Since the Chinese New Year on February 5th, we've been investigating the nature of the Dragon. This week, we will learn a little more about the children of the Dragon, and their history. An embroidered Dragon, with the hare in the Full Moon    China is huge. Its territory is roughly equivalent to Europe's in size. Its historical and literary tradition have been written in essentially the same language for more than 3,000 years. All the basic human inventions; agriculture, animal-rearing, pottery, building and writing, date back to the mythical period of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, sometime prior to 2,000 BC. The Hsia, Shang (or Yin), and Chou Dynasties cover most of the two thousand years leading up to the start of the Common Era, representing reigns of approximately 500, 500, and 800 years respectively, beginning around 2,000 BC. This stability is not seen again until the Tang (618-907 AD), Ming (1368-1644 AD) and Manchu (1644-1911 AD) Dynasties. That brings us up to 1912, and the beginning of the Republic.    Although Chinese history is cohesive, and obviously very old, it presents us with a rather unique problem. During the short lived Ch'in Dynasty, from 221-207 BC, a minister by the name of Li Szu managed to convince his Emperor that all books had to be burned, except for technical manuals on medicine, divination, agriculture and arboriculture. Four hundred and sixty scholars were said to have died attempting to evade this order. At the same time that Hannibal was marching up and down the Italian peninsula, laying ruin to the cities and countryside of the allies of Rome, so were the books in China being burned, its history going up in flames.    We have already taken an extensive look at what happens at the end of an Age (AW- 3/19/99 - 6/18/99) as social disorder and disintegration undermine the pillars of previous civilizations. So we find the collected wisdom of three Chinese dynasties and their legends, representing all that had gone before, being eradicated in a single stroke.    Although the decree was revoked in 191 BC and much of the literature reconstructed, it was homogenized through the perspectives of those recreating them in such a way as to reinforce the position of the scholar class (which had obviously been dealt a serious blow by the foregoing decree), together with their concept of a hierarchical system in which all were subservient to the state in the person of a ruler. Texts were systematized to show what should be; not what had actually been. Old sources were edited to bring them in conformity with Confucian theory, currently in vogue. Much was omitted, and other materials were not recovered. It is through this portal in time that all preceding myths, legends, and histories must be viewed, as though seen through an opaque lens.    Although Li Szu was a scholar, and saw himself as an integral part of a new (albeit short-lived) dynasty, he argued that the Five Emperors had not copied each other; the Three Dynasties had not imitated their predecessors. It was to these periods that all creation and innovation were attributed.    Thus, even in China, as the Age of Aries came to a conclusion and the Age of Pisces, a sign of homogenization, began, the world was being reborn again, at the start of another new dawn. The traditional map of China China    In terms of Chinese culture, the story is one of expansion by the northern peoples into the south, a succession of struggles for hegemony, of overlapping territories and boundary disputes until the 3rd century BC, when China was first united under Shih Huany Ti of the Ch'in dynasty, 221-207 BC. The western term, China, comes from the name of this dynasty: the Chinese name is Ch'ung-ku, or Middle Kingdom.    Under the Emperor    This first union was re-established under the Han dynasty (202 BC- 220 AD), when China covered most of its present territorial extent. For most of the period since, the system of government has been one of a centralized state rule, until 1912, by an emperor and administered by a bureaucracy, led by civil servants who passed a system of public examinations based on a knowledge of the philosophical classics. Translate to: Français | Deutsch | Italiano | Português | Español If you're on a Mac,  and you're NOT using Netscape,  you're missing the special font,  by way of TrueDoc Dynamic Fonts,  as seen in this CLIP: So if you like the font, and you've got the time, download