ANCIENT

CHINA

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ANCIENT
CHINA

Troll Associates
ANCIENT
CHINA

by Louis Sabin

Illustrated by Hal Frenck

Troll Associates
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Sabin, Louis.
Ancient China.

Summary: Briefly traces the early history of China,

which enjoyed a period of great creativity under the
T'ang and Sung dynasties.
I. China — —
History Juvenile literature. (1. China-
History. 2. Civilization, Ancient] I. Frenck, Hal, ill.

II. Title.
DS736.S3134 1985 951'.01 84-2729
ISBN 0-8167-0316-7 (lib.bdg.)
ISBN 0-8167-0317-5 (pbk.)

Copyright © 1985 by Troll Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used
or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written

permission from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

10 987654321
 It's the start of a new planting season in
China. Everyone is out to celebrate the new
year and to see the parade. People are
wearing new clothes, and they're waving
paper streamers colored red for good luck.
The noise of firecrackers, drums, and metal
gongs fills the air. According to Chinese
legend, the noise will drive away evil spirits

and disease.
 Here comes the parade. There's a dragon
with twenty pairs of legs! It has a huge head
of many colors, with rolling eyes and sharp
ivory fangs. That should scare away the
demons!
People cheer and laugh at the dragon.
They know it's only a costume. The legs
belong to the men and boys of the town,
who carry the dragon's head and dance and
kick up their heels under the red cloth body.
Dragons are popular in China because
they're the imaginary rulers of the clouds.
Kind dragons bring rain for good crops.
Cruel ones can make the crops fail with
storms or dry spells. The dragons are
powerful forces. That's why the kings and
emperors who once ruled China took the
dragon as their symbol of strength.
 Until modern times, China was ruled by
dynasties. A dynasty was a royal family
that passed power from father to son
on its

through many generations. The name of the

ruling family became the name of each
dynasty. Powerful families might rule for
hundreds of years. But in times of war, a
dynasty could quickly lose power. Some
dynasties lasted only a generation or two.

10
 Chinese civilization is very old. It began
before China even had a written language.
Not much is known about very early
Chinese dynasties because there are no
written records.
Then, about 3,000 years ago, during the
Shang dynasty, the first writing appeared in
China. The people asked the gods questions
like "Will it rain?" and "What about the rice

crop?" Their questions were scratched or

painted on bones and tortoise shells because
paper had not yet been invented.
 In Chinese writing, each word has its own
symbol, called a character. This is very
different from Western writing, which uses
the letters of the alphabet to spell each
word. Modern Chinese still uses the ancient
method of writing in characters. It's a
3,000-year-old tradition.
Tradition, language, and powerful
dynasties are the strengths that made China
one land. It took all three forces to unify
this vast nation of different people and
places.
 In westernmost China, Chinese people
lived on the slopes of a mountain range they
called the "roof of the world." The world's
highest mountain —Mount Everest — is in
that range.

13
 Thousands of miles to the east, Chinese
sailors and fishermen lived on the coast of
the mighty Pacific Ocean. Chinese farmers
lived inland to the south, in a tropical world
where bamboo and palm trees share the
land with wet fields of growing rice.

14
 But in the north, was much different
life

among the Mongols. The Mongols were

wandering tribes who raised sheep and
horses. Riding their horses, the Mongols
roamed a cold, dry wasteland of grass and
deserts.

v-

t 48 5p
 Fearing the warlike Mongols, the Chinese
built towers where guards could watch for
invaders from the north. That was while
there were still many kings in the different
states of China. Then in 221 B.C., during the
Ch'in dynasty, one ruler gained power.
China was united under an emperor for
the first time. The emperor made wide-

16
spread changes to help unify the country.
The many provinces of China were ordered
to use the same system of weights and
measures. And everyone could follow the
same laws now because they were simplified
and written down. Most important of all,
the Ch 'in emperor created the Great Wall of
China.

