Medieval China: Crash Course History of Science #8

Like Egypt, Sumer, and Mesoamerica, ancient China represents a hydraulic civilization—one that maintained its population by diverting rivers to aid in irrigation—and one that developed writing thousands of years ago. Today, we’re going to focus on the time of the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties, a time of great technical innovation. But, before we get to the Song, let’s take a tour through the ages and explore key elements of Chinese scientific culture.

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[archcast]

"From the country that brought you Taoism, porcelain, and noodles... we now bring you: The Standarized Test!"

[briangonigal]

The Mongols. I REALLY should have seen that coming in an episode about China.

[stevenzheng]

Song China did industrialize using coal and hydraulic automation. I've read from somewhere that the iron production of the Song dynasty was not to be surpassed until the early 19th century by the British. There were many reasons why Song China didn't reach the level scientific sophistication found in 17th - 19th century Europe. Most of the problems could be explained by the timing and the amount of time.


One, the scale of innovation was a lot slower during the Medieval world. This is a significant factor that should not be overlooked. The reason why Medieval China produced more science than the world combined at the time was probably due to the population being larger. The population of technologically gifted people is proportional to the number of people! Song' China's population was roughly 40-50% of the world population, which gave them a numerical advantage of raw brainpower.

Two, mentioned briefly near the end of this video was the Mongols. However, they were not the only ones to blame! Before the Mongol invasion, there were the Jurchens who conquered the Northern half of the Song empire. They destroyed a lot of impressive machines and hydraulic infrastructure, including Su Song's "Cosmic Engine" in Kaifeng.


Three, they were too early to have developed the necessary mathematics to develop science more quantitatively. Chinese math during the Song was centuries ahead of its time (especially with algebra and number theory), but the math problems were still largely written with words instead of symbols. It took Europe about 2-3 centuries to develop a coherent set of math symbols. Song China ran out of time.


Four, although Song China had many technical experts, they did not have many specialists who devoted all their time to one area of research. Most "scientists" did their science more like a hobby for they were scholar-officials of the imperial court. They were more occupied with more mundane work with government administration. Also, the Neo-Confucian cosmology was not objectively true, but hey, Newton's cosmology wasn't either, just more closer to the truth.

[thesuperproify]

MAJOR Correction !
The Imperial Examination is NOT and NEVER about rote-memorisation and recitation of old books !
first of all, It includes curriculums in music, arithmetic, writing, military strategy, civil law, revenue and taxation, agriculture and geography, and the Confucian classics.

The questions are written to demonstrate knowledge and mastery of the facts related to these topics, extract the political, economic, legal, and social logic and thinking behind it, and apply these thinking on some of the current events. It is the application of your understanding of the Classical Texts to solve the present problems rather than just a test of memory.

lets see some example of surviving Imperial Test questions !



Part 1, History.

Question 1, The Zhou dynasty (~ 1000 BC) and the Tang dynasty (~ 600 AD) had relatively strong regional governments and relatively weak central government. The Qin dynasty (~ 200 BC) and the Wei dynasty (~ 400 AD) had relatively weak regional governments and relatively strong central government. Discuss the pros and cons of each.



Part 2, Policies

Question 1, There are three goals of universal education: first, to make our citizens nice people, second, to make our citizens patriotic, third, to help our citizens acquire the knowledge and skills so that they can make their own living independently. Discuss which one of these is the most important.





Part 3. Confucius Classics. (These are quotes from either Confucius or other scholars around ~ 5 centuries BC)

Question 1, write a discussion essay on the following Confucius quote, “the essence of governing a nation is in promoting transparency and morality, respect and stay close to the common people, until we reach the ultimate state of kindness and humanity”.


The Palace Examination ( held every three years in the Imperial palace and often supervised by the emperor himself)

Question 1. In ancient dynasties (Xia, Shang, Zhou) servicemen came from peasants. After the Well-field system and the GouXu system ended, conscription started. Was it because the situation has changed?

(*Examples from Han, Tang, Song military systems)
Compare the military systems of Han, Tang and Song dynasties. What can we learn from them?

The Power of the military comes from knowledge, and knowledge comes from education. Countries became powerful through acknowledging the importance of military. Many of their officers know military, and physical education starts from children. Since we are learning from them, shouldn't we find the deeper reason?



This example is just for 4 parts, and 1 question per part. In reality there are a lot more parts and questions.

As you can see, these are not “yes” or “no” question, but you are basically asked to demonstrate your knowledge and mastery of the fact related to these topics, extract the political, economic, legal, and social logic and thinking behind it, and apply these thinking on some of the current events. It is the application of your understanding of the Classical Texts to solve the present problems rather than just a test of memory.

[GaysianAmerican]

Damn Hank's passion is so infectious.

[cesiumbob]

The Chinese had amazing art during the Tang Dynasty. I am glad that I got learn about the Tang Dynasty because it was an amazing period in human history. I am not Chinese but I love Chinese history it is so amazing. I love American history (my country’s history) and China’s history the most. I can name all the Chinese Dynasties just like I can name all the U.S. Presidents! I know most of the emperor’s names, but I am working on it. Right now, I am reading about the Ming Emperors.

