intrigue and philosophy that any great civilization could have plus the absolute mad lads wrote down as many things as possible which gave a much easier job for the historians
Sima Qian be like: I will write down literally EVERYTHING!
Wow that's a lot of philosophers. It's kind of like the Asian version of classical Greece.
They’re high intelligence on average so of course they’d produce higher civilisation and all the things that come with it. Be it a written language, domesticated pack animals, complex agriculture, a developed economy, mathematics and philosophy etc.
Kikuyu Kiiru
I heard it's because of rice cultivation over wheat like in the west. Rice is much harder and requires more work both physically and mentally. Also it takes math. Doing this for thousands of years made the eastern people smarter.
There were far more asian philosophers than western ones. People in this thread say its because asians are smarter cause they had rice but I don’t think this is true. We don’t know that there was any ancient Egyptian, Hittite, or Sumerian philosophers because they either didn’t write their ideas down or more likely their writing were destroyed during the Bronze Age Collapse or the ravages of Time. Leaving us with only Greek Philosophers but they were actually influence by some foreign ideas that have since been lost.
It annoys me to no end that discussion about philosophers of this age often leaves out the two MOST dominant philosophical forces of their time. Follows of Yang Zhu and Mozi. It was said at the time that the world (meaning China) was divided into either those who subscribed to Yang or Mo. Just no one foresaw the rise of legalism to wipe the board clean.
Yeah, something about the Bronze Age just stimulated a lot of thinking. There were the Greek and Chinese philosophers, in the Levant, the prophets Elijah and Isaiah were doing their thing, and in India, Buddhism and Jainism were getting started.
I started learning Chinese 22 years ago, have lived in China for 8 years but only just now getting interested in China history... especially the beginning. These videos are great for me to catch up. I often pause and rewind a lot. But very, very interesting! Cheers, Epimetheus.
Any other videos/sources of early China you recommend?
I'm the opposite. History first, then Chinese language.
China has been around for so long!! It's truly remarkable and its history is so fascinating. This video is a great dive into it. Great job :)
I mean, were would it go?
Lord Voldemort not really
They had collapsed for many times, 5 barbarian tribe invasion, Mongol invasion, Manchu Invasion, European invasion, Japanese Invasion and communist invasion.
China has 5000 years of history and is among the world's oldest 'continuous' civilization still alive today, whereas other great ancient civilizations like Mesopotamia, Rome and Egypt have since succumbed to history.
Lord Voldemort Their Civilization started much later than Chinese or even Koreans. They don’t have any historical record in their early days and have to rely on Chinese record for those periods.
"Infinity war is the most ambitious crossover in history"
Warring period: Am I a joke to you?
Maybe this is the tragic one
Great video, Bronze and Iron age China is so criminally overlooked. The Language barrier is a big issue too, there are mountains of archaeological finds documented and studies published untranslated into English... and honestly Chinese historical academics are notoriously conservative, with very strict litmus acceptance which is nice. They loved to fight and debunk amongst themselves; which at least makes finding peer reviewed accurate data easy if you can translate it.
Dan-, the Duke Wen of Zhou's life is nothing sort of extraordinary. For starters, he was Confucius' hero even though the 2 men lived nearly half a millennium apart.
As you mentioned, During his regency of the young King, Wen introduced "Mandate of Heaven." This way, vertically, it guaranteed the legitamacy of the Zhou (and the illegitimacy of the Shang.) The Shang had always branded themselves as the sons of Heaven or the sons of Tian, so this entire re-framing of the situation acknowledged both that perhaps Shang was once truly great and benevolent, but they have lost their way, and because the new Zhou dynasty was virtuous and freed the slaves and fed the poor they were legitimate. Horizontally, Duke Zhou also reformed the labyrinthine system of Kings and petty vassals, and gave birth to feudalism in China, formalized them into titles such as Dukes, Marquis, and Counts. Incidentally, this completely mirrored that of the later medieval European. Two thirds of the states were bestowed to members of the royal family and families loyal to them.
