China, it's big and it lasted a long time, but we've put all of it into one video.
Nope, no, we haven't, that would not be right.
This video will cover about the same amount of time as Ancient Egypt, so it's a long amount
of time, but still ancient history.
The location of China had a lot of influence on its history and culture.
Flights to China from the outside world were really hard to get back then.
Really, really, hard, since airplanes were not invented for a few thousand years after
the time we're talking about.
The Yangtze River and the Huang He River or the Yellow River were the rivers in China
where early Chinese civilizations began.
To the north and west of those river valleys there are very large deserts, and to the south,
the Himalayan mountains.
And of course, to the East is the Pacific Ocean, the largest ocean in the world.
So, getting to and from China during ancient times from the West was very difficult and
often deadly which kept these civilizations from others' influence, trade and sometimes
invasions for thousands of years.
The period of Chinese history this chapter will focus is the bronze age until the Han
Dynasty, over 2000 years.
The Yellow River was not an easy place for early people to live.
While the river's water was important for growing food, it also flooded often.
These floods were sometimes made worse by early solutions to contain the river.
The thing about floods though, is that they are far too large for anyone to fight alone.
So, the river created a problem that needed people to work together or, dragons!
Okay, before we get to the dragons, we should back up a bit.
Like other civilizations, people began faming by the rivers, mostly growing millet near
the Yellow River in the north, and mostly rice near the Yangtze River in the south.
The copper, tin and bronze ages of prehistory happened and during the bronze age, dynasties
began to govern the people.
A dynasty is a period of time where a family has the ruling power, often for many people's
lives, and in China the ruling dynasty was believed to have the mandate of heaven.
The mandate of heaven was the idea that the dynasty in power was meant to be in power,
as if a divine force decided it.
When a dynasty lost power, it was believed that they lost the mandate of heaven, and
the new rulers earned it.
Basically, it's the idea that whoever is in charge is supposed to be in charge, because
they're in charge.
The first dynasty, the Xia, is thought to be a myth by historians.
Stories of the Xia are mostly about its most famous leader, Yu the Engineer.
Yu wasn't the typical engineer that sat at a drawing board measuring, calculating, and
making models, Yu was a bit more... hands-on?
Stories of Yu include him teaming up with mer-men river spirits, turning into a bear,
taming and defeating monsters... one with nine heads, almost never seeing his wife (okay,
some engineers probably do that) and asking dragons to redirect the river and flood waters.
Anyone that's ever worked with dragons can tell you, they never make more coffee in the
break room, they're always giving spoilers at the water cooler and they're just terrible
with paperwork.
Now stories of mythical creatures in ancient cities are very common, stories of gods, and
creatures and god-creatures starting cities and civilizations are found throughout the
world.
So, while the stories of the Xia may not be true, it's still a bit of a historical mystery.
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