A Brief History of Humanity: From Ancient Times to the 21st Century

Chapter 5 The Far East and the Far West

As we keep in mind the Near East, the "heart of the old world," where the history of civilization began, we must not forget that there is also a Far East and a Far West.China, India, and some countries in the Far East all have very old cultures, while the Americas, although relatively young in human history, already had a certain degree of civilization thousands of years ago.The Far East is separated by deserts and mountains, and the Far West is separated by the ocean, but in any case, the Near East, the Far East and the Far West have had some contact in ancient times, and they have all made important contributions to the modern world.

[-]. Ancient China

Chinese legends When modern scholars try to trace the origin of Chinese skills, there are many theories.Some people think that these skills were introduced from Central Asia through merchants or immigrants, while others think that they were brought in by prospectors in the Near East, and there are many legends in China itself.When the Chinese lived in the upper reaches of the Yellow River in Northwest China, various legends began to circulate.They considered the upper reaches of the Yellow River to be the cradle of the Chinese nation.Myth-like stories chronicle a succession of emperors—some good ones who practiced inventions and arts; some bad ones were brutal and fierce.The stories told by stone tools and pottery shards are less legendary.These things seem to show that China, like Europe and the Near East, experienced the Paleolithic Age, followed by the Neolithic Age, when people learned to farm, and then the Copper and Bronze Ages, when Chinese craft products were similar to those in the Near East The products are similar.

The Zhou Dynasty Chinese history was more stable in the Zhou Dynasty.From 1029 BC to 256 BC, the emperors of the Zhou Dynasty ruled for almost nine centuries.During this long period of time, Chinese civilization was progressing, and its territory expanded eastward to the sea and southward to the Yangtze River.At that time, using bronze to make bottles and pots became an art.People began to use iron to make tools.Farmers water the intensively cultivated land.Scholars are already recording history and composing poetry.

The country was still very small at that time.Northeast China, Mongolia and Tibet are not included.The capital is not in Beijing, but near Xi'an on the Yellow River.

Frontier vassal states and barbarians At that time, the Chinese called their land "China", and there were vassal states or vassal states ruled by princes on the border of China.These dependent countries or vassal states, at least in theory, recognized the Chinese emperor as their monarch.The task of the vassal states is to launch continuous wars against the barbarians outside the empire to curb their aggression.The beacon tower built on the top of the mountain is always on alert.When the beacon fire was lit, the light of the fire spread from one mountain top to another, and quickly spread throughout the entire land, which was a signal of the arrival of the barbarians.Knowing that wars are raging everywhere, the frontier princes must drive their chariots to fight against the enemy.In order to defend against the enemy, the Chinese built a wonder of the world - the Great Wall.

By the sixth century BC, the Chinese Empire had become a collection of largely independent vassal states, very loosely grouped under a weakened emperor.In order to compete for the leadership, several powerful princes often fight with each other.

Chinese writing The Chinese invented a writing, albeit somewhat different, from Egyptian hieroglyphs or Babylonian cuneiform.First of all, Chinese characters are also composed of pictorial characters, that is, pictures are simplified into symbols representing things.Second, it also includes ideograms, groups of pictorial words used to express certain insights.Finally, Chinese characters also include homophonic characters, which are symbols that represent certain sounds.This set of characters used to be a huge obstacle to the development of Chinese culture, because it is very difficult to learn to read and write thousands of different characters.It was not until many Chinese documents came out that Chinese people knew the existence of simple letters, but when they knew it, they were unwilling to give up the characters they had respected for a long time.

If China had developed more trading contacts with the Near East during the Zhou Dynasty, it may have adopted a simple alphabet system.At that time, China and the Near East used to trade across the natural barriers of deserts and mountains, but the exchanges were not frequent enough, and the Chinese people were not greatly affected in terms of thinking and habits.

Confucius Until the late Zhou Dynasty, the great Chinese philosopher Confucius appeared.His teachings have had a considerable impact on Chinese religion, politics and ethics.One of the effects is to make people more conservative - more inclined to stick to the old things.This is no doubt one of the reasons why the old script lasted so long.Things about Confucius will continue to be told later.

North Korea and Japan North Korea is a peninsula located in the northeast of China, which has become increasingly famous in recent years.Ancient Chinese historians often refer to Korea as a vassal state of China.The civilization of North Korea was probably introduced from China.Since the early Chinese were not accustomed to sea navigation, it was not so easy for Chinese culture to spread to the Japanese islands.Only after the beginning of the Christian era did Japan have reliable historical records.Since then, the Japanese, like the Koreans, have learned a lot of advanced culture and technology from China.

