End of the Early Middle Ages

The **Early Middle Ages** lasted from about 476 AD until roughly 1000 AD. It began with the decline of the classical civilisations, not just in Europe, but in China and India also around somewhat similar dates; the Greco-Roman world, the Persian world, Maurya-Gupta India, and Qin-Han China. The year 1000 will do as a rough marker for the mid-point between the collapse of these foundational cultures, and the beginning of the age of truly world history around 1453.

The "Byzantines" of Emperor Basil II's day knew they were very different from other men and were proud of it. They belonged to a particular civilization; some of them, at least, thought it was the best conceivable. They were not unique in this. The same was true of men in other parts of the globe; in for instance Western Christendom and the Islamic world. Long before the year 1000, civilization had been at work in every continent, except Australasia, deepening and quickening the powerful, distinctive, often self-conscious and largely independent traditions at work. Their differences were to go on deepening for another five centuries or so, until by about 1500 mankind was probably more diversified than ever before or since. One result was that Chinese, Indian, European and Islamic civilizations all lived independently long enough to leave ineradicable traces in the ground-plan of our world.

After four centuries of disunity, China was reunified by the short-lived Sui Dynasty in 581, and under the succeeding T'ang Dynasty (618-907) and Song Dynasties (960-1279) entered one of the most progressive and stable periods of Chinese history. Through military campaigns and diplomatic maneuvers, the T'ang dominated the East and Central Asia, and the Silk Road entered its *Golden Age* of commerce between East and West. Xi'an was the centre of this most cosmopolitan of empires, with a population of perhaps one-million, and merchants from far and wide mingling with the locals. T'ang China never really recovered from the An Lushan Rebellion in the mid-8th-century, and gradually became ungovernable and disintegrated. The Song Dynasty ended the disunity in 960, ushering in China's most creative period. While militarily weaker than its predecessor, Song China was the economically richest, most technologically skilled, and most populous country on earth. Between the 9th and 11th century, the population of China almost doubled in size to more than 100 million, growth made possible by a steady improvement in agriculture which produced abundant surpluses. The Song were the first government in world history to issue paper money and establish a permanent standing navy to support flourishing maritime trade. Civilized Chinese life continued to thrive even after the Song lost control of northern China in 1127, but could do nothing about barbarian of a different calibre in the late-13th-century; the Mongols. Meanwhile through influence from China, Japan emerged during the Asuka Period (538–710) as a clearly centralized state based on Confucian and Buddhist ideas. Chinese influence waned shortly after the capital was moved to Heian (modern Kyoto) in 794, allowing a more wholly Japanese culture to emerge. The luxury and delight of Kyoto at this time has been impressed on the Western imagination by two of the greatest works of Japanese literature, *The Tale of Genji* and the better known *The Pillow Book*. 11th-century Kyoto had a population of perhaps 100,000, making it far larger than any Western European cities at the time. For the Indian subcontinent, the Early Middle Ages were defined by a complex and fluid network of regional kingdoms, and cultural diversity. The disintegration of central power meant religions had to vigorously competing for royal favour and popular support. In the end Hinduism prospered and Buddhism dwindled, since the Brahmins were able administrators, and had more pragmatic ideas about statecraft. In the 9th-century, three powerful regional powers contested for control of the resource-rich Ganges Valley, but none were able to consistently control lands much beyond their core region for long periods. After the 10th-century, Muslims using swift-horse cavalry repeatedly overran northern India, eventually leading to the establishment of the Islamic Delhi Sultanate in 1206.

## History

### China during the Early Middle Ages

By the sixth century, the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) was a distant memory. China was still divided between parallel regimes which ruled the northern and southern halves of the country. In the south, the Eastern Jin eventually gave way to a series of five short-lived dynasties. From the beginning, the court at Jiankang (modern-day Nanjing) was completely at the mercy of the great landowning families. Each of the southern dynasties was founded by a general, often from a humble origins, who was looked upon with scorn by the sophisticated aristocracy; they could seize and hold power for a few decades, but were then unable to securely pass power onto their heirs. The annihilation of the south was postponed only by the internal division of the north, and by the protection afforded by the wide and slow Yangtze River. To the very end, the old hostility between “Chinese” and “barbarian” remained alive. Southerners scorned northerners, while northerners were touchy and defensive about their “barbarian blood”. But the final reunification of China was to start from the North China Plain, not from Jiankang. The north had become more homogeneous as the result of the Northern Wei (386–535), a kingdom founded by the nomadic Xianbei people, which conquered the remaining northern states to unify northern China in 439. Widespread sinicization followed under Emperor Xiaowen (471–499), who moved his capital city to Luoyang; which had been the capital during the earlier Han and Jin dynasties. This was the capstone of his plan to turn the Northern Wei into a fully Chinese kingdom. Only Chinese was spoken inside; even nomadic clothing, customs, and surnames were forbidden. He also encouraged intermarriage between the Xianbei and Han elite. While the capital had moved to Luoyang, the military elite remained centered at the old capital of Pingcheng, widening the differences between the government and the military. This growing rift eventually saw the Northern Wei split into the Eastern and Western Wei, which then became the Northern Qi and Northern Zhou. The south was in no better shape. Between 554 and 557. three emperors sat on the throne in Jiankang. until a general named Wang Sengbian proclaimed himself founder of a new dynasty, the Southern Chen (557–589). Usurpation had begun to snowball on both sides of the Yangtze; legitimacy went to the man with the biggest sword.