17
 Millions of workers were sent to build a
huge wall of brick and mud between the
watchtowers facing Mongol territory.
Many men died at this hard labor, but the
finished wall is one of the greatest
constructions ever built.
 It's over 1,500 miles long, wide enough
for eight people to walk —side by side on
it,and much too high for the Mongols'
horses to jump over. The Great Wall helped
keep the Mongols out of China for over
1,000 years.
 —

Inside China, a time of great growth

began. But people had trouble understanding
one another, because there were so many
accents and dialects. Education, therefore

especially reading —
and writing became
more and more important. The great Chinese
philosopher Confucius had said, long ago,
that all people should have some education,
and that the wisest citizens could then help
the king run the country.
 Although Confucius was not very success-
ful during his own lifetime, his ideas
eventually spread and helped to make the
Chinese empire strong. Emperors opened
royal schools where even the poorest farm
boys could study — if they were smart
enough.

21
.^x

'-'-"
2
 The son of a servant could become rich
and powerful as a royal adviser or governor
of a state. Education gave China skilled
doctors who knew much about medicine.
And, during this period about 2,000 years
ago, the Chinese invented paper — one of the
world's great discoveries.
Another wonderful Chinese creation is

cloth made of silk. The Chinese guarded the

secret of silk-making for many centuries.
Nobody else knew about the silkworms that
eat mulberry leaves and spin cocoons of
pure Roman coins of gold and silver
silk.

found their way to far-off China in payment

for imported silk.
The valuable fabric was brought thousands
of miles by ship or over land along a trade run
known as the silk route. Traveling the silk
route was slow and sometimes dangerous.
But it was the only link between Rome and
China, the two great powers of the ancient
world.

23
 While Greece and then Rome were masters
of the Western world, China was an equal
power in the East. But China was very
different. Greece and Rome developed the
idea of one law for everyone. Chinese law
drew careful lines between how a govern-
ment and a common worker should
official

be punished for the same crime.

Western thinkers thought about the
importance of the individual. The Chinese
put the family above all. The father was the
head of the family. Even a grown man could
be punished for disobeying his father.
Women had almost no freedom. Marriage
was arranged by the family. And a wife had
to obey her husband's father.
 During the T'ang dynasty, from a.d. 618
to was invented and many
907, printing
history books and encyclopedias were
written. Public schools and fine libraries
were established.
And fine arts flowered, too. Painters put
beautiful watercolors on silk or paper. Their
paintings expressed the Chinese ideal of
harmony between people and nature. Poets
were artists, too. Each word of a poem was a
single character lovingly painted in ink.

25
 This great age of creativity continued into
the famous Sung dynasty. The fine porcelain
pottery known to us as china was perfected.
Timekeeping and astronomy were improved
with the invention of clocks. And sailors

could find their way on the sea with the

newly discovered magnetic compass.

Even warfare was modernized. The

Chinese had invented gunpowder. Now they
knew how to attack their enemies with
flaming rockets.

26
 But was war that finally destroyed Sung
it

power. Led by the great Mongol warrior

Genghis Khan, the Mongols finally overran
the Great Wall of China. When famous
the
Italian traveler Marco Polo reached China

around a.d. 1300, it was ruled by Mongols.

The Sung dynasty had been destroyed. But
what Marco Polo described in his account
was the result of centuries of Tang and Sung
civilization.
 Marco Polo wrote of a large and magnifi-
cent city full of parks and glittering palaces.

Streets were lighted with oil-burning lamps.

There were towering temples called pagodas.
The pagodas often had a curving tile roof
over each story and were richly decorated.
The markets were rich with meats, fruits,
vegetables, and seafood. There were theaters
full of dancers, singers, actors, and jugglers.

^M^y//y
The streets were crowded with people
hurrying on their business.
Some people were poor, but the govern-
ment had welfare programs and homes for
orphans. The poorer wooden houses of town
were crowded together, and fires were
common. But watchmen stood on the high
arching bridges and alerted the fire brigade if
they saw danger.
 Even now in China, there are busy cities

much like this. But what Marco Polo saw was

the end of an era. After about 100 years, the
Chinese chased the Mongols out. Then they
established the long, peaceful Ming dynasty.
Tradition preserved much that was great
from China's past, but the most wonderful
era of creativity and invention was over.
Still, we continue to appreciate the many
works of beauty and the endless contribu-
tions of the early Chinese.
Troll Associates 0-8167-0317-5