The Chinese Dynasties:

A View over 4000 Years  (compiled from numerous sources)
 

The Chinese were ruled by various dynasties. A dynasty is a time period that is ruled by a specific family. When a new dynasty was to come into power it would overthrow the existing dynasty.

Chinese civilization, as described in mythology, begins with Pangu - sometimes spelled Bangu - the creator of the universe, and a succession of legendary sage-emperors and culture heroes (among them are Huang Di , Yao, and Shun) who taught the ancient Chinese to communicate and to find sustenance, clothing, and shelter.

XIA DYNASTY: 2000 - 1500 BC

The first prehistoric dynasty is said to be Xia, from about the twenty-first to the sixteenth century B.C. Until scientific excavations were made at early bronze-age sites at Anyang , Henan Province, in 1928, it was difficult to separate myth from reality in regard to the Xia. But since then, and especially in the 1960s and 1970s, archaeologists have uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs that point to the existence of Xia civilization in the same locations cited in ancient Chinese historical texts.

For many years, the Xia Dynasty was thought to be a part of a myth that the  Chinese tell as part of their history. The Xia Dynasty was in oral histories,  but no archaeological evidence was found of it until 1959. Excavations at  Erlitous, in the city of Yanshi, uncovered what was most likely a capital of the  Xia Dynasty. The site showed that the people were direct ancestors of the Lungshan and were predecessors of the Shang. Radiocarbon dates from this site indicate that they  existed from 2100 to 1800 B.C.

Despite this new archaeological evidence of the  Xia, they are not universally accepted as a true dynasty.  At minimum, the Xia period marked an evolutionary stage between the late neolithic cultures and the typical Chinese urban civilization of the Shang dynasty.

The Xia were agrarian people, with bronze weapons and pottery. The ruling  families used elaborate and dramatic rituals to confirm their power to govern.  The rulers often acted as shamans, communicating with spirits for help and  guidance.

The first recorded leader of the Xia dynasty is Yu the Great.  Legends attribute Yu (c. 2,000 BC) to have tamed the Yellow River of floods. Instead of dyking the river banks to overcome high-water as his father had done, Yu cleared the river channel to facilitate drainage, and succeeded in alleviating floods. The moral extension of this story is to associate floods with traits of adverse human nature, which are better corrected by guidance (channeling) than through punishment (dyking). The story is passed on to modern Chinese largely because of this moral association. The technical merit of Yu's effort is taken to be self-evident.

WhenYu the Great became old, he had planned to abdicate his throne to Boyi, who had assisted him in his great work of flood control. However, after Yu died, his son Qi, took advantage of his privileged situation and power, killed Boyi and succeeded to the throne. The hereditary dynasty established by Qi is known as the Xia Dynasty, which was the first dynasty in China. From that time on a Hereditary System replaced the Abdication System and China became a society based on slavery.

However, from Sima Qian on, historians in later dynasties mostly regarded Yu the Great as the founder of the Xia Dynasty. The Xia Dynasty lasted over 400 years from the 21st century BC to the 17th century BC. In total there were seventeen kings over fourteen generations.

Although the ideal Society of Great Harmony was replaced with an autocratic regime, the establishment of the Xia Dynasty represents a huge advancement in the evolution of China.

In this new kind of social system, the ruling class inevitably lacked the necessary experience to govern the country. During their four-hundred-year reign, internal conflicts and power struggles continually caused trouble for the dynastic rulers. At the end of the Xia Dynasty, external aggression and internal conflict became ever more serious.

Probably the most colourful character from the Xia dynasty was Xia Jie, who might very well be the first notorious king in Chinese history.

He amused himself and his wife by ordering 3000 people to kill themselves by jumping into a lake of wine. Jie, regardless of the chaos within the state, lived for pleasure. He cavorted with his concubines all day and night while ordering the construction of many gorgeous palaces for his personal enjoyment. Tang, a small state, led a revolution which resulted in the overthrow of the despotic Jie. The Xia Dynasty was no more.
 

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