The Huang He (Yellow River), Chang Jiang (Yangtze), and Xi Jiang rivers
What are the three great river systems that flow through China?
About 1700 - 1000 BC
When did the Shang Dynasty rule?
Paper, printing, seismograph, sundial, water clock, medicines, metal casting
What are some Chinese inventions?
A group of non-elected officials that help manage the empire
What is a bureaucracy?
Animal bones or tortoise shells on which priests wrote a king's question; heat was applied, and the cracks were interpreted to answer the question
What were oracle bones?
Loess, a yellowish clay silt found in water.
What makes the Yellow River yellow?
The Zhou Dynasty conquered the Shang Dynasty
How did the Shang Dynasty end?
Written script, metal casting skills, ivory and jade statues, colored cloth, and the first Chinese cities.
What were some of the Shang Dynasty's accomplishments?
Authority to rule was granted by the gods; rulers who governed justly kept it; those who didn't could be replaced
What is the Mandate of Heaven?
Characters and symbols in stead of alpha letters.
What was Chinese writing?
The Huang He or Yellow River
What river is called "China's sorrow"?
The Qin Dynasty
What dynasty is China named after?
Roads, expanded trade, horses and chariots, crossbows, and iron plows
What are some of the Zhou Dynasty's advancements?
Dynasty that strengthened the Chinese economy ?
Who were the Han?
Warlords or local rulers controlled various areas and constantly fought each other to gain territory
What was the Warring States period?
China's physical geography—including the Gobi Desert and the Himalaya Mountains.
What helped China remain isolated?
Liu Bang worked to establish the Han Dynasty.
Who overthrew the Qin government and established a new dynasty?
Defeated warlords, devised weights/measures, standardized coins, uniform writing, laws, and built the Great Wall
What were some of the accomplishments of the Qin Dynasty?
Confucianism
What philosophy was Emperor Wu Ti's civil service system based on?
A period of peace in China
What is Pax Sinica?
The Middle Kingdom, Zhong Guo, and sometimes the Rooftop of the world.
What did the Chinese call their land?
Emperor Wu Ti
Who is considered the best Han emperor?
Measures approximately 1500 miles long; over 300,000 peasants were used as forced labor to build it.
What was the Great Wall of China?
The governement had all the rights to the iron and salt to generate money and reduce taxes paid by citizens.
What was a monopoly?
Open up trade to the west, connected China to Ancient Mesopotamia.
What was the Silk Road?