Chinese Imperial Dynasties | World History | Khan Academy

- [Instructor] In other videos
we talk about some of the

truly ancient Chinese
dynasties, the Shang Dynasty,

the Zhou Dynasty, and as we
get to the end of the Zhou

Dynasty, China falls into
chaos in the Warring States

Period, which is a really
tough time for China.

But the silver lining is it's
also the time that you have

all these schools of
thought, the Hundred Schools

of Thought, of which
Confucianism and Daoism

and Legalism and all of these
other schools of thought

begin to emerge.

But what we're really going
to focus on in this video

is the beginning of truly
imperial China under the Qin

Dynasty from which China gets its name.

So here we are in the third
century B.C.E. and you have

your first true emperor
of China, Qin Shi Huang,

and the dynasty that he
sets up is known as the Qin

Dynasty which will be
shortly lived but it's known

as the first dynasty to truly unify China.

This is where we believe the
word China actually comes from,

from the Qin Dynasty.

The dynasty is known for its
fairly harsh, centralized

rule motivated over the
foundation on legalism.

In terms of relics that
we have from that period,

you might have heard
of the Terra Cotta Army

which was buried along
with Qin Shi Huang's grave.

Now the Qin Dynasty is
most known for ending the

Warring States Period and
unifying China, and really

laying the foundation for
the Golden Age of China

that will happen in the Han Dynasty.

The Han Dynasty lasts from
roughly 200 B.C.E. to a little

after 200 C.E.

And in my head I think of
it as bit of a contemporary

as the Roman Empire.

The 200 years of the Western
Han Dynasty correspond

roughly to the Roman
Republic, and as we get to the

Eastern Han Dynasty, that
corresponds to really the heyday

of the Roman Empire.

And it's also a golden age of
China, a time where science

and the arts, and especially
Confucianism begins to

really take hold in China,
becomes officially part

of the civil service,
part of the bureaucracy.

The Han Dynasty was so
successful at unifying China

culturally and linguistically,
that today, 92% of Chinese

identify themselves as ethnically Han.

So sometimes you'll hear
the word Han referring to

the Han Dynasty, and sometimes
it will be referring to

the Han ethnic group,
which really derives from

the notion of the unification
under the Han Dynasty.

Now the Han Dynasty, as we see
here, ends at the beginning

of the third century in the
Common Era, and then China

gets fragmented again,
and it gets split into

multiple dynasties.

This roughly 360 years that
I don't have marked on my

timeline, it's not that
nothing was happening in China,

in fact, a lot was, but
China was not unified.

To get a sense of that,
here is China during the

Three Kingdoms Period
in the third century,

shortly after the fall of the Han Dynasty.

You see the Jin Dynasty depicted
here in the fourth century,

still part of what's often known as the

Six Dynasties Period, this
roughly 360 years of a

fragmented China.

And then you see this North
and South Dynasty Period

here in the sixth century.

And eventually, China is
reunified, and that happens

under the Sui.

It is unified under
Emperor Wen of Sui for whom

the dynasty is known,
and similar to the Qin,

what the Sui are most known
for is taking this chaotic

period and finally unifying China.

And the Sui are ethnically Han,
and they lay the foundation

for another golden age
of China under the Tang

and the Sung Dynasties.

The Tang Dynasty depicted
here, it rivals the Han

as a golden age of China.

It's a time where the arts,
the sciences really come about.

One interesting thing about
this Six Dynasties Period

that we talk about,
which is a chaotic time,

it is a time that Buddhism
starts to come into China

from central Asia, originally
from India, and by the

Sui and the Tang, it really takes hold.

Now one of the most important
innovations that comes from

Tang China is the notion
of block printing.

What you see depicted here
is one of the first books

ever printed, the Diamond
Sutra, during the Tang Dynasty.

Now, after the Tang falls in
907, you have, on a historical

time scale, a relatively
brief period of chaos again.

About 50, I guess exactly
53 years where you get this

Five Dynasties and 10 Kingdoms
Period, but then China

gets reunified under the Song Dynasty.

And the Song Dynasty is able
to, on some level, pick up

where the Tang Dynasty left off.

One thing that happens as
we get into the late Tang

Dynasty, is that there's
push-back against Buddhism

that we talk about in
other videos, and you see

Neo-Confucianism begin to
take hold and it really

takes hold under the Song
Dynasty that we talk about

in other videos.

The Song Dynasty is also
known as a time of really

putting a lot of energy
into the civil service

and the bureaucracy, and it
really being very meritocratic,

based on some of these
Neo-Confucian ideals.

It's also a time of significant
technological innovation.

The compass, which has use
as early as the Han Dynasty,

but it really gets into its
fairly evolved or modern form,

especially for maritime use,
during the Song Dynasty.

The notion of a Chinese
junk boat also gets into its

evolved form during the Song Dynasty.

Some of the really far-reaching
innovations from this

Dynasty include building on
the Tang use of block printing,

but thinking about movable
type, which makes printing

far more practical.

And maybe the biggest single
innovation that changed

the world, for better or worse,
was the use of gunpowder,

which there's some use in
the late Tang, but it really

starts to get perfected
during the Song Dynasty.

The Song Dynasty is
eventually overthrown in the

13th century by the Mongols.

They are able to establish
the Yuan Dynasty with

Kublai Khan being the first emperor of it,

grandson of Genghis, or Jen-gees Khan.

They are eventually
overthrown in the 14th century

by the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty is once
again ethnically Han,

and some of the most famous
attractions that are associated

with China today really came
about from the Ming Dynasty.

This is the Forbidden Palace,
the imperial residence

during the Ming and Qing
Dynasties in Beijing.

This is the Great Wall of China.

And even though the history
of the Great Wall of China

goes a good ways back, even
to the Zhou and Warring States

Periods, much of what you
now see as the Great Wall,

a lot of this brick work, was
built during the Ming Dynasty.

And then the last true
Dynasty of China is the Qing.

The Qing Dynasty is again,
to some degree, foreign rule.

It's ruled by the Manchus
who come from Manchuria,

which is this region right
over here, and they're

eventually able to
overwhelm the Ming Dynasty,

and ruled China all the way
until the early 20th century

when the Republic of China
is able to overthrow them.