The complete Chinese history: A timeline of major events

This week’s column — which will be the last one in our Kuora series — comes from one of Kaiser’s answers originally posted to Quora on January 10, 2016. It’s a fitting end, considering all the subjects Kaiser has written about over the past.

What should a major event chronological list be like for a beginner to learn Chinese history?

If I were to put together such a list for a beginner — and by “beginner” I’m assuming, say, a relatively bright undergraduate — it would include the following:

• The land and the people
  • China’s geography and climate and their impact on Chinese civilization
  • The major river systems of China
• Mythohistory: the legendary sage kings and their probable historical counterparts
• The Xia dynasty
• Beginnings of a Chinese state: The Shang dynasty
  • Shamanic religion: Scapulimancy and bronze vessels
  • Early Chinese cosmological concepts
• The Zhou conquest of Shang
  • The great Zhou kings, Wu and Wen
  • The idealization of Zhou feudalism in later Confucian thought
• The Crisis of 771 BC and the Eastern Zhou
• The Spring & Autumn Period and early Chinese philosophical traditions
  • Confucianism
  • Taoism
• Warfare in the Spring & Autumn Period
• The Warring States Period
  • The major Warring States (Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei, and Qin)
  • The Hundred Schools of Thought
    • Mencius
    • Han Fei
    • Xunzi
    • Mozi
• The Rise of the Qin State
• The Unification of China under Qin
  • The creation of the first modern state
  • The rapid collapse of Qin
• The Chu-Han Contention

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• The Western Han Dynasty
  • Liu Bang
  • Han Wudi
  • The Xiongnu, and the constant struggle between steppe and sown
  • Confucianism as official state doctrine
  • Sima Qian and Chinese historiography
  • Early Han contacts with the West
• The decline of the Western Han: Great families, eunuchs
• The Wang Mang interregnum
• The Restoration of Han
• Religious Daoism
• The collapse of state power in Eastern Han
• The wars of the Three Kingdoms
  • The Battle of Red Cliff
  • The end of Shu Han
  • The triumph of Wei
• The Six Dynasties and Sixteen Kingdoms
  • The southern dynasties
  • The northern “barbarian” kingdoms
• The spread of Buddhism in China
• The Turco-Sinitic aristocracy of North China in Sui and Tang
• Reunification under Sui
• The Tang Dynasty
  • Li Yuan and Li Shimin
• Wu Zetian (Empress Wu)
• Tang at its cosmopolitan zenith (Tang Minghuang)
  • The arts in Tang: Poetry, pottery, exoticism
  • Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism in Tang China
• The Battle of Talas
• Yang Guifei and An Lushan
• The An-Shi Rebellion
• The restoration of Tang
• Han Yu and post-An Lushan nativism
• The Huang Chao Rebellion
• The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
• The rise of the Khitan
• The Northern Song Dynasty
  • The triumph of civilian over military aristocracy
  • The maturation of the Confucian civil service
• The Naito Hypothesis: China’s early modern transition, Tang-Song
• Song Neo-Confucianism (Zhu Xi)
• The Rise of the Jurchen
• The Jin dynasty of North China
• The Wang Anshi Reforms
• The Conservative Opposition
• Yue Fei and Song Resistance
• The Mongol Conquest
• Kubilai Khan and the Mongol Yuan dynasty
• Zhu Yuanzhang and the founding of the Ming
• The Rise of Zhu Di (the Yongle Emperor)
• The voyages of Zheng He
• Ming isolationism
• Wang Yangming and late Neo-Confucianism
• The Bao-Jia system in Ming
• “Dwarf bandits” and the late Ming
• The Rise of the Manchus
• Nurhachi, Hong Taiji, and Abahai
• Li Zicheng and the Fall of the Ming
• The Kangxi Emperor
• Pacifying China in early Qing (Revolt of the Three Feudatories)
• The Yongzheng Emperor
• The Qianlong Emperor

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• The Qing conquests
• The Macartney Mission
• Lin Zexu and the First Opium War

Kuora: The Opium Wars and China’s Century of National Humiliation

• The Unequal Treaties
• Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping Civil War
• Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and the Self-Strengthening Movement
• The Second Opium War (Arrow War)
• The Qing restoration of the 1870s
• The First Sino-Japanese War and the Scramble for Concessions
• The Hundred Days Reforms
• Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao
• The Boxer Uprising
• Late Qing Reforms
• Sun Yatsen and the Tongmenghui
• The Xinhai Revolution
• Yuan Shikai
• Second and Third Revolutions
• The Kuomintang
• The Warlords
  • Duan Qirui, Wu Peifu, the Zhili/Anhui Cliques
  • The “good” warlords (Yan Xishan, Feng Yuxiang)
  • Zhang Zuolin
• The May Fourth Movement / New Culture Movement
  • Liberalism, scientism, anarchism, socialism, communism
• Cai Yuanpei, Hu Shi, Lu Xun, Chen Duxiu and other May Fourth notables
• The First United Front: Nationalists, Communists, and the Comintern
• The intraparty struggle in the KMT after Sun’s death
• The Rise of Chiang Kai-shek
• The Northern Expedition
• The White Terror of 1927
• Shanghai during the Nanjing Decade
• The Jiangxi Soviet
• Rising Japanese militarism (the Mukden Incident)
• The Long March
• The Rise of Mao Zedong and agrarian communism
• Japan’s conquest of Manchuria
• The Xi’an Incident
• The Second World War in China
  • Chongqing, Yan’an, and the Collaborationists
  • Chiang Kai-shek and the Americans
• Civil War, Pt. 2
• The Communist Victory

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• Land Reform, the Marriage Law
• The Korean War
• The High Tide of Collectivization
• The Hundred Flowers Movement/The Anti-Rightist Campaign
• The Sino-Soviet Split
• The Great Leap Forward
• Mao in Retreat: the Liu Shaoqi/Deng Xiaoping interregnum
• The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
• The purge of Lin Biao
• The Rise and Fall of the Gang of Four
• The Nixon/Kissinger Opening
• The Tangshan Earthquake
• The Death of Mao
• Deng Xiaoping’s return

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• The Democracy Wall Movement
• Reform and Opening begins: The Household Responsibility System
• Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, and liberal reform
• The Tiananmen crisis of 1989

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• Deng Xiaoping’s “Southern Tour”
• The Hong Kong Handover 1997
• WTO accession, 2001
• Jiang Zemin and the heyday of Chinese capitalism
• Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao
• The Internet revolution
• Pivot Point 2008
• The Urumqi incident 2009
• The Rise of Xi Jinping
• The Bo Xilai Affair, 2012
• The Xi Jinping Anti-Corruption Drive

Did I leave out any important topics in this imaginary syllabus? Let us know.

Kuora was a weekly column. We hope you enjoyed it. Here are a few of our favorites:

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And here was the very first:

Kuora: The contradictory truths of continuity and change