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I had arrived in Beijing from Shanghai the night before. But in the morning, I felt like I had arrived in Siberia. Because I had arrived at my hotel at nighttime, I didn’t get to see the view out the window until [Read more…]
Way back in 1387, barely a decade after driving the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty back to Mongolia, the Ming Dynasty were nervous about the possibility of an invasion by Mongols then ruling in Manchuria, to the northeast. In a preemptive strike, the Ming invaded Manchuria and loosely annexed it into China. About 200 years later, with the Mongols gone and the Chinese only governing Manchuria casually, native Manchus began to organize and by 1616 declared their own dynasty, eventually named Qing (pronounced “Ching”). The Manchu rebellion overthrew the declining Ming [Read more…]
In 1378, the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty were overthrown and sent packing back to Mongolia by what became the Ming Dynasty. Thus was ushered in perhaps China’s most shimmering golden age of all. In fact, Ming means “brilliant” or “bright”. In Beijing, the Ming picked up where the Mongols left off, creating a master-planned imperial city centered on the new imperial palace, known today as the Forbidden City. The Great Wall as it exists today is mostly due to construction performed during the Ming Dynasty. Ming emperors were enthusiastic patrons [Read more…]
1279 marks the start of the Yuan Dynasty, declared by Kublai Khan of the Mongols. It was the first time China was ruled by foreigners. By this point, the Song Dynasty only had rule over southern [Read more…]
Understanding the (quite long) history of China is helpful in appreciating its fascinating sights. Every week while I’m sending out the pictures of my trip to China, I’ll add a post on Chinese history. In a perfect world, I’d match up the history with the sights for that week. But I don’t think I could quite get that to work, so I’ll just go chronologically. Chinese civilization goes back about 10,000 years. I’ll cover the first [Read more…]