   The man who finally reunified China, Yang Jian (d. 604), was a member of the military aristocracy in the Northern Zhou; his family had Han origins, but had intermarried with the Xianbei for generations. Yang Jian served with apparent distinction during the reign of Zhou Wu (543-578), and, as part of his reward, one of his daughters was permitted to marry the crown prince. Zhou Wu was young and ambitious. After defeating and absorbing the Northern Qi in 577, he began to plan the conquest of the Southern Chen. He was on campaign when he unexpectedly became ill and died at the age of thirty-five. Yang Jian, loyal to the imperial family, helped Wu’s nineteen year-old son (his own son-in-law). Zhou Xuan (578-580), ascend the throne of the north. Zhou Xuan proved an erratic and wasteful rulers; he executed anyone who offended him; went on lavish royal progresses to demonstrate his power; and made his own six-year-old son co-emperor, apparently to give himself more freedom to indulge in his pleasures. All this time, Yang Jian managed to keep the government running smoothly, which Zhou Xuan both relied on and resented; on one occasion, he became so suspicious of Yang Jian that he said to his wife, "*I will surely slaughter your clan!*" Fortunately, the wayward emperor had a stroke and died at the age of twenty. Yang Jian immediately took steps to seize the throne for himself. He declared himself regent for his seven-year-old grandson Zhou Jing, and began to form an inner circle of able men, most notably a talented general named Gao Ying and a great writer named Li Delin; Gao Ying helped him wipe out opposition, while Li Delin wrote beautifully convincing political rhetoric. In spring 581, Yang Jian had Zhou Jing yield the throne to him, ending Northern Zhou and establishing the **Sui Dynasty** (581–618); he took the royal name Emperor Wendi (581-604). He then made sure that his rule would be unchallenged by murdering fifty-nine members of the ruling Zhou family, including his own grandson. The emperor spent a careful seven years preparing the ground for his southern conquest. The attack was prefaced with propaganda listing all the vice which had deprived the southern dynasty of the *Mandate of Heaven*. In 589, the actual war began. Emperor Wendi marched towards the southern capital Jiankan; by the time his armies arrived at the city’s walls, the power of the Southern Chen had crumbled. With remarkable ease, the city and then of the south. Sui Wendi had restored China to unity.

. Wen prepared for the conquest of the south with exemplary thoroughness, repairing the Great Wall and encouraging discord among the steppe nomads beyond. By 589, northern China was stable enough for him to take the final step toward reunifying the whole country. Having amassed more than half-a-million troop along the length of the Yangtze River, he rapidly overwhelmed the last southern dynasty, which put-up only token resistance. Chinese history illustrates a lot of repeating patterns. The short-lived Qin Dynasty violently unified China, setting the stage for the Han, China's first *golden age*. In a similar way, the Sui Dynasty lasted just three decades, and this brevity belies its importance. A hard-working administrator, Wen achieved much more than reunifying the empire; he provided it with uniform institutions and patterns of government that survived into the T'ang Dynasty and beyond. He revived the Confucian state rituals, education, and examination system to win favour with the scholar elites, and presented himself as an ideal Buddhist king to gain the support of the growing faithful. But Wen's lasting success was in practical politics. One of his first acts on becoming emperor was to promulgate a single, unified, and less complex law code. The central government under Wen developed into a complex apparatus of ministries and boards, headed by extremely able men, which later provided the basic framework for the T'ang system. Even more important was his sweeping reform of local government, which had been reduced to chaos during the 5th and 6th centuries, with many districts dominated by a single family. He reduced the number of subdivision, rationalized the structure into a hierarchy subordinate to central government, and mandated that officials could not own land in the province where they served, nor serve in the province of their birth. The land allocation system, employed under the successive northern dynasties, was extended to all of China. Broadly speaking, Emperor Wen's reign was a great period of economic prosperity not seen since the Han Dynasty. He was able to establish great granaries filled from tax in kind, as a means to feed destitute farmers in times of natural disaster or poor harvests, and to regulate market prices. The most lasting legacy of the Sui Dynasty was the Grand Canal, begun under Wen and enormously enlarged by his son Emperor Yang (604-18). The 1100-mile-long and 130 ft wide canal linking the Yangtze River valley with the northern Yellow River; it is the longest and oldest artificial river in the world. While the pressing motives were for shipping grains and rice from the south to the northern capital city of Luoyang, and for transporting troops from stable north to the newly conquered south, the reliable inland shipment links would facilitate bustling domestic trade, flow of people, and cultural exchange for centuries. Along with repairs to the Great Wall, these immense undertakings amassed millions of conscripts, under appalling conditions, at heavy cost in human lives. The fatal blow for the Sui Dynasty was a series of costly and disastrous military campaigns into Korea.

