The Song Dynasty
E.Q.: What happened during the Song Dynasty?
Geography
 907 – 960 was a period of disorder known as the Five Dynasties and
Ten Kingdoms
Religion
 Established Neo-Confucianism as the official government teaching
Achievements
 Advances in Agriculture
o Dug underground wells
o New irrigation device: the dragon backbone pump
o Discovered a faster ripening rice, could grow twice or three
times as much in the same time
o New crops: cotton
 Artists and Poets
o Noted for literature, Li Qingzhao: China’s greatest female poet
 Inventions
o Porcelain: thin beautiful type of pottery
o Movable Type: set of letters or characters used to print books
 Letters can be rearranges and reused to print different pages
o Paper Money: lighter and easier to use instead of coins
Politics
 China was reunified under the Song from 960 – 1279
 Capital was Kaifeng, over one million people
 Established a bureaucracy, a group of unelected government officials
to help run the empire
 To work in the bureaucracy you had to pass a civil service exam
o Had to memorize entire Confucian books for the exam
 Those who passed became scholar officials
o They were elite members of society
o Benefits included reduced penalties for breaking the law
o Many became very wealthy
Economy
 Sea trade became important
 Opened Pacific ports to foreign traders
Society
 Food was abundant and population grew to 100 million
 A dozen more cities had populations of half million