With this in mind, two achievements were realized. One: Vertically Duke Wen legitimized the Zhou dynasty as both favorable and blessed by the divine Heavens, thus paving the way for a streamlined top- down chain of command that allowed the Zhou Kings to exact a greater control. Two: Horizontally, Duke Wen placed many of the Zhou family members and trusted Zhou allies across the 2/3 of the states of the realm. These two factors quickly created a synergy that further preserved the Zhou hold on power, and formed the society of China for the next millennia until the first Emperor. It was also because this division of the nobilities that a new class was born, the scholar- retainers called “Shi” (士) meaning attendant, the class that some of the greatest thinkers from ancient China would be born from: including Laozi, Sun Tzu, Mencius and Confucius himself.
And then, after having done all of these things, Duke Wen abdicated his station as the young King's regent and retired in peace. In terms of feudalism, he shaped China for the next 1000 years, in Mandate of Heaven, he shaped China's thinking for the next 3000 years until the end of the Qing, in the scholarly class tradition, I think his influence still lives on even today. Duke Wen was arguably the single figure that created the foundation of the Chinese identity and cultural soul. He also lived almost contemporaneously to the historical Trojan War so that's shows how long his impact for China is.
Thanks for the fantastic comment :)
@@EpimetheusHistory 💖 you are doing great work man
The Chinese believe in "sky." "Sky(天)" is similar to God. The Han religious Taoism and Confucianism have the belief of "sky". He is the core of the Han religious belief.
The god of sky/sky (the Westerners call it heaven worship, In China, this god means "sky".Heaven is called Tianting (天庭).The paradise（天庭） of Chinese religion is where the gods live. The god of the sky (Jade Emperor) is the king of the gods. This God has no form. It oversees the world. It represents the power of the universe, eternal and natural. It rules everything and is the supreme being. It will punish those who do bad things or commit crimes. The Chinese emperor claimed to be the son of this God, and they are accepting the authority of God to rule China.
I love his name.
His name was _Dan_ and he was a _duke_ in the _Zhou_ Dynasty (kinda pronounced "joe").
For brevity's sake, a guy could just as easy call him Dan Zhou Duke...
... or as I prefer, "Dan Joe Duke".
(which is just like an old friend mine, Daniel Joseph Duke).
Western feudalism wasn't "incidentally" similar to China's. It just so happens there are limited numbers of ways to organize large rural societies, and once you go for say feudalism, there is bound to have some coincidences with other feudal systems.
When you are writing the scripts for your next few videos, and you see Epimetheus has released a new video all work stops and you watch the video. Simple.
yup!!
Excellent video ! I love your content as besides the in-depth knowledge it shares, you can feel the passion being put into the making of the videos . I must say, the videos relating to the civilisations in East Asia and the Midle East are my favorites on TH-cam
Those and the one you recently made about Romania :)
:D
The Art of War also says " Dab on those fools and drop nuts on their corpses"
-_- really dude xD dab on dem fools and drop nuts -_- Sun be like " I donno dis guy yo "
Guys, please STOP using the character for water (水) to represent Confucianism. Confucianism was historically never been associated with that character. The correct character to represent Confucianism is Yu (儒) as the school/tradition itself is called Yujia (儒家). And if anyone is wondering, Yu was defined as nobilities who studied the civics/literati/arts, and don't have a stable government job. Which was what Confucius was. The meaning of the word changed after the collapse of the hereditary system and just means the philosophy. So please, no more water!!
exactly, when i went to an american high school, my world history teacher showed me the character of water and told me that it was the most significant religion of China and I was like what the hell is that...
From what I understand it is used internationally as it originally symbolised an aspect of confucianism (like the chi-rho in Christianity or the tao symbol which only symbolises part of the religion)
If anything, water is more closely linked to Daoism, especially in passage 8 of the Dao De Jing: "The highest goodness is like water..."
