0:00:20 > 0:00:23China is the oldest nation on earth.
0:00:24 > 0:00:28For thousands of years its rulers believed their task was to keep
0:00:28 > 0:00:33human society in balance with the eternal order of the universe.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38The emperor who achieved that harmony would receive
0:00:38 > 0:00:42the mandate of heaven, blessed by the ancestors.
0:00:44 > 0:00:47But in the late 19th century the collision with the West shook
0:00:47 > 0:00:49China to its core.
0:00:51 > 0:00:56In midwinter 1899, the emperor came here to the Altar of Heaven
0:00:56 > 0:01:02in Beijing to ask the ancestors for support in China's hour of crisis,
0:01:02 > 0:01:06as the empire crumbled in the face of rebellion and foreign armies.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12It was the last time the ritual was performed.
0:01:16 > 0:01:21Here, just before dawn on the winter solstice...
0:01:23 > 0:01:28..the emperor prostrated himself before the powers of the universe.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36He performed rituals that they believed went back
0:01:36 > 0:01:405,000 years to the Yellow Emperor, the mythical first founder of China.
0:01:43 > 0:01:46He made a report to the ancestors about the state of the empire.
0:01:48 > 0:01:51But that winter of 1899...
0:01:51 > 0:01:54China faced disaster.
0:01:57 > 0:02:03The following year, 1900, China was plunged into catastrophe
0:02:03 > 0:02:05with rebellion, flood and famine...
0:02:07 > 0:02:08..foreign aggression...
0:02:12 > 0:02:17..and the new century saw swiftly the fall of the Empire,
0:02:17 > 0:02:21short-lived republic, Communist revolution
0:02:21 > 0:02:25and then the insane madness of the Cultural Revolution.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30But despite the tragedies of the 20th century,
0:02:30 > 0:02:32the Chinese people have come through.
0:02:35 > 0:02:40Today China is writing its own story once more, under a new mandate.
0:02:42 > 0:02:47So long the greatest civilisation on earth, China is rising again.
0:02:48 > 0:02:52It's a great time to be looking at the events which have shaped
0:02:52 > 0:02:57the history of China and the ideals which have made its culture
0:02:57 > 0:03:02so distinctive and so brilliant for so long.
0:03:42 > 0:03:45Every year in spring millions of Chinese people
0:03:45 > 0:03:46set off on the journey home.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52It's the time of the Qingming Festival,
0:03:52 > 0:03:53the festival of light,
0:03:53 > 0:03:57when, since ancient times, the Chinese have honoured the ancestors.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04I'm heading down to the city of Wuxi
0:04:04 > 0:04:08for a very special occasion, a family reunion.
0:04:10 > 0:04:15For the last 30 years Chinese people have grown up in a consumer society.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20After the break with Communism, China has been on a headlong
0:04:20 > 0:04:23rush into the future.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31But there's a deeper China, for as new freedoms beckon,
0:04:31 > 0:04:34the people themselves are reaching back to the things
0:04:34 > 0:04:37that have mattered most to them in their history.
0:04:37 > 0:04:42And for the Chinese people, identity begins with the family.
0:04:43 > 0:04:48Sometimes the new proves less enticing than was first thought
0:04:48 > 0:04:54and the old far more durable than anyone had ever imagined.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05This is the Qin family of Wuxi.
0:05:15 > 0:05:16BIRDS CHIRP
0:05:28 > 0:05:32It's dawn on the day of the ancestors, what the Chinese call
0:05:32 > 0:05:34Tomb-Sweeping Day.
0:05:36 > 0:05:38And the Qin family gather at the grave of their
0:05:38 > 0:05:42founding ancestor, Qin Guan,
0:05:42 > 0:05:44a poet who lived 1,000 years ago.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52They have come from all over China
0:05:52 > 0:05:57and further afield to make their own report to the ancestors.
0:05:57 > 0:05:58To tell them how the family is doing
0:05:58 > 0:06:03and how the ancestors and their values still live on in us.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08As the ancients used to say, repaying our roots.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14Amazing scene, isn't it?