[-]. Ancient India

India's isolation The land of India resembles an oversized triangle, with the towering Hindu Kush and Himalayas at its base and an irregular, wedge-shaped hot plain extending south into the Indian Ocean at its apex.India is almost a continent by itself.Like China, it is isolated from Europe and the Near East because of the natural barrier of deserts and mountains.In addition, two-thirds of its borders are by the sea.We can ascertain that as early as in ancient times, some ships sailed along the coast and carried out a small amount of maritime trade between India and Mesopotamia.Ancient India received the Phoenician alphabet via Mesopotamia.And iron is also foreign, probably introduced from the West at first.Likewise, invaders from the north sometimes crossed mountain passes and drove straight into the fertile valleys of the Indus and Ganges.

Whites and Blacks in India There is evidence that, in ancient times, there was a white invasion of northern India.When the white invaders, probably of European origin, crossed the northern mountains to India, they found a dark-skinned people.They conquered the latter, and proudly called themselves Aryans. "Aryan" means a person who comes from a good or honorable family.

The Rig Veda The recorded history of India is derived from a famous collection of poems, the Rig Veda.The thousand ancient poems recorded in it were recited by the priests and passed down from generation to generation. I don't know how long it took before they were recorded in words.If the oldest parts of the Rigveda, as the scholars who know the text assert, were composed around 1200 B.C., then the history of India begins after the Egyptian Empire has grown old and decayed, and It was after the king of Crete was overthrown and his palace was burned.

A recent discovery But today tells a very different story. In 1931, a noteworthy discovery was made.The ruins of an ancient city dating back 5000 years have been discovered beneath a fairly deep layer of mud along the banks of the Indus River.The site contains solid brick houses, statues, clay pots and bronze plaques.This discovery proves that there was a developed civilization in India at least as early as 3000 BC, perhaps at the same time as Egypt and Sumer.

Sanskrit and the related language "Rig Veda" is written in Sanskrit.This script is very similar to ancient Greek, Latin and Persian.These four scripts, along with certain others, such as modern German, French, etc., are often referred to as "Indo-European" languages.These languages ​​are clearly related to each other and form a homogeneous language family.It is quite possible that all the peoples who spoke these languages ​​were related by blood or race, but we cannot be sure.

Skin color and caste In southern India, there are still some dark-skinned peoples called Dravidians.They may be the descendants of the black natives who were conquered or enslaved by the Aryans described in the Rig Veda.There is no doubt that skin color and subjugation became the basis of the Indian caste system.The so-called caste is a rather strict social hierarchy, fixed by birth.This kind of class or hierarchy has appeared in ancient Egypt, Greece and many other countries, both ancient and modern.During the Rig Veda period in India, there were four main castes: (1) Brahmins or monks; (2) Kshatriyas or nobles; (3) Vaisyas or peasants; (4) Sudras or serfs .

India from 1200 BC to 600 BC The Aryans in India not only dispersed southward, but also expanded eastward.Raising livestock and plowing the fields seemed to be the main sources of wealth, but industry and commerce in the towns also gradually prospered.Gold gradually replaced cattle as the standard of money.However, once foreign aggression occurs, India does not have a strong central government that can resist it.

The Buddha's religious view of reincarnation is closely combined with the customs of caste.The Hindus are very much afraid that the soul will in its next incarnation be transformed into a lower caste, or into a lowly animal - perhaps a dog.People expect to become a high caste person in the next life, and the highest expectation is to become one with the great and beautiful creator Brahma.Around 550 BC, Prince Gautama, a great religious reformer, was born.He is known as Buddha, which means great wisdom and great enlightenment.His influence on India can be compared with Zoroaster's influence on Persia and Confucius' influence on China.We will introduce his deeds later.

[-]. Ancient America

The origin of the Indians The indigenous people of India are now collectively known as the East Indians.The Indians we are talking about here naturally refer to the American Indians.Columbus called them Indians because he thought he had reached India, and the native peoples of America have been called Indians ever since.When Columbus first arrived in America in 1492 AD, some tribes were still in the Stone Age, but others had advanced cultures.

The earliest inhabitants of the Americas may have arrived in Alaska from Siberia, because many Indians in the Americas are very similar to the ethnic groups in Asia, and Alaska and Siberia are quite close to each other.The Bering Strait is less than fifty miles wide.Humans must have arrived in the Americas many centuries ago—some historians believe it was 1 years ago, others believe it was earlier.

