A brief overview of Chinese history

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Ever Merciful. All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. In Surah al-Hujurat, Allah says the following:

O humanity! Indeed, We created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may ˹get to˺ know one another. Surely the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous among you. Allah is truly All-Knowing, All-Aware.

It is for this reason I am embarking on this endeavour to map the development of Chinese history, so that the average person will have easy access to Chinese historical knowledge through English. Many of my Muslim brothers and sisters are curious about China, yet have difficulty finding a single place where they can easily access the information. Of course, countless works have been written on Chinese history in various languages, but I believe that every writer has his own style and has other events they want to emphasize. Therefore, I do not claim in any way that this is the overview of Chinese history per se, but rather an overview of Chinese history, one fraught with subjectivity and bias, but reflecting my understanding of Chinese history as accurately as I can manage using the resources available to me. It is my hope that through creating this overview, which will be a long-term project, that this knowledge will be more widely available and easily accessible to the curious, and hopefuly will serve as a gateway for those who wish to pursue further knowledge in the area.

Secondly, besides being a Muslim primarily, I am also a son of the Chinese civilisation, albeit from the diaspora. In the Sinosphere, knowledge of Chinese history is widespread and common, after all, the school curriculums in those countries focus on their own history, and this innate knowledge permeates through their societies. Historical references are hidden in idioms, schoolchildren recite ancient poems with ease, historical dramas, video games, and other manifestations of pop-culture take place in historical Chinese settings with events and characters familiar to the consumers. This familiarity with Chinese history is part of what makes us part of the Chinese civilisation. Unfortunately, due to the education, reading habits, and entertainment consumed by many diaspora Chinese, I have noticed that some of us have, sadly, missed out on developing an intimate relationship with the stories and histories that shaped our civilisation. This is a grave loss. It is my sincere hope that this project will be able to universalise Chinese historical knowledge to my fellow diaspora Chinese brethren. After all, many of us no longer speak or read Chinese, much less at a level capable of understanding history books, as such, easily accessible English language material is a sad necessity to making this knowledge more widespread. There is a saying in Chinese, it reads jiayu huxiao, it can be roughly equated to the English saying of “household knowledge”. If this project contributes to making Chinese history household knowledge, then I will rest easy knowing that there has been a beneficial contribution to the distribution of understanding.

Structure

This project is a large undertaking, and Chinese history can hardly be summarised in a single article. Therefore, I will structure this project in a way that will make each topic I want to tackle a separate article. I aim for the articles to be around 30 minute reads, but I may vary significantly depending on how much material I can find about it (and how much a topic interests me).

I will attempt to write chronologically and bring out articles over a period of time. I will include the list of articles below so that one can navigate to the desired topics using this article as a hub.

I will follow the traditional Chinese way to look at Chinese history, which is dynastic. I find this is most helpful because history in China is also ordered in this way. Therefore, the geography bound eras of Western history of bronze age, iron age, classical age, medieval age, early modern period, modern era, etc. will not be used to structure history. Instead, we will, in sha Allah, start at the Xia dynasty, go through each of the successive eras of Shang, Zhou, Spring and Autumn, Warring States, Qin, etc. all the way up to Qing, and post-Imperial China.

How is Chinese history structured?

Chinese history does not follow the same eras as European history. This is understandable since Europe developed in a different way than China through the ages. Where we in the West are familiar with the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Classical Era, Medieval Era, Early Modern Era, and finally the Modern Era, once you leave Europe (even towards the Near East) the ages suddenly make a little less sense. Naturally, since China has been relatively isolated from the West for most of its history, it follows a different structure that is based on the then ruling Imperial dynasty.

For example, to start with an important Chinese era, we have the Qin era. The Qin era was ruled by the family of Yingzheng. Once his empire was deposed by Xiangyu of the Chu, the Qin era came to an end. Thereafter we have the rise of the Han era, which was ruled over by the Liu family all the way until their fell into shambles by the time of the Three Kingdoms, and so on, and so forth. I think you get the idea.

