so you've been studying world history

all year long and the ap test is right

around the corner and i have a feeling

that all of these empires and people and

events are getting a little mixed up in

your head quite frankly that's the

struggle with learning world history

chronologically we start with some

foundation and learn about some events

that happen in a region before 1200 then

we move into the next historical period

of the course up to 1450 and whip around

all those regions again and then again

in 1750 and then up to 1900 and into the

21st century all that knowledge is being

thrown around at your brain and it just

feels like you are at amusement park

maybe like you're riding the scrambler

or the tilt-a-whirl and you just can't

keep it all straight now i'm seth gergis

or mrs gergis in the classroom and i

want to help you organize all of this

information by region from the beginning

of the course to the end so let's start

in china as i feel like this is the

region where most students struggle and

it's a heavy hitter on the ap test as ap

world modern starts in 1200 we do start

the chinese story kind of mid-way

through so it is a little bit necessary

for us to back the train up and get a

little context on the song dynasty i

still teach my students the chinese

dynasty song set to the tune of freyraka

which i'm not going to sing but for the

ap tests the first lines of the song

shenzhou chinhan don't actually make the

cut for our course but their legacy does

the short version is that china is

really large and we will see them

constantly struggle to be unified in one

large empire and you'll see that there

are a variety of philosophies that will

help guide chinese political and social

thought on this but the big ones are

important to know and that's legalism

and confucianism there's a cyclical

nature of chinese history where you'll

find these short legalistic dynasties

that unify the land and then are

followed by these longer golden ages

this happens with the short legalistic

qin dynasty followed by a long golden

age of the han dynasty guided by

confucian values in ap world there are

four major time periods which will help

us kind of chunk the information in

global events in your brain we pick up

the course in the year 1200 the era of

state building and the expansion of

trade networks and the song dynasty is

who is in control they like their han

and tong predecessors are highly focused

on confusion values which dictate how

society should function there are five

key relationships which describe the

specific duties and how one should act

and this creates order the concept of

filial piety or the respect for elders

is a virtue that is built into the dna

of chinese society which is all about

correct behavior obedience to hierarchy

and ethics

the song dynasty has been in control

since

960. songtai zoo the founder used

military might to conquer in unifying

neighboring states he then doubled down

on confucianism and the order it can

bring if you focus on educating elites

that would then work in the government

this created a very large imperial

bureaucracy within china and the

expanded use of the civil service exam

plus the song state grew into a very

powerful and commercially successful

empire as it focused on trade along the

silk road which we learned about in unit

2. one key

to that stability came from the spread

of champa rice into china from vietnam

this fast-growing and drought-resistant

rice allowed for stability in their food

sources and as we've talked about in my

ap class or an ap world ism more food

more people silk road trade plus the

grand canal which connected kind of the

northern parts and southern parts of

china allowed for a more connected

economy to share both agricultural

products but also those other trade

goods as well

they were known for their porcelain you

know like china and silk and also for

their paper making and their wood block

printing which allowed for the spread of

learning of arts and literature as well

during the song dynasty plus we'll see

how gunpowder also spread from the song

dynasty into the rest of the world which

will also change history this made the

song dynasty one of the most advanced

societies in the period of 1200 to 1450.