Agriculture and water conservancy We can imagine that the first Indian pioneers in the Stone Age were already good at making stone weapons and tools, drilling wood for fire, and weaving baskets and baskets, but the application of farming, animal husbandry, pottery, writing and metal, But know nothing.But in some places, especially in what is now the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America, and Peru, farming had already begun, laying the foundations of civilization.But what the Indians planted was not the familiar wheat and barley in the old world, nor the rice that was used as a staple food in Southeast Asia, but a new crop called maize or corn.Corn was originally a wild plant in the Americas, unknown to the Old World at that time.After that, the Indians used artificial planting and seed selection methods to improve, and also planted important vegetables, such as Mexican sweet potatoes and Peruvian sweet potatoes.

On plateaus and hillsides, no crops can grow without irrigation.The design of water conservancy projects required the cooperation of a large number of people, so the Indians gave up their wandering life as hunters and settled down to become farmers.Then, just go one step further and build villages, towns, and cities, and build temples, palaces, fortresses, and create works of art.Hydraulic engineering is as much a symbol of civilization in America as it is in Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Mining and construction in some areas of southern Mexico or Central America produced agricultural civilization and spread to the north and south respectively.The pottery and textile industries prospered.Men have discovered and used metals, and copper workshops are everywhere.They knew gold, silver, and tin, but only for ornaments, never for tools or weapons.Then the ancient peoples of Mexico, Central America, and Peru ended up with what was in many ways a rich culture.Their temple builders and carvers surviving walls and monuments rival those of Egypt and Babylon.Those gorgeous cities, temples and palaces seem to have come from the hands of the Mayans, built around 1000 BC to the birth of Christ.

The Mayans The Mayans chose to settle in the lowlands of Central America.They cleared forests to grow corn, which yielded a richer harvest than they could produce on the highlands.Their population grew, their wealth increased, and they created cities with magnificent palaces and temples.Although they had no tools of iron or bronze, builders were able to hew through large blocks of stone to erect magnificent buildings, richly decorated with stone carvings.The Mayan potters were highly skilled and had a strong aesthetic sense.The Mayans had a system of pictographic writing, they were proficient in mathematics, and they invented a calendar.

The Toltecs originated somewhere in the north, probably moved south from the Colorado River, and settled in the southern part of the Mexican plateau.Like the Mayans (from whom they probably learned a lot), they also built palaces and pyramids with temples on top.At Cholula, the Toltecs built a pyramid with a base larger than the Great Pyramid of Egypt and less than half the height.

The Aztecs The Aztecs also came from the north, perhaps California.They massacred and exterminated the native Toltecs, gained their settlements, and at the same time, as all barbarians often do, learned from the losers of their conquests.They found a lake in what is now Mexico City with an island in the center.They built huts on the island to resist foreign invasion.The Aztecs also built artificial islands, and the villages gradually became cities. Although it is a bit like Venice in America, the altitude is as high as 7000 feet!Like the Mayans and Toltecs, the Aztecs were superstitious, worshiped snake gods, and sacrificed human bodies on altars for sacrifices, which proved that they were "barbarians."

The Incas The Incas of Peru had perhaps the most elegant civilization of the early peoples of America.In terms of agriculture, construction and politics, they are the most efficient; even in terms of religion, they are not so cruel and easy to kill.Thousands of miles of military roads, paved with stone slabs, are astonishing examples of their engineering skills.Cusco, the capital of the country, is indeed a strange city with its magnificent Sun Temple and tall and exquisite buildings.

Our Blessings The modern world is not only the successor of the peoples of the Near and Far East, but also of the American Indians.Each of our nations has received rich gifts.Especially the very different contributions of the Far East and the Far West: the main contributions of China are inventions and skills, such as porcelain, silk and gunpowder; the main contributions of ancient America are plants, such as corn, potatoes, tobacco leaves, tomatoes, pumpkins, strawberries, pineapples with peanuts.

The historians of the Christian countries before and after the Christian era began to divide the time from the year of the birth of Christ. For example, we say that the Zhou Dynasty in China began in 1122 BC, that is, 1122 years before the birth of Christ.Most of the chronological dates mentioned in this section are in BC, that is, before the birth of Christ.Only in this chapter is it mentioned that an important event happened many years after the birth of Christ, that is, Columbus discovered America in 1492. The two letters "AD" are annoDomini in Latin, which means "in the year of my Lord", or a certain year after the birth of Christ.In the following chapters, there will be a gradual transition from the BC era to the AD era.

If you want to know the total number of BC years and AD years, you only need to add the two numbers together.For example, from the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty to the discovery of America, it is 1122 plus 1492, which equals 2614 years.

This method of dividing the ages began many years after the birth of Christ.Later, when calculating the distinguishing point, which is the year of Christ's birth, there was a mistake of three or four years, but it does not matter to us.Because all years can be calculated, either in BC or in AD.

(End of this chapter)