The Sui disintegrated under a series of popular revolts, culminating in the rebellion of general Li Yuan in 616. He took the capital of Xi'an the next year, prompting Emperor Yang to flee south with his court, where he was assassinated. The government was taken over by Li Yuan as Emperor Gaozu (618-26), founder the new **T'ang Dynasty** (618-907). Gaozu prudently maintained and improved upon the bureaucratic practices initiated by the Sui, while dispensing with the extravagant mega-projects. This can be seen in the T'ang Law Code of 624 which drew heavily on Sui concepts but expanded on them; for instance, inheritance law ensured equal division of property amongst legitimate heirs, thus preventing powerful families from accumulating huge estates. Considered as one of the greatest achievements of traditional Chinese law, it proved remarkably durable, continuing to be used with appropriate modifications as late as the 14th-century, and even copied by Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Despite Gaozu's effective rule, his son, Li-Shimin, saw room for improvement; he had fought alongside his father to establish the dynasty, and felt he deserve a larger role in making policy. Li-Shimin staged a coup, murdered his two brothers and several nephews, and then forced Gaozu to abdicate to him, as Emperor Taizong (626-49). Taizong nevertheless proved himself to be an even more effective emperor than his father, laying the foundation for the dynasty to flourish for centuries beyond his reign. Combined military campaigns and diplomatic maneuvers were undertaken to eliminate threats from steppe nomads, extending the border, submitting neighboring states into a tributary system, and gaining unquestioned hegemony over the Tamin Basin and lucrative Silk Road trade. There were also successful campaigns into Vietnam and Korea, rising above the failures of the Sui. Taizong then set out to solve internal problems within the government, problems which had constantly plagued past dynasties. Underlying the prosperity of the early T'ang Dynasty was a strong centralized bureaucracy with efficient policies. The government was organized as "*Three Departments and Six Ministries*" to separately draft, review, and implement policies. Taizong was later succeeded by a singular figure in Chinese history; Wu Zetian, the only officially recognized female emperor of China. Lady Wu first entered court in 638 as the beautiful 14-year-old concubine of Emperor Taizong; so lovely, she attracted the attention of his impressionable son, the crown prince. Upon the emperor's death, according to custom, she had her head shaved and entered a convent to live out the rest of her life. However, the son, now Emperor Gaozong (649–68), brought her back to court as his own concubine. Lady Wu became Gaozong's first concubine, and his love for her upset the empress and the former first concubine. To get rid of both, Lady Wu is said to have murdered her own infant daughter, and framed them both for the crime. In public, she played the role of the shy, respectable empress, but quickly became the true power behind the throne. When Gaozong died, she maintained control at court through her sons, until she felt secure enough to claim the throne herself, as Empress Wu Zetian (690-705). While a controversial figure among later historians, modern scholars tend to view her tenure more positively as laying the foundation for the later success of her son, Emperor Xuanzong (713-756). One of the most ambitious rulers of the dynasty, T'ang China achieved its zenith during his 43-years tenure.

The early T'ang Dynasty was largely a period of prosperity and stability, and one of China's most dynamic eras, with a new openness to foreigners and their ideas. Under the Sui, there had been two great cities, Xi’an and Luoyang. Now, Xi'an was the largest city in the world with a population of at least one million, and every provincial capital became a major commercial centre, especially southern cities such as Yangzhou, Suzhou, and Hangzhou. Under this period of the *Pax Sinica*, the Silk Road entered its *Golden Age*, while a strong Chinese maritime presence could be found in the Indian Ocean Trade network; Chinese ships began regularly calling on the East African coast in order to cut out Arab middle-men. Thousands of foreign merchants came and lived in numerous Chinese cities to do business, including Persians, Central Asians, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Tibetans, Indians and many others; Xi'an alone had 25,000 foreign residents. Naturally, there were also many different practiced religions, such as Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, Persian Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. Buddhism was adopted by the imperial family, and continued to flourish, becoming thoroughly sinicized and a permanent part of Chinese traditional culture. The traditional Stupa developed into a specifically Chinese form, that of the Pagoda. It is estimated that the population grew from 50 million in the 7th-century to about 80 million people by the 9th. The T'ang period was a *golden age* of Chinese literature and art. Over 50,000 poems, plays, short stories, and other works have survived to the present day. The three greatest T'ang poets were exact contemporaries during Xuanzong's reign; Li Bai (b. 701), Du Fu (b. 712), and Wang Wei (b. 701). Woodblock printing began on a large scale, making the written word available to vastly greater audiences. One of the world's oldest surviving printed documents is a miniature Buddhist *dharani sutra* dating roughly from 650, while the *Diamond Sutra* is the first full-length book unearthed in a cave at Dunhuang in 1899; it can be precisely dated to 868 as the details of publication are given at the end of the text. With so many books coming into circulation, literacy rates could improve and more of the lower classes are seen entering the imperial examinations for government offices. The T'ang potters made a significant contribution in ceramic history; they discovered the technique of the thin white translucent ware known as porcelain or "*fine china*" as it is still known in some English-speaking countries. From the start they were widely appreciated. In 851, an Islamic merchant from Basra called Suleiman is recorded as marveling at Chinese ware, "*They have in China a very fine clay with which they make vases which are as transparent as glass; water is seen through them. The vases are made of clay.*" In the early 18th-century, Europeans would go to enormous lengths to learn the secrets of its manufacture. In the realm of cartography, there were further advances beyond the map-makers of the Han dynasty. The famous *Hua Yi Tu* map of 801, a landmark in cartography, measures 33 feet by 30 feet, and charts in ambitious detail the entire T'ang empire and beyond into the "*barbarian wilderness*". The T'ang culture and social systems were observed and imitated by neighboring countries, most notably Japan.

