Gordon Kerr - A Short History of China: From Ancient Dynasties to Economic Powerhouse

China is the third largest country in the world, measuring more than 5,200 kilometres from east to west and more than 5,500 kilometres from north to south. This huge expanse of land is stitched together by mountain ranges that form barriers between habitable river valleys. Dominating this land mass are two great river systems the Yellow River to the north and the Yangtze River in the centre.

The Yellow River rises in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China and flows through nine Chinese provinces. It traverses the northern deserts before flowing south through a hilly area of fertile soil perfectly suited to cultivation. At the end of these highlands, the river turns to the east, now yellow from the silt it carries, its banks wide apart, and crosses the alluvial plain before emptying into the Bohai Sea. Often called the cradle of Chinese civilisation, it cuts across the Wei valley to the west of Beijing, an area considered the birthplace of ancient Chinese cultures and a region of great prosperity in early Chinese history. The Yangtze, Asias longest river, carries a greater volume of water than the Yellow River. It rises in the glaciers of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, flows eastwards across southwest, central and eastern China and into the East China Sea at Shanghai. Its river basin is home to around a third of the population of the Peoples Republic of China.

Naturally, the regions through which these rivers flow differ greatly in every way. In the north, the temperature is colder and the terrain is flatter and more arid. It has a shorter growing season and alkaline soil in which crops such as wheat and millet flourish. The area north of the Yellow River does not enjoy sufficient rainfall for agriculture without irrigation. The silt collected by the river builds up the height of the riverbed, rendering the Yellow River prone to flooding and farmers and governments have, over the centuries, built dykes to maintain the course of the water. Nonetheless, floods, when they occur, are devastating, inundating vast swathes of land. Around the Yangtze, the weather is warmer and wetter, its annual rainfall of more than sixty inches making it especially suited to the cultivation of rice and the practice of double-cropping. The navigability of much of the Yangtze has made travel by boat more common in the south than the north.

Great physical features separate China from the world. To the north lies the steppe, the grassy plains of Inner Asia that stretch across Eurasia to the Ukraine and where animal husbandry is more successful than crop cultivation. These regions are populated by the traditional enemies of the Chinese pastoralist peoples such as the Mongols and the Xiongnu. Arid deserts separate China from these lands. Meanwhile, to the west of south and central China lies the foreboding mountainous region of Tibet and to the southeast are forested mountain spurs and jungle. Off the coast are the South and East China Seas, sheltered by an arc of islands beyond which lies the Pacific Ocean.

This isolation was a significant factor in Chinese history and in the Chinese view of the world right up to the nineteenth century. For millennia, the Chinese thought of their land, bounded as it was by vast oceans, high mountains and infertile deserts, as All-Under-Heaven (tianxia), the entirety of earth and the very centre of civilisation.

Early human beings Homo erectus first arrived on the Chinese subcontinent more than a million years ago, having spread during the Ice Age from Africa and west Asia. The best-known example of Homo erectus is Peking Man (Sinanthropus pekinensis), the name given to fossil remnants found in the 1920s and 1930s during excavations at Zhoukoudian, southwest of Beijing. It is now estimated that he may have lived as much as 680,000 or 780,000 years ago. The bones of forty-five men, women and children were discovered at Zhoukoudian, alongside evidence of tools. Peking Man was ape-like in appearance, but would have possessed basic speech skills and would have used his hands to manipulate objects. The remains were located in caves and it was in such places that he sought shelter. Homo sapiens what we like to think of as modern human beings arrived in East Asia about 100,000 years ago. Remains found in the Upper Cave at Zhoukoudian belong to a more advanced creature who lived about 50,000 years ago. His tool-making showed distinct improvement, the sharpness of the stone blades improved by a more efficient flaking method. Bone needles were now being used to sew hides to make clothing and these people hunted and fished but also gathered fruits, berries and edible roots.

By 5000 BC, Neolithic cultures had emerged in many of Chinas river valleys, practising agriculture, making pottery and textiles and living in village settlements. The development of agriculture had been facilitated by climate change, the weather becoming warmer and wetter. This led to more permanent settlements and social organisation. People were living in villages that consisted of pit dwellings, beehive-shaped huts made of mud and with reed roofs. Rice was being cultivated in the Yangtze valley region as early as 5000 BC and the diet would have been supplemented with fish and aquatic plants. In the north of the country where it was too cold and dry for rice cultivation, millet was the principal crop. It was during the Neolithic period that the domestication of animals began. At the time, woolly mammoths and wild horses could be found on the plains, while tigers and bears stalked the hills. Animals were hunted, some being killed for food while others were taken alive. Primitive man learned the skills of animal husbandry and dogs, pigs, sheep, cattle, chickens and horses were domesticated for practical purposes. Pottery for storage of food and drink was being made, most notably in the region of the Great Bend of the Yellow River (Huang He) where red clay pots decorated with purple or black lines have been found.

In the late Neolithic period, it is evident from the spread of pottery designs and shapes that different cultures were coming into contact with each other. This also, of course, led to conflict between communities. Metal began to be used to manufacture weapons and settlements were building defensive walls. It can be assumed that a hierarchy of sorts had developed by this time, with chieftains leading their men into battle. Religious elites were also emerging, evident in human sacrifice that was being carried out at the time. Captives would have been the victims of such rites, seen as a means of placating gods or ancestors or simply emphasising the power of the elites. Elaborate burials also demonstrate the fact that some individuals were more elevated socially than others.

People gathered themselves into tribes or clans for protection and these clans allied with others in order to provide security against enemies for their herds, grazing lands, hunting grounds and settlements. From one such alliance emerged the legendary chieftain, Huangdi, also known as the Yellow Emperor who, according to tradition, reigned from 2697 to 2597 BC or 2696 to 2598 BC. Huangdi was one of the group of semi-mythological rulers and culture heroes known as the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors who are said to have lived between about 2700 BC and 2100 BC. They were demigods whose magical powers, knowledge and innovations, according to tradition, helped China develop from a primitive to a sophisticated society. They are said to have lived to a great age and their rule brought a period of lasting peace. Details vary according to sources, but to Fu Xi, the Ox-tamer, was attributed the invention of the family and the domestication of animals; the invention of the plough and the hoe is credited to Shennong, the Divine Farmer; Nwa, possibly the wife or sister of Fu Xi, is seen as the creator of mankind.