they also had these artisans or skilled

craft workers even producing steel from

iron way back pre-industrial revolution

in china which was mentioned multiple

times in the course and exam description

for this course and gets mentioned in my

class

basically never except for right now now

it's important to note that while

confucianism is the predominant cultural

belief system taoism and buddhism were

also very important in china by the time

of the song dynasty neo-confucianism

emerged which was more of this syncretic

blend of traditional confucianism taoism

and buddhism however the song dynasty

will come to an end as they are

conquered by the mongols in the 1200s

and they will establish a new dynasty

known as the wan dynasty one of the

grandsons of chingas khan kublai khan

took the role of an emperor of china and

claimed the mandate of heaven kublai

allowed for religious tolerance to unite

the land and help add to the existing

infrastructure in china he built things

like roads oppressed religious groups

like buddhists and taoists and muslims

and even christians liked kublai however

his policies enraged the ethnic chinese

majority it felt like his policies

really kind of uprooted their culture

which is true because they were outside

beliefs under mongol rule they even

imported foreigners from the middle east

and from russia to work in their

government positions as their large

bureaucracy was not something really

that the mongolian empire was familiar

with

this negated chinese traditions of the

civil service exam which again caused

some problems by 1368 a new dynasty rose

up and eliminated the mongol rule in

china this dynasty was known as the ming

and you could easily put the ming in the

same category as the han tong and song

dynasties as it had significant amount

of continuities it had a strong

centralized government system based on

confusion principles and the civil

service exam was brought back to create

a path to government positions based on

merit versus family background or money

it also was very much a golden age and

it was the era of arts and iconic

porcelain this will shift us into the

next historical period of our course the

years of 1450 to 1750 the era of large

land-based empires and the rise of

maritime empires the ming will rise in

1368 but will last until 1644 in this

era of land and maritime empires emperor

yanglai is one of the key leaders to

remember he was the third emperor of the

ming dynasty he will build the forbidden

city in beijing and it will change that

to be the capital city he will also

begin to sponsor naval expeditions in

southeast asia india and even the sweet

coast of africa let's remember this is a

time that really shaped exploration and

the chinese were involved initially

zhang ha was a chinese navigator who's

led some major fleets larger than even

the fleets of dagama or columbus

after yangley's death though the

expeditions in the indian ocean ended

and china kind of went back to being a

little more isolated during this time

but it's important to note here that

while the chinese stopped exploring they

still were exporting so many of their

goods and silver was coming in

in large numbers from mexico and peru 30

to 40 of that silver was coming to china

but why you might ask because europeans

wanted chinese goods like silk and

porcelain and later tea which maybe you

never really made that connection the

idea that british tea is highly

connected to the british east india

company and their involvement in indian

china

regardless

silver and money from europe is still

flooding into china however like all

great things the ming dynasty began to

decline economic issues due to inflation

and all that silver flooding into china

and massive population growth the

chinese lacked the food to keep up

starvation and famines caused unrest in

the land as i say people are angry it

always leads to fighting now peasant

revolts erupted in 1644 and they reached

out to the qing warriors to help put

down these peasant revolts well

assisted indeed they did and they

overthrew the ming dynasty and

established the qing dynasty now the

qing dynasty will last from 1644 all the

way to 1911 as our final chinese dynasty

which will bring us into the next two

historical periods but let's not get

ahead of ourselves the qing emerged

during the era of land and maritime

empires and a key difference between the

qing and the ming would be the fact that

the qing were not ethnically chinese

they were manchus from manchuria they

forbid intermarriage between chinese and

manchus men were required to adopt the

manchu q hairstyle which was an outsider

tradition forced upon the ethnic chinese