The reign of Emperor Xuanzong marked both Tang China's zenith, and the beginning of its decline, in a downfall that provides one of the enduring love stories of China. After twenty years on the throne, Xuanzong became tired of the burden of rule, and turned more and more to pleasure-seeking with his concubines. Then around 740, he fell very must in love with Yang Guifei (d. 756), one of the great *femme fatales* of Chinese history. Inconveniently, Lady Yang was his son's wife, but after a brief stint as a Taoist nun, she became Xuanzong's first concubine. She was then able to persuade the emperor to promote members of her dissolute family to high government positions; it is difficult to say whether they was more corrupt, incompetent, self-serving, or neglectful. The most prominent was Li Linfu as Chancellor, who began eliminating rivals at court, purging many of the most talented ministers in the process. Even more damaging was his policy of promoting non-Han Chinese generals to positions of command in the army, in the hope of preventing military rivals. In 751, T'ang prestige was badly damaged by a shattering defeat against the Abbasid Caliphate at the Battle of Talas. Sensing weakness, a half-Sogdian/half-Turk general named An Lushan mounted a rebellion; the An Lushan Rebellion (755-763). Commanding some of the best troops in the Chinese army, he captured Luoyang before the end of 755 and the capital of Xi’an the next year. Emperor Xuanzong was forced to ignominiously fleeing for the south with his court and household. On the journey, his imperial bodyguard mutinied, and refused to go any further unless the entire Yang family was put to death. After initially refusing, Xuanzong had no choice but to allow his beloved Yang Guifei be taken to a nearby Buddhist temple, where she was strangled to death with a length of silk. Their love story was later romanticised in Bai-Juji's famous poem, *Song of the Everlasting Sorrow* (806). Xuanzong's son Emperor Suzong (757-762) and grandson Emperor Daizong (762-79) finally crushed the rebellion in 763, but the victory had been won at great consequence. There is no doubt that the rebellion resulted in a huge death-toll, with estimates generally starting at 13 million people, not only from heavy direct casualties and civilian collateral damage, but dislocation, famine and disease. The Tang government lost complete control of the far west, along with its lucrative Silk Road trade. The border defences also collapsed, with the Tibetans taking the opportunity to raid western China, at one stage briefly occupying Xi'an, while the Vietnamese raided southern China. In the north, the Uighur Khaganate had intervened to help suppress the rebellion, extracting huge tribute and leaving the government crippled by debt for year. As a result, they began selling titles and positions, giving rise of provincial military governors or *Jiedushi*, who gradually came to challenge the power of the central government. A political and economic recovery eventually did occur several decades after the rebellion, aided by the government's withdrawal from managing the economy. Under less bureaucratic restrictions, the merchant class prospered, especially in the south which had escaped unscathed from the conflict. During the ambitious reign of Emperor Xianzong (805-20), several military campaigns were undertaken to quell the rebellious provinces, that managed to subdue all but two of them. However, Xianzong's successors proved less capable and more interested in the pleasures of hunting, feasting, and concubines, allowing a resurgence in the power of the eunuch palace guard. After a failed plot to put an end to the eunuchs in 835, their power became unchallenged. One result was the persecution of Buddhist, whose self-indulgent spiritualism was blamed for the empire's woes. In truth, the Chinese state was probably more interested in the property and wealth of monasteries than any religious eccentricity. Under the fiercest of the persecuting emperors over 4,000 monasteries were dissolved, and 260,000 monks and nuns forced back into secular life. By the 860s, provincial armies, lawless gangs, and peasant unrest combined to make the country ungovernable. The fatal blow to the T'ang came with the Huang Chao Rebellion (874-84), led by Huang Chao, who failed the civil service examination, and turned instead to overthrowing the government. It took a decade to suppress and resulted in the destruction of both Xi'an and Luoyang. After almost 300 years in power, the dynasty was ended in 907, when a military governor deposed the last Tang emperor, inaugurating the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907-60).

For five decades, five short-lived dynasties succeeded one another in control of the traditional imperial heartland in northern China. More stable and smaller regional regimes controlled the rest, most of which had been effectively independent kingdoms long before 907. Finally, a general later known as Emperor Taizu (960-76) established a sixth regime in the northern heartland on a more firm footing; the **Song Dynasty** (960-1279) with its capital at Kaifeng, strategically located where the Grand Canal met the Yellow River. Taizu was succeeded by his even abler younger brother, Emperor Taizong (976-97). The stability provided by the long reigns of these first two emperors gave the dynasty the start it needed to reconquered and unified most of China. Having consolidated power, they then reduced the power of regional governors, by granting greater authority to the civil service. As a result, this was the heyday of the Confucians. Ever since the 1st-century BC, scholar officials had supposedly been selected on merit though the civil-service examinations, but nepotism and corruption had often frustrated this intention. Now, under the Song, it became a cornerstone of the imperial system. The search for talent became rigorous with the introduction of a pre-test in local departments to select those candidates more likely to do well in the examinations proper. By the end of the dynasty, some 400,000 candidates were sitting them each year; successful candidates could then participate in the provincial capital examination, and then another examination in the imperial palace supervised by the emperor himself. At a time when brute force decided who was in control in much of feudal Europe, young Chinese men sat tests on the Confucian classics. One result was a vigorous intellectual climate, in which philosophers such as Cheng Yi (b. 1033) and Zhu Xi (b. 1130) sought to explain where imperial authority had gone wrong in the final years of the Tang Dynasty. Neo-Confucianism as it came to be called evolved into a rigid official dogma, which brought political and social stability, but in a slowness to adopt to rapid socioeconomic change. In military affair, the emperors chiefly organized their army to ensure that no general could ever threaten imperial authority, often at the expense of effectiveness in war. The imperial army was divided among three independent generals, that lacked lacked unity of command; overly successful generals were often relieved of command or even executed. The downside of course was that Song China was militarily weaker than under the T'ang. Neither Emperor Taizong nor his successors could conquer the ethic Khitan Liao Dynasty (916–1125), which ruled over Manchuria, Mongolia, and a belt of Chinese territory south of the Great Wall. Controlling this vital defensive area allowed them to raid northern China at will, and Song emperors were compelled to pay them an annual tribute. A similar situation arose when ethnic Tanguts founded the Western Xia (1038–1227) to the northwest, who the Song paid too. The tribute payments were huge but less than the costs of a war, and allowed the emperors to concentrate on ruling the bulk of China. In any case, much of its value came back to China in the form of payment for Chinese exports.

