Journals Through History Ancient China From Dynasty to Destiny

Happy new year. It's February 1424, also known as the year 40 60 in China. Everyone in the capital city of Beijing is getting ready for the big new year celebration. In her home near the brand-new emperor's palace, a girl named Lim has just finished helping her mother prepare for the holiday. I'm so excited. Tonight is New Year's Eve, and we're going to have a big family party. We've been getting ready for days. And now my parents just gave me the best new year's gift I've ever gotten. My very first journal, mother says I should use it to write down my stories. So, what should I write about first? Well, to begin with, we are about to celebrate a new year here in my hometown of Beijing. Mother says, we live in the most wonderful city on earth. But we didn't get here overnight. China is one of the oldest civilizations in the world. With a very interesting story. This story of great leaders. Fierce battles. Secret inventions. And plain old hard work. It's my story and the story of my ancestors. I think I'll start here. Everything begins with our ancestors. People who live thousands of years ago. Kind of like our great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great great grandparents. This was very different for them back then. They didn't know how to write. Or make porcelain or silk. They didn't live in fancy houses like we do today. They lived in small villages along the banks of China's two mighty rivers. The yellow river in the north and the Yangtze River in the south. Eventually, the villages grouped into kingdoms. Powerful families led the kingdoms and ruled for many generations. The families passed control of the land from father to son or nephew for hundreds of years. We call that a dynasty. There are a lot of dynasties in China's history. One of our earliest dynasties was the Shang dynasty. Mother says the Shang ruled more than 2000 years before my time. Back then, everyone believed that Sean kings communicated directly with the gods and the ancestors. This communication was so important that the Shang people invented two new things to help their kinks and messages. The first were beautifully designed bronze containers. Shaun kings wanted to give special offerings to their gods and ancestors. But not any old bowl would do for such an important job. So, Sean craftsman created elaborate bronze vessels. Father says that the king saw that bronze was more valuable than gold. They would even compete to see who owned the fanciest bronze bowls. The craftsman became very creative. They developed special molds to make all kinds of intricate shapes. Later, someone had the idea to make bronze bells. These created a different kind of offering. Beautiful music to entertain the ancestors. Everything needed to be just right. Each bell had to have an exact size and shape for perfect pitch. It must have been very hard to make these. I'm sure the ancestors were pleased. The other great song invention was writing. Father says it all started because kings have a really hard job. They have to make lots of decisions about bank and small things in their kingdom. And who do they go to for help with these decisions? The ancestors, of course, the Shan kings developed a special way to ask their ancestors for advice. Here's how it worked. Let's say the king wants to know if the grain harvest will arrive on time. His advisers scratches the question onto a large ox bone. Then heats the bone until it cracks. The advisers studies the cracks, which reveal the ancestors response to the king. These cracks bring good news, the harvest will be on time. These are called Oracle bones, and the questions scratched into them are the earliest known Chinese writing. The words on the Oracle bounce look a lot like pictures. This means boy. And here's the word for fields. This figure that looks like a man standing under a flag means leader. The Shang people thought these bones were magical because they could speak to the past. I think they're magical because they speak to us so far in the future. Here we are, thousands of years later, and we can read what the Shang were thinking about, as though it were yesterday. And we haven't stopped writing since. We keep records for our government. Write down our treatments for sick people. And send letters to each other. But most of all, we write our history. And it's a good thing. Because we have too many stories to remember in our heads. Hundreds of years after the Shang dynasty, things were really difficult for our ancestors. Father calls it the warring states period. For 200 years, 7 different kingdoms, fought each other to rule the land. Finally, once strong leader emerged, he won a lot of battles and took control over all 7 kingdoms. He had pretty high self esteem. He even gave himself the title, Qin Shi huangdi, which means first magnificent emperor. Virgin was a powerful ruler. He got everyone to stop fighting each other. He said that there should be just one kind of money and one kind of writing. He even said that all the carts should be made the same size so they could travel the same roads. He got everyone in China working together. But he had a bad side too. He didn't trust people, and he wouldn't let anyone