and this was to show their loyalty and

if they refused the hairstyle

they could be executed but in other

manners the qing dynasty looked very

much like other chinese dynasties and

adopted many parts of chinese culture

ethnic chinese were involved in the

government and the civil service exam

was still utilized as they looked for

the most talented individuals regardless

of their ethnicity or their wealth to

work in government positions manchu

emperors claimed the mandate of heaven

and were very well versed in confucian

philosophy

emperor kang shi and his successor kian

long were both scholars of confucianism

they supported the arts and both

extended the expanse of the qing dynasty

and will open trade up with some

europeans but limit how and what was

allowed into their country they kept

many europeans like the portuguese to a

few ports like macau

and placed legal restrictions against

people from spreading or converting to

christianity from these european

influences now the qing dynasty

continues as we go into the next time

period of 1750 to 1900. now remember the

rest of the world in this era is focused

on political revolutions and the

industrial revolution but china will be

perfectly content to not challenge the

status quo

yet china wanted stability order and

security and were able to do this for

major parts of history

however that's about to change

uh the british were looking for new

markets for their manufactured goods and

were looking at china the emperor keon

long responded to king george iii

yes that king george iii you'll be back

king george iii well keon long tells him

that there was no need for their british

goods in china so

what did the british do

challenge accepted they became drug

dealers and i'm not even kidding they

started to sell opium illegally to the

chinese and were quite successful the

qing then confiscated and burned their

stash which then really upset the

british driven by profits they pushed in

with their advanced weapons perks of the

industrial revolution and were able to

push up the river and overtake the city

the series of battles from this event

was known as the opium wars and it

resulted with the treaty of nanjing an

unequal treaty that the chinese were

forced to sign

the qing were required to pay britain a

lot of money for their lost stash

of drugs that they were selling

illegally and not only that they then

had to increase the number of ports that

the british could trade from from one to

five

it also

strangely enough gave british citizens

extra territoriality which basically

exempted them from following chinese law

when they were in china all of these

events will lead many chinese to feeling

like the days of the qing are over this

was one of those driving forces of the

taiping rebellion the influence of

europeans and china and the opium war

losses were just too much overall the

taiping rebellion was a largely peasant

uprising caused by the lack of food lack

of jobs and overwhelmingly impoverished

lives that the chinese were stuck within

add in the opium dens and the lack of

opportunities for the common person to

really

have upward mobility because of the

civil service exam people were just

upset they wanted the manchus out they

wanted european influences out and at

the end of the day who stepped up to

defend the qing dynasty from cumberland

europeans the british and the french who

both benefited from the relationship

they had with the qing dynasty and with

the treaty of nanjing in many ways the

taiping rebellion laid the groundwork

for the revolution that will occur under

mao zedong

but let's not forget there was yet

another anti-imperialist group that

arose during this time period known as

the society of the righteous and

harmonious fists

or the boxers

they would look nothing like that but

the boxers would attack westerners and

christians and missionaries they were

not very successful

but yet once again you can see the

resistance from chinese people to

outside influences they're actually

really good at martial arts i thought

they could dodge bullets once again this

is just another example of people

turning to their religious or cultural

beliefs to stand up against force within

their country that was denying them

rights however the days of the qing

dynasty is numbered and this will lead

us into the final period of our course

1900 to present

you know in this time period you learned

about the world wars and the cold war

but before we get to either of those we

first must start with the revolution of

sunnitsen who really birthed the chinese

republic the diagnostic system which as

we've seen for like 2 000 years

ends with the chinese republic in 1911.