Despite its relatively weak military strength, the Song period was remarkable for a dramatic surge in economic activity; the most prosperous and advanced economy in the medieval world. It appears to have brought most Chinese a real rise in incomes, despite continuing population growth to more than 100 million. For once in the pre-modern world agricultural production seems to have outstripped demographic trends. More land was brought under cultivation thanks to government irrigation projects, and encouraging peasants to cultivate barren land which they could then claim permanent title to. A key innovation of the Song era was a new breed of rice that made two harvests a year the norm. Unlike the self-sufficient farmers or aristocratic estates of the T'ang era, rural families now dominated agriculture, producing a surplus for market, while supplementing their income with handicraft work. Cash crops and regional specialization became far more central to the economy, and a genuinely China-wide market economy emerged. Cotton, hemp, sugarcane, tea, and mulberry trees (for breeding silkworms) were widely planted. Luoyang became known for its flower cultivation, and bulb prices reached exorbitant prices; a phenomena similar to *Tulip Mania* in the early-17th-century Dutch Republic. In an important change from earlier dynasties, the Song did not attempt to regulate prices and markets. Though government-controlled monopolies remained, mostly privately owned enterprises met the needs of a growing population, while the merchant class accumulated wealth that often rivaled that of the scholar-elites who administered the state. There was an increased pace of technological innovation, and what one might term an early Chinese industrial revolution. By 1078, a few years of the Battle of Hastings, China was producing 125,000 tonnes of iron per year, as much as the whole of Europe six centuries later. Massive amounts of charcoal were used in the smelting process, leading to a widespread deforestation in northern China, until the Chinese began using coal in the late-11th-century. Textile production too underwent dramatic development, through the adoption of water-driven spinning machinery. There was also a notable increase in global commerce. With the Silk Road dominated by Muslims and nomads, for the first time the volume of maritime trade via the India Ocean Trade network began to exceed the overland trade. The design of the Chinese junk was perfected, pioneering features later copied elsewhere; the sternpost rudder, multiple masts, compasses, charts, and navigation instruments. In the 13th-century, Marco Polo reports a large merchant junk, about 450 feet in length, with sixty private cabins for merchants. Merchants even had insurance to hedge the risk of maritime trade, while Song China found it necessary to establish the world's first standing navy to protect maritime trade. First experimented with during the Five Dynasties period, the Song government was the first in world history to true paper money nationally. Some of the largest cities in the world were found in China during this period; Kaifeng, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Canton all had populations of more than a million. The arts, literature, and science also flourished under the Song, fuelled by the demands of an ever-increasing wealthy middle class. Fine porcelain and theatre were popular, while a civilized gentleman was expected to be adept in three different artistic fields; painting, poetry, and calligraphy. Woodblock printing was a laborious process, but Chinese printers worked wonders, producing volumes of literature, eagerly consumed by an increasingly literate public. The Song experimented with movable type printing, but the Chinese script with its profusion of characters posed significant challenges; this innovation was finally achieved by the Koreans in the 13th-century. The spirit of innovation impacted virtually everything, even how war was waged. The cultural quirk of foot binding appears to have emerged during the Song Dynasty; the binding up a high-born girl’s feet in cloths, so they would never grow larger than the size of a fist. We still do not know exactly how the custom began, but for the next few centuries it became the social norm, sometimes producing such grotesque deformities as to leave a lady almost incapable of walking.

The Song Dynasty is divided into two distinct periods: Northern Song (960-1127) and Southern Song (1127-1279). For a century-and-a-half, Song China engaged in a stand-off with the Khitan Liao and Tangut Western Xia. The balance of power was disrupted in 1115, when the Jurchen tribes revolted against the Liao, and established their own Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) to the north-east; the Jurchen were ancestors of the later Manchu. Seeing an opportunity to rid themselves of a troublesome neighbour, the Song joined forces with the Jin to annihilate the Liao. Unfortunately, the Song had rather shown themselves up for their military weakness, and the Jin rapidly broke the alliance. Aided by the removal of defensive forests, the Jin overwhelmed northern China, capturing not only the Song capital of Kaifeng, but emperor himself and most of the Imperial court. The remaining Song forces regrouped under a Song prince, who escaped the fate of his house, and withdrew south to a new capital at Hangzhou, at the other end of the Grand Canal. Although the Southern Song had lost control of the traditional "birthplace of Chinese civilization" along the Yellow River, they still controlled the richest agricultural region of the former state and some 60% of the population. Civilized Chinese life continued to thrive for another 150 years in the exceptionally beautiful city of Hangzhou, renowned for its scenic canals and gardens. To repel the Jin, the Song developed revolutionary new military technology by applying gunpowder to the battlefield for the frist time. Known to Chinese alchemists perhaps as early as the 2nd-century. early gunpowder weapons were limited to fire arrows, flame-throwers, shrapnel-grenades, and bombs lobbed from catapults. Unfortunately for the Song, these weapons only reached maturity during the later Mongol Yuan Dynasty period. Just when the Song had become accustomed to their new state, another intruder arrived of a different calibre from all previous northern *barbarians*. Though not Chinese, the conqueror of the Song became perhaps the only emperor of China whose name is widely known; Kublai Khan of the Mongols.

