Talk:Timeline of Chinese history

Important figures
Columns of rulers and other persons can be merged into one named as "important figures of each period" or similar titles that doesn't necessarily define a person as a ruler. Listing and/or linking to rulers and persons of a ruling Chinese entity should be on the dynasty page since a dynasty has lots of emperors and listing each of them would make the page too long to load. The table is using the dynastic cycle approach of the Chinese Historiography. Some other approaches can be beneficial. User:kt2hello

Hey I just started this page so that it exists, and I it is aligned with the dates I found in the 'pedia. If you disagree with them, you are welcome to edit. olivier 16:58 Nov 23, 2002 (UTC)

I think that it is important to leave the "ruler" column for rulers only, since it provides useful information, especially for the 20th century.

Now you can argue, how do we define a ruler? Is it a man with great political power, or power over the people? Does he use fear to instill his leadership, or benevolence? Or money?For instance, in the 1980s and 1990s, Deng Xiaoping held most of the actual power in China, although he did not have any official title aknowledging it. For that reason, I have added him (at least the year of his death) in the "other people" column. Nevertheless, keeping the ruler name in one column gives a good sense of time, since most periods are remembered in association with the ruler or the ruling entity.

Which brings to the next point: list of emperors. This list is very long. The only emperors, who I have included in the timetable are those which have an article in the 'pedia. I think it is OK for the time being. In any case, I think that major emperors should have their name in this timeline. It might be useful to insert a note at the top of the table, saying that the full list of emperors can be found in the dynasty articles.

Regarding alternative approaches to the dynastic cycle, again, I am open. olivier 12:05 Nov 24, 2002 (UTC)


 * If one looked at Chinese history from a dynastic persepctive, rulers become important; however looking from other perspectives (like social or ethological) yielded other meaningful ideas. For instance Qin and Han Dynasty was era of prosperity whereas N&S dynasties is an era of disunity or a "recharging" period for the even more prosperous Tang era.


 * Your point of associating ruler(s) of a specific dynasty to a period in history is correct for short-lived dynasties like Sui and Qin. For long-lasting dynasties like Tang, Han, Ming, Song and Qing, others derive some altenative ways of periodization, such as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Period of Warring States for Zhou dynasty, which is more popular than linking a king of Zhou to a historical period. So you may want to include those periodizations in the table. For years after 1949, time is remembered in association with the "rulers" according to your definition. Since 53 years of existence is not that much wrt to Tang, Ming, Qing etc, somebody may come up with other means of periodization in future. For time being the current representation for those years is okay. In other words dynastic cycle periodization is adequate and combine all important figures including rulers of a dynasty under the "{other} people" column. In so doing one can avoid defining a "ruler". User:kt2 04:17 Nov 29, 2002 (UTC)

Heading "Ruler"
It is inappropriate to equate presidents of the republics/nominal heads of the Communist Party as "rulers". Theoretically, they are not supposed to rule. They're supposed to serve the people/party/etc. --Jiang 04:19, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Would "head" work, even with emperors? --Menchi 04:31, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Head of what? Head of state? That would work, but only the "head" of the PRC listed on this timeline is not the head of state, but rather the head of the CPC. Try "leader"? Still iffy... --Jiang 04:34, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Is it okay to add a row below 'Mainland'? Should we use "President" or "Chairman" then? --FallingInLoveWithPitoc 04:35, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I changed it to "Ruler / Leader". Feel free to improve. --Menchi 04:47, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * We can simply drop the table template (so avoiding any "head" definition"). An example off the top of my head is Timeline of Polish history. kt2 04:52, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Removing the template just to solve the "ruler" issue sounds a bit drastic to me. Of course I am biased, since I started this template, but I like the table format and find it much more informative than the Polish one, because I find that the information is presented in a much clearer manner. Now regarding the "ruler" thing: the table is already broken down in 3 parts: pre-1949, PRC on mainland, ROC on Taiwan. We could make another break at 1911 and specify a different header for each section. For instance the "ruler" pre-1911 would be "emperor", the ROC on Taiwan guy would be "president"... olivier 13:19, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * I agree with you, Olivier, but what about the "ruler" of PRC? President or Chairman? --FallingInLoveWithPitoc 13:37, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * For the PRC, should we replace the communist party heads with the heads of state? --Jiang 19:33, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * That sounds appropriate so far, as in PRC, heads of communist party = heads of state. since it took me half an hour to save the page last time, i am not gonna to edit this page again, too long more me. :p --FallingInLoveWithPitoc 08:59, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The head of the communist party is not always head of state. For ecample, Zhao Ziyang was premier and never president.

