Editing History of Asia (section)

====China====
{{main|History of China}}
China saw the rise and fall of the Sui, Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties and therefore improvements in its bureaucracy, the spread of [[Buddhism]], and the advent of [[Neo-Confucianism]]. It was an unsurpassed era for Chinese ceramics and painting. Medieval architectural masterpieces the Great South Gate in Todaiji, Japan, and the Tien-ning Temple in Peking, China are some of the surviving constructs from this era.

=====Sui dynasty=====
{{main|Sui dynasty}}
A new powerful dynasty began to rise in the 580s, amongst the divided factions of China. This was started when an aristocrat named Yang Jian married his daughter into the Northern Zhou dynasty. He proclaimed himself [[Emperor Wen of Sui]] and appeased the nomadic military by abandoning the Confucian scholar-gentry. Emperor Wen soon led the conquest of the southern Chen dynasty and united China once more under the [[Sui dynasty]]. The emperor lowered taxes and constructed granaries that he used to prevent famine and control the market. Later Wen's son would murder him for the throne and declare himself [[Emperor Yang of Sui]]. Emperor Yang revived the Confucian scholars and the bureaucracy, much to anger of the aristocrats and nomadic military leaders. Yang became an excessive leader who overused China's resources for personal luxury and perpetuated exhaustive attempts to [[Goguryeo–Sui War|conquer Goguryeo]]. His military failures and neglect of the empire forced his own ministers to assassinate him in 618, ending the Sui dynasty.

=====Tang dynasty=====
{{main|Tang dynasty}}
[[File:Battle of Talas.png|thumb|380px|[[Battle of Talas]] between Tang dynasty and [[Abbasid Caliphate]] c. 751]]

Fortunately, one of Yang's most respectable advisors, Li Yuan, was able to claim the throne quickly, preventing a chaotic collapse. He proclaimed himself [[Emperor Gaozu of Tang|Emperor Gaozu]], and established the [[Tang dynasty]] in 623. The Tang saw expansion of China through conquest to Tibet in the west, [[Vietnam]] in the south, and Manchuria in the north. Tang emperors also improved the education of scholars in the Chinese bureaucracy. A Ministry of Rites was established and the examination system was improved to better qualify scholars for their jobs.{{sfn|Stearns|2011|loc=Chapter 12}}{{rp|p. 270|quote=In the Tang and Song periods, the examination system was greatly expanded, and the pattern of advancement in the civil service was much more regularized. This meant that in the political realm more than any previous political system (and those yet to come for centuries), the Chinese connected merit as measured by tested skills with authority and status.}} In addition, Buddhism became popular in China with two different strains between the peasantry and the elite, the [[Pure Land Buddhism|Pure Land]] and [[Zen]] strains, respectively.{{sfn|Stearns|2011|loc=Chapter 12}}{{rp|pp. 271–272|quote=Among the masses, the salvationist pure land strain of Mahayana Buddhism won widespread conversions because it seemed to provide a refuge from an age of war and turmoil. Members of the elite class, on the other hand, were more attracted to the Chan variant of Buddhism, or Zen as it is known in Japan and the West.}} Greatly supporting the spread of Buddhism was [[Wu Zetian|Empress Wu]], who additionally claimed an unofficial "Zhou dynasty" and displayed China's tolerance of a woman ruler, which was rare at the time. However, Buddhism would also experience some backlash, especially from Confucianists and Taoists. This would usually involve criticism about how it was costing the state money, since the government was unable to tax Buddhist monasteries, and additionally sent many grants and gifts to them.{{sfn|Stearns|2011|loc=Chapter 12}}{{rp|p. 273|quote=Because monastic lands and resources were not taxed, the Tang regime lost huge amounts of revenue as a result of imperial grants or the gifts of wealthy families to Buddhist monasteries.}}

The Tang dynasty began to decline under the rule of [[Emperor Xuanzong of Tang|Emperor Xuanzong]], who began to neglect the economy and military and caused unrest amongst the court officials due to the excessive influence of his concubine, [[Yang Guifei]], and her family.{{sfn|Stearns|2011|loc=Chapter 12}}{{rp|p. 274|quote=The arrogance and excessive ambition of Yang Guifei and her family angered members of the rival cliques at court, who took every opportunity to turn Yang&apos;s excesses into a cause for popular unreast.}} This eventually sparked a revolt in 755.{{sfn|Stearns|2011|loc=Chapter 12}}{{rp|p. 274|quote=The deepening crisis came to a head in 755 when one of [Xuanzong]&apos;s main military leaders&nbsp;... led a widely supported revolt with the aim of founding a new dynasty to supplant the Tang.}} Although the revolt failed, subduing it required involvement with the unruly nomadic tribes outside of China and distributing more power to local leaders—leaving the government and economy in a degraded state. The Tang dynasty officially ended in 907 and various factions led by the aforementioned nomadic tribes and local leaders would fight for control of China in the [[Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period]].

