 Physical Geography Desert – Gobi Plains Plateaus Rivers :  Huang He (Yellow) – China’s Sorrow  Yangtze

 Xia  Shang Advances:  China’s first writing system  Oracle bones  Oracle - prediction  Calendar

 Defeated the Shang Dynasty  Ruled longer than any other dynasty  Mandate of Heaven – heaven gave power to the king  Social Structure King Lords – people of high rank Peasants – farmers with small farms

 Confucius – most influential teacher in Chinese history.  Ethics – moral values  Ideas became known as Confucianism Guidelines for family and government (p. 169)

 Daoism – stressed living in harmony with the Dao, the guiding force of all reality Yin and Yang  Legalism – belief that people were bad by nature and needed to be controlled Strict laws to keep people in line

 Unified China in 221 BC  Shi Huangdi – “first emperor”  Used army to expand the empire  Established: Uniform system or laws, written language, and currency

 Network or roads  Canals and irrigation systems  Great Wall – a barrier that linked earlier walls across China’s northern frontier

 Lasted for 400 years  1 st emperor – Liu Bang  Next great emperor was Wudi Follower of Confucianism  Family became important Father was the head of the family Women’s duty was to obey her husband Children had to obey their father

 Art and Literature Figure painting Poetry  Inventions and Advances Paper Sundial – uses the position of shadows cast by the sun to tell the time of the day Seismograph – device that measures the strength of an earthquake Acupuncture – practice of inserting fine needles through the skin at specific points to cure disease or relieve pain

 Ironworking  Swords and armor  Iron plow and wheelbarrow  Silk – a soft, light, highly valued fabric  Silk Road – 4,000 mile long network of routes that stretched westward from China across Asia’s deserts and mountain ranges, through the Middle East, to the Mediterranean Sea

 Spread from India to China  Diffusion – the spread of ideas from one culture to another