Should we create a section for imperial China? I dont think the rulers before Qin Shihuangdi were known as "emprerors". They were "kings". We also have multiple people claiming the presidency in pre-WW2 ROC. --Jiang 17:38, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The 'mnemonic' section should be marked as to what information it aids in remembering, as currently non-Chinese speakers cannot figure this out.

My Humble Opinion
This article needs major rework as far as everything after 1949 is considered. There is no acknowledgement that many people would not consider Taiwan's recent history a part of Chinese history. Also, assuming we have these dual histories, the PRC's history is obviously a lot more important to China. And in addition to that, if we have this weighted PRC history over ROC history for China, we can't show them as one after the other--we need a visualization that does them in parallel or something else creative. This makes little sense to me as is.--DownUnder555 17:18, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Seconded. Suggesting a parallel representation. 2006.06.30 User:BalthCat
 * The parallel presentation is good. But it should technically stop after 1945 or around 1950 since it is Taiwan territory by that time. Now you end up duplicating the Timeline of Taiwanese history afterwards. Benjwong 17:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

buddhism
buddhism was introduced during the han dynasty

Missing
Yangshao culture 5000-3000 bce

Longshan culture 3000-2000 bce

The Art of War 6th century bce

Erya first dictionary 3rd century bce

Book burning under Qin Shi Huang 213 bce

The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art 1st century ce

Compass invented 271 ce

Grand Canal of China

Zheng He 1405-1433, first open ocean exploration

Journey to the West 1590

Gunpowder 9th century ce <--- Article wasn't sure about exact date

Woodblock printing

Steel 500bce <--- Article wasn't sure about exact date

Chinese porcelain Eastern Han 100-200 ce <--- Article wasn't sure about exact date

standard exams to qualify for public office: Sui dynasty <--- Article wasn't sure about exact date

"Ten Classics", standard textbooks used for exam for public office 619ce <--- No article
 * I have fixed the information on steel; as for Chinese porcelain, that is still to be inserted into the timeline.-- Pericles of Athens  Talk 16:42, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Kung Fu Nasherx (talk) 16:35, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Page prints incompletely
This page has some problems when viewed with Firefox. Perhaps with the cascading stylesheet for printing, that causes it to not print any of Imperial China's history. It skips to modern China. If you try a print preview in Firefox you will see the problem.
 * Prints ok with latest firefox 2.0 as of february 2007. Benjwong 19:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Modern China duplicated
Is there any particular reason why modern Chinese history is (more or less) duplicated? 惑乱 分からん 22:05, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It is correct. One part is the "Republic of China" and the other is "People's Republic of China".  Though I am in favor of calling it Republic of China/Pre-Taiwan to avoid confusion.  Benjwong 19:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

BCE
This page should use BCE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.207.180.176 (talk) 04:02, 17 November 2006

Compliments
This Project is very helpful in research, if you need any help, contact me. AJ 23:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

BCE
This page should not use B.C.E. No body uses this any more.

AJ 23:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Timeline of Chinese History.. or Taiwan's?
Why in this entire timeline of "Chinese" history is Mao Zedong not mentioned once? And why is everything in this timeline after 1949 only related to Chen Shuibian and no one in the Main Land? I think this article could use some revision... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.119.170.83 (talk) 22:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC).
 * Mao is listed. About the coverage of people after Chen Shuibian I think you are not reading this correctly.  The red and blue do split starting with the 1940s. Benjwong 03:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The split is v. messy, which is why I made the mistake of deleting it, thinking that it doesn't belong in the "mainland china" section. Why not put the red and the blue side by side instead?
 * How do you do side by side tables?? Benjwong 15:31, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