0:06:14 > 0:06:18It recalls the whole of Chinese history over the last 100 years,
0:06:18 > 0:06:23wars, revolutions, famines, families broken up
0:06:23 > 0:06:27and cast to the four winds, and yet they come back with this
0:06:27 > 0:06:31kind of homing instinct, almost, to the tomb of the founder,
0:06:31 > 0:06:35as if everything can be reconstituted again.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41These rituals were banned in the Communist era
0:06:41 > 0:06:45and the grave was lost after the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50But when the revolutionary time drew to a close, Frank Ching
0:06:50 > 0:06:52and his sister came searching for the tomb.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58Back in 1982, when I found that gravestone,
0:06:58 > 0:07:00none of these things existed.
0:07:00 > 0:07:04When I first sought it out I was like a blank slate,
0:07:04 > 0:07:06I didn't know what existed.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08It's really very exciting that this is happening.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11I certainly never expected anything like this to happen
0:07:11 > 0:07:16when I started my own journey of discovery.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44Like everyone in China, the Qin family have experienced
0:07:44 > 0:07:47dizzying change since the end of empire.
0:07:49 > 0:07:53From colonial subjects to emigres seeking a better life,
0:07:53 > 0:07:57Communist revolutionaries on the long march with Chairman Mao
0:07:57 > 0:08:00and even glamour on the Shanghai stage.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07Their family story mirrors the story of the nation.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13And now the meaning of that history is flooding back.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03THEY TOAST
0:09:04 > 0:09:06I'm going to regret this.
0:09:09 > 0:09:13So the Chinese people have found again the warmth of home...
0:09:15 > 0:09:19..after the vast and terrifying dislocation of the mid-20th century
0:09:19 > 0:09:23when for a time China turned its back on its past.
0:09:26 > 0:09:29The Qin family, like the nation itself,
0:09:29 > 0:09:32are seeking a renewed identity,
0:09:32 > 0:09:38a distinctively Chinese way forward, anchored in the Chinese past.
0:09:41 > 0:09:45And that past goes back thousands of years.
0:09:48 > 0:09:51China is the oldest continuous state on earth.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57There are no historical texts that describe its birth
0:09:57 > 0:09:59but later myths and traditions take us to
0:09:59 > 0:10:05the Yellow River plain that gave China its name, Zhonggou,
0:10:05 > 0:10:06the middle land.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18And here you can still reach back to those beginnings.
0:10:22 > 0:10:25This is a rural fair at an ancient temple,
0:10:25 > 0:10:27closed down in the Communist era.
0:10:33 > 0:10:37I'm at a great farmers festival in the plain of the Yellow River
0:10:37 > 0:10:39with a million people all around me.
0:10:42 > 0:10:46And these vast crowds have come to celebrate an ancient myth
0:10:46 > 0:10:49that tells of the origins of the Chinese people.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56As in many ancient cultures, it's the women who have treasured
0:10:56 > 0:10:58the tales and handed them down.
0:10:59 > 0:11:01How much?
0:11:01 > 0:11:02Three?
0:11:02 > 0:11:05Especially the tale of the mother goddess of the Chinese people,
0:11:05 > 0:11:07Nuwa.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10Little dog. It's great, isn't it?
0:11:10 > 0:11:16This whole great festival is to two ancient gods in Chinese mythology,
0:11:16 > 0:11:21Fuxi, the male god, and Nuwa, the female god.
0:11:21 > 0:11:25And she's famous because she created humanity out of the yellow mud
0:11:25 > 0:11:27of the Yellow River. And the mud
0:11:27 > 0:11:31that was left over she made dogs and chickens, according to the myth.
0:12:17 > 0:12:22These myths have been handed down for over 4,000 years.
0:12:22 > 0:12:24And they contain a crucial idea,
0:12:24 > 0:12:27the uniqueness of Chinese ethnic identity.
0:12:30 > 0:12:35China is a huge and diverse country, with so many languages and cultures.
0:12:37 > 0:12:43But the vast majority of its people see themselves as Han Chinese,
0:12:43 > 0:12:45part of the biggest tribe in the world.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54The myths also tell us about the origins of the Chinese state...
