The first emperor of the Song dynasty was general Taizu. During the Song there were changes in Chinese society. They became more mobile and moved to cities
social advancement civil service system
The levels of society in the Song Empire changed due to advancement in civil service the power of old aristocratic family faded. It created a larger upper class made of scholar-officials and their families. A powerful class of people like this is called Gentry. Gained status through education as well as needing it to gain civil service positions for status and did gain the status through land ownership. Below this was the urban middle class which were merchants shopkeepers artisans minor officials. Below this was the urban society which where laborers soldiers and servants and the peasant lived on the countryside.
The status of women was much different then how the classes were split up. When there family or husband had a higher status they were more affected as they weren't as affected when they were a peasant and work in fields. A sign of this and changing status when women were very young their feet bound were together which broke arch and curled all but there big toe under they were then cripple this called lily foot. this reflected the wealth prestige of husband who afford a beautiful impractical wife. As women work was less important. This reflected their status and that it had declined in song and Song especially for women in upper-class city's
They established the capital Hangzhou, the coastal city south of Changjiang helps for trading by sea.
There was military trouble from 1127-1279 but the southern song dynasty saw rapid economic growth. The south had become the “economic heartland of china”. Merchants became rich from the flourishing trade with the Chinese in north, nomads of central Asia, and the people of Western Asia and Europe. More people moved to the city during tang and song and china's population nearly doubled 100mil with the city with over 1mil pop each. This could be because of increase in trade china controlling a lot and foreigners moving to the flourishing place of china.
China became also one of the most advanced societies. Due to the increase of population more food was needed so they imported fast ripening rice in the year 1000 from Vietnam that would allow being harvested twice a year instead of once. To ensure farmers knew of improvement of rice officials distributed seedlings as their officials worked together with the farmers to feed growing population in the cities.
trade and foreign contact
Under Tang emperors, foreign trade was flourishing with the new technologies. With the Tang imperial army guarding the silk road which was linked to the west this made traders feel safe so they were free to trade and help it grow. Merchants relied on the sea for sea trade and advances compass made easier water travel along with and coastline ports. Along with trading colonies by southeast Asia. Foreign traders which were mostly Arab who lived in Chinese cities. Goods made their way to Korea japan Indian ocean and to India Persian gulf coastline of Africa. The trade of ideas and-and religions such as Buddhism. Exchanges of ideas and goods was a 2 way meaning for foreign religions including Islam and some eastern sects of Christianity spread to china and received follower. The trade of ideas and social economic technological transformations of song and tang permanently shaped Chinese.
They lost control of the decline of the tang dynasty. After fall of tang dynasty, rival warlords divide china into kingdoms.General maize tries to reunite china but never regained western and northern this was lost to nomads and ended with a smaller empire. In the year, 1100 Manchurian people(Jurchen) conquered northern china and established jin. The song was forced to retreat across Huang he the song then only ruled southern china. To try to stop threats they bribed northern lands with silver silk and tea but northern lands still stayed as a threat.
The technological and science advancement took place by scholars and artisans. Some of the inventions were the movable type a printer that could arrange blocks of individual characters in a frame to make a page for printing, previously printers carved the words of a whole page into one large block. Gunpowder for explosives weapons bombs grenades small rockets and cannons. Other invention and items for trade were porcelain mechanical clock paper money and the magnetic compass to create stronger trading on the water. Between 1000-1200 was called the rich period of Chinese math there were advances in arithmetic and the algebraic idea for using neg numbers spreads from the south to west china.
