By Timothy and Tommy X.

THE WARRING STATE PERIOD IN THE HISTORY OF

ANCIENT CHINA !

TABLE OF CONTENTS •  Map of the Warring State Period •  Social Structure •  Housing •  Food •  Family life •  Marriage •  Childhood •  Comparisons about childhood in Canada •  Education •  Religion •  Common god •  Clothing •  Art, Music •  Festivals •  Conclusion •  Bibliography

INTRODUCTION •  The Warring State period is one of the warring period through out the history of

Ancient China. During this period, the official empire is the empire of East Zhou but he was actually powerless to do anything. 7 states, the Qin, Zhao, Wei, Han，Yan, Qi, and Chu are also known as the survivors of the Spring and Autumn period. People, as in farmers, workers’ life was very harsh and difficult. Young man were often forced to join the army and women at that time didn’t have any power in politics, housing, and anything about making decisions.

•  The technology of refining iron were very prospered and tools were made in a more complex and useful way. This led to great changes in the history of China.

•  During this period, there is one City-State who is in the West and reunited China: the Qin. The king, Ying Zheng is only 13 when he become the king of Qin and reunite Ancient China when he’s 39 years old.

Yellow River

This is a map of ancient China in the period of the Warring States Period. This period lasted from 475-221 B.C.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE •  During this period, it’s a period of changes in tools, economic trade,

and social structure •  The structure from the Spring and Autumn period (King, Ministers,

Nobles, and other officials have most of the power) doesn’t apply to the Warring State period anymore because every city states wanted to solicit people who are talented and the ones who can help them become the overlord of all City-State.

•  Education is more common to citizens and people became to have their own land and farm instead of the Feudalism from West Zhou.

•  The boundaries between nobles and citizens started to break through.

•  Also, the well-field system were replaced by private-land system which means that people can buy and sell land as they wanted.

•  Civilians can get rich by doing business or other ways to get rich and they can even become a politician ( The hereditary system no more apply in the Warring-States Period)

•  Bureaucracy has changed

Confucius (Confucianism)

King of Wei, Hue

HOUSING •  At that time, the main structure of a family’s house would be wood,

mud brick, and imbrex or straw for the roof. Usually, for a family that owns land and has a farm, they most likely live in a house about 2000-2050 square feet. During the warring state period, people’s houses were simple and easy to construct due to the on-going wars around them.

•  Windows and doors were made out of wood, too, but windows back then didn’t have glass or sliding doors. They were mostly openings to outside and there will be partitions, mostly squares made out of sticks depending on the size of the window.

•  At that time, houses became for common for citizens to own and nobles became to live like normal citizens. This change led to the growth of population the houses became more titter together.

•  Also, some houses are constructed as manufacture factories for ceramics, bronze product and iron product.

•  Also, there are shed houses for horses, cows, ducks…. Et

town view in the city state of Chu

Most of the people would live in a house like this

HOW THE WEALTHY LIVED •  During that time, a wealthy family would e nobles, ministers, army general/commander,

and rich business men. They can buy their land with money, or their land may be rewarded by the King if you’ve done something extraordinary.

•  The wealthy would most live in a big house with all different kinds of rooms. It includes, main hall for greeting guests, at least 3 bedrooms, 1 studying room (mostly for the father) bathroom, barn/woodshed, and kitchen…

•  Houses that the wealthy live in have paintings on the wall unlike the normal citizens. The paintings are beautiful with flowers, nature, and other things.

•  During the Warring States period, not all city states abolished the well-field system so landlords and wealthy people may still own large amount of fields and land. (The well-field system is not completely abolished until Qin reunited China)

FOOD

•  Wheat, millet, and beans are the main crop and food people eat in the Warring States period. Those crops in the Yellow river basin and the Yangtze river basin are very common and are cheat to buy.

•  Dog is one of the earliest domestic animals human had. During this period, dog has 3 main use to people: guard gods, hunting dogs, and food. Dog meat are only for rich people only because it’s more expensive and dogs are commonly used for sacrificial uses.

•  Wild animals in the north (see map) are more populated and have more species. Goat meat and beef were the common food for any family except rich people have a higher percentage of eating meat than others.

•  Growth of fruits and vegetables crossed a great step forward because of the new technology: iron. This made farmers grow more and better crops and new species are found and developed in the Warring States period.

Mountain goat

Wheat

FAMILY LIFE •  In the Warring States period, a family would include (most common family structure)

father, mother, a child(ren), grandfather and/or grandmother, and maybe a servant from any circumstances.