0:12:55 > 0:12:58..by the banks of the Yellow River.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06All four of the great old world civilisations
0:13:06 > 0:13:08began on rivers -
0:13:08 > 0:13:11the Nile, the Euphrates, the Indus
0:13:11 > 0:13:12and the Yellow River.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15China alone has come down until today.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19It was the ability to harness the waters of the river
0:13:19 > 0:13:24for irrigation that enabled ancient people to feed bigger and bigger
0:13:24 > 0:13:29populations and eventually to create cities and make civilisation.
0:13:30 > 0:13:34But where the rising of the Nile, for example, was predictable
0:13:34 > 0:13:39to the day and seen by the Egyptians as a joyful and benign
0:13:39 > 0:13:45source of life, the Yellow River here in China has been a destroyer.
0:13:45 > 0:13:50The killer of millions in its great floods throughout Chinese history,
0:13:50 > 0:13:52right up to the 20th century.
0:13:53 > 0:13:59And so the beginnings of Chinese history, the control of the river
0:13:59 > 0:14:02and its environment, lay at the very heart of political power.
0:14:07 > 0:14:11And the tale of the king who tamed the mighty Yellow River
0:14:11 > 0:14:14and claimed the right to rule the hundreds of tribes
0:14:14 > 0:14:20along its banks became a myth still told by today's storytellers.
0:14:42 > 0:14:44THUNDER RUMBLES
0:15:09 > 0:15:10Look at this.
0:15:18 > 0:15:20THUNDER RUMBLES
0:15:31 > 0:15:36This is a Ming Dynasty temple that was built in the 1520s
0:15:36 > 0:15:38but on a very, very ancient terrace.
0:15:41 > 0:15:43And that is King Yu.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49Historians have always thought the tale of King Yu was just a myth,
0:15:49 > 0:15:54but the recent find of a bronze bowl nearly 3,000 years old
0:15:54 > 0:15:59engraved with his story proves the tale goes back to the Bronze Age.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11The legend says that King Yu was the founder of China's first
0:16:11 > 0:16:14dynasty 4,000 years ago.
0:16:16 > 0:16:18They were called the Xia
0:16:18 > 0:16:21and they came from the middle plain of the middle land,
0:16:21 > 0:16:23here in Henan.
0:16:27 > 0:16:29And at the village of Erlitou,
0:16:29 > 0:16:32traditions survived until modern times
0:16:32 > 0:16:36that this had been the seat of China's first rulers.
0:16:38 > 0:16:40SHE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE
0:16:40 > 0:16:43The most ancient site in the world?
0:16:48 > 0:16:51No? Incredible!
0:16:51 > 0:16:55Ancient Greece, ancient Iraq, ancient Egypt...
0:16:55 > 0:16:59Wherever you look, some memory survives on site.
0:16:59 > 0:17:04Here, towns first emerged out of China's myriad Stone Age villages.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, the original Emperor of China.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36Under these wheat fields the archaeologists excavated
0:17:36 > 0:17:39a settlement which had thousands of people
0:17:39 > 0:17:42and a huge walled enclosure.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50Inside it were pillared halls,
0:17:50 > 0:17:55palaces from different periods between 2000 and 1500 BC.
0:17:58 > 0:18:02They stood on rammed earth platforms, one of them
0:18:02 > 0:18:07with a triple gate, the pattern of all later Chinese royal cities.
0:18:13 > 0:18:16The Xia are still a mystery.
0:18:16 > 0:18:18But here at Erlitou
0:18:18 > 0:18:22archaeologists have found tantalizing clues -
0:18:22 > 0:18:30pottery, bronze casting and most intriguing of all a burial with
0:18:30 > 0:18:37a sceptre made of 2,000 pieces of turquoise in the shape of a dragon,
0:18:37 > 0:18:41the symbol of royalty all the way through Chinese civilisation.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51Whether the Xia were China's first dynasty
0:18:51 > 0:18:56and whether this was their capital is still not known
0:18:56 > 0:18:59and that's because we lack the key evidence - writing.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04Do you think that this was the capital of the Xia
0:19:04 > 0:19:05or what do you think?
