Tang+&+Song+China

**__Primary Source Analysis__ (**Ties That Bind: Paths to Power) Letter sent by a local functionary named Wu Bao to a high official to whom Wu hoped to attach himself and thus win advancement in the imperial bureaucracy. || What do we know about where this was created? What have we learned about this topic? Society that may be relevant? || We know that the Tang Dynasty succeeded the Sui in 618 C.E.; more stable then previous Sui dynasty. It sponsored one of the most glorious periods in Chinese history. Confucianism and the bureaucratic system were revived. || Who is the intended audience? How might they receive this? – quotes to support your claims? || The audience is a high ranking Chinese official. The official could interpret the letter in different ways. || What is the purpose of this document? Read between the lines, support claims with a quote || Niu Su wants to return to his native place in China to serve as a high ranking bureaucratic official. For a good salary. || Support with quotes || Wu Bao is requesting a favor from the official, hoping that he can return from the fringes of the Tang and serve as an official. “My native place is thousands of miles away, and many passes and rivers lie between.” || How does this relate to the big picture? What can it tell us as historians? Relate to ESPIRIT if possible || This letter tells us that ways in which the Cinese bureaucracy worked in the Tang and Song eras. Tang dynasty was not controlled in a way that was necessarily fair to all citizens applying to military/civil service. || media type="custom" key="7740721"
 * Author – Who created this? What do we know about the author? What might influence their opinions? || Short story by Tang author Niu Su.
 * **Place** – Where and when was it created - || Created in China during the Tang era ||
 * **Prior Knowledge**
 * **Audience**
 * **Reason for Creation**
 * **The Main Idea**
 * **Significance**

The appearance of the Sui dynasty at the end of the 6th century C.E signaled a return to strong dynastic control in China. In the Tang era that followed, a Confucian revival improved the position of the scholar administrators and provided the ideological basis for a return to highly centralized rule under an imperial dynasty. Overwhelmed by internal rebellions and nomadic incursions, the Tang gave away to the Song in the early 10th century. Although the Song domains were smaller than those of the Tang, the Confucian revival flourished under the successor dynasty. The tang and Song eras were a time of major shifts in the population balance within China, new patterns of trade and commerce, renewed urban expansion novel forms of artistic and literary expression, and a series of technological innovations. From the Tang era until the 18th century, the Chinese economy was one of the world’s most advanced in terms of market network, volume of overseas trade, productivity per land area, and the sophistication of its tools and techniques of craft production. The Song rulers manage to survive the assaults of the nomads from the north by retreating to the south. But as the dynasty weakened, enduring patterns of nomadic incursions resurfaced and built to the apex of pastoral military and political expansion under the Mongols. The Song emperor could not longer retreat far enough to escape the onslaught of the nomadic commander, Chinggis Khan. So the Song dynasty was conquered by 1279.
 * Summary of Tang and Song:**