### Japan until the Early Middle Ages

Once upon a time, the two deities, Izanagi and tIzanami, came down from the heavens to a watery world in order to create land. To this end, the pair stirred the briny sea with a jewelled spear, from which solidified the land now known as Japan. They also populated the new land with over 800 *Kami* or spirits, chief amongst which was the sun goddess Amaterasu. The *Kami* had many dramatic adventures, establishing such basic patterns of life as day and night, summer and winter. With humans now living on Earth, the "*age of the gods*" came to an end with Amaterasu sending her grandson, Jimmu, to rule as the first emperor of Japan, giving him a jewel, a mirror, and a sword: the symbols of Japanese imperial authority. Such is the seminal creation myth of Japan. More certainly, the earliest traces of human life on the Japanese archipelago date go back only 35,000 years or so, though the argument has been made for much earlier. Japan was linked to the continent by landbridges until about 12,000 years ago. Until the mid-7th-century, when Japan emerges in her own historical records, the Japanese story has to be pieced together from archeological evidence, and Chinese and Korean sources. The first recognisable culture to emerge was the Neolithic Jōmon from around 12,000 BC. They were hunter-gatherers, who reached a considerable degree of cultural complexity with distinctive pottery, large settlements, ritual burial, and settled agriculture by 4,000 BC. The people who we today call the Japanese are known as the Yayoi, who effectively invaded Japan in waves, probably via the Korean peninsula, from the 4th-century BC; the **Yayoi Period** (400 BC-250 BC). They brought with them iron and bronze technology, and highly productive wet rice-farming techniques. The Yayoi gradually spread eastwards over the southern and central islands, where laid the mildest climate and best agricultural prospects, displacing and forcing the earlier Jōmon ever further north; except for the minority group, the Ainu, of northern Japan, the present-day Japanese are overwhelmingly of Yayoi descent. The introduction of labour-intensive rice-farming was a game-changer, Not only did it demand the consolidation of territory and establishment of boundaries, but, when combined with the fishing potential of Japanese waters. led to population growth. By the end of the period this mountainous archipelago had a disproportionately large population perhaps as high as 4.5 million; more than England in the 15th-century. According to the earliest work to mention Japan, the *Book of Han* (82 AD), there were more than a hundred clans or petty-kingdoms in Japan, and note the frequency of warfare; archaeology reveals fortified villages. Japanese rulers were traded and maintained diplomatic relations with Korea and China. The most famous figure of the period was shaman-queen Himiko of Yamatai (d. 248), who maintained friendly relations with the Chinese Wei Kingdom during the Warring States Period. Historians disagree on whether Himiko was the overlord of many petty-kingdoms, or just queen of one powerful kingdom, and even the location of Yamatai. It does indicate a more favourable attitude to women in ancient Japan before Chinese culture became more influential, and that kingship embodied a dual role, both a secular ruler and high priest within the Japan's indigenous religion, Shinto. This religious tradition has no fixed doctrine, canonical scriptures, or even an identified founder, and its essence is the worship at public and family shrines at the proper times of certain *kami* ("spirits"). which govern nature in all its forms.

The questions of how the unification of Japan came into being has inspired many hypotheses, none entirely convincing; the **Kofun Period** (250–538). What is certain is that the period saw a polity called Yamato (in the Nara region, south of Osaka) establish sufficient administrative and military power for its ruler to be seen as emperor. The symbol of their growing power was the *Kofun* burial mounds they constructed. There are over 20,000 mounds across Japan, most commonly in a distinctive keyhole shape when viewed from above, and are surrounded by several moats. *Kofun*, built on a grander scale as time went on, are indicators that the Yamato rulers could command tremendous human and material resources; the largest examples measure over 400m long. Emperor Ankō (d. 456) is the earliest generally agreed upon historical ruler of all or most of Japan. According to the traditional lineage, he was the 20th emperor with an ancestry traced back to Emperor Jimmu and thus from the sun goddess Amaterasu, though modern historians generally consider earlier emperors at least semi-legendary. Despite a number of perilous moments, Japan continues to have the longest unbroken hereditary dynasty in the world, and the notion that the emperor is divine persisted throughout the millennia, until the immediate aftermath of World War II, when the 128th emperor, Hirohito (d. 1989), was forced to declare his humanity to the nation.

The **Asuka Period** (538-710) is marked by an influx of influences from the highest example of civilization of which the Japanese were aware, and possibly the finest in the world at that time; that of imperial China. A major themes of Japanese history is her complex and often changing relationship with China. In the 6th-century, Japan hoped, by consciously emulating China, to be recognised as a civilised country. The period began in 538 (or 552) with the introduction of Buddhism from Korea; although Buddhism originated in India, it was seen as a Chinese religion. Despite early resistance, Buddhism was easily conjoined with traditional Shintoism, and promoted by the ruling class. By 627, there were 46 Buddhist temples, and over a thousand Buddhist monks and nuns in Japan. Along with Buddhism came the Chinese writing system. The Japanese adapted Chinese characters to the needs of a very different language, mostly by using their phonetic qualities rather than semantic meaning, in an unnatural alliance which has remained awkward ever since. The period is also characterized by power steadily seeped away from the emperor towards the regional clan leaders, chief among them, the Soga clan. By intermarrying with the imperial family, they rose to positions of dominance at court. pioneering a pattern of reducing the emperor to something of a mere figurehead. In spite of the efforts of an occasional vigorous emperor, it remained until the 19thth century, under six dIfferent families: the Soga (530s–645), the Fujiwara (850s–1070), the Taira (1159-1180s), the Kamakura (1192–1333), the Muromachi (1336–1565), and the Tokugawa (1603–1867). The most significant Soga ruler was **Prince Shōtoku** (d. 622), regent for his aunt Empress Suiko (592–628) until his death. Shōtoku saw the Chinese pattern of government as the right way forward for Japan. He attempting to establish a centralized bureaucratic state, in place of the more feudal rivalries of Japanese clan society, and authored the *Seventeen-Article Constitution*, a Confucian-inspired code of conduct for government officials and citizens. Official rank, however, did tend to be hereditary rather than based on merit, a preference of the Japanese ruling class against which the Confucian tradition of examinations could make little headway. He was also a devout Buddhist, and commissioned the superb Hōryū-ji Temple, which date from 607 and still survives today. In 645, the Soga clan was overthrown in a coup d’état orchestrated by the imperial family, in alliance with Fujiwara no Kamatari, the founder of the Fujiwara clan; the beginning of one of Japan's most powerful clans which would monopolise government until the 12th century. There followed further far-reaching reforms known as the Taika Reforms, again along Chinese lines: private ownership of land was abolished, nationalising all land in Japan to be redistribued equally among cultivators; a census of all households was compiled as the basis for a new system of taxation, paid both in kind on harvests and in labour for military conscription and building public works; and the first signs of implementing a true law code. These reforms continued the trend towards a system of centralized bureaucratic state with the emperor as absolute monarch at its head. Meanwhile envoys were dispatched to China to learn seemingly everything, from the Chinese writing system to literature, from irrigation to architecture, from medicine to even dietary habits at this time.