0:19:05 > 0:19:07THEY LAUGH
0:19:07 > 0:19:08Difficult question.
0:19:29 > 0:19:34If it this was the capital of the Xia, for the Chinese,
0:19:34 > 0:19:36myth would become history,
0:19:36 > 0:19:40for they would have found the root of the Chinese state.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53As it is, though, we now have to leap forward
0:19:53 > 0:19:55to around 1200 BC
0:19:55 > 0:20:01to find China's first historical rulers, the Shang Dynasty.
0:20:03 > 0:20:06And we know about the Shang because they have left us
0:20:06 > 0:20:08the first Chinese writing.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17The modern discovery of the Shang is one of the most exciting
0:20:17 > 0:20:19stories in world archaeology.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26And it began by chance in one of those storehouses of age-old
0:20:26 > 0:20:30Chinese wisdom, a traditional pharmacy...
0:20:34 > 0:20:37..where beliefs and practices going back into prehistory
0:20:37 > 0:20:39have come down to us today.
0:20:43 > 0:20:48And the clues to the mystery of the Shang, unbelievably,
0:20:48 > 0:20:53were found inside a packet of over-the-counter medicine.
0:20:53 > 0:20:58The story goes like this - 1899, Chinese scholar called Wang Yirong,
0:20:58 > 0:21:01who was the Chancellor of the Imperial Academy in Beijing,
0:21:01 > 0:21:05a great scholar and a collector of ancient bronzes.
0:21:05 > 0:21:08He was interested in the earliest Chinese writing systems.
0:21:08 > 0:21:13He falls ill with malaria and his local pharmacy, just like this one,
0:21:13 > 0:21:18delivers a series of ingredients which include...
0:21:18 > 0:21:20dragon bones.
0:21:20 > 0:21:24These were animal bones... Just like this, they use them today.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28..which you ground up and boiled and drank to alleviate the fever.
0:21:29 > 0:21:34When he opened the packet, to his amazement,
0:21:34 > 0:21:35this is what he saw.
0:21:37 > 0:21:43Some of the bones were inscribed with what he could see were primitive
0:21:43 > 0:21:49forms of the old writing that he knew from the inscriptions on his bronzes.
0:21:49 > 0:21:53And eventually these dragon bones were traced back to a little place in
0:21:53 > 0:21:58the lower valley of the Yellow River, a country town called Anyang.
0:22:00 > 0:22:05At Anyang, Chinese archaeologists made their greatest discovery.
0:22:06 > 0:22:11Huge tombs of the last Shang kings with mass human sacrifice
0:22:11 > 0:22:16and crucially, written texts on oracle bones.
0:22:19 > 0:22:241928 they finally found the location and they started the excavation.
0:22:26 > 0:22:30From the excavation they found nearly 30,000 oracle bones...
0:22:32 > 0:22:37..documenting divination performed on behalf of nine late Shang kings.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44- I love all the portraits of the people.- Yes, yes.
0:22:44 > 0:22:48There is something so optimistic about their faces.
0:22:50 > 0:22:56They thought that their task is to prove that Chinese history was true.
0:22:57 > 0:23:00Epoch-making, in world archaeology, really.
0:23:00 > 0:23:02Absolutely, yes.
0:23:04 > 0:23:07- Now we knew that they were historical.- Yes.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14Anyang was the final capital of the Shang Dynasty.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18They ruled for 500 years, controlling the whole of central China.
0:23:19 > 0:23:21The first Chinese state.
0:23:25 > 0:23:30Their authority rested on force but was validated by divination.
0:23:30 > 0:23:35The Shang kings and their diviners burned cracks in tortoise shells
0:23:35 > 0:23:39or cow bones to speak to the ancestors.
0:23:40 > 0:23:44So basically, they chose one piece of bone or shell
0:23:44 > 0:23:47and then they drilled some holes,
0:23:47 > 0:23:52and then they heat up these holes with some special plants
0:23:52 > 0:23:55and then these will create some cracks,
0:23:55 > 0:23:58and then they look at the pattern of these cracks.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01- And the cracks come the other side, is that right?- Yes.