disagree with him. He even burned a lot of books that he didn't like. Mother says that we gained a country, but lost a lot of history when emperor Qin ruled. But there is one project that he started that is the biggest thing anyone has ever made or seen. Father says, it is one of the most impressive accomplishments of our people. From the earliest days in China, we've had trouble with the people who live outside our borders. Father says we mostly fight with them over how to use the land. Remember how most of our ancestors were farmers who settled along the rivers? Well, some of the neighboring people were nomads. They moved from place to place, looking for good grassland for their animals. Things were fine. Unless there was a drought. Then nomads would move their animals into the farming areas. But our farmers didn't want to share their feels. A lot of times, the two groups ended up fighting each other for the land. Eventually, we started putting up walls to keep out the nomads. We put walls around our houses and walls around our towns. In fact, the Chinese character for city is the same as the character for wall. Emperor Qin decided that we should protect our entire country with a wall. That would really keep the nomads out. His wall stretched 4000 miles along the northern border of China. And he had it built in only 12 years. The wall was made by a special process we still use today. It's called rammed earth. It's an easy and fast technique, and it makes a really strong wall. That's one of the reasons that shin was able to carry out his gigantic project. The other reason is that chin was such a powerful ruler. He forced thousands of men to leave their families and travel hundreds of miles to work on his wall. It was extremely hard work. One of our most famous stories is about that time. Long ago, in a village far from the Great Wall, allowed Knox, surprised Hmong Jiang new in her garden. The emperor's soldiers had come to take her husband away to work on the Great Wall. No one argued with the emperor. Throughout the village, men were rounded up and marched away from home. Months passed. Finally, one night, long dreamed her husband came to her. Dearest wife, he said, I am cold. Can you help me? The next day, mom gathered warm clothing and left the village in search of her husband. It was a hard journey and mom had never been away from home before. She walked from miles and miles across deserts. Through rivers and over mountains. After many weeks, she finally reached the Great Wall. The site of the thousands of workers astonished her. How would she ever find her husband here? Finally, a man approached her. I knew your husband, he said. He was a good man, but this work was too hard for him. I'm sorry to tell you that he died. Mang was overcome with sadness, she cried and cried. She cried so many tears that they washed away 200 miles of the emperor's Great Wall. Emperor Qin was furious when he heard what happened. Why have you destroyed my wall, he shouted? Hmong told him of her dream, but all the emperor noticed was how beautiful she was. Now that your husband is dead, you should marry me, he declared. Long pretended to be honored. I will gladly do as you ask. If you would bury my husband as a prince with a royal funeral. The emperor was eager to have Hmong as his wife. So he agreed. But on the day of the funeral, long faced the emperor. Thank you for honoring my husband, but I will not marry you. My heart belongs only to him. Then she escaped the emperor by diving into the ocean and swimming away. To this day, thousands of tiny silver fish gather at that very spot reminding us of the loyalty and tears of Hmong Jong nu. My father tells me that today, more than a thousand years after mom's time, we are still having problems with the nomads. So we are adding to the wall in the west. When it's finished, this section will cover more than 6700 miles. That's going to take a lot of time and effort. But we have the Great Wall to thank for many centuries of peace. And we are up to the challenge of building it. Since emperor Qin, many other dynasties have ruled China. Mother says that not every emperor was perfect, but we've had some great leaders who helped us to grow strong and powerful. Right after chin died, a new dynasty was started by a peasant named Liu bang. In the new Han dynasty, the emperor wanted only the smartest and hardest working people to help run his government. It didn't matter what family you were born into. It mattered how smart you were and how well you studied. From that time on, emperors have had special schools all over China. Boy study for years and the tests are really hard to pass. But those who do pass get a good job, helping to run our country. This system of finding the best people for the job is called a meritocracy. I just have one problem with this plan. Girls don't get to go to school. We're supposed to stay home and do other things, like help our mothers around the house. But that never stopped my mother. She learned to read and write at home when she was my age, and she's making sure I do the same thing. Oops, it's time to light the lanterns. I need to stop and get ready for our special new year's dinner. I can't wait to tell you even more. The very next chance I get.