History of China,China is one of the earliest birthplaces of human civilization, one of the four major ancient civilizations, and its the only one has not been interrupted, has a history for more than five thousand years.,Our history begins with legends and myths, we have the god Pangu(盘古) who created the world, the goddess Nvwa(女娲) who fixed up the sky and created human beings, the hero Houyi(后羿) who shot down 9 extra suns with a bow to protect people from sunburn, the lord Huangdi(黄帝) who united our people for the very first time,About 2070 B.C, a lord called Yu(禹) established the first dynasty in China, the nation was named the Xia dynasty.,Xia existed for over 400 years, and the last king Jie(桀) was so bad that a powerful lord called Tang(汤) defeated him and started a new dynasty, Shang(商) And in Shang dynasty found the first Chinese characters, Oracle.,Shang lasted for 600 years before its biggest dependency took its place, its called the Zhou(周) dynasty. The Zhou dynasty was divided into two stages, the Western dynasty and the Eastern dynasty. In the Eastern dynasty, the kingdom was divided into many small states, the map was like this.,There were many great ideologists and philosophers in this dynasty, such as Confucius, Lao-tzu(老子), Chuang-tzu(庄子) and so on. These people, and their thoughts had a huge effect on Chinas history, and the China today.,Among these states, there were 7 strongest, they were called the Warring States(战国七雄). The lust for power and lands made them attack on each other for hundreds of years, and at last, the kingdom Qin(秦) won the game, and built the first empire, the Qin dynasty. And the king (嬴政)became the first emperor of China,Qin dynasty only lasted for 15 years, the third emperor surrendered to the rebel army. But still, its a rather important dynasty in Chinas history, its the end of slavery society and the beginning of feudal society, and reunited our people and lands.,The Qin dynasty was replaced by Han. In this dynasty, China became stronger and bigger, and the population was increasing very fast. By 2 A.D, the population was 60 million, accounted for about 1/3 of that of the whole world.,The Han dynasty existed for over 400 years, from202 B.C to 220 A.D, but in the last 100 years, there were actually three kingdoms than one, Wei(魏), Shu(蜀) and Wu(吴). They fought against each other for decades and than they were all defeated by Jin(晋).,In the Jin dynasty began the first Separate Period, and it lasted for centuries, there were more than a dozen different size of countries rose up and went down, showed up and disappeared, until a very powerful warlord Yangjian defeated them all and established the Sui(隋) dynasty.,The second emperor of Sui was ambitious, and he did promulgate some great policies, such as implementing the Imperial examination system(科举制), he built the Grand Canal(京杭大运河), he enriched our territory, etc. But he was too mean to the people, and that led him and his regime to an end.,In 618 A.D, the emperor Liyuan established the Tang dynasty in Changan city, now its called Xian. He and his sons developed our nation to beyond any doubt the greatest nation in the world of that time.,In the Tang Dynasty, our nation has reached very high achievements in the cultural, political, economic, diplomatic and many other aspects. And many neighboring countries such as Japan, Korea were learning from us, and today we can still see these influences.,Good things never last for long. 300 years later, Tang came to its end. And that meant the beginning of the second Separate Period, its called the Five Dynasties and Ten States Period(五代十国), its even more complicated than the first one. At last, the emperor Zhao Kuangying ended the chaos and started the Song dynasty.,During the Song dynasty our nation was actually always in danger, there were many hostile territories around, and they kept on invading us, Sometimes we won the war, sometimes we didnt.,But then the rise of Mongolia changed everything. The Great Genghis Khan led his brave Mongolia cavalry conquered all these countries one by one within a few years, and he didnt stop, he owned almost half the world.,When Genghis Khan died, his huge empire was divided into several parts, and the biggest one was succeeded by Kublai Khan(忽必烈), and the country was called the Yuan dynasty.,The Mongolians didnt know how to rule as well as they fight, only 98 years later, in 1368 A.D, Zhu Yuanzhang led his rebel army defeated the Mongolians and established the Ming dynasty.,The Ming dynasty was the last dynasty that was ruled by the Han people, because in 1644 A.D, the Manchu people rose up and occupied the Central Plains(入主中原), and established the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty of China.,The second emperor was Kangxi, he wanted to protect his regime from western countries by shutting out the world(闭关锁国), and that was when China started to lose the game. For 200 years, the other parts of the world were developing so fast wh