[Luboman]

The Huang He (the big northern river) is called the "Sorrow of China" because it's a crazy river that floods very frequently and at times changes course completely, destroying hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and leaving millions without homes. Dealing with that monster of a river requires farmers and bureaucracies that have to be sophisticated and hugely adaptable to keep the irrigation and levee system going. Otherwise the Huang He would make mincemeat out of their societies.

[leto]

Europe: The sun revolves around the Earth
China: Nah the sun revolves around *us*

[UteChewb]

Many, many years ago I was looking randomly through my university library, as I often did, and came across Joseph Needham's "Science and Civilisation in China, " a multi-volume work. Absolutely mind blowing. Just skimming through it will amaze.

[charlesphilips]

Great respect to the Chinese and to their contribution to Science. This episode was awesome!

[Discox]

I spent 4 years getting a degree in Chinese Studies and I learned something in this video! Well done, as always, Crash Course team.

[GuilhermeVieiraSechat]

You could have used "the mongols" to talk about the House of Wisdom too, because they were the ones who took it when they destroyed Baghdad

[polaris]

I’m here after failing my Medieval China test

[tristanholderness]

You got the etymology of Mandarin the wrong way round. It referred to the bureaucrats first (coming from a Sanskrit word for a "minister" or "councillor" via Malay and Portuguese, but notably not any Chinese language, and related to the word "mantra"), and then was only later extended to the Lingua Franca used by those bureaucrats.

Mandarin itself calls mandarins guān, Cantonese calls them gun1, Hakka calls them kôn, Min Dong calls them guǎng, Mine Nan calls them koan, and Wu calls them kuoe.

[Eldred]

When Hank asked why the Song didn't have a scientific revolution I said to myself "because of the Mongols!" I was not disappointed to see the Mongoltage 30 seconds later. Of course that was hardly the only contributing factor.

[lucaspincerato]

Wait for it.... The mongols!
(Simply the best catch phrase ever!)

[TechMagnet]

Good knowledge on the topic, keep going !

[CtrlAltDlt]

Probably your best series so far. This one has been awesome. Keep it coming!

[heavenwatcher]

As a Chinese, I definitely hate the Mongol conquest that ruined many civilizations including ours. But it's not objective enough to give all the blame to Mongolian atrocities. There are more subtle reasons for the fall of China, the Muslim world, and many others who suffered in that period.

To me, isolation, self-complacency, lack of ambition as well as low motivation to develop a sophisticated logic and reasoning system(e.g hypothesis and proving) are more crucial reasons. China was a great civilization especially famed for engineering achievements that occasionally/ haphazardly bring technological breakthroughs including very crucial ones like paper-making, printing press, and gunpowder/cannons. Yet the rigidity of Chinese characters, conciseness but lack of variation of words and grammar, unification and centralization of the feudal empire under the mandate of heaven all give rise to a tendency of stagnation or less variation of ideas, and
an absence of effort to develop a more systematic summary of knowledge like Euclidean geometry and algorithm that can further induce
more breakthroughs, at least in the field of natural science. Even in the field of philosophy or social science, much effort was devoted to better governing the realm with lower stability cost instead of boosting and supporting real-life technologies.

Similar issues also happen in the last few decades of the Abbasids, the grand library of Baghdad became a huge collection of existing knowledge and center of Islamic art and philosophy. But the local monarchs and religious heads were obsessed with interpreting religious canons/contexts or enjoying the wealth instead of retrospection, exploration, and initiate the renaissance. In other words, these once great civilizations in the old world all fall to traps created by themselves, becoming stagnant and eventually surpassed by European explorers. The devastation caused by the Mongols and other nomads just accelerated their declines. But without major breakthroughs from contacts or even shocks with other civilizations, it's really hard for them to escape from the trap.

[rabbitbobo]

Um... wanted to comment here..
1.China has the earliest astro physics and the mapping of planet and stars, they know the precise distance of the earth from the sun and calculated the seasonal cycle. The whole middle kingdom thing and the son of god is political for the common people.
2. Buddism was about religion, Confucius is about social consciousness such as washing your hand before a meal, giving priority to the elderly and young, being kind while contributing the social constructed of the country( those could be seen in Japan more now then in China which is a shame).. that is why his literature was appointed as one of the main text book for scholars and any one who wants to join the kingdom.
3.The language thing are also in dispute as the official Mandarin(1967-1977) is not established until the Mao revolution, Language was divided similar to early English, written language was standard. the literacy of the people that can write the name is about 5-10% people who can really write is about 1%. Education was privilege at that age and time.
4. Another huge project is the irrigation of the Great Yellow River, that was one of the first and still the biggest water irrigation project in the world, the river we see today on the map? some of those are actually man made. Just another fact,
5.Not that the person are unknown but the records were burn during the revolution in China, Chinese has a great respect for those who invented those technology that is why a lot of bright mind contributed to the system, if there were no credit system then scientific progress would not advance as fast.
6. China has one of the first University and debate schools since the First Kingdom, philosophy was one of the most important subject that is why "old'' China things that wisdom are as important as intelligence.
7. Technology was one of the tightest guarded secret by the Chinese empire, that is also the reason why the West has to buy China for decades from China. If you think a piece of clay was that much a secrete you can imagine the intensity they have over gun powder and other mechanical invention, that was also why China's techno advance wave so much from dynasty to dynasty.
Any way this was a great video, as the history of China are still not very well known in the west, I just wanted to clarify the reasoning behind some of the points.