Changes And Continuities In China

China has been a powerful empire for a very long period of time, China has not always stayed the same though. Throughout its expansive history China has evolved in many ways while retaining many of its original values. Some examples of this can be found in the way China conducted its economy, its openness to other ideas, and its methods of leadership. Specifically, there were very large amounts of change that took place between the warring states period in China and the Yuan dynasty. China's economy has varied throughout its history, some of the ways it has varied are in the types of currencies that they employed, along with the ideas of what their economic values should consist of. Throughout that majority of the time of the warring
During the period of the Tang to the Yuan dynasties, China embraced other ideas and imported some goods from other countries. This helped China prosper and become more of a cosmopolitan country. This, however, reversed when the Ming dynasty came to power. One of the reasons for why China was more closed off to other ideas was that China was very advanced compared to some of the other countries that it could have exchanged ideas and goods with. This is not to say that China did not have monetary relationships with other countries, they have exported a large amount of goods to other countries via the Silk Road and via ship trade. One of China's most famous explorers, Zheng He aided in the trade process. Zheng He had a large fleet of ships that he lead many voyages on and this was one example of early sea
During the warring states period, there were various people jockeying for power, but there was no central government. Then, afterwards the Qin dynasty took over and instituted a strong, centralized government. Thereafter, the Han dynasty took power and then went from a strong rule like the Qin, to a looser rule that followed some principles from Confucianism. After the Han, the three kingdoms period caused a return to divided rule. Then, the Sui took power and in the same fashion as before, harsh rule was instituted. Then, once again, as before, looser rule returned with Tang dynasty. Then, as before, the five dynasties and ten kingdoms period caused a return to divided rule. If you look at all of these events together, you can identify a pattern, after a period of weakness, non-cohesive leadership a strong dynasty institutes a harsh rule. Then, after the harsher dynasty crumbles, a more open dynasty takes power and retains it for a decent amount of time. Then, the process repeats itself. Leadership changed many times throughout this period of Chinese history, but this overarching pattern was consistent throughout this