to strengthen the state and increase military might so that a ruler could establish a powerful state with central authority.
The Qin Dynasty
The legalist philosophy played an important role in the unification of China once again in the Qin dynasty by the Emperor Qin Shihuangdi in 221 BCE. The country was divided into districts directly under the control of the centralized government and subject to uniform laws and taxation. Transportation was improved by developing a network of roads from the capital and by standardizing the track width between the wheels of carts. Defensive walls to keep out the nomads in the north were strengthened, joined, and extended to form a single wall along the northern frontier. Weights and measures were standardized, and a single coinage was adopted. Government bookkeeping, communication between districts, and education was improved by unifying the regional styles of calligraphy script into a standard official system of handwriting.
Although standardization was beneficial, it took on a more totalitarian character when the Qin emperor restricted individual thought and the creative arts to suppress criticism of imperial policy. To make a clean sweep and wipe out the past, including the records of Confucius’ teachings, he ordered the burning of all books except those on practical subjects. Scholars who resisted the demand were executed. The loss of the teachings of civilization was greatly resented by scholars in subsequent dynasties.
The First Emperor patronized alchemists in an effort to make himself immortal through a magic elixir, but he died only eleven years after taking the throne. At least his memory has lived on, since he is famous now for the over 7,000 terracotta soldiers found in a pit east of his mausoleum near the city of Xian in Shaanxi province.
The Qin empire had become weak at the center, and subsequent leaders failed after the First Emperor’s death. The dynasty no longer had the confidence of its people and lost the Mandate of Heaven when it fell in 206 BCE. The dynasty intended to last for ten thousand generations was over in fifteen years.
The Han Dynasty
In reaction to the Legalism of the Qin dynasty, the Han dynasty emperors officially promoted Confucianism while keeping some features of Legalism that supported centralized rule. The Confucian teachings were expanded upon by Dong Zhongshu (?179–104 BCE) and others to relate them to the workings of the universe. The principles of yin and yang interacted to produce the Five Element (or Five Forces) of earth, wood, metal, fire, and water. These in turn interacted to produce all things and advance the changes in the world in a cycle. Wood moved earth, metal cut wood, fire melted metal, water quenched fire, and the mass of earth overcame water. The Five Elements were seen to correspond to points of the compass, colors, and even dynasties. For example, water (black), the sign of Qin, was defeated by earth (yellow), the symbol of Han.
Chinese astrology rose out of these correspondences. The orbit of Jupiter around the sun was rounded to 12 years. Each year was assigned a Zodiac animal. The combination of yin and yang elements and the Five Elements were assigned to each Zodiac animal. Combining the 12 zodiac animals and the Five Elements produced a 60-year cycle. In other words, it would take 60 years for a yin earth ox combination to occur again. A person’s birth year is associated with one combination in the cycle. A person’s birthdate was also linked to a lunar month and a corresponding inner animal. The two-hour timeframe of the person’s birth was linked to a secret animal. All of these factors were used in determining a person’s natural traits so one could be guided to a suitable profession, identify an appropriate mate, and avoid the possible negative behaviors associated with the animal signs. In this way, the Chinese Zodiac was looking to the natural world for guidance and trying to support the Confucian ideals of good behavior.
After the repression of the creative arts in the Qin dynasty, the Han emperors gave artists official recognition and encouragement. However, painting was still considered a craft for recording appearances. Painters did architectural renderings, recorded historical events pictorially, and did portraits of virtuous officials and famous people.
The ancestor portraits of high officials were done in a paint-by-feature style. The artist never saw the subject. A clerk analyzed a person’s features and gave the artist numbers. The person might have a #1 nose, #4 eyes, and a #6 mouth. No wonder the portraits typically look very stiff, flat, and grim. The clothes were most important. The sitter could pick the clothes and their colors as long as they were of the period and did not elevate his position. Only the Han emperors were allowed to wear the imperial symbol, the dragon, or the imperial color, yellow. Officials and important people wore squares on their clothes with symbols to identify their status. These symbols enabled others to recognize the person and his family so that people could associate only with people of similar status.
The insistence on Confucian ritual ultimately became too rigid for some people. Creative people became more influenced by Daoism as a channel for the more romantic side of their nature.
In the later Han dynasty, agrarian crisis, peasant revolts, and factions at court caused the empire to fall apart into three natural geographical divisions. This led to the era of the Six Dynasties and the end of a unified empire.
The Six Dynasties
For a period of three and a half centuries (222–589 CE), China suffered extreme political confusion with the Three Kingdoms, the Jin dynasty, and the Northern and Southern dynasties. Invasions of barbarians in the north for a hundred years drove Chinese aristocrats in the north to migrate southward. They built great independent manors that were sustained by the labor of peasants fleeing from the north or conquered southerners. In this way, people of Chinese descent supplanted aboriginal tribes in the south. The aristocratic families also gave rise to future generals who became emperors in later dynasties based on the southern capital in Nanjing.
The Introduction of Buddhism
Although Buddhism had reached China as early as 65 CE and had established a foothold at the collapse of the Han dynasty in 220 CE, it did not gain wide appeal until about the time of the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534 CE). Confucian literati were no longer in power to oppose it. The central Asian rulers in the north employed Buddhist monks as ritual specialists and political aides and were ready to accept the new religion. Monks also became a part of the cultured elite who had fled to the south. For the common people, Buddhism promised an answer to suffering and provided some comfort amid the constant political turmoil. As an organized religion, Buddhism filled a religious void. In practice, Confucianism focused too narrowly on ethical behavior. Daoism had diverged into philosophical Daoism for speculative minds and religious Daoism as a popular cult of superstition and magic with no edifying perspective. Buddhism had a coherent explanation of life and the universe and addressed human suffering and destiny. The spiritual qualities were expressed by a moving ritual and a rich tradition of art and iconography.
The Mahayana (“Great Vehicle”) branch of Buddhism that reached China emphasized liberating all living beings from suffering. The Buddha was elevated to a God-like status as an eternal, omnipresent, and all-knowing liberator. He is accompanied by a pantheon of quasi-divine Bodhisattvas that devote themselves to personal excellence to help rescue others from suffering. The most popular among these in China was the Guanyin, “Goddess of Mercy,” who assists those who call out her name in time of need. Statues of the Guanyin are common, and her figure is even sculpted on the top of stone seals used on paintings and calligraphy.
Initially,
