History’s Meaning of the Mandate of Heaven – Part 4/5

October 16, 2010

Marco Polo had no doubt that China was the world’s greatest civilization. He wrote that if the Chinese were war like, they would conquer the world.

He said, “Thank goodness, they are not.”

During the Song Dynasty, the standard of living in China was the highest in the world.

The key concept of Chinese civilization was the search for harmony and during the Song Dynasty this balance was achieved for a few centuries.

Writing was considered a tool that provided access to the ancestors until writing became civilization itself.

 

However, the way China saw the world started to change after Chinese Admiral Zheng He sailed from China with a huge armada in the fifteenth century.

Zheng He’s ships were eventually broken up and the logbooks destroyed.

Western thinkers have a simple explanation that the end of Zheng He’s explorations was proof that the Chinese were backward and ignorant and had no desire for new knowledge.

However, there is another explanation.

After all, at the time, the Chinese were the most advanced technological nation on the globe.

Therefore, perhaps it is a difference of how different civilizations believed technology should be used and the Chinese may have realized that their real interests were in China — not in the world.

In Europe, however, Western philosophers, leaders and writers were not concerned with perfecting the past but how to control the world’s future.

Return to History of the Mandate of Heaven – Part 3

 

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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History’s Meaning of the Mandate of Heaven – Part 3/5

October 15, 2010

In the eighth century AD, all roads in Asia led to Xian. It was the greatest city in the world. Rivaled only by Bagdad and Constantinople.

At this time, foreigners were allowed into China for the first time and they were kept in their own area away from the center of power.

In the western part of Xian in the foreign enclave, there was a great mix of cultures.

To the Chinese, the Tang Dynasty was the most golden of all ages for Chinese poetry.

For the Chinese, composing poetry is one of the central ideas of civilization.

A famous Silk Road poet talked about in the video said that the people of China could face any test as long as their leaders treated them humanely.

The Tang Dynasty ended in chaos and anarchy like so many in China’s history but was followed by an even greater Dynasty.

Four hundred miles from Xian lay Kaifeng. In the 11th century AD, this city was the capital of what is considered the peak of Chinese civilization, the Song Dynasty.

During the Song Dynasty, the invention of printing and inward development changed China. This would guide Asia for another thousand years.

In Kaifeng, as everywhere in China, several decades of Communist rule have not cut the ancient beliefs.

Reverence for ancestors, filial piety, and Confucian virtues are all coming back into the open now that freedom of worship (of the old ways) is guaranteed.

Like its medicine, Chinese cooking is based on harmony and balance – the old themes of Chinese culture. In fact, the oldest restaurant in the world first opened in 1153 AD and is still open for business in Kaifeng.

Return to History of the Mandate of Heaven – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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SONG DYNASTY (960 – 1279 AD) – Part 6/6

September 30, 2010

Movable type printing became widespread in the Song Dynasty and played an important role in the cultural development of the time.

The shape of books also changed. During the Tang Dynasty, books were rolled. However, with movable type, books were printed in volumes similar to modern books.

Han Qi, a research fellow for today’s Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that the development of Neo-Confucianism during the Song Dynasty was due to the widespread availability of printed books.

Printed book also promoted the development of science, technology and education.

During the Song Dynasty, both private and public school developed quickly. About 300 schools focused on education, teaching and book printing.

Some schools had math and physics departments.

This was also the age of the scholar-bureaucrat. A scholar from an impoverished background could become a member of the higher-social class through imperial examinations.

China was also the first country to introduce bronze-block printing for advertisements.

It is widely believed that without government support for the sciences, it would have been difficult to achieve the progress that took place at this time.

Return to Song Dynasty – Part 5

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar

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SONG DYNASTY (960 – 1279 AD) – Part 5/6

September 29, 2010

Porcelain from China during the Song Dynasty made China famous.

The invention of movable type also helped make China famous. The “Dream Pool Essays” by Shen Kuo records most of the scientific achievements of the time, which included knowledge of petroleum and geological changes. The most important achievement recorded in the ancient encyclopedia was the invention of movable type by Bi Sheng.

