Hi, I’m John Green, this is Crash Course:
World History, and today we’re going to
talk about China, which these days is discussed
almost constantly on television and in newspapers—wait,
are they still a thing?
So, we used to print information on thinly
sliced trees and then you would pay someone
to take these thinly sliced trees and throw
them onto your front lawn, and that’s how
we received information. No one thought this
was weird, by the way.
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Right but anyway you hear a lot about how
China is going to overtake the U.S. and bury
us under a pile of inexpensive electronics,
but I don’t to address those address those
fears today. Instead, I want to talk about
how the way you tell a story shapes the story.
China was really the first modern state--by
which I mean it had a centralized government
and a corps of bureaucrats who could execute
the wishes of that government.
And it lasted, in pretty much the same form,
until 150 BCE to 1911 CE, which is technically
known as a long-ass time.
The Chinese were also among the first people
to write history. In fact, one of the Confucian
Classics is called the Shujing, or Classic
of History.
This is great for us, because we can now see
the things that the Chinese recorded as they
were happening, but it is also problematic
because of the way the story is told.
So even Me From The Past with his five minutes
of World History knows that Chinese History
is conveniently divided into periods called
Dynasties.
Mr. Green, I didn’t even say anything. That
doesn’t seem very fair-
Sshh! What makes a dynasty a dynasty is that
it’s ruled by a king, or as the Chinese
know him, an emperor, who comes from a continuous
ruling family.
As long as that family produces emperors,
and they are always dudes, and those emperors
keep ruling, the dynasty gets to be a dynasty.
So the dynasty can end for two reasons: either
they run out of dudes (which never happened
thanks to the hard work of many, many concubines),
or the emperor is overthrown after a rebellion
or a war.
This is more or less what happened to all
the dynasties, which makes it easy for me
to go over to camera two and describe them
in a single run-on sentence: Hi there--
--camera two.
Leaving aside the Xia dynasty, which was sadly
fictional, the first Chinese dynasty were
the Shang, who were overthrown by the Zhou,
which disintegrated into political chaos called
the Warring States period, in which states
warred over periods—oh, no, wait, it was
a period in which states warred, which ended
when the Qin emperor was able to extend his
power over most of the heretofore warring
states,
but the Qin were replaced by the Han, which
was the dynasty that really set the pattern
for most of China’s history and lasted for
almost 400 years after which China fell again
into political chaos – which only means
there was no dynasty that ruled over all of
China –
and out of this chaos rose the Sui, who were
followed quickly by the Tang, who in turn
were replaced, after a short period of no
dynasty by the Song, who saw a huge growth
in China’s commerce that was still not enough
to prevent them from being conquered by the
Yuan, who were both unpopular and unusual…
because they were Mongols, which sparked rebellions
resulting in the rise of the Ming, which was
the dynasty that built the Great Wall and
made amazing vases but didn’t save them
from falling to the Manchus who founded a
dynasty that was called the Qing, which was
the last dynasty because in 1911 there was
a rebellion like the ones in, say, America,
France or Russia, and the whole dynastic system
which at this point had lasted for a long-ass
time came to an end.
The concept of the Mandate of Heaven dates
from the Zhou Dynasty, and current historians
think that they created it to get rid of the
Shang.
Before the Zhou, China didn’t even have
a concept of “Heaven” or T’ian, but
they did have a “high god” called Shangdi.
But the Zhou believed in T’ian, and they
were eager to portray the idea of heaven as
eternal so they ascribed the concept of the
Mandate of Heaven back to a time even before
the Shang, explaining that the Shang were
able to conquer the Xia only because the Xia
kings had lost the Mandate of Heaven.
(This of course would have been impossible,
partly because the Xia kings had no concept
of “heaven”, and partly because, as previously
noted, they didn’t exist, but let’s just
leave that aside.)
The Shujing is pretty specific about what
caused the Xia kings to lose the Mandate,
by the way, explaining:
“The attack on Xia may be traced to the
orgies in Ming Tiao.”