•  The father or grandfather would be the head of the family because Ancient China is a patriarchy society.

•  Most of the people in China thought families were very important. Children often also lived with their grandparents, aunts and uncles, and their cousins. For richer people, they may also live with servant or slaves

•  People thought it’s really important to respect elders so the oldest male in the house will be in charge of the family until they die.

•  Men and women were treated very differently in many ways. For example, only boys were allowed to go to school and girls had to stay at home to do chores and help out. Only man can be involved with politics, business, and other things. Men had the right to inherit the fortunes that their family have. Once a women is married, they are seen as a part of the husband's family but they can still go back to their parents’ house for visits.

•  If your family wasn’t rich enough to afford paying field workers, teenagers and adults had to go out and work in the fields during the days.

fields

farmer

A girl weaving cloth

MARRIAGE •  Ever since ancient times, there has been a saying that the three

most delightful and important moments in your life is the success in the imperial examination, marriage, and the birth of a son.

•  From the last slide, we know that Ancient China is a patriarchy society. When a men married a women, the bride would live in the men’s house and become part of that family. This causes the bride in the lowest position in the family besides slaves or servant.

•  During the marriage ceremony, the groom will go to the bride’s house to greet her. Then, there will be a sedan chair carried by hamals and they’ll march around the town; the group of people would end up in the groom’s houses. This is the greeting ceremony.

•  The symbol: “囍” (xi) means joy, happiness, and love. This symbol is the doubling word of word: “喜”. People double the word together because they believe it will double the meaning; then they’ll have double joy, happiness, and love.

A modern wedding with traditional ceremony

The groom and the bride’s traditional costume

CHILDHOOD •  People took good care of their children. They carried them all the

time, and gave the best food they possibly can. But if your family wasn't rich, teenagers, strong man and/or women would have to work in the fields or working for landlords from sunrise to sunset. In this situation, lots of children would stay with their grandparents, uncle, aunt, or other older siblings.

•  Children are considered to have the responsibility to continue the family name (last name)

•  They have to obey to what their parents told them to do and it’s really important for them to respect elders.

•  Only boys and rich people are allowed to go to school because the ancient Chinese thought boys were more important than girls. Girls would stay at home and help maintain the house.

•  Boys in ancient time often live with their family even when they grow up and got married. On the other hand, when girls get married, they’ll move to the groom’s house and do whatever she was told to do. Once a girl is married, it means that their parents won’t see her for a very long time. (In the Warring States period, people got married very young, about 16-18 were considered the time to get married)

If your family is rich, you would live in a house like this

If your family is poor, you would live in a house like the one above

COMPARISON IN CHILDHOOD

Warring States Period Modern Canada Most of the boys study at school and older teenagers studied for imperial exams. The imperial exam determined whether you’ll be government officials. Girls wasn’t allowed to go to school during the period.

All children have the right to be educated. There’s elementary school, highschool, and college or university. Other than school curriculum, there are many different programs such as basketball, soccer, band….

If your family is really poor that they can’t afford to feed you, they might sell you to a landlord or have you work for landlords gain some money

Child slavery is illegal in Canada and every child is protected under the children rights of UN.

The marriage was very important but the groom and the bride often met each other for the first time in the wedding ceremony. This is because the marriage was arranged by the parents instead of themselves.

In Canada, young people get close together and become boy and girlfriend to know each other. After both people agree to get married, then they’ll arrange the wedding ceremony.

Clothes that children wear are mostly made by their mom, aunt, or servant. They didn’t have all sorts of materials and styles but with uni-color or two and similar style. (Rich people wears differently than others)

Kids mostly buy their clothes from stores with variety of choices including color, fabric, style…et.

戰國時代

EDUCATION •  Education played a big role in this period. As the government innovate its

policies, people had different views than before. •  Most of the children didn’t go to school because of variety of factors. But if

you were a boy, you will most likely to be sent off to school. Kids study very hard at school; when your young, your goal was to memorize the books people had written down before. If your old enough for the imperial exam, you would study all day long trying to get enrolled to become a government official.

•  To make the exam fair, only the test mark counted, it didn’t matter who’s your father, are you poor or rich, or were you a good at Kongfu.

•  School usually started around 6:00am and end at 4:00pm and it was free to go to school because the government paid for you.

•  At school, students would learn how to read & write poems and essays. You would learn painting skills and you would have to memorize every word of the Confusion Philosophy.

•  If you were smart enough, you would do a special test to enter a gift program. For others, you may stay in the same class doing the same thing every day for 6-7 years.

