HIST 270 · Chinese History · Richland Community College
Background Essays
Scholarly grounding for every lecture in the course — the argument behind the slides, the evidence behind the argument, and the historiography behind both. Written to be read, not printed.
- Background essays
- 7
- Reconnaissance audits
- 1
- Words
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Chapter 5 · Sui and Tang China, 581–907
Reunification, borrowed institutions, a cosmopolitan capital, religion and legitimacy, and the costs of survival after 755.
Background essay
The Sui Tragedy: The Dynasty That Reunited China—and Broke Itself
The Sui Tragedy. How the Sui reunited China in 581–589, integrated north and south with canals, registers, and law, and then overmobilized its people in the Goguryeo wars.
Background essay
Early Tang Power: From the Saddle to the Mirror
Early Tang Power. One reign, six places: Li Shimin’s civil wars and the 626 coup, a court that kept its critics, registered villages and farmer-soldiers, the steppe after 630, and the limits of conquest at Ansi and in Korea.
Background essay
Chang’an Was Open to the World. Who Could Get In?
Chang’an and the Tang Elite. A planned capital linked to Eurasia by roads and trade, and the great families who kept their hold on office despite the examinations.
Background essay
What Could Religion and Culture Do for a Ruler?
Religion, Culture, and Imperial Authority. Buddhism in Tang society, Empress Wu’s many vocabularies of legitimacy, Xuanzong’s court, and the suppression of 845.
Background essay
The Tang Survived An Lushan. What Did Survival Cost?
An Lushan’s Rebellion and Its Aftermath. Frontier armies, the rebellion of 755–763, regional governors, new taxes on land and salt, and the long road to 960.
Research reconnaissance
Chapter 5 Research Reconnaissance
Scholarly-foundation audit of the Chapter 5 roadmap and essays, with sources, a primary-source shortlist, and deck issues to fix.
Chapter 8 · China Among Equals: Song, Liao, Xia, and Jin, 907–1279
The founding of the Song, civilian control of the army, a dynasty that fought, paid, and negotiated with strong northern states, and the rice, markets, and sea trade that sustained it.
Background essay
Song China Shared Power with Strong Northern States
Song and the Northern States. The Five Dynasties and the Chenqiao mutiny of 960, Taizu’s curbs on his generals, peace with Liao and Xia, the Jurchen alliance and the fall of Kaifeng in 1127, and the Southern Song court at Hangzhou.
Background essay
Agriculture and Trade Sustained Song Prosperity
Song Agriculture and Trade. Champa rice and a doubling population, commercial farming, paper money, iron and coal, Kaifeng and Hangzhou, border markets with Song’s rivals, and the junks and investors of the South Seas trade.