Sadly the Shujing is woefully short on details
of these orgies, but orgies are the kind of
behavior that is not expected of a ruler,
and thus Heaven saw fit to remove the Mandate,
and therefore heaven saw fit to come in, remove
the Mandate, and allow the Shang to take power.
But then the Shang lost the Mandate. Why?
Well, the last Shang emperor was reported
to have roasted and eaten his opponents, which,
you know, bit of a deal breaker as far as
the Mandate of Heaven is concerned.
Of course, that might not actually have happened,
but it would explain why Heaven would allow
the Zhou to come to power.
So basically the fact that one dynasty falls
and is replaced by another in a cycle that
lasts for 3000 years is explained, in the
eyes of early Chinese historians, by divine
intervention based on whether the ruler behaves
in a proper, upright manner.
It’s an after-the fact analysis that has
the virtue of being completely impossible
to disprove, as well as offering a tidy explanation
for some very messy political history.
And even more importantly, it reinforces a
vision of moral behavior that is a cornerstone
of Confucianism, which I’ll get to momentarily.
But first, let’s see an example of the mandate
of heaven in action.
The Qin dynasty on lasted only 38 years, but
it is one of the most important dynasties
in Chinese history, so important in fact that
it gave the place its name, “Chin- uh.”
[chalkboard joke] Hahahaha.
Can I just tell you guys that we literally
just spent 20 minutes on that shot. We shot
it like 40 times. Stan, you are in love with
puns.
The accomplishment of the Qin was to re-unify
China under a single emperor for the first
time in 500 years, ending the warring states
period.
As you can imagine, the making of that particular
omelette required the cracking of quite a
few eggs, and the great Qin emperor Qin Shihuangdi,
and his descendants developed a reputation
for brutality that was justified.
But it was also exaggerated for effect so
that the successor dynasty, the Han, would
look more legitimate in the eyes of Heaven.
So when recounting the fall of the Qin, historians
focused on how a bunch of murderous eunuchs
turned the Qin emperors into puppets, not
literal puppets, although that would have
been awesome.
And these crazy eunuchs like tricked emporers
into committing suicide when they started
thinking for themselves, et cetera.
So the Mandate of Heaven turned away from
these puppet emperors, which set up a nice
contrast for historians of the early Han emperors,
such as Wen, who came to power in 180 BCE
and ruled benevolently, avoiding extravagance
in his personal behavior and ruling largely
according to Confucian principles.
Under Wen, there were no more harsh punishments
for criticizing the government, executions
declined, and, most importantly for the Confucian
scholars who were writing the history, the
government stopped burning books.
Thus, according to the ancient Chinese version
of history, Emperor Wen, by behaving as a
wise Confucian, maintains the Mandate of Heaven.
So who is this Confucius I won’t shut up
about? Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.
Confucius was a minor official who lived during
the Warring States period and developed a
philosophical and political system he hoped
would lead to a more stable state and society.
He spent a great deal of his time trying to
convince one of the powerful kings to embrace
his system, but while none ever did, Confucius
got the last laugh because his recipe for
creating a functioning society was ultimately
adopted and became the basis for Chinese government,
education, and, well, most things.
So Confucius was conservative. He argued that
the key to bringing about a strong and peaceful
state was to look to the past and the model
of the sage emperors. By following their example
of morally upright behavior, the Chinese emperor
could bring order to China.
Confucius idea of morally upright behavior
boils down to a person’s knowing his or
her place in a series of hierarchical relationships
and acting accordingly.
Everyone lives his life (or her life, but
like most ancient philosophical traditions,
women were marginalized) in relationship to
other people, and is either a superior or
an inferior.
There are five key relationships—but the
most important is the one between father and
son, and one of the keys to understanding
Confucius is filial piety, a son treating
his father with reverential respect.
The father is supposed to earn this respect
by caring for the son and educating him, but
this doesn’t mean that a son has the right
to disrespect a neglectful father.
Ideally, though, both father and son will
act accordingly: The son will respect the
father, and the father will act respectably.