What does the water character mean in Confucianism?
Chenstev isn’t Confucianism more of a ideology than a religion, kind of like communist or capitalism.
my whole youtube feed just got thrown back into the bronze age
😂
I absolutely love that you guys are teaming up with some of my favorite history channels on youtube! I cannot wait to watch it all!
This collaboration is amazing! Thank you for being such awesome creators. Way better than ANYTHING on tv
Yes! More Bronze Age videos!
Epimetheus, you are one of the best history channels out there! Keep up these great collabs!
One of the best historical videos I've seen. I like how you show things that have been found from the dynasties.
Second stop on the playlist. Great work! 👍🏻
I was subscribed within the first minute. Glad you all did this collaborative playlist because this video is exactly what I needed for world building a whole section of my fantasy world.
This helps with history. I’ve been watching your vids last week for my history research and it really help
The Bronze age is my favorite age of history! This is so awesome to me
The "Art of War" by Sun Tzu remains relevant for 2000+ years from the ancient time to the present time.
It's just cool enough for people o be making memes about it
So do rice balls.
I just thought I'd mention, if you want to understand (some of) China's borders, fly there from Europe. The northerly route (Finnair, and I think KLM) takes you over Siberia, then over Mongolia and through the Gobi desert. If you get it at the right time you can look out the window and see mountain range after mountain range, vast expanses of desert... Then suddenly the scenery kind of drops, and there's an endless patchwork of fields and flooded rivers. It's... impressive and expressive.
I admire your work, Stephan Milo. Nice to see you here.
Great Video! You are a huge inspiration for me and my channel! Thanks for the great video!
Unless that crossbow is actually a gunpowder based weapon, i would say that is not the first trigger operates FIREarm. Calling it the first trigger operated projectile weapon would probably be more accurate.
trigger happy124 can we agree it’s the first trigger operated thing then?
@@frenchguitarguy1091 not super familiar with the history, but i would assume that would be accurate.
@@triggerhappy124421 damn man i was looking for a comment like this so i won't have to be "THAT" guy lol
Instead of basing on conclusion. I recommend you to do research by yourself
@@sergelengerelmaa2450 i was just pointing to some unclear and possibly inaccurate language that could cause a misunderstanding. Not trying to be a jerk, just pointing to it so it could possibly be corrected or to improve the quality of future works. Im from an engineering background, not a history one, but in engineering, writing should not be interpretable in any other way than the intended meaning of the author. I would assume that would also go well with historians and teachers alike. Im not looking to research this topic or to police grammer, just trying to be helpful
Thanks for a fascinating overview of China's early history! These videos keep getting better!
This is a brilliant collaboration. everyone involved should be proud of themselves.
This was a pretty interesting video to watch. And nicely informative.
Nice job. I like your into music.
BTW I noticed OSP's playlist link is wrong for YT mob users. It's an external link. I mentioned it in his comments section, but I don't know if my comments get filtered on his posts. I know they work here. ...anyways... you should probably contact him to update it. YT mob is what, 40-45% of your total metrics? The first guy on the playlist needs the right links :-)
He also needs the list in a pinned comment, especially because he has so many links in the vid description.
Thanks for the upload.
-Jake
This really helped! Tysm for this!
Brilliant video about this exciting period. Thanks lad!
Nice video as always
great work wielding speed and detail
no better feeling than going home after school and finding out you posted a new video
"Dan, the Duke o' Joe."
Who's Joe?
The Native Libertarian He maybe said “Zhou”, Dan is Duke of Zhou, and the brother of Zhou king Wu.
The Native Libertarian zhou mama !
週媽媽
Howdy!
Thank you for these morsels of knowledge. :)
Keep up the good work.
All the best.
Fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing!
I love these collaborations!
