The geography of Ancient China shaped the way the civilization and culture developed. The large land was isolated from much of the rest of the world by dry deserts to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the east, & impassable mountains to the south. This enabled the Chinese to develop independently from other world civilizations.
Rivers Perhaps the two most important geographical features of Ancient China were the two major rivers that flowed through central China: the Yellow River to the north and the Yangtze River to the south. These major rivers were a great source of fresh water, food, fertile soil, and transportation. They also were the subjects of Chinese poetry, art, literature, and folklore.
Yellow River The Yellow River is often called the "cradle of Chinese civilization". It was along the banks of the Yellow river where the Chinese civilization first formed. The Yellow River is 3,395 miles long making it the sixth longest river in the world. It is also called the Huang He River. Early Chinese farmers built small villages along the Yellow River. The rich yellow colored soil was good for growing a grain called millet. The farmers of this area also raised sheep and cattle.
Yangtze River The Yangtze River is south of the Yellow River and flows in the same direction (west to east). It is 3,988 miles long and is the third longest river in the world. Just like the Yellow River, the Yangtze played an important role in the development of the culture and civilization of Ancient China. Farmers that lived along the Yangtze River took advantage of the warm climate and rainy weather to grow rice. Eventually the land along the Yangtze became some of the most important and wealthy land in all of Ancient China. The Yangtze also served as a boundary between northern and southern China. It is very wide and difficult to cross. The famous Battle of Red Cliffs took place along the river.
Mountains To the south and southeast of China are the Himalaya Mountains. These are the highest mountains in the world. They provided a nearly impassable border for Ancient China, keeping the area isolated from many other civilizations. They were also important to Chinese religion and were considered sacred.
Deserts To the north and west of Ancient China were two of the world's largest deserts: the Gobi Desert and the Taklamakan Desert. These deserts also provided borders that kept the Chinese isolated from the rest of the world. The Mongols, however, lived in the Gobi Desert and were constantly raiding cities of northern China. This is why the Great Wall of China was built to protect the Chinese from these northern invaders.
JAPAN The peoples on China’s borders naturally emulated their great neighbor. Japan borrowed heavily from China during the 5th and 6th centuries when it began forming its own civilization. To the north and west of China, nomadic peoples and Tibet also received influence. Vietnam and Korea were part of the Chinese sphere by the last centuries b.c.e. The agrarian societies of Japan, Korea, and Vietnam blended Chinese influences with their indigenous cultures to produce distinctive patterns of civilized development. In all three regions, Buddhism was a key force in transmitting Chinese civilization.
The Mandate of Heaven is an ancient Chinese belief and philosophical idea that god (天; Tian) granted emperors the right to rule based on their ability to govern well and fairly. According to this belief, heaven bestows its mandate to a just ruler, the Son of Heaven, and withdraws it from a brutal ruler, leading to the overthrow of that ruler. The Mandate of Heaven would then transfer to those who would rule best. The fact that a ruler was overthrown was taken by itself as an indication that the ruler had lost the Mandate of Heaven. The Mandate of Heaven does not require that a legitimate ruler be of noble birth, and dynasties were often founded by people of common birth (such as the Han dynasty and Ming dynasty). The Mandate of Heaven had no time limitations, depending instead on the just and able performance of the ruler and his heirs. Throughout the history of China, times of poverty and natural disasters were often taken as signs that heaven considered the incumbent ruler unjust and thus in need of replacement.
The Role of Chinese Women As Chinese civilization took shape during classical China, elite thinking about gender issues became more explicitly patriarchal, more clearly defined, and linked to the emerging Confucian ideology. Long-established patterns of thinking in terms of pairs of opposites were now described in gendered and unequal terms. The superior principle of yang was viewed as masculine and related to Heaven, rulers, strength, rationality, and light, whereas yin, the lower feminine principle, was associated with the earth, subjects, weakness, emotion, and darkness. Thus female inferiority was seen as permanent and embedded in the workings of the universe. What this view meant more practically was spelled out repeatedly over the centuries in various Confucian texts. Two notions in particular summarized the ideal position of women, at least in the eyes of elite male writers. The adage “Men go out, women stay in” emphasized the public and political roles of men in contrast to the domestic and private domain of women. A second idea, known as the “three obediences,” emphasized a woman’s subordination first to her father, then to her husband, and finally to her son. “Why is it,” asked one text, “that according to the rites the man takes his wife, whereas the woman leaves her house [to join her husband’s family]? It is because the yin is lowly, and should not have the initiative; it proceeds to the yang in order to be completed.” The Chinese woman writer and court official Ban Zhao (45–116 c.e.) observed that the ancients had practiced three customs when a baby girl was born. She was placed below the bed to show that she was “lowly and weak,” required always to “humble herself before others.” Then she was given a piece of broken pottery to play with, signifying that “her primary duty [was] to be industrious.” Finally, her birth was announced to the ancestors with an offering to indicate that she was responsible for “the continuation of [ancestor] worship in the home.” Within her husband’s family, a young woman was clearly subordinate as a wife and daughter-in-law, but as a mother of sons, she was accorded considerable honor for her role in producing the next generation of male heirs to carry on her husband’s lineage. When her sons married, she was able to exercise the significant authority of a mother-in-law. Furthermore, a woman, at least in the upper classes, often brought with her a considerable dowry, which was regarded as her own property and gave her some leverage within her marriage. Women’s roles in the production of textiles, often used to pay taxes or to sell commercially, made a woman’s labor quite valuable to the family economy. And a man’s wife was sharply distinguished from his concubines, for she was legally mother to all her husband’s children. Furthermore, peasant women could hardly follow the Confucian ideal of seclusion in the home, as their labor was required in the fields. Thus women’s lives were more complex and varied than the prescriptions of Confucian orthodoxy might suggest.