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China 2000 BC - The Rise and Fall of Dynasties in Ancient China
Description
China has many different peoples with widely different cultural backgrounds.
In fact its populace is comprised of 56 ethnic groups. Why could these peoples
have united as One China? The key to this miracle was the Idea of Zhong-hua,
what is often translated as Sinocentrism. The program explores how this idea
was forged in ancient China and finally utilized by the First Emperor of Qin
to bind many different people under one flag. Many years of civil strife came
to end in 221 BC with the first unification of China by the First Emperor. New
discoveries are making clearer his extraordinary ambition towards the supreme
power, which gave China the last impetus to its unification. His famous
terracotta warriors, a symbol of his power were proven to have originally been
brightly colored. And these colors provide important clues to the First
Emperor's firm determination to place himself at the center of China.
In fact, Qing was one of remote tribes who were disdained as barbarians
by the states in the Central Plains. Qing gained power through drastic
military and political reforms and went on conquering other tribes, but they
met tenacious rejections from the people in the conquered states. To
conciliate them, the Qing started to claim that they were the Xia. By calling
themselves the successor to the Xia they tried to legitimize their rule over
China.
The First Emperor, however, did not content with the earthly power.
Archaeologists took clues from items and remnants excavated from Qin's old
capital to prove what grandiose plan he introduced in construction of his
capital city. What the First Emperor desired to build was in fact a Celestial
Empire. The latest archeological evidence shed new light on the last step to
the unified China, the foundations that made China, and Asia, what it is today.
2013, 45 min 25 s
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