The Times History of the World. Richard Overy

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      TO 1392

      KOREA

      The area now known as Korea was the mountainous eastern edge of the Eurasian continent until the Yellow Sea formed and the west coast emerged to define a peninsula. Peoples migrated into and through the peninsula to the islands. Chinese political culture and Buddhism followed on, and states emerged. With Chinese aid, one of three competing kingdoms conquered the peninsula, but instability led to anarchy by the late 9th century. The successful kingdom created a bureaucratic state with strong aristocratic characteristics and established a Korean identity.

      During the last glacial maximum, “Korea” was high ground across a low plain (Yellow Sea) at the eastern end of Eurasia. Sea levels rose and a peninsula appeared between 14,000 BC and 6000 BC. Humans from 22,000 BC; villages from 10,000 BC; rice between 6000 and 4500 BC. Bronze was worked from 1000 BC and dolmens appeared.

      By 108 BC, the Han Empire had established colonies to trade for iron. Only the Lelang colony near Pyŏngyang survived until AD 313, when it was destroyed by a tribe from the middle reaches of the Yalu River, the Koguryo, who first revolted against the Chinese in AD 12. Over several centuries, the south politically evolved into Paekche in the southwest, Silla in the southeast, and the iron-rich principalities of Kaya in between.

      By the 6th century, the peninsular states were importing Chinese law, bureaucratic government, and land was monopolized by the state to centralize power. Koreans and Japanese fashioned compromises between the Chinese ideal of centralization and the native system of aristocracy, which resulted in semi-centralized political orders based on inheritance. Buddhism permeated every corner of the peninsula by 540 and was exported to Japan.

      An alliance between T’ang China and Silla destroyed Paekche in 660 and Koguryo in 668. The T’ang had promised to withdraw but betrayed Silla, attempting to seize the whole peninsula. By 676, Silla drove T’ang out, demonstrating that outside powers were unable to succeed on the peninsula without a local ally. T’ang completely retreated, and a new state called Pohai (Korean Parhae, 712–926) formed in Manchuria from tribal elements and Koguryo refugees.

      From the 8th century, northeast Asia saw peace: great cities, long-distance trade, and a cosmopolitan, state-oriented Buddhism. Kyŏngju, Silla’s capital, was a world city known to Arab traders. Ch’ang-an may have had nearly two million inhabitants, and Kyŏngju approached 900,000, swollen by slaves from the wars. Monks, merchants and diplomats wandered among Ch’ang-an, Kyŏngju, and Nara in Japan. Thereafter, “Korea” and “Japan” began to form separate identities.

      Sillan central control lapsed, and in 918, Wang Kŏn, a general outside the old aristocratic order, emerged to found a new dynasty named Koryŏ. Wang Kŏn peacefully absorbed the Sillan court in 935. His successors inherited the aristocratic pretensions of Silla and the desire to centralize. During the 10th century, a bureaucratic state was created, with examinations, ideology, salary ranks and centralized provincial appointments. Where Silla had conquered, Koryŏ unified. In 1126, the Liao (Jurchen) destroyed the Chinese Song Empire and Koryŏ faced a dilemma of identity: take the opportunity to expand out of the peninsula or accept its limitations. A rebellious faction argued for continental destiny in Manchuria. Kim Pu-sik, the general who suppressed them, produced an official history (Samguk sagi, c. 1145) that defined Koryŏ’s heritage as peninsular. After the Mongols invaded in 1232, an unofficial history (Samguk yusa, c. 1283) reaffirmed a peninsular identity and recorded foundation myths.

      Koryŏ nearly slipped into feudalism when abuse of civil privilege sparked a military coup d’etat in 1170. Military dictators did not create a new government, but ruled through the central government. Perhaps Koryŏ never disintegrated into feudalism because of the threat from northern barbarians, a threat Japan never faced. The Mongols invaded in 1232, but the Korean court resisted until 1270. The Koryŏ kings became sons-in-law to the Mongol Khans, and Koryŏ was press-ganged into supporting Mongol efforts to conquer Japan in 1274 and 1281. Both invasions failed.

      From the mid-14th century, Japanese piracy appeared to ravage Korea. In the north, the Mongols weakened and, in 1368, the new Ming dynasty dislodged the Mongols. Indecision at the Koryŏ court over whether to support the Mongols or the Ming resulted in a coup d’etat in 1388 and a new dynasty, the Chosŏn, was founded in 1392.

      TO 500 BC

      THE BEGINNINGS OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION

      India was the home of one of the oldest civilizations of history, which grew up along the banks of the Indus river. The Indus valley culture and the Vedic culture, which succeeded and was influenced by it, were the basis for the development of later Indian society, in particular for the major religious systems of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

      The early history of India is very difficult to recover. Archaeology can reveal something about the way of life of its earliest inhabitants, but little can be learned from written evidence. The earliest works of Indian literature, the Vedas, were composed in the centuries after 1200 BC, but they were not written down until probably the 5th century.

      HARAPPA AND MOHENJO-DARO

      Although the subcontinent had substantial human occupation from the Stone Age onwards, the first great Indian civilization was the Harappan culture which emerged in the Indus valley in the 3rd millennium BC. Like the slightly older civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt it was based on flood-plain agriculture, as the cultivation of the fertile land on either side of the Indus was able to provide enough of a surplus to support a complex urban society. Several substantial cities were built, of which the best explored are Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro.

      The Indus civilization also developed writing, and about 2000 seals with short pictographic inscriptions on them have been discovered. The script has not been deciphered, and until it is, little will be known about the political structure or religious beliefs of the Indus civilization.

      The presence of cylinder seals from Mesopotamia at Mohenjo-Daro and of Indus seals in Mesopotamia is evidence of trade between the two areas via the Persian Gulf, and tin and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan and Central Asia also made their way to the Indus. However around 2000 BC the ‘Harappan period’ came to an end, as the cities ceased to function and were replaced by a settlement pattern of agricultural villages and pastoral camps.

      POST-INDUS INDIA

      From around 1500 BC a new culture becomes apparent in India, characterized by a new language and rituals, and the use of horses and two-wheeled chariots. The traditional way to explain the changes was to talk of an “Aryan invasion”, with mounted bands of warriors riding in from the northwest and conquering the indigenous Indus population before moving eastwards to the Ganges. Support for this picture was claimed from one of the Vedas, the Rig Veda, where the Aryans are presented as conquering the cities of the darker skinned indigenous Dasas. Archaeological evidence offers little support for this theory however. The styles of pottery associated with the Indo-Aryans, known as Painted Grey Ware, which appears from c. 1100 BC, is similar to earlier Painted Black and Red Ware, and this may indicate that Indo-Aryan speakers were indigenous to the Indus plain. Whatever their origins, Indo-Aryan languages, from which Sanskrit developed, became widespread through Northern India.

      THE SOUTH

      Southern India was left largely untouched by the civilizations of the north. There were probably trading links between the Indus valley and the southern tip of the peninsula, but there was no urbanism in the south, where villages were the normal form of social organization. However, some limited form of common culture in the south is suggested by the distinctive megalithic tombs found over most of the area.

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