Aware that the people of China had long suffered under oppressive government, T'ai Tsung made land reforms, redistributing property to reflect changes in the size of peasant families. In some areas he reduced taxes, and though taxes on farmers remained high, the peasants began to feel a sense of ownership over their lands, since T'ai Tsung's reforms had seen to it that their property could no longer be seized by feudal lords.
As a result of these reforms, the economy of T'ang China thrived, and economic exchanges with other lands increased. Technology flourished as well, as the Chinese made improvements in printing and paper production. The T'ang government also greatly extended the canal network put in place by the Sui, thus aiding the transport of goods from north to south in a land where most major rivers flowed eastward.
Two Other Dynasties, Two Other Families
A dynasty is a group of people, usually but not always a family, which maintains power over a period of time, and China's history before the twentieth century is divided according to dynasty. During the Middle Ages, the country had five notable dynasties: the Sui (589-618), founded by Wen Ti; the T'ang (618-907), of which T'ai Tsung was a co-founder; the Sung (SOONG; 960-1279); the Mongol-dominated Yuan (1264-1368), founded by Kublai Khan (see entry); and the Ming (1368-1644).
In most cases a single family maintained power throughout a given dynasty— yet the name of the ruling house was seldom the same as that of the family: for example, the controlling family of the Sung dynasty was named Chao (ZHOW). The founder, born Chao K'uang-yin (KWAHNG-yin; 927-976), was a military leader whose troops declared him emperor in 960.
Like many dynasties before, the Sung were faced constantly with enemies at their borders. For the most part they
Dealt with this problem by paying tribute, or money, to hostile forces. This tribute proved costly, and the powerful minister Wang An-shih (1021-1086) put in place a set of reforms to deal with the economic problems caused by the situation.
Wang An-shih arranged loans to farmers, established pay for government labor (which had been infrequent before his time), and reorganized the system of property taxes to make them more fair. This put him on a collision course with another key official, Ssu-ma Kuang (see Historians entry), who favored the old way of doing things. The two men remained in conflict for much of their lives, and represented two opposing forces in Chinese government.
in large part to Wang An-shih, the Sung developed a government at least as efficient as that of the T'ang, but unwise foreign policy decisions forced the tenth Sung emperor, Chao Kou (11071187) to move the capital to southern China in 1127. This latter phase of the
Having built his power through the military, as ruler T'ai Tsung established a reputation as a scholar and a patron of the arts and sciences. During his reign and afterward, the arts flourished, and the T'ang dynasty became memorable for the many painters, poets, and philosophers it produced. It also marked a high point in historical scholarship, and T'ai Tsung encouraged the writing of several histories chronicling dynasties up to his own time.
Sung dynasty is known as the Southern Sung, and despite the problems with which China was faced, it saw a great flowering in culture and the arts. Ultimately, however, the Sung would succumb to Mongol invasion, which brought an end to the reign of the eighteenth Sung emperor, Chao Ping (1271-1279), an eight-year-old boy killed by the Mongols.
The Yuan dynasty marked the first time China had been ruled by foreigners, and the Chinese chafed under Mongol rule, biding their time until a strong enough leader rose to overthrow them. That leader was Chu Yuan-chang (ZHU yu-AHN-zhang; 1328-1398), an extraordinary man: born a peasant, he became a Buddhist monk before joining a rebel army and ultimately establishing a dynasty that would rule for more than 250 years.
Few of his descendants, however, were his equal—except Chu Ti, better known by his reign title of Yung-lo (1360-1424). Yung-lo sent a series of naval expeditions under the command of Cheng
Ho (see box in Henry the Navigator entry) to lands as far away as East Africa, and in 1421 moved the capital from Nanjing (nahn-ZHEENG) in the interior to Beijing (bay-ZHEENG) on the coast. At Beijing, which remains the Chinese capital today, he built a palace five miles in circumference, containing some 2,000 rooms where more than 10,000 servants attended the imperial family. This palace came to be known as the "Forbidden City," meaning that only the emperor and the people directly around him were allowed to enter.
Built to illustrate the boundless extent of Ming power, the Forbidden City became—aside from the Great Wall—the best-known symbol of China in the eyes of the world. However, the costs associated with its construction, as well as other ambitious projects under Yung-lo's reign, weakened the Ming dynasty. Like the T'ang and Sung before it, and indeed like most dynasties in Chinese history, the Ming's brief days of glory would be followed by a long period of decline.
World History