EpimetheBEST
7:07 The Middle Kingdom… ‘China being the modern name’. China is a western corruption of a misheard word… in Chinese (and other East-Asian languages) they're *still* called The Middle Kingdom (or Middle Country to be more precise). 中国 Standard Chinese: Zhōngguó; Cantonese: Zung1gwok3; Japanese: Chuugoku; 中國 (Traditional Chinese)
(It's not the official name though… since the end of the Empire the official names transitioned to using variations of 中華 / 中华 Republic, which however still begins with the ‘middle’ character and incidentally ends with the ‘country’ 國/国 character as part of the word ‘republic’)
I thought they were named after the Qin dynasty! Did not know that
In Malay/Indonesian, words for "Zhongguo" is "Tiongkok" which was localization + Hakka dialect, but due to recent political events, we back again to start calling it "Cina" often to demonizing them
@@darealpoopster "China" was after Qin, refer to their first imperial dinasty, but it's unofficial for Chinese themselves.
We don’t use Qin or worlds derives from it to refer to ourselves
Another informative and very nicely illustrated vid on this wonderful subject, China...Enjoyed! 恭喜！
Fantastic video sir
Most underrated history vid maker
6:12 Slight correction, crossbows aren't firearms, since they don't use burning propellant to fire a projectile out the barrel.
still wanna say that we invented gunpowder in the 9th century~ just saying bc im bored.
what if the arrow their using is on fire then its a fire arm
@@notdreamie1046 lol
@@enzovaldovinos3164 ooooOOOoooo.....
Really nice video!
Thank you Spotyaner! I am glad you liked it :)
Like music, visuals are great for learning association and retention.
Could you done the African sahel? Apparently they established the oldest urban centers in west Africa the mande peoples also independently developed agriculture
Thanks for this video I was sick and have to catch up on my history class for ancient China.😅
While Bronze working in China may date as far back as 28th c BC - it seems it became more widespread after contact with steppe people who had more advanced techniques in metallurgy, It was the sane Bronze-age steppe peoples, who were actually Europeans, who introduced the spoked wheel chariot and the horse to the Chinese. Jixu Zhou 2005 "Old Chinese “*tees” and Proto-Indo-European “*deus”: Similarity in Religious Ideas and a Common Source in Linguistics" argues this material culture borrowing by China from steppe people was accompanied by linguistic and cultural borrowings that influenced Chinese religion and spirituality in the Bronze age.
Brilliant! Lot's of interesting detail.
Very good summary of early bronze age China. The mythical early dynasty is the Yao. Your pronunciation of Chinese names is a bit off, but that's almost universal between Chinese and Western languages.
Love seeing videos about China! Fascinatingly complex history that really doesn’t get enough focus.
Nah most Westerners ultimately only care about European and American history. There's no demand for it.
Overall very good quick overview. A small criticism on pronunciation often made the mythical Xia sounds more like sshyah and the shang more like shahng with a like father. X in pinyin is pronounced as a s+sh. Anyang (ahn-yahng), Xi'an (sshee-ahn), the Chengdu (chung-doo), and Luoyang (looah-yahng) areas are wonderful cities to visit the various archeological sites which I highly recommend. Xi'an usually visited just for it Terra Cotta Warriors of the first Qin emperor but has many earlier sites such as the Ba site in Neolithic times. The others I rarely visited by westerners, unfortunately, but are none the less great places to visit for the history lover.
Is the Luoyang kind of like
looahr-yahng ?
And i forgot what tones it has .
i was told uo has like a waar sound .
Or was it ou ? Its been awhile.
6:15 Minor point of pedantry:
A crossbow isn't a firearm. Firearms were classified as such because the gunpowder burns (that's the 'fire' bit), and crossbows don't use gunpowder.
Other than that, pretty good.
You fire the arrow of acrossbow.
@@Haijwsyz51846 No, you actually don't. You loose the arrow.
The verb "fire", as a command for using a ranged weapon, didn't come into use until firearms were invented.
The reason for this is simple; crossbows don't use fire.