My Mistake
It appears that Mao has been listed, but it appears as though the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China have been listed seperately.. which In my opinion, Taiwan shouldn't have it's own timeline. It seems to be biased in favor of taiwan being it's own country which it is not, and shouldn't be treated as such. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.119.170.83 (talk) 22:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC).
 * I was proposing that the Republic of China timeline stop at 1949. Because everything afterwards is going over to Taiwan's timeline and that overlaps.  Are you saying the opposite?  That Taiwan should be covered here because it is part of Chinese history?  Benjwong 03:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Cutting the ROC timeline off at 1949 is POV. --Nlu (talk) 05:43, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Taiwan should be listed, and listed separately- and this is completely irrelevent to the highly sensitive issue of independence, just that it would be v. v. messy to put the two together and confuse everybody, because the leadership of the two localities are separate people. I did however, move the red bit so that it precedes the blue bit, merely because the red chunk of land is geographically bigger than the blue, and the history there is more colourful than the blue bit.
 * I splitted the table in 2 sections. If we don't cut off at 1949 and go over the Taiwan timeline, then dual table help with the presentation. Benjwong 23:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Grand canal in 486 BC?
"The Grand Canal of China" usually refers to the canal in Sui Dynasty that connects Luoyang and Hangzhou. Here it appears in the time slot of 486BC, which suggests those built under Qin state. They should be described with a different title, I think. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.104.29.223 (talk) 16:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC).
 * You are welcome to change it. Benjwong 16:21, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I have fixed that information.-- Pericles of Athens  Talk 04:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

New Table Format?
Can someone tell me where there has been an ongoing discussion on format change of an entire table? If anything shouldn't we be going by the format used in the US/Canada? I am not against it. I thought the idea was to point things out that are useful and worth mentioning and not every little detail in 5000+ year of history. Benjwong 02:34, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't intend to touch the article content at all, let alone include every little detail. I figured the new format looked far more attractive.  And it allows for a strictly chronological presentation, whereas the earlier look demands reversals when periods overlap - 581 AD comes after 589, for example.  I won't revert you without hearing from you again.  I hope we're in agreement. Dallyripple 02:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Here are some things to consider before the change.
 * If you look at Table of Chinese monarchs, just the size of this table alone is scary to overlap into any timeline. This current timeline only incorporates rulers that are note-worthy from a period.
 * It is also scary to count the number of centuries between 7000BC and 2006AD.
 * The century concept is good to incorporate, except we are dealing with a history where people are far more interested in the events of a particular dynasty and the ruler under it.... than the century of just the year. If anything it should split by dynasty into smaller sections.
 * Also if you notice, there is an overlap here. After 1949 Republic of China is Taiwan is another section.  I have proposed that everything in Taiwan stop after 1949, but we have agreed to have 2 tables within the modern china section. So this is not a straight chronological flow by year.  Benjwong 03:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The new format takes care of all these issues. What's the problem? Dallyripple 17:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It does not. It requires a row for every notable ruler of the period. It requires a row for start and end time for major periods.  If we are changing formats, why not use the US format, which is used in US, Canada, France, Germany etc? Benjwong 17:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Missionary exodus
Foreign missionaries began leaving either voluntarily or by force in 1949 when the Communist takeover happened. The last foreign Christian workers to leave were members of the China Inland Mission, and the event is recorded in that article. The Christianity in China article needs much updating.

I am sorry to see that there was a deletion of the event in 1976 of the Christian churches being allowed to reopen publicly. The event of their closure remains for the year 1966. Please explain.Brian0324 13:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes I requested we get some links in your talk page. How about...


 * 1953 - foreign missionaries leave > China Inland Mission Christians leave China.
 * 1976 - Churches re-open > Christian churches reopen


 * Benjwong 00:34, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Replace the Battle of Chosin Reservoir with the Battle of Ch'ongch'on River
Battle of Ch'ongch'on River forced UN to treat Communist China as equals with other nations while the fate of Korea is sealed in the aftermath, Battle of Chosin Reservoir did neither, so I replace the battles to show its importance in Chinese history. Jim101 (talk) 05:27, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello!
Um... Is this information correct? There is two of the same king in the Xia Dynasty. Just asking! Well... it was useful! Thanks soooooo much! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.140.74.178 (talk) 00:07, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Chinese chronology?
So how can we know these dates are correct?