Painting of a school (1200AD)

Confucius

RELIGION •  During the Warring States period, people mostly believe in spiritual worship

and praying in supernatural beings. This is because the can’t explain the scientific appearance of nature things such as earthquakes, lightning, drought…et. They thought that it was the ghost who was manipulating the weather.

•  Sacrificing played an important role in the religion. Sacrificing and prying god, ghost, and their ancestors were considered an important ceremony for Kings, nobles, and government official because they thought by doing this, they’ll get good luck and keep them in power.

•  Since the Shang Dynasty, sorcerers had been using oracle shells to divine and pray. This developed to the writing: oracle bone script.

•  The belief of different gods led to the root of Taoism in the future. Taoism believe in many different gods like Earth, ocean, wind, sun, and heroic people ,too.

•  Confucianism is the philosophy developed by a famous scholar: Confucius. His belief was the way people treat each other and how people should behave. This theory settled a foundation for modern education in humanity.

Oracle bone script

Symbol for Taoism

COMMON GODS •  Jade Emperor: He is the ruler of the heaven and all

realms of existence including Man and hell. This god comes from the Taoism mythology. His position is like the Greek god Zeus who rules everything in Ancient Greek religion.

•  Taiqing: He is one of the 3 pure gods in Taoism. He’s also known as “Daode Tianzun“, meaning the universally honoured one of Tao and virtues. After the Spring and Autumn period, people believed that the Taoism philosopher: Laozi became Taiqing when he died. He is still one of the most important god to modern people.

•  Guanyin is one of the top 3 gods in Buddhism, Amitabha, Guanyin, and Mahasthamaprapta. In the classic Buddhism say, Quanyin has great mercy and is very generous;she’ll forgive you if you repend yourself.

Guanyin

Jade Emperor

Taiqing

CLOTHING

•  Poor man wore baggy tough fiber trousers and a loose shirt. They sometimes wore a wool lined coat for winter. Women wore basic lining dresses like the one on the left. They often wear wool for winter and cotton for summer. Both men and women wore shoes made out of woven straws and sometimes cotton fabric shoes. Clothes that poor people wore are usually plain and dirty because of the hard laboring. Because they have to work so hard just to feed their family, any kind of luxury was out of question.

•  Silk was considered a luxury fabric and wore by rich people, King, ministers, nobles… Man would wear silk robes with big sash around their waist and women would wear robes that show their undershirt of a different colored silk. For shoes, they wore slippers with wool linings and other soft fabrics. On their robe, there’s usually colorful and beautiful embroideries like flowers, symbols such as dragon, nature sceneries…et.

Poor:

Rich: A women’s dress

Dragon embroideries on a silk robe

ART & MUSIC •  In the warring state period. The bronze industry development is the

most important one. In same time, the smelting of iron, lacquer ware, pottery, were in the development, too. During this period, most common art pieces such as pots, bowls were all hand made.

•  In ancient Chinese paintings, people liked to draw themes about nature, animals, trees, mountains, flowers, water…et. There were different influence from India, and Western Asia.

•  During the Zhou Dynasty, Chinese artists also began to make all kinds of lacquered boxes, and to paint landscapes and people on silk cloth.

•  In Hubei, Suizhou unearthed about 15000 art pieces including: Bronze sacrificial utensils, clocks, weapons, lacquer, and wood, and bamboo pieces.

•  Musicians were seen much lower than painters, writers, and philosopher although people believed that music was the harmonization with god. Also, to determine whether music was popular would be whether if the King liked the subject or not.

•  There are categories of instrument: woodwind such as dizi, percussion such as bell, bowed strings like erhu, and struck and plucked strings like pipa

A traditional “band”

Bronze vase (278 BCE)

Painting of a mountain (City State of Wei)

erhu

FESTIVALS •  The biggest celebration of the year is the New Year

celebration. It is often called Lunar Ne Year or Chinese New Year. In ancient China, people used the Lunar calendar usually 20-30 days later than our calendar. Ex. 6/3 would be 5/2 in Lunar calendar.

•  According to the myth, this tradition started with the fight against a beast called Nian. It would come to town on the first day of New Year and eat, animals, crops, and even people, especially children. To protect themselves, they would put food in front of their house the first day of New Year. They believed that Nian will eat the food they prepared so it won’t eat anyone. Also people found out that Nian was afraid of the color red so they would put red lanterns, red spring rolls on their doors and windows. It is also a tradition that people used firecrackers to scare away Nian. Although Nian did not come back. It became a tradition of the New Year celebration.