0:24:01 > 0:24:05And then they can read these patterns and make their predictions
0:24:05 > 0:24:10about whether these divinations are auspicious or it is
0:24:10 > 0:24:14actually against the will of the ancestral spirits,
0:24:14 > 0:24:20so they should not be carrying out the activity they were asking for.
0:24:20 > 0:24:25- So the diviners are asking for the favour of the ancestral spirits.- Yes.
0:24:25 > 0:24:32So basically it's their special way to communicate with their ancestors.
0:24:32 > 0:24:36- The ancestors are the key people in their mental universe.- Yes.
0:24:36 > 0:24:38Fantastic.
0:24:38 > 0:24:41Basically, in every aspect of their society, including, for instance,
0:24:41 > 0:24:45the harvest. This one is even about praying for rain.
0:24:45 > 0:24:50Rain and water would be a big part of their concerns
0:24:50 > 0:24:52living in the Yellow River plain, I suppose.
0:24:52 > 0:24:57Yes, for agricultural society it is absolutely crucial.
0:24:59 > 0:25:02And unlike the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt or the cuneiform
0:25:02 > 0:25:08of Babylonia, the archaeologists had no need of a key to decipher them
0:25:08 > 0:25:11for they could see at once that the signs on the oracle bones were
0:25:11 > 0:25:14the direct ancestors of today's Chinese writing.
0:25:17 > 0:25:22That's the character for rain in modern language.
0:25:22 > 0:25:25And in oracle bones it's like this...
0:25:26 > 0:25:30With three drops, so essentially it's the same idea, fundamentally.
0:25:30 > 0:25:35- This rain character is characterised by these raindrops.- Yeah, yeah.
0:25:37 > 0:25:42Out of these prehistoric pictographs came the modern Chinese script
0:25:42 > 0:25:44with its tens of thousands of signs.
0:25:48 > 0:25:52So through their script the Chinese people are uniquely connected
0:25:52 > 0:25:54to their deep past
0:25:54 > 0:25:56and its ways of thinking.
0:25:56 > 0:25:57More so than any other
0:25:57 > 0:25:59culture on earth.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08There seem to be... Is this fanciful?
0:26:08 > 0:26:14There seem to be themes that we trace all the way through Chinese history -
0:26:14 > 0:26:18the reverence for the ancestors, the divination,
0:26:18 > 0:26:24the control of writing and writing as a source of power. Is that fair?
0:26:24 > 0:26:26I agree.
0:26:26 > 0:26:31I think communication or interaction between the ancestral spirit
0:26:31 > 0:26:34and the acquisition of social power is
0:26:34 > 0:26:38indeed a recurrent theme throughout Chinese history.
0:26:40 > 0:26:42So power came from the ancestors.
0:26:44 > 0:26:48In the oracle bones there is a sacred place.
0:26:48 > 0:26:52It has the same name as the dynasty, Shang.
0:26:52 > 0:26:56This is not like the shopping malls of Shanghai, that's for sure.
0:26:56 > 0:26:59And the archaeologists now turn to a little town in Henan
0:26:59 > 0:27:01with a tantalizing name.
0:27:02 > 0:27:06Shangqiu, the mound or ruins of Shang.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09We are now inside the Ming Dynasty city.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12This was built in 1511, the previous one destroyed by floods.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15Lots more underneath it, of course.
0:27:15 > 0:27:21What's fascinating is it's still called Shangqiu, the ruins of Shang.
0:27:23 > 0:27:28So was this the ancestral place of China's first great dynasty?
0:27:28 > 0:27:31HE LAUGHS
0:27:31 > 0:27:34That question has intrigued Chinese archaeologists
0:27:34 > 0:27:38since their first explorations here in the 1930s.
0:27:41 > 0:27:47But the Bronze Age layers here are 30 feet deep in Yellow River silt.
0:27:50 > 0:27:55Recently, though, geophysical surveys and test cores have detected
0:27:55 > 0:27:58the outline of a much earlier city underneath the town.
