Porcelain Paper money Magnetic compass Gunpowder 1.What society is known for the inventions above? 2.Explain which you feel had the biggest impact on the world and why.

Chinese Society Section 12.2

A Growing Economy  During the period of Civil War cities were damaged and farms were burned.  Under the Tang Dynasty, these problems are solved.  Why did farming improve?  Tang rulers gave more land to the farmers  Farmers improved irrigation and introduced new ways to grow crops  Developed new kinds of rice that would grow in poor soil, produced more per acre, grew faster, and were resistant to disease.

China’s Trade Grows  Built roads and waterways – made trade within and outside of China easier  Silk Road was under Tang control  China’s main products to trade were silk, tea, steel, paper, and porcelain.  Porcelain – type of ceramic made of fine clay that is baked at high temperatures.  Had other trade routes to central Asia, India, and southwest Asia. Also shipped by sea.

New Technology – Coal and Steel  When wood became scarce in China, people discovered that they could use coal to heat things. Soon they began mining coal.  They then discovered that if iron was heated by coal and mixed with carbon from the coal, it created a new, stronger metal – steel.  Came to be used to make armor, swords, and helmets, stoves, farm tools, drills, steel chains.

New Technology – The Printing Process  Before printing, books were copied by hand so books were rare and very expensive.  Cut the characters onto a wooden block. Ink was placed on the wooden block. Paper was laid on the block to make the print to make many copies.  The earliest known printed book dates from about 868 AD and is a Buddhist book called the Diamond Sutra.  The invention of printing is important because it helped spread ideas more rapidly.  In the 1000s, the idea of movable type for printing developed. The pieces can be moved around to make sentences and used again and again. The previous method was still easier and quicker.

New Technologies – Other  Gunpowder for use in explosives – used in a fire lance (ancestor to the gun) and fireworks  Large ships with rudders and sails  Used the compass to help them find their way

Tang Poetry  Chinese writers best expressed themselves in poetry.  Tang dynasty – great age of poetry.  Li Bo – one of the most popular poet of the Tang era, poems often centered on nature  Duo Fu – another favored poet, poor civil servant during the time. He almost died of starvation and wrote of the sufferings of the poor.

Painting in Song China  The painting of landscapes becomes popular during this time. But the paintings weren’t exact, they portrayed the “idea of mtns, lakes, and other features and left empty spaces on purpose.  They were influenced by the Daoist belief that a person cannot know the whole truth about something.  Chinese poetry was also part of these paintings as well written in calligraphy

Chinese Porcelain (Tang)  Porcelain today is what we refer to as China because it came to the west from China.  It is such fine clay that you can see through it at times and yet it is made of clay. That fascinated people at the time.