The Chou Dynasty was founded, according to Chinese dating, in 1122 B.C., and lasted until 249 B.C. It has been suggested that although the Chous claimed to be descended from one of Shun’s ministers, they were really foreigners partly or wholly of Tartar origin. King Wu introduced the sacrifice of human beings to the spirits of ancestors, and favoured the magicians, whom he appointed to high positions in his court. His empire consisted of a confederacy [[291]]of feudal states, and its strength endured so long as the central state remained sufficiently powerful to exact tribute.
After holding sway for about eight hundred years, the Chou Dynasty, and with it the Feudal Age, came to an end. The State of Chin or Tsʼin, which had been absorbing rival states, became so powerful that, in 221 B.C., its king, Shih-huang-ti, became the first Emperor of China. He resolved that the future history of China should begin with himself, and issued a decree commanding that all existing literature should be burned, except medical and agricultural books, and those dealing with divination. Those who disobeyed his order and attempted to conceal the forbidden books were put to death. Fortunately, however, some devoted scholars succeeded in preserving for posterity a number of the classics which would otherwise have perished. This extraordinary decree has cast a shadow over the fame of the first emperor, who was undoubtedly a great man.
During the early years of the Chin or Tsʼin Dynasty the Great Wall to the west and north of China was constructed, so as to protect the empire against the barbarians who were wont to raid and pillage the rich pastoral and agricultural lands, and impose their sway on the industrious Chinese. “The building of the Great Wall”, says Kropotkin, “was an event fraught with the greatest consequences, and one may say without exaggeration that it contributed powerfully to the premature downfall of the Roman Empire.” The Mongolian and Turki peoples who had been attempting to subdue China were forced westward, and tribal and racial movements were set in motion that ultimately led to the invasions of Europe by nomadic fighting pastoralists from Asia.[22] [[292]]
The Great Wall is said to have been built in ten years in a straight line of about 1200 miles, the average width at the base being 25 feet, and the average height 30 feet. Strong “block-house” towers were constructed in the wall for the accommodation of bodies of troops.
It was during this Dynasty that China and related forms of that name, based on “Tsʼin” or “Chin”, came into use in the west. The dynasties that followed the Chin or Tsʼin (221–200 B.C.) are as follows:
| The Han Dynasty | 200 B.C. | – | 200 A.D. |
| The Minor Dynasties | 200 A.D. | – | 600 A.D.,, |
| The Tʼang Dynasty | 600 A.D.,, | – | 900 A.D.,, |
| The Sung Dynasty | 900 A.D.,, | – | 1200 A.D.,, |
| The Mongol Dynasty | 1200 A.D.,, | – | 1368 A.D.,, |
| The Ming Dynasty | 1368 A.D.,, | – | 1644 A.D.,, |
| The Manchu Dynasty | 1644 A.D.,, | – | 1900 A.D.,, |
The evidence afforded by Chinese archæology, and Chinese religious beliefs, symbols, and customs tends to emphasize that the early inhabitants of Shensi province were strongly influenced by culture-drifts from the mid-Asian colonies of the ancient civilizations. Hunting and pastoral peoples adopted the agricultural mode of life, and with it the elements of a complex civilization which had its origin in those areas where grew wild the cereals first cultivated by man.
The Chinese are a mixed race. In the north the oblique-eyed, yellow-skinned element predominates. Like the Semites, who overran Sumeria and adopted Sumerian modes of thought and life, so did the Mongoloid tribes overrun northern China and became a sedentary people. Petty kingdoms grew up, and in time found it necessary to unite against the hordes who invaded and plundered their lands. The invaders included Siberian nomads, Manchus, Mongolo-Turki peoples, the Sacæ [[293]](western Scythians), and the blue-eyed Usuns or Wusuns who are believed to have been congeners of the kurgan-builders of southern Siberia and southern Russia. It was against Manchus and Mongols that the Great Wall was erected, after northern China had been united as a result of those conquests which made petty kings over-lords of ever-widening areas. During the Han Dynasty southern China was subdued. There the brownish-skinned Man-tze stock is most in prominence. Ancient Indonesian intrusions have left their impress on the racial blend.
Along the sea-coasts of China the sea-traders exercised their influence, and in time their mode of life was adopted by the conquerors from the inland parts of the growing empire. The types of vessels used by the ancient Egyptians, the Phœnicians, the peoples of the Persian Gulf, the Indians, Burmese, Indonesians, and Polynesians became common on the Chinese coast and rivers. Maritime enterprise was stimulated, as we have seen, by the Far Eastern Columbuses who searched for the elixir of life and the fabled “Islands of the Blest”. “The Chinese,” writes Mr. Kebel Chatterton, “in their own independent way went on developing from the early Egyptian models (of ships), and have been not inaptly called the Dutchmen of the east in their nautical tendencies.”[23] It is believed that they were the inventors of the rudder, which took the place of the ancient steering-oar.
Along their coastal sea-routes the Chinese were brought into touch with southern peoples, with whom they traded. Chinese records throw light on the articles that were in demand at markets. “In Nan-čao”,[24] an ancient text reveals, “there are people from Pʼo-lo-men (Burma), Pose (Malay), Še-po (Java), Pʼo-ni (Borneo), Kʼun-lun (a Malayan country), and of many other heretic tribes, meeting [[294]]at one trading-mart, where pearls and precious stones in great number are exchanged for gold and musk.”[25] The early traders by sea and land attached great importance to medicines and elixirs, and precious stones and metals, and pearls.