Until the early 8th-century, Japan had no permanent capital, with the Shinto tenet on purity ordaining that the imperial court relocate to a new city upon the death of an emperor or empress. However, the increasing weight of imperial bureaucracy now suggested the need for an imperial capital, and in 710, one was constructed at Nara, closely modelled on the T'ang capital at Xi'an, with the same regular and well-defined grid layout; During the **Nara Period** (710–94), the fashion for all things Chinese was at its peak, as was the influence of Buddhism. Seven major Buddhist temples dotted the city, including the Tōdai-ji Temple (c. 752) whose Great Buddha Hall houses the largest bronze sculpture of the Buddha in the world. Though Nara remained the capital for less than a century, it saw the first flowering of Japanese culture. The compilation of Japan’s two most ancient and important histories, the *Kojiki* (712) and *Nihon Shoki* (720), draw on oral traditions handed down from much earlier times. Both were highly political in nature, detailing the creation myth, Shinto gods, and stressing the connection between the imperial family and the sun goddess Amaterasu; thus legitimising the royal family. By purposely dating Japanese history back as far as 660 BC, the compilers sought to raise the level of national sophistication in Chinese and Korean eyes. Another outstanding example was an anthology of 4,500 Japanese poems, both ancient and contemporary, known as *Man’yōshū* (*c.* 759). The collection is a uniquely Japanese work, with scarcely any influence at all from Chinese literature, or Buddhist and Confucian ideas. In contrast to culture, the ordinary populace did anything but flourish. Agriculture techniques were still primitive, not enough land was prepared for cultivation, and crop failures, famines, and outbreaks of disease were frequent; a smallpox epidemic in 735-37 killed perhaps a quarter of the population. This began the process of dismantling the Taika land reforms, as most peasants preferred the greater security of working for landed aristocrats. On tops of these woes, some emperors feared a lack of piousness had caused the troubles. Buddhist abbots rose to a position of such political dominance that Emperor Kammu (781–806) decided to move the capital to escape them.

The capital was shifted briefly to Nagaokakyō, but when this was followed by a flood, it was suddenly moved again, this time to Heian, known today as Kyoto (meaning simply "capital"); the **Heian Period** (794–1185). It would remain Japan’s capital for more than a thousand years, though not necessarily the centre of actual power. The new city, like its predecessor, was closely modelled on the Chinese example of Xi'an, but with one significant difference. This time the imperial palace did not have wealthy Buddhist monasteries as immediate neighbours. It was early in the Heian Period that the emperors, although still considered divine, became sidelined by powerful bureaucrats who all came from one family: the Fujiwara clan. As the Soga clan had taken control of the throne in the 6th-century, the Fujiwara by the 9th-century had intermarried with the imperial family, and one of their members, Fujiwara no Yoshifusa (d. 872), became regent for his grandson, a child-emperor. Yoshifusa's nephew, Fujiwara no Mototsune (d. 891), created the new office called *Kampaku* (usually translated as "chief chancellor"), which allowed the Fujiwara to pulled the political strings at court when the emperor reached adulthood. For two centuries, the Fujiwara maintain hereditary control of the government through a simple device; they reserved for their family the right to provide brides for the imperial house. By Japanese tradition, the son of such a marriage would be raised with his mother's family, the clan could exercise a crucial influence upon future emperors while they were children. For example, Fujiwara no Michinaga (d. 1028) controls the court for more than thirty years, as father-in-law or grandfather of four emperors. In normal circumstances this would imply a high mortality rate within the imperial family, but it is not the case. Youthful emperors were encouraged to retire early to a life of ease in a Buddhist monastery; since their imperial duties chiefly entailed wearisome rituals, most were happy to do so. The chancellor was then free to select a successor from the royal youths, susceptible to control by Fujiwara mothers or wives. The success of the Fujiwara clan in maintaining this system depended partly on the brilliance of the court life over which they preside in Kyoto. The high nobilty were enticed into the role of courtiers in the capital, living lavishly on funds drawn from their distant estates; reminiscent of the court of Louis XIV.

By all accounts, Heian Period saw a great **cultural and artistic flowering** among the nobles in Kyoto. Japanese admiration for all things Chinese effective ended in the 9th-century, with the T'ang Dynasty in a state of decline. Japan cut-off formal exchange of ambassadors with China in 838, which had begun in 630. The practical result was the stimulation of a more purely Japanese cultural tradition. High society in the capital was sophisticated, elegant and more concerned with artistic pursuits and etiquette than of sexual morality. The court life of the time was brilliantly depicted in Japan's first the great novel, *The Tale of Genji (c.* 1021) by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, as well as several noted diaries written by court ladies such as *The Pillow Book* (1002). It showed a world where courtiers indulged in such amusements as guessing flowers by their scent, building extravagant follies, mastering board games such as *Go*, and sparing no expense to indulge in the latest luxury. As in China, poetry was considered an essential element of civilized life, and the competitive writing of verses was a social pastime. Besides literature, the period also produced especially fine painting in the uniquely Japanese style called *Yamato-e*, characterised by sharp angular lines and vivid colours. Beauty was widely considered an important part of what made one a "good" person. Both men and women powdered their faces and blackened their teeth. The male courtly ideal included a faint mustache or thin goatee, while a woman's mouth was painted small and red, her eyebrows were shaved and redrawn higher on the forehead, and her hair cultivated shiny and flowing. Formal dress for women included a complex twelve-layered kimono. By the end of the period, Kyoto had grown to a population of perhaps 100,000, making it much larger than most European cities at the time.

