2000 Years of Chinese History! The Mandate of Heaven and Confucius발음듣기
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2000 Years of Chinese History! The Mandate of Heaven and Confucius
116문장
37% 중국어
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출처 : 칸아카데미
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This is Crash Course World History and today we're going to talk about China which these days is discussed almost constantly on television and in newspapers, wait, are they still the same? so we used to put information on thinly sliced trees and then you would pay someone to take these thinly sliced trees and throw them onto your front lawn and that's how we received information.발음듣기
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(music) Right, but anyway, you hear about how China's going to overtake over the US and bury us under a pile of inexpensive electronics, but I don't want to address those here today.발음듣기
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China was really the first modern state, by which I mean it had a centralized government and a corps of bureaucrats who could execute the wishes of that government.발음듣기
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From 150 BCE until 1911 CE (donkey hee-haws) which is technically known as "a long ass time."발음듣기
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The Chinese were also one of the first people to write history; in fact one of the Confusian classics is called the [shoo jing], or "Classic of History."발음듣기
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This is great for us because we can now see the things the Chinese recorded as they were happening, but it's also problematic because of the way the story is told.발음듣기
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So even "me from the past", with this five minutes of world history knows that Chinese history is conveniently divided into periods called "dynasties."발음듣기
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What makes a dynasty a dynasty is that it's ruled by a king, or as the Chinese know him, an emperor, who comes from a continuous ruling family.발음듣기
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(rip) No, they aren't. First off, there were several emperors [unintelligible] who wielded tremendous power throughout Chinese history.발음듣기
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There was one very important, full-fledged empress, Empress Wu, who wuled China for more than 20 years and founded her own freaking dynasty. (rip) And those emperors keep ruling, the dynasty gets to be a dynasty.발음듣기
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The dynasty can end for two reasons; either they run out of dudes which never happens, thanks to the hard work of many, many concubines, or the emperor is overthrown out after a rebellion or war.발음듣기
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This is more or less what happened to all the dynasties which makes it easy for me to go over to camera two and describe them in a single, run-on sentence. Hi there, camera two. Leading inside the [Shaw]발음듣기
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Dynasty which is sadly fictional, the first Chinese dynasty was the Shang who were overthrown by the Zhou which disintegrated into political chaos called "The Warring States Period" in which states warred over periods ...발음듣기
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Oh no, wait, it was a period in which states warred, which ended when the Qin emperor was able to extend his power over most of the heretofore warring states, but the Qin were replaced by the Han, which was the dynasty that really set the pattern for most of China's history, it lasted for almost 400 years, after which China fell again into political chaos which only means there was no dynasty that ruled over all of China.발음듣기
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Out of this chaos was the Sui who are followed quickly by the Tang, who in turn were replaced after a short period of no dynasty by the Song, who saw a huge growth in China's commerce that was still not enough to prevent them from being conquered by the Yuan, who were both unpopular and unusual because they were monguls (horses galloping) which sparked rebellions resulting in the rise of the Ming which was the dynasty that built the Great Wall and made amazing vases, but didn't save them from falling to the.발음듣기
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[Manchoos] who founded the dynasty that was called the Qing which was the last dynasty because in 1911, there was a rebellion like the ones in America, France or Russia, and the whole dynastic system, which at that point had lasted for a long ass time, came to an end.발음듣기
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But what's interesting as far as capital H history is concerned is why it happened and especially why the people who were writing history at the time said it happened which leads us to the Mandate of Heaven.발음듣기
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Before the Zhou, China didn't even have a concept of heaven or "tiantang", but they did have a high God called "Shangdi."발음듣기
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The Zhou believed in tiantang and they were eager to portray the idea of heaven as eternal, so they ascribed the concept of the Mandate of Heaven back to a time even before the Shang, explaining that the Shang were able to conquer the Xia only because the Xia kings had lost the Mandate of Heaven.발음듣기
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This, of course, would have been impossible probably because the Zhou king had no concept of heaven, and partly because as previously noted, they didn't exist, but let's just leave that aside.발음듣기
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The [shoo jing] is pretty specific about what caused the Qia kings to lose the mandate, by the way, explaining the attack on Qia may be traced to the orgies in [Ming Tao].발음듣기
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Sadly the [shoo jing] is woefully short on details of these orgies, but orgies are the kind of behavior that is not expected of a ruler, and therefore, heaven saw fit to come in, remove the mandate and allow the Shang to take power.발음듣기
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Why? Well, the last Shang emperor is reported to have roasted and eaten his opponents which, you know ... bit of a deal breaker as far as the Mandate of Heaven is concerned.발음듣기
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Of course that might not actually have happened, but it would explain why heaven would allow the Zhou to come to power.발음듣기
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So basically the fact that one dynasty falls and is replaced by another in a cycle that lasts for 3,000 years is explained in the eyes of early Chinese historians by divine intervention based on whether the ruler behaves in a proper, upright manner.발음듣기
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It's after the fact analysis that has the virtue of being completely impossible to disprove as well as offering a tidy explanation for some very messy political history.발음듣기