0:28:00 > 0:28:05And the clues to what it was were in the oracle bones found at Anyang.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09In the 1930s a Chinese scholar called Dong Zuobin
0:28:09 > 0:28:13worked on the Bronze Age inscriptions
0:28:13 > 0:28:18scratched into the oracle bones from the Shang Dynasty.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21Thousand upon thousand of them,
0:28:21 > 0:28:26and through the 1930s, when China was driven by civil war
0:28:26 > 0:28:31and Japanese invasion, he worked transcribing these inscriptions
0:28:31 > 0:28:35in what, I suppose, you could call self-effacing loyalty
0:28:35 > 0:28:39to the Chinese past while the catastrophes
0:28:39 > 0:28:40of the modern world surrounded him.
0:28:40 > 0:28:43You see there his transcription of one
0:28:43 > 0:28:48of the turtle shells with all the splits and the inscriptions on them.
0:28:48 > 0:28:53And he worked out the order of the Shang kings and their calendar
0:28:53 > 0:28:56and their rituals and their journeys.
0:29:00 > 0:29:05What he discovered was that the kings came back to do special rituals
0:29:05 > 0:29:08at the city called Shang.
0:29:08 > 0:29:10That was here. Its name meant
0:29:10 > 0:29:13"the place where the ancestors were worshiped".
0:29:13 > 0:29:17So state and ancestors were tied together.
0:29:21 > 0:29:24And amazingly, cults and legends about the Shang
0:29:24 > 0:29:28still survive here at a mysterious temple at the edge of town.
0:29:31 > 0:29:35The Mound of Shang, it's a great artificial hill.
0:29:37 > 0:29:42The legends say this mound was built before the Great Flood,
0:29:42 > 0:29:46that here mankind first got fire, stolen from the gods.
0:29:48 > 0:29:50And tradition also said
0:29:50 > 0:29:54this had been a kind of observatory where
0:29:54 > 0:29:59the Shang kings watched the stars that protected their dynasty.
0:29:59 > 0:30:04Because they believed that the stars were powers in heaven
0:30:04 > 0:30:07and if we understood them properly
0:30:07 > 0:30:10then we'd know best how to run our kingdom.
0:30:14 > 0:30:19So the oracle bones and the later myths are clues to early Chinese
0:30:19 > 0:30:22beliefs about society and the cosmos.
0:30:22 > 0:30:28Divination, ritual and writing were the basis of state power.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37For their sacred ceremonies they cast beautiful bronzes to hold food
0:30:37 > 0:30:41and wine offerings to the ancestral spirits, which were
0:30:41 > 0:30:44consumed at the royal feasts.
0:30:44 > 0:30:46Some of them bear the symbols of the different lineages
0:30:46 > 0:30:49of the royal and noble families.
0:30:54 > 0:30:56Like the ancient Egyptians
0:30:56 > 0:31:00and Sumerians, the Shang practised human sacrifice.
0:31:01 > 0:31:04The oracle bones list the victims.
0:31:04 > 0:31:08They were captives from the subject peoples the Shang ruled,
0:31:08 > 0:31:13killed as offerings to the powers of nature,
0:31:13 > 0:31:19as the Shang diviners asked the ancestors in heaven for guidance,
0:31:19 > 0:31:22anxiously watching the stars
0:31:22 > 0:31:24for omens of auspiciousness
0:31:24 > 0:31:27and omens of disaster.
0:31:32 > 0:31:36To them, time, as revealed in the movements of the stars
0:31:36 > 0:31:42and planets, was a truly portentous dimension,
0:31:42 > 0:31:45full of danger as well as auspiciousness,
0:31:45 > 0:31:50and especially for the rulers, for they knew that in time
0:31:50 > 0:31:57the planets would reveal heaven's judgment on their earthly rule.
0:31:57 > 0:32:02That brings us to one of the key ideas in early Chinese thought,
0:32:02 > 0:32:04the Mandate of Heaven.
0:32:11 > 0:32:15The early Chinese believed their rulers should protect the people,
0:32:15 > 0:32:19keeping harmony with the order of heaven.
0:32:19 > 0:32:21It was said the first Shang king
0:32:21 > 0:32:25had even offered himself as a sacrifice in time of drought.
0:32:31 > 0:32:34But legend said the last Shang king was so depraved
0:32:34 > 0:32:40and cruel that heaven withdrew its mandate, and it gave a sign.