While the great nobles immersed themselves in courtly pleasures and intrigues, out in the real world of the provinces, powerful military forces were developing; the rise of the Samurai class, which would eventually take power as the Minamoto Shoguns, and start the feudal period of Japan.

### India during the Early Middle Ages

India's medieval period is typically taken to begin with the slow collapse of the Gupta Empire from about 480 to 550. For five unsettled centuries, India fragmented into several dynasties ruling large areas for long periods, as well as many smaller kingdoms, often paying some form of tribute to larger states. The historian John Keay puts the typical number of dynasties within the subcontinent at any one time at between 20 and 40, not including very petty-kingdoms. Each of the regional empires aspired to imperial status, but no ruler was able to consistently control regions much beyond their core area for long. The sweeping upheavals and rearrangements which stud this confusion make agreement between historians about what was happening in India difficult; even the chronology is still largely conjectural. Only the general processes stand out.

The most dramatic of these was the **decline of Buddhism** on the Indian subcontinent. All three Indian religious traditions - Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism - benefited from large polities. Although the Guptas were themselves devout Hundus, they recognised that the maintenance of their empire lay in cordial relations with all believers, so lavished patronage and donations on thriving Buddhist and Jain cultures as well. The regionalisation of India after 550 AD led to the loss of patronage, and to vigorous competition between the faiths.for royal favour and popular support. Hinduism and Buddhism were particularly marked by evolution to broaden their appeal. In Hinduism, a new popular emotionalism was associated with the two leading cults of Shiva and Vishnu with devotional hymns; the first songs and music in the Tamil language were composed in the 6th-century, and imitated all over India. An expanded mythology was created in this period, including *Bhagavata Purana* and *Vishnu Purana* with legends of Krishna, while *Padma Purana* and *Kurma Purana* expressed reverence for Vishnu, Shiva and Shakti with equal enthusiasm. There was a rural movement, whereby village shrines, at which local deities were worshipped, were easily assimilated into Hindu cults by the belief that gods might appear in more than one incarnation. A negative point is a new strictness and rigidity of the Caste System, with intensified subordination of lower castes and especially women, with an upsurge of child-marriage and the practice called *Suttee* (self-immolation of widows on their husbands’ funeral pyres). The new development within Buddhism was the rise of Mahayana Buddhism, focused upon a Buddha who was effectively a divine saviour who might be worshipped. The human system of self-discipline and contemplation Gautama had taught was now increasingly confined to a minority of Theravada Buddhist (orthodox), the followers of Mahayana winning conversions among the masses. One sign of this was the proliferation of statues and representations of the Buddha, a practice hitherto restrained by the Buddha’s prohibition of idol-worship. Mahayana Buddhism eventually spread along the central Asian trade routes to China and Japan, while the more traditional Theravada Buddhism did better in south-eastern Asia and Indonesia. The evolution within Buddhism was more problematic, because the two groups competed with each other, as much as with Hinduism. Over time the Hindu religion prospered better. One factor was that, ever since the Buddhist Kushan Empire in the 2nd-century, the centre of Indian Buddhism had been the north-west, the region most exposed to the devastating invasions by various groups, beginning with the Alchon Huns. Another factor was that regional dynasties tending to favour Hinduism. The Brahmin priestly-classes were able administrators, had clearer ideas about statecraft, and could be more pragmatic than the Buddhists whose faith was based on monastic renunciation and abhorrence of violence. In a centuries-long process, Hinduism became the dominant religious tradition on the subcontinent, eclipsing Buddhism and Jainism. Of the two, the Jain community fared better. Their prohibition on taking any form of life obviously made agriculture or animal husbandry impossible, which meant that most followers tended to become merchants. In modern times the Jain community is one of the wealthiest in India.

These changes matured only shortly before Islam arrived in the subcontinent, and provoke a sense of culmination and climax. Towards the end of the explosive first century of Islam In 712, Arab armies conquered Sindh, at the mouth of the Indus River (modern-day Pakistan). They got no further, gradually settled down and ceased to trouble the Indian peoples except as traders on the western coast. The Gurjara-Pratihara Empire (786-1036) of the north-western subcontinent were instrumental in containing the Arab armies. The Pratiharas were one of three dynasties contesting the so-called **Tripartite Struggle** from the 8th to the 10th century, for control over the resource-rich Ganges Valley, along with the Pala Empire (770-1023) of the north-east, and Rashtrakuta Empire (753–982) in west-central India. The power of the Pratiharas was weakened as a result of a great raid by the Rashtrakuta that sacked their capital of Kannauj in about 916. Afterward dynastic strife and political decline set-in, until its fragmented into various states before 1023, notably the **Rajputs** of Rajasthan, from the Sanskrit *raja-putra* ("son of a king"). Although claiming royal lineage, the origin of the Rajputs has been a much-debated topic among the historians; they seem to have comprised people from a variety of ethnic and geographical backgrounds. Gradually, the term Rajput came to denote a hereditary social class, which transformed into a landed ruling class. There arose a number of small kingdoms ruled by branches of the four major Rajput clans. Their fierce commitment to warfare, to deeds of honour, and a code of chivalrous conduct akin to knights of medieval Europe, caused the Rajputs to fight constantly among themselves, if no other enemies were available. This led to further chaos in north-western India, and made the Muslim incursion of the 11th-century relatively easy, with Ghazni Sultanate in the vanguard. But it also meant that the Rajputs would hold-out for several centuries against Muslim domination of northern India, either defeating them in battle or withdrawing to formidable desert fortresses in Rajasthan.