Great video thank you
Amazing, intereseting excellent video! I'm so glad to see the pre-Qin history of Chinese states! Thank you!
I was surprised to see 4 consecutive videos about bronze age pop up on my subscription list but now i realise the youtube historians have formed an alliance
The trigger mechanism described at 6:20 has also been standardized as the parts are inter exchangeable.
thank you for listing sources!!
Excellent job
great video
This is going to bug me. Xia isn't actually pronounced how it looks. In pinyin, 'X' is prounounced like "sh" so Xia sounds more like "Shia," not "Zia"
Likewise, Zhou also isn't pronounced how it looks. "Zh" in pinyin doesn't really stress the 'Z' sound. It's pronounced more like a 'J.' So Zhou sounds more like "Joe."
To clarify, X is not Sh and Zh is not J. Sh and J are already their own distinct sounds in Pinyin. X and Zh sound similar to those, yes, but they have no equivalents in standard English. Where X approaches a fusion of the S+Sh+Y sounds of standard English; Zh is lighter-sounding than J (which is pronounced with wide lips akin to "Jeep" in English).
Not in Singapore
Nice video
th-cam.com/video/zBtHgHy2iyM/w-d-xo.html
This video in going to make me pass my exam!!!!!!!! Thank you for making it.
Wish you had organised playlists
Very helpful.
There was a Xia dynasty before the Zhou dynasty，2100BC-1600BC. Luoyang as the capital.
I suppose that Mohism and its doctrine of universal love had a fairly minor role in the development of later Chinese culture, which is probably why it was excluded from the roll call of major classical Chinese philosophers, but I'm still a little disappointed that he was left out.
Mohist doctrine is too small to be systematically promoted and applied. Especially after the unification of China, the huge country needed a more efficient management system and cultural beliefs, so they chose law and Confucianism.
Mohist doctrine is too small to be systematically promoted and applied. Especially after the unification of China, the huge country needed a more efficient management system and cultural beliefs, so they chose law and Confucianism.
great job
Your video are very good
Love your map at the very end. Would be nice to show some geographical landmarks like the passes and the Silk Road corridore. Also, did you make a video of the Warring States Period? Netflix really has turned a lot of attention onto that history with their Qin Empire: Alliances. It is interesting that the series Gotham also employs continuously shifting alliances and wars to maintain balance.
Shang dynasty never reached sea coast but after Jiang ZIya fought Lai they finally reaches in short coast on Bohai bay.
You should have mentionned Mohism ! (great vid tho)
if only this world would be full of philosophers, mathematicians, biologists, scientists, artists and engineers. What a world we would live in.
I love your videos! Could you please do a video on Maghreb?
Since you mentioned Zhou Gong, I’d love to see a vid specifically about him and the two other dukes who maintained the Zhou when the situation was dire...especially Jiang Ziya.
These two people are completely different, the achievements of the zhougong in the system and culture as well .And the philosophical level.
And jiangziya's achievements and expertise lie in military strategy and political strategy.
@@wenliu9571 Maybe your English isn’t that great but I said “Zhou Gong AND the two OTHER dukes…”. No one said they are the same person.
@@Rorschachqp Duke is not an accurate translation, and Zhougong is only an honorific title for his descendants.
@@wenliu9571 Yes I know. I'm Chinese by the way. Like Liu Bang vs. Han Gaozu.
Thanks for this video.. All inclusive ♥
Wow, this was very interesting.
Wonderful video about Bronze age China. the Shang and Zhou dynasties was one of the greatest period in Chinese history. Epimetheus you are right China is the only bronze age civilization that has survive to the present day. Bronze age Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Near East didn't make it. It is amazing that the greatest Chinese philosophers like Lao tzu, Confucius, Hen Fe and Sun Tzu emerged in the Bronze age warring period. China is the only ancient empire that has survived foreign invasion and occupation like the mongol invasion. the Western Roman empire didn't survived the invasion of the Goths, the Eastern Roman didn't survived the invasion of the Ottoman Turks and Ancient Egypt didn't survived the invasion of the Arabs.