Ultimately the goal of both father and son
is to be a “superior man” (chunzi in Chinese).
If all men strive to be chunzi, the society
as a whole will run smoothly. This idea applies
especially to the emperor, who is like the
father to the whole country.
Oh, it’s time for the Open Letter? Alright.
[scoots to throne] God, that’s good.
But first, let’s see what’s in the Secret
Compartment today. Oh, an iPhone? Stan, this
doesn’t factor into Chinese history until
much later.
An Open Letter to the Xia Dynasty:
Dear Xia Dynasty,
Why you gotta be so fictional?
You contain all of the most awesome emperors,
including my favorite emperor of all time,
Yu the Engineer. There are so many The Greats
and The Terribles among royalty and so few
The Engineers.
We need more kings like Yu The Engineer: Peter
The Mortgage Broker; Danica The Script Supervisor;
Stan The Video Editing and Producer Guy. Those
should be our kings!
I freakin’ love you, Yu The Engineer. And
the fact that you’re not real- it breaks
my heart, in a way that could only be fixed
by Yu The Engineer.
The circularity actually reminds me of the
Mandate of Heaven.
Best wishes,
John Green
But back to the chunzi: So how do you know
how to behave? Well, first you have to look
to historical antecedents particularly the
sage emperors.
The study of history, as well as poetry and
paintings in order to understand and appreciate
beauty, is indispensable for a chunzi.
The other important aspects to chunzi-ness
are contained in the Confucian ideas of ren
and li.
Ren and Li are both incredibly complex concepts
that are difficult to translate, but we’re
going to do our best. Ren is usually translated
as “propriety”.
It means understanding and practicing proper
behavior in every possible situation, which
of course depends on who you’re interacting
with, hence the importance of the five relationships.
Li is usually translated as “ritual” and
refers to rituals associated with Chinese
religion, most of which involve the veneration
of ancestors.
Which brings us back, in a very roundabout
way to the fundamental problem of how early
Chinese historians wrote their history.
Traditional Chinese historians were all trained
in the Confucian classics, which emphasized
the idea that good emperors behaved like good
Confucians.
Would-be historians had to know these Classics
by heart and they’d imbibed their lessons,
chief among which was the idea that in order
to maintain the Mandate of Heaven, you had
to behave properly and not engage in orgies
or eat your enemies or eat your enemies while
engaging in orgies.
In this history the political fortunes of
a dynasty ultimately rest on one man and his
actions, whether he behaves properly.
The Mandate of Heaven is remarkably flexible
as an explanation of historical causation.
It explains why, as dynasties fell, there
are often terrible storms and floods and peasant
uprisings...
If the emperor had been behaving properly,
none of that stuff would have happened.
Now, a more modern historian might point out
that the negative effects of terrible storms
and floods, which includes peasant uprisings,
sometimes lead to changes in leadership.
But that would take the moral aspect out of
history and it would also diminish the importance
of Confucian scholars.
Because the scholars can tell you that one
of the best ways to learn how to be a good
emperor, and thereby maintain the Mandate
of Heaven is to read the Confucian Classics,
which were written by scholars.
In short, the complicated circularity of Chinese
history is mirrored by the complicated circularity
of the relationship between those who write
it and those who make it.
Which is something to think about no matter
what history you’re learning, even if it’s
from Crash Course.
Next week we’ll talk about Alexander the
Grape—really, Stan, for an entire episode?
That seems excessive to me. They’re just
like less sour, grapy-er lemonheads—ohh
Alexander the GREAT. That makes more sense.
Until then, thanks for watching.
Crash Course is produced and Directed by Stan
Muller. Our script supervisor is Danica Johnson.
Our graphics team is Thought Bubble and the
show is written by my high school history
teacher Raoul Meyer and myself.
Last week’s phrase of the week was "Right
Here In River City". If you wanna guess at
this week’s phrase or suggest future ones
you may do so in comments where you can also
ask questions about today’s video that'll
be answered by our team of historians.
Thanks for watching Crash Course and as we
say in my hometown, don’t forget to be awesome.