it's not going to last that long so

don't get too used to the republic stage

sunetsen was actually a christian but

believe that china should be guided by

confucian principles of loyalty and

respect for ancestors and democratic

reforms and overcoming economic

inequities of land distribution and

wealth sunyatzen appointed shenka shek

to lead the military and work alongside

the nationalists known as the guamantong

a quick aside china will support the

triple ontant with their ties to the

british during world war one they will

not be heavily involved in the fighting

but will support by sending laborers to

assist with the war effort all the way

to europe by 1925 sunyatzen passed away

from cancer and chiang kai-shek took

over as leader of the nationalists

however something new was brewing at

this time

well two things communism and japanese

imperialism and what would be more of a

threat to the new republic well japanese

imperialism was a threat and so much of

a threat that an uncommon alliance of

the communists in china and the

nationalists

forming an alliance to fight together

against the japanese japan will actually

invade manchuria and northern china back

in 1931

eight years before world war ii will

really begin the chinese will officially

be on the side of the allies with the

common enemy of the japanese we can

remember the awful awful ways in which

the japanese targeted the chinese in

1937 in what is called the nan king

massacre as japanese troops launched a

campaign of atrocities against the

civilians of china with mass rape

campaigns in the butchering of an

estimated 150 000 male prisoners of war

world war ii will end in asia with the

dropping of the atomic bombs in japan in

china we will see resuming the civil war

between the communists and the

nationalists the chinese communist party

gained a lot of peasant support because

of their land distribution policies

their new schools and the hospitals that

they opened and overall how they were

successful against fighting against the

japanese meanwhile the nationalists were

seen as kind of corrupt and ineffective

in the war effort by 1949 the communists

will win in this civil war and they will

establish the people's republic of china

under mao zedong mao and the ccp will

set out to have china catch up

industrially and follow the soviet model

of five-year plans remember how before

we talked about this that china wasn't

really getting on the bandwagon

successfully of the industrial

revolution so they're going to buckle

down and industrialize and mao with his

most famous initiative was called the

great leap forward which was not great

nor did it really leap china forward

essentially mao tried to increase

agricultural production through the

collectivization of farms into what is

called communes but there's a series of

famines that put production severely

behind and mao didn't want to act as

though his plan was not working so he

continued to export grain as if it

indeed was successful which led to 20

million people dying of starvation mao

also led the cultural revolution which

indeed was

revolutionary as it was basically the

opposite of everything we've learned

about so far in chinese culture we've

talked about filial piety respect for

elders studying confucian classics

education but instead mao did again the

opposite instead he tried to appeal to

the younger generation and did basically

the opposite of all those concepts he

had his red guards which were students

who denounced their teachers their

employers and their parents and were

told to tear down tradition which in

this case was confucian tradition there

were often mass gatherings where older

people were being taunted and bullied as

they represented the old way of life in

china many adults were sent off to labor

camps to get re-educated

and if it didn't work

they would be killed

targeting like your grandmas and your

grandpas

just not cool so let's remember to throw

in here that the cold war was going on

during this time period and was not

really that cold in asia china will then

support north korea by sending thousands

of communist chinese troops to support

against the counter-attacks of the

united states in south korea

additionally we'll send troops and over

20 billion dollars to the north

vietnamese as they fought against the

united states in what we call the

vietnam war after mao's death in 1976

deng xiaoping takes control he was more

moderate and brought china into the

international trading system which

normalized relationships with the united

states deng will be open to economic

liberalization and economic growth in

china which

the last time i checked was wildly

successful as it feels like so many of

our consumer goods are made in china

today the idea of foregoing economic

equity across china was also really a

big shift

collectivization communes ended with

peasants leasing lots of land where

surplus could then be sold for a profit

foreign businesses were allowed to be

established in china which led to

massive globalization which we learned

about in unit 9. this will be tricky as

many people believe that the opening of

economic reforms should also lead to the

political reforms against the communist

government

but that was not on the table this will

lead to the uprising in tiananmen square

where demonstrators called for democracy

and free speech

and we're met with a crackdown by the

government so what will be the future of

china today it is still communist and it

is heavily involved in global trade in

fact it is the fastest sustained

expansion by a major economy in history

you'll also find there's a significant

amount of censorship and limits on free

speech in china in fact you know you

will not find in china

the country with the largest population

in the world they do not have access to

the world's biggest social media sites

twitter facebook youtube all block

however they do have their own versions

which are regulated by the chinese

government

they have weibo which is like twitter

renren their version of facebook and

yoku which is like youtube and wechat

which i would compare it to like

whatsapp or messenger now they hosted

the winter olympics in 2022 amidst the

continued coronavirus pandemic in fact

china has been proud of their

coronavirus response as they have been

really strict about lockdowns and really

at the cost of freedoms but to this day

have a much lower death rate overall

when this video was made they had under

5 000 deaths for the entire pandemic in

comparison the united states had over

900 000 deaths nearing 1 million

on today's date yes we can take into

account a lot of different factors that

shape those numbers balancing of

freedoms censorship but overall xi

jinping china's leader has repeatedly

pointed out that the country was

successful at containing the coronavirus

as proof of their superiority of its

governance model kind of like a plus one

for communism so there you have it an

overview of china from the beginning of

the course to the end so let's break it

down pretty fast there's the song

dynasty confucian golden age highly

commercialized along the silk road one

dynasty conquered by the mongols claimed

the mandate of heaven ming whoo back to

confucianism more commercialization and

we love the world silver ching shoot

there's outsiders again ruling china and

are not ethnically chinese and most

people are not a fan of us loss of the

opium wars and two major rebellions the

taiping and the boxers not very great

but the british are here and there's

lots of european influence then we get

to the republic in 1911 the revolution

with sunyatzen ends the entire

diagnostic cycle communist and

nationalists team up to fight against

the japanese imperialists but when world

war ii is over they resume the civil war

communists win mao is in control great

leap forward red guards we don't like

confucianism as we are but then mao dies

deng xiaoping opens the markets wait

free markets free democracy just kidding

just the markets tienen men's square

happens economy is massively growing

still communist still censoring but they

have their own social media apps for

that kovitz started in wuhan 2022 winter

olympics in china

what's next only time will tell now i

sure hope that was helpful if you felt

like it was hit that like button or like

my four-year-old likes to do when people

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comment let me know what was helpful

about this subscribe and stay along for

the ride as we look at all the different

regions as we look at one place at one

time reviewing from the beginning of the

course to the end i hope this helped you

learn about yesterday better

understanding today and helping us all

write a better tomorrow till next time

see you guys