Ancient Egypt didn't exist during Arab invasion because before that it was already conquered by Assyrians, then by Persians, Macedonia and it's culture was mixed with helenic, persian and mesopotamian culture, then had helenistic dynasty after Macedonia was separated in three parts by Alexanders generals, that dynasty was conquered by Roman Empire, they destroyed library in Alexandria and Egypt become periphery of that empire, after that Egypt become Christian, then Roman Empire split and Egypt became part od the Eastern Roman Empire and only then Arab invasion happened which means that Egypt that Arabs conquered didn't had much in common with ancient Egypt.
I love you videos
Thanks! :)
Great video! I've always wanted to learn about how the Chinese civilization started.
You should have mentioned Mozi and the Mohists
they are...a group secret philosophers/ scientists/ mechanics. cool people
墨子
Chinese civilisation (a literate society) most likely began at least with the Xia, for the simple reason that the Shang dynasty acknowledged them as their predecessors in this capacity. The mythic age of the five emperors which preceded the Xia, and lasted for several centuries in the third millenium before Christ, probably reflects five dynasties, and may indeed be the origin of literate states in China.
In the museum, I saw the original bronze ware three thousand years ago. I could recognize some words on the inscription. Although it was very old, it seemed to be engraved in the gene.
If I had heard someone say the name "Dan, Duke of Zhou" in talking about Chinese history before seeing this video, I would've thought that was a made-up name. Tell me I'm not the only one.
To be fair, that's not how it's really pronounced... the proper pronunciation sounds a lot closer to the English word "dawn".
Dahn, Duke of zhou, not dawn, duke of zhou
Kind of found the rock music distracting tbh. Love your videos
every civilization starts along the river.
Importance of water
@Lite-Wing Gift The area they once built their civilization used to have rivers or lakes.
Hi, Epimetheus. Can you please make a video on the history of Cambodia. In that same video, please don't forget to mention Prey Nokor.
zhou: joe
shang:sh-ah-ng
xia: shia/sia (either a mix of the two or either separately)
lao tzu (lao zi): lah-ow tz-ih(like the zz in pizza)
luoyang: loo-o y-ah-ng
6:11 "The world's first ever trigger operated firearm, the crossbow, was invented around 650 B.C..."
Well, the crossbow certainly is an arm of war, but it's got nothing to do with fire.
Is that intro based on the Standard of Ur? Whoever designed it did a fantastic job.
Hey you got it! Our designer was @just1ms on Instagram. He's a great guy!
3:32
'Dan' threw me for a loop, i'll admit
The crossbow was invented in 650 BC in China. 😮😮😮😮😮😮
You and OSP collaborating?! Much like. VERY HISTORY.
Can you point out to good books and papers on history and or Philosophy of China in English (or Portuguese, or Spanish)?
@Epimetheus I am afraid that The map in 6:36 is inaccurate, since Taiwan was not controlled by China until the great Yuan, when they set up a outpost there..
@@anpingzhu5518 No the original Taiwainese ppl are not Han Chinese. These indegous ppl are now minorities in Taiwain. Their looks and culture are similar to Polynesians.
Joe and Dan sound like pretty cool guys
6:33
Don’t forget Ginger Juan! :)
Mohism also deserves to be mentioned, since Mo Tzu was the first and probably the only true scientist throughout Chinese history.
there were lots of scientists and inventions during the Han and Song dynasty. And Mo's good friend, Lu Ban was a kind of scientist/engineer as well.
@@rickr9435
Lu Ban was an engineer. He was a master of crafting and inventing but he didn't develop any scientific theory or discover any scientific law. Mo Tzu on the other hand, did.
MOTZU is more like a pro-democratic political philosopher,he uses logic, he is an engineer, it doesn't make him a scientist