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Even more importantly, it reinforces a vision of moral behavior that is a cornerstone of confucianism which I will get to momentarily.발음듣기
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So the Qin Dynasty only lasted 38 years, but it's one of the most important dynasties in Chinese history.발음듣기
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The accomplishment of the Qin was to reunify China under a single emperor for the first time in 500 years, ending the Warring States Period.발음듣기
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As you can imagine, the making of that particular omelet required the cracking of quite a few eggs.발음듣기
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The Great Emperor Qin Chong Di and his descendants developed a reputation for brutality that was justified, but it was also exaggerated for effect so that the successor dynasty, the Han, would look more legitimate in the eyes of heaven.발음듣기
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So when we we're counting the fall of the Qin, historians focus on how a bunch of murderous eunuchs turn Qin emperors into puppets, not literal puppets, although that would have awesome.발음듣기
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And these crazy eunuchs tricked emperors into committing suicide when they started thinking for themselves, etcetera.발음듣기
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The Mandate of Heaven turned away from these suicidal puppet emperors which set up a nice contrast with the early Han emperors such as Wen, who came to power in 180 BCE and ruled benevolently avoiding extravagance in personal and ruling largely according to Confusian principles.발음듣기
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Under Wen, there were no more harsh punishments for criticizing the government, executions declined and most importantly for the Confusian scholars who were writing the history, the government stopped burning books!발음듣기
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Thus, according to the ancient Chinese version of history, Emperor Wen, by behaving as a wise Confusian, maintains the Mandate of Heaven.발음듣기
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Confucius was a minor official who lived during the warring faith period period and developed a philosophical and political system he hoped would lead to a more stable, safe society. (horses galloping)발음듣기
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He spent a great deal of his time trying to convince one of the powerful kings to embrace his system, but while none ever did, Confucius got the last laugh because his recipe for creating a functioning society was ultimately adopted and became the basis for Chinese government, education and well, most things.발음듣기
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Confucius was conservative. He argued that the key to bringing about a strong and peaceful state was to look to the past and the model of the Sage Emperors.발음듣기
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By following their example of upright moral behavior, the Chinese emperor could bring order to China.발음듣기
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Confucius's idea of morally upright behavior boils down to a person's knowing his or her place in a series of hierarchical relationships and acting accordingly.발음듣기
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Everyone lives his life, or her life, but like most ancient philosophical traditions, women were marginalized, in relationship to other people, and as either a superior, or an inferior.발음듣기
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And one of the keys to understanding Confucius is filial piety, a son treating his father with reverential respect.발음듣기
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The father is supposed to earn this respect by caring for the son and educating him, but this doesn't mean that a son has the right to disrespect a neglectful father.발음듣기
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You contain all of the most awesome emperors, including my favorite emperor of all time, Yu the Engineer.발음듣기
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The study of history, as well as poetry and paintings in order to understand and appreciate beauty, is indispensable for a Junzi.발음듣기
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The other important aspects of Junzi-ness are contained in the Confucian ideas of ren and li.발음듣기
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Ren and li are both incredibly complex concepts that are difficult to translate, but we're gonna do our best.발음듣기
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It means understanding and practicing proper behavior in every possible situation, which of course depends on who you're interacting with, hence the importance of the five relationships.발음듣기
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Li is usually translated as ritual, and refers to rituals associated with Chinese religion, most of which involve the veneration of ancestors.발음듣기
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Which brings us back, in a very roundabout way, to the fundamental problem of how early Chinese historians wrote their history.발음듣기
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Traditional Chinese historians were all trained in the Confucian classics, which emphasize the idea that good emperors behaved like good Confucians.발음듣기
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Would-be historians had to know these classics by heart and they'd imbibed their lessons, chief among which was the idea that in order to maintain the Mandate of Heaven,발음듣기
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you had to behave properly, and not engage in orgies or eat your enemies, or eat your enemies while engaging in orgies.발음듣기
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In this history, the political fortunes of a dynasty ultimately rest on one man and his actions, whether he behaves properly.발음듣기
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It explains why as dynasties fell, there were often terrible storms, and floods, and peasant uprisings.발음듣기
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Now, a more modern historian might point out that the negative effects of terrible storms and floods, which include peasant uprisings, sometimes lead to changes in leadership.발음듣기
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But that would take the moral aspect out of history, and it would also diminish the importance of Confucian scholars, 발음듣기
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because the scholars can tell you that one of the best ways to learn how to be a good emperor, and thereby maintain the Mandate of Heaven, is to read the Confucian classics which were written by scholars.발음듣기
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In short, the complicated circularity of Chinese history is mirrored by the complicated circularity of the relationship between those who write it and those who make it.발음듣기
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