Vocab for Ancient China
Terms
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- King Wu
- Founder of the Zhou dynasty in China.
- warlord
- In China, a person who commanded his own small army.
- legalism
- Chinese teachings that express a belief in the strict following of laws.
- Sima Qian
- Scholar who recorded China's history during the Han dynasty.
- Han
- A dynasty in China, its rule marked by prosperity, military success and the introduction of Buddhism.
- Huang He
- A river in China that flows east from the Plateau of Tibet.
- oracle
- A person who gibes wise advice.
- Confucianism
- The ideas of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, which became a guide for the way people live.
- bureaucracy
- A network of appointed government officials.
- Ying & Yang
- In Chinese philosophy often referred to in the west as is used to describe how seemingly opposing forces are bound together, intertwined, and interdependent in the natural world, giving rise to each other in turn.
- filial piety
- Kind treatment of parents; translation of the Chinese word xiao.
- Liu Bang
- Chinese emperor: founder of the Han dynasty.
- virtue
- A good quality.
- loess
- The enriched sandy soil of the Huang He Valley.
- Chang Jiang
- A river in eastern China; flows from the Plateau of Tibet to the East China Sea.
- mandate
- A document giving an official instruction or command.
- Silk Road
- A trade route that stretched from China to the Mediterranean Sea.
- Shi Huangdi
- Ruler of the Qin dynasty and unifier of China.
- Confucius
- A Philosopher considered to be the most reverend person in Chinese history. His philosophy, known as Confucianism, became a guide for the way people lived.
- Pinyin
- A system for transliterating Chinese ideograms into the Roman alphabet.
- jade
- An object, as a carving, made from minerals.
- Shang
- A Chinese dynasty whose capital was present-day Anyang. The dynasty's reign was marked by a highly developed social structure, advanced writing, and the use of bronze.
- Wu Di
- Han ruler who established a civil service administration to run the daily business in China.
- standardization
- The practice of making all things of a certain type alike.
- Zhou
- The imperial dynasty of China; notable for the rise of Confucianism and Taoism.
- Daosim or Taoism
- A religion and philosophy that teaches that the key to long life and happiness is to accept life as it is.
- navigable
- Sufficiently deep or wide to provide passage for vessels.
- public works
- Structures built by the Government to be used by everyone.
- Mandate of Heaven
- The right to rule; the Chinese believed heaven gave it to their emperors. When an emperor was weak or disasters occurred, the emperor was thought to have lost the Mandate of Heaven.
- dialect
- A special variety of a language.
- civil service
- The part of a bureaucracy that oversees the day-to-day business of running a government.