=====Liao, Song and Jin dynasties=====
{{main|Liao dynasty|Song dynasty|Jin dynasty (1115–1234)}}
[[File:Along the River During the Qingming Festival (detail of original).jpg|thumb|260px|Daily life of people from the [[Song Dynasty|Song]] period at the capital, Bianjing, today's [[Kaifeng]]]]
By 960, most of China proper had been reunited under the [[Song dynasty]], although it lost territories in the north and could not defeat one of the nomadic tribes there—the [[Liao dynasty]] of the highly sinicized [[Khitan people]]. From then on, the Song would have to pay tribute to avoid invasion and thus set the precedent for other nomadic kingdoms to oppress them. The Song also saw the revival of Confucianism in the form of [[Neo-Confucianism]]. This had the effect of putting the Confucian scholars at a higher status than aristocrats or Buddhists and also intensified the reduction of power in women. The infamous practice of [[foot binding]] developed in this period as a result. Eventually the Liao dynasty in the north was overthrown by the [[Jin dynasty (1115–1234)|Jin dynasty]] of the Manchu-related [[Jurchen people]]. The new Jin kingdom [[Jin–Song Wars|invaded northern China]], leaving the Song to flee farther south and creating the [[Southern Song dynasty]] in 1126. There, cultural life flourished.

=====Yuan dynasty=====
{{main|Yuan dynasty}}
 [[File:Route of Marco Polo.png|thumb|380px|Map of Marco Polo's travels]]
By 1227, the Mongols had conquered the [[Western Xia]] kingdom northwest of China. Soon the Mongols incurred upon the Jin empire of the Jurchens. Chinese cities were soon besieged by the Mongol hordes that showed little mercy for those who resisted and the Southern Song Chinese were quickly losing territory. In 1271 the current great khan, [[Kublai Khan]], claimed himself Emperor of China and officially established the Yuan dynasty. By 1290, all of China was under control of the Mongols, marking the first time they were ever completely conquered by a foreign invader; the new capital was established at [[Khanbaliq]] (modern-day [[Beijing]]). Kublai Khan segregated Mongol culture from Chinese culture by discouraging interactions between the two peoples, separating living spaces and places of worship, and reserving top administrative positions to Mongols, thus preventing Confucian scholars to continue the bureaucratic system. Nevertheless, Kublai remained fascinated with Chinese thinking, surrounding himself with Chinese Buddhist, Taoist, or Confucian advisors.

Mongol women displayed a contrasting independent nature compared to the Chinese women who continued to be suppressed. Mongol women often rode out on hunts or even to war. Kublai's wife, [[Chabi]], was a perfect example of this; Chabi advised her husband on several political and diplomatic matters; she convinced him that the Chinese were to be respected and well-treated in order to make them easier to rule.{{sfn|Stearns|2011|loc=Chapter 14}}{{rp|p. 327|quote=[Chabi] convinced Kubilai that the harsh treatment of the survivors of the defeated Song imperial family would only anger the peoples of north China and make them more difficult to rule.}} However, this was not enough to affect Chinese women's position, and the increasingly Neo-Confucian successors of Kublai further repressed Chinese and even Mongol women.

The Black Death, which would later ravage Western Europe, had its beginnings in Asia, where it wiped out large populations in China in 1331.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Gribbin |first1=John |title=Q is for quantum: particle physics from A-Z |last2=Gribbin |first2=Mary |date=1998 |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |isbn=978-0-297-81752-9 |location=London |pages=463 |quote=1331: Black Death emerges in China and eventually spreads to Europe.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Senker |first=Cath |title=The Black Death 1347-1350: the plague spreads across Europe |date=2006 |publisher=Raintree |isbn=9781410922786 |pages=8 |quote=Chinese records from 1331 describe a mysterious illness that swept through Hopei province in the northeast. It killed 90 percent of the population.}}</ref>