A Timeline of Chinese History

Below I have included a timeline [work in progress!] with the Chinese dynasties. Whenever the Chinese civilisation comes in close contact, usually through war (that later also becomes part of China as a direct result of them conquering China) I have included them in the timeline. This includes, for example, the Xiongnu, the Khitans, and the Mongols, but not the Japanese or the Tibetan Empire. The nations that were once part of the Chinese Empire that ruled from China but split away later, such as Mongolia, are included in this timeline. Vietnam is not explicitely mentioned, even though it has been at times part of some of the Chinese dynasties. Also not represented are the various smaller nations of the Miao or Yi people that have popped up through the ages. The minority nations of China have actually been present in the territory that is now China for all of history. The expansion of the Chinese Imperial dynasties have gradually caused the surrounding nations to be absorbed, assimilated, or driven away. These nations are manifold and have been left out of the timeline. Also not mentioned are any of colonial powers that have occupied or leased Chinese territory, such as the Dutch, English, French, Russians, Germans, Japanese, and Portuguese.

Please note that not all nations listed in this timeline have been officially recognised by other nations. Whether or not such a nation is on the timeline usually depends on the de facto status of a place. For example, Tunganistan was never an official country, but the locals called their leader a Padishah (king), so the situation of the time warrants the listing of this place as a separate entity rather than a normal province of the Republic of China. The same is true for countries that have proclaimed their own independence, but have not gotten recognition from everyone, such as Tibet, the Pingnan Sultanate, or the Bogd Khan’s Great Mongolian State. The appearance of these places on the timeline does in no way represent an endorsement or tacit recognition of their independence, and is merely a reflection of the historical events that took place.

The Republican era features many so called cliques. These were semi-independent warlords resulting from the power vacuum left when the Qing Empire collapsed. Each provincial governor or military leader gained de facto independence while pledging their allegiance to the newly formed Chinese Republic. Many of these warlords never declared independence, and therefore, they cannot be regarded as a separate nation, but they did vie for power with each other. The warlord era ended when the Nationalist Government launched their Northern Expedition to reign in all the warlords and put an end to the division. The warlords did not cease to have power, but pledged their allegiance to the Nationalist Government, and were usually enlisted into the Nationalist Government army. On my timeline, it appears that many of the cliques cease to exist from 1928 onwards, but in actuality, they were incorporated into the Nationalist Army.

As a final note, I have attempted to put regimes that cover the same geographic areas in roughly the same vertical column. For example, the regime of Yaqub Beg (Yettishar) is placed directly above the later Xinjiang clique, which is followed by the Turkic Islamic Republic, Tunganistan, and the East Turkestan Republic, which are all put underneath each other so as to denote that one regime follow the other. The same goes for states that are successors of previous states regimes, such as the Northern Han being a successor to the Later Han. In some cases, multiple states emerge out of a single one, such as Zhao, Han, and Wei emerging out of Jin during the Warring States Era. Due to lack of space, the do not fit in the same vertical column, please do not be confused about this. Please forgive the fact that I have not been able to be entirely consistent with this. The states that occupy modern day Mongolia roughly correspond with the right side of the timeline. However, as you can see, areas within China shift around regularly on the x-axis of the chart.

[I will put the timeline here, in shaa Allah]

My hopes and wishes

It is my hope that whoever reads through my series of articles that they will also gain a familiarity with Chinese history so as to be able to tell apart the dynasties with a glace, and to be able to place that isolated dynasty in the broader context of Chinese history.

Each of the Chinese dynasties have their unique aesthetics and stereotypes. Chinese audiences watching historical shows can actually distinguish which dynasty is being portrayed based on a number of things, but the first most apparent characteristic to recognise a dynasty with are the clothes. One familiar with the clothes may immediately identify a dynasty just as easily as Western audiences can tell Imperial Roman era aesthetics apart from the Carolingian era.

For example, if one sees a queue, a shaven forehead, and a long robe, one should be immediately aware that this is from the Qing dynasty, a conquest dynasty that is also the last imperial dynasty of China. It is my firm belief that such a grounding in historical knowledge is indispensible to a proper understanding of China’s national spirit and Chinese identity.