The entire process used in movable type printing was described in detail.

The first printed characters were engraved in tiny cubes of baked clay.

The age of paper in the history of human civilization began in China.

Papermaking had been developed during the Han Dynasty about 2,000 years ago. However, the quality of this paper wasn’t that good and was not ideal for writing.

Later, papermaking techniques were improved to a high level during the Song Dynasty.

Then Song era books were printed in large numbers. Even today, Song Dynasty books tell the world about the innovations and achievements of this era. At the time, Hangzhou was the greatest printing center in the world.

Return to Song Dynasty – Part 4

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar

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SONG DYNASTY (960 – 1279 AD) – Part 4/6

September 28, 2010

Under the sands of a beach in the city of Quanzhou City in Fujian Province, a well preserved secret was discovered–a boat built during the Song Dynasty.

It is the oldest, fully intact wooden boat unearthed in the world with a load capacity of 200 tons.

It was not the largest boat constructed during that time. The largest had a load capacity of more than 1,000 tons.

Experts say the construction of these ships with hermetic compartments made safe navigation possible and these methods that were developed a millinea ago are still used today in modern ship construction.

During the Song Dynasty, the trading port of Quanzhou was considered one of the two largest in the world. Egypt’s Alexandria was the other one.

As an important seaport for trade at one end of the Maritime Silk Road, Quanzhou had close ties with Korea and Japan in the east and as far as  northeast Africa in the west.

At the time, the Indian Ocean was called the Western Seas, which explains the story of Zheng He’s Voyage to the Western Seas” in the Ming Dynasty.

There were two major kinds of trade goods–silk and porcelain. Some scholars say that porcelain should be considered the fifth great Chinese invention.

Return to Song Dynasty – Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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SONG DYNASTY (960 – 1279 AD) – Part 3/6

September 28, 2010

Agricultural science during the Song Dynasty fertilized land that was not suitable for growing crops.

Then two or three annual harvests were possible leading to a green revolution, which supported the population of China to exceed one-hundred million—at that time the largest population in the world.

One scientist discovered that petroleum made better ink for writing and predicted that petroleum would be used greatly in the future.

Although China’s four greatest inventions came long before then, it wasn’t until the Song Dynasty that papermaking, the large-scale application of printing, the compass and gunpowder made their mark.

In fact, the German inventor Johannes Gutenberg wouldn’t invent his printing press until 1440 AD.

Before the Song Dynasty, the primitive compass invented centuries earlier was not accurate.

However, the compass was improved for navigation making it less likely for ships get lost at sea and allowed ships to travel farther from China.

To preserve these innovations, Shen Kuo published his Dream Pool Essays in 1088 AD, a huge encyclopedic book that covered a wide range of subjects, including literature, art, military strategy, mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, geology, geography, metallurgy, engineering, hydraulics, architecture, zoology, botany, agronomy, medicine, anthropology, archeology, etc.

Return to Song Dynasty – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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SONG DYNASTY (960 – 1279 AD) – Part 2/6

September 27, 2010

I’ve read many criticisms that the Chinese today cannot innovate without the level of freedom that exists in America and other Western republics and democracies.

If that were true, explain how the Chinese were so far ahead of the West for two thousand years while being ruled by autocratic, imperial governments where the law was often swift and harsh under legalism.

For example, during the Song Dynasty in 1092 AD, Su Song was the inventor of a hydraulic water powered astronomical clock tower. He was also known as a statesman, calligrapher and botanist.

In addition, fifteen hundred years ago, famous mathematician Zu Chongzhi calculated that the approximate value of pie was 3.1415926.

It would take a thousand years for a foreigner to break that record. In fact, China led the world in astronomy for more than a thousand years.

The world’s largest and earliest star chart is carved on a stele in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. Today’s astronomers find it incredible because it is so accurate and detailed.