Red lanterns on New Year Day

Red Spring rolls Traditional firecracker

CONCLUSION •  The Warring States Period is a great change for the history of China including: technology,

arts and music, government, the way people think, and the great change of education. It is a period of time when war, education, politics, reform… are all mixed together and people are having new views about both in life and material things.

•  At the end of the Warring States period, Qin reunited China and created the 1st Imperial dynasty in the history of Ancient China. A lot of things that the Qin dynasty use came from the Warring States period such as measurements, writing, political policies.

•  Others say that the most important thing Qin dynasty did was setting guidelines for the other dynasties; so I guess we could say that the Warring States period settle a guideline for Qin dynasty.

PICTURE BIBLIOGRAPHY

•  http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hukou_Waterfall.jpg

•  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EN-WarringStatesAll260BCE.jpg

•  http://big5.cctv.com/gate/big5/space.tv.cctv.com/article/ARTI1241518190348590

•  http://img.blog.163.com/photo/TAKFRGoS5C-AyRDy61kJNg==/1761188929279689964.jpg

•  http://blog.5d.cn/user17/yuchi003213/upload/2006-05/13_923.jpg

•  http://www.zxn.ks.edu.tw/loweb/myweb/html/l4.html

•  http://www.goat-colostrum.com/

•  http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lemont_rice.jpg

•  http://www.kepu.net.cn/gb/technology/ancientech/ancientech_weaving/200312300085.html

•  http://blog.roodo.com/ryanwork/archives/329737.html

•  http://www.flickr.com/photos/chiaubun/538287506/

•  http://culture.china.com/zh_cn/life/folk/11022831/20050516/12316440.html

•  http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E5%8F%8C%E5%9B%8D%E5%AD%97

•  http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/social_customs/marriage/

•  http://www.nipic.com/show/1/74/03bec0b27d6589a8.html

•  http://www.cultural-china.com/chinaWH/html/en/Arts195bye734.html

•  http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/2/23/57782.html

•  http://jerrycoinworld.myweb.hinet.net/canada_2.htm

•  http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/people/school.htm

•  http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/overseas/2008-03/27/content_7868388.htm

•  http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OracleShell.JPG

•  http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yin_yang.svg

•  http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jade_Emperor.jpg

•  http://album.udn.com/polahuang/photo/352479?o=new

•  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DaodeTianzun.jpg

•  http://www.guxiang86.com/cdwh/zgfs/qhfs/200903/82737.html

•  http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderferret/1839458616/sizes/m/in/photostream/

•  http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/art/index.htm

•  http://pm.findart.com.cn/1496771-pm.html

•  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chinesezither.jpg

•  http://big5.china.com.cn/sport/zhuanti/2008ay/2008-08/24/content_16316438.htm

•  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Red_Lanterns_for_Chinese_New_Year_KK.jpg

•  http://www.qtu123.com/Psd/xinnianyuandanPSDsucai/2010/0607/8750.html

•  http://yasue.pixnet.net/blog/post/25608552

•  http://www.chachasconeyisland.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/great-wall-of-china7.jpg

•  http://www.99ditu.com/upload/5-1.jpg

INFO BIBLIOGRAPHY •  Cotterel, Arthur. “Eyewitness, Ancient China”. New York, DK Children Publishing, July 1, 2000

•  Rees, Rosemary.” The Ancient Chinese”. Chicago, Reed Educational & Professional Publishing, 2002.

•  Ancient Chinese marriage custom: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/social_customs/marriage/

•  Daode Tianzun: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%AA%E4%B8%8A%E8%80%81%E5%90%9B

•  Dog meat: http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=368341222

•  East Zhou: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%9C%E5%91%A8

•  Eric W ancient china Qin Dynasty: http://www.slideshare.net/RidgeviewGrade7/eric-w-ancient-china-qin-dynasty

•  History of China: http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/history/index.htm

•  History Timeline: http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/time_line.html

•  Jade Emperor: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8E%89%E7%9A%87%E5%A4%A7%E5%B8%9D

•  Starting of Taoism: http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=31316600

•  Warring States period: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%B0%E5%9C%8B#.E6.88.B0.E5.9C.8B.E5.89.8D.E6.9C.9F.E5.90.84.E5.9C.8B.E7.9A.84.E8.AE.8A.E6.B3.95.E6.94.B9.E9.9D.A9

•  Well field system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-field_system

•  What did the ancient Chinese Eat?: http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/136673847