No, I'm not saying that Chinese historians don't know their subject, or that these dates are not trustworthy unless vetted by Western scholars. There have been countless intelligent historians in China over the centuries, many of whom knew their material far better than any living person. What I'm asking is how did historians of China determine what these dates are?

The only clue we have is the single sentence, which lacks a reliable citation, "Dates prior to 841 BC, the beginning of the Gonghe Regency, are provisional and subject to dispute." Does that mean every date up to that point is absolutely accurate? Despite the usual problems of unreliable sources, faulty memories, & scribal corruption? (Historians may be top-notch but the materials they work with sometimes is not.) It's expected that historians have determined which sources are the most reliable for fixing dates & have synchronized these into a unified reference that stretches back into the 8th (or maybe 9th) centuries BC with reasonable reliability & can offer approximate dates for earlier periods.

So is it possible for someone to write an article explaining how this was done? -- llywrch (talk) 06:37, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I believe dates from the Han period and onwards can generally be considered accurate. There's a long tradition in China for keeping records of historical events, as shown by the Spring and Autumn Annals, so the answer to how the historians of China determined a date will usually be that when it happened, someone wrote it down and when later the histories were written these archival records still existed.


 * But all the problems you mention still occur though. Some times the sources give conflicting dates, some times a date can shown to be wrong. For example, the dynastic histories typically dates events by regnal year, lunar month and name of the day in the 60 day cycle. If an event is dated to the bingzi day in the 2nd month, but there was no bingzi day in the 2nd month that year, then obviously something is wrong. However most of the time the accuracy of a date can not be either proven or disproven since it only survives through a single source with no internal or external evidence to contradict it, but prefixing all of them with a disclaimer would be rather tiresome I believe.


 * Prior to the imperial age it becomes more difficult. There was no common epoch, everyone used the regnal years of the rulers of their own states. And different states did not all use the same calendar. The pioneering work in synchronzing the chronologies of the different states was done by Sima Qian in Records of the Grand Historian. But while his work remains indispensable as a source, we know by comparing to other sources, such as the Bamboo Annals, that his chronology of the Warring States contains several major errors, forcing him in one case, King Ai of Wei, to invent a ruler to make it fit together.


 * Sima Qian starts his absolute chronology with the Gonghe era, anyone who does the same is following in his footsteps. It's clear though that this a conscious editorial decision by him. He knew of chronolgies extending further back, but considered them too unreliable to be worth transmitting. The Bamboo Annals provide absolute dates all the way back to the Yellow Emperor.


 * Modern historians have used archaeological evidence, primarily bronze inscriptions and oracular texts, to reconstruct a chronology of the late Shang and Western Zhou. Obviously given the limited source material, perfect accuracy is not possible.


 * The earliest oracular texts, that are known to us at least, dates back to King Wuding of Shang, so his reign is basically the divide between the prehistorical and historical eras of China, and any dates before his time must be considered very approximate. Shang inscriptions mentions the names of several ancestral Shang kings reigning before Wuding, and their names correlate very well with the kinglists found in the traditional histories. So we can at least say with some confidence that these kings existed. When it comes to the Xia the debate starts to take on political overones, most Chinese historians believe the Xia are fundamentally historical, most non-Chinese historians believe the Xia are entirely invented.  Fornadan (t) 22:17, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

The Tienaman square Massacre and Holocaust denial
I noticed that the events of June 4, 1989 are not mentioned. I know that the Chinese government does not recognize this horrible atrocity as a real event, but everyone else in the world does, and it's on the same level as the denials of the genocides of the Jews and Gypsies in WW2 and the Armenians and Assyrians in WWI. Sure the number of dead are not in the millions, but they're not in the mere teens either. I put the incident back in the timeline where it belongs. Arglebargle79 (talk) 16:20, 5 December 2017 (UTC)