During the Song Dynasty, a calendar was created that was as accurate as the Gregorian calendar used today—four centuries before the Gregorian calendar.

During the Song Dynasty, a new type of canal lock was invented. Four hundred years later in 1373 AD, a similar lock was invented in Europe.

Astronomical observations were used to help agriculture. Due to this, the Song Dynasty grain yield was ten to twenty times that of Medieval Europe.

Return to the Song Dynasty – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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SONG DYNASTY (960 – 1279 A.D.) – Part 1/6

September 26, 2010

Fifty-three years after the Tang Dynasty collapsed, Zhao Kuangyin, a general in the latter Zhou Dynasty (951-960) led a mutiny resulting in the Song Dynasty being established in Kaifeng City, Henan Province that would survive for 319 years.

During the Song Dynasty, China experienced developments in science and technology.

For example, the four great inventions of China were developed during the Song Dynasty—paper, printing, the compass and gunpowder

The Song Dynasty is considered a great period in ancient China and a continuation of what took place during the Tang Dynasty.

A striking feature of Song politics was the way greater importance was attached to civil administration than to military arts.

Under such circumstances, education, merit, and talent were encouraged and the imperial examination system was improved.

Astronomy was also an area where advances were made.

In July 1054, an unknown nova appeared in the sky. The sudden appearance of this nova alarmed the bureau of astronomy. A year later, the star vanished.

The nova was important because astronomers discovered the Crab Nebula near Taurus and careful records were kept during the Song Dynasty that benefits science today.

By the year 1072, Shen Kuo had been appointed head of the bureau of astronomy, and he took charge of the design of astronomical instruments leading to further scientific advances in this field

See the Tang Dynasty

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Chinese Brush Painting – Gongbi Style (flower and bird painting)

September 3, 2010

Chinese brush painting developed over a period of more than six thousand years.

Figure Painting developed beyond religious themes during the Song Dynasty (960-1127 AD), and landscape painting was established by the 4th century.

Another style is flower-and-bird painting, which became independent of other Chinese brush art around the 9th century then gradually developed into two different styles. Source: Asia Art.net

One famous 20th century Chinese brush-painting artist was Chen Zhifo (1895 – 1963)

Chen was born into an educated family.  At 23, he went to Japan to learn patterns that later influenced his painting style.

Chen would become a renowned painter in the early 20th century.

His artistic career started in design, patterns and other arts. When he started Gongbi style flower-and-bird painting, he was nearly 40, and he revived the declining tradition of Gongbi style Chinese brush painting.

When he started painting, he usually sketched his subjects then went through many drafts modifying them before applying colors.

Chen focused on the design of branches, leaves and birds to portray his subjects.

See Caressing Nature with Chinese Calligraphy

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Chinese Crossbow and other Inventions (1/4)

July 31, 2010

The Chinese invented the forerunner to the modern machine gun—a repeating crossbow. If you watch the video, you will see that firing the repeating crossbow takes the pull of one lever.  The arrows are in a clip above the firing mechanism.

Then the Chinese invented the stirrup. Prior to that, all of the ancient people on earth rode horses without stirrups and staying on horseback and fighting was difficult without the stirrup.

Thanks to stirrups, the horse became a more stable platform for war. Prior to the stirrup, it was common for a man to ride about seven miles a day. After the stirrup, that distance was extended to as much as 70 miles a day.

The invention of the stirrup along with the repeating crossbow created a powerful weapon. The Chinese could also manufacture items in mass, quickly and efficiently. The Chinese used pottery molds to accomplish this—even to build the advanced trigger mechanism for the crossbow. When it came to cast iron, the Chinese were a thousand years ahead of the world.

However, by the time of the Sung Dynasty, the world was catching up—meaning China’s enemies were stealing their technology.  It’s ironic that today, many in the West accuse the Chinese of stealing innovations. If so, China is only doing what was done to them centuries ago.

Go to Chinese Crossbow and other Inventions – Part 2 or learn more about The Accidental Discovery of Gunpowder

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then
follow directions.

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