0:32:40 > 0:32:45Five planets came together in the rarest of conjunctions.
0:32:47 > 0:32:54'As this happens only once every 516 years, we can pin down the very day.'
0:32:54 > 0:32:59- So you can follow any single planet? - Yes.- It's just...wonderful.
0:33:02 > 0:33:05'We asked the Beijing Planetarium to work out the exact
0:33:05 > 0:33:10'date of the omen and to show us the night sky at that moment.'
0:33:11 > 0:33:14So it's what historians always want to do, is actually
0:33:14 > 0:33:17go back in time - Mr Liu can do it for us.
0:33:17 > 0:33:24He can actually take us back to late May 1058 BC on his computer system,
0:33:24 > 0:33:28which is 1059 BC on historians' calculations.
0:33:32 > 0:33:36This time, this place, the sky... you can see them.
0:33:38 > 0:33:42'The tribes who lived under the Shang tyranny saw the sign
0:33:42 > 0:33:46'and made an alliance under a man known for his virtue,
0:33:46 > 0:33:49'King Wen of the Zhou.'
0:33:49 > 0:33:53This five-planet conjunction happens once every 516 years
0:33:53 > 0:33:59but that moment was the closest that has ever happened in human history
0:33:59 > 0:34:03and at that time the early Chinese chronicles say...
0:34:03 > 0:34:06- VOICEOVER:- ..when the five planets gather in the constellation
0:34:06 > 0:34:09called the Chamber
0:34:09 > 0:34:14a great vermillion bird landed on the altar
0:34:14 > 0:34:16of the earth on Mount Qi.
0:34:20 > 0:34:25In its beak was a jade sceptre, and it spoke, saying,
0:34:25 > 0:34:28"Heaven has commanded that the King...
0:34:28 > 0:34:33"..of the Zhou should overthrow the King of the Shang
0:34:33 > 0:34:35"and take the kingdom."
0:34:35 > 0:34:38BATTLE CRIES
0:34:44 > 0:34:48In the final battle, the wicked Shang king saw his subjects had
0:34:48 > 0:34:49turned against him.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55So he burned his palace with his treasures and his concubines
0:34:55 > 0:35:00and put on his jade suit and walked into the fire.
0:35:04 > 0:35:09And so the ancestors passed the mandate to the King of the Zhou.
0:35:09 > 0:35:12And he laid down the pattern of rule for future ages.
0:35:12 > 0:35:17Rulers must be virtuous and keep harmony between humanity
0:35:17 > 0:35:23and the cosmos by observing the rites and the music of the heavens.
0:35:23 > 0:35:25RELIGIOUS MUSIC PLAYS
0:35:26 > 0:35:29And, amazingly, some of the ritual traditions of the Zhou have
0:35:29 > 0:35:31come down to us today.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37China's oldest religion is Taoism.
0:35:38 > 0:35:41In their ceremonies and their music the Taoists,
0:35:41 > 0:35:43the "seekers after the Way",
0:35:43 > 0:35:46are a living link with these ancient ideas
0:35:46 > 0:35:50about the relation of the kingdoms of earth and heaven.
0:35:50 > 0:35:52CHANTING
0:36:29 > 0:36:33And these very ancient customs and beliefs are still
0:36:33 > 0:36:38held in affection and practised by the ordinary Chinese people today.
0:37:03 > 0:37:07In later times the Zhou came to be seen as model rulers,
0:37:07 > 0:37:10fulfilling heaven's mandate.
0:37:12 > 0:37:15But China's fate throughout its history
0:37:15 > 0:37:18has been to fragment in times of crisis.
0:37:21 > 0:37:23HE SCREAMS
0:37:23 > 0:37:26Eventually Zhou power disintegrated.
0:37:27 > 0:37:31And the heartland of China descended into chaos.
0:37:35 > 0:37:41Across the middle land, feuding kings and warlords fought for supremacy.
0:37:46 > 0:37:49Surrounded by their armies, even in death.
0:38:00 > 0:38:02Amazing sight, isn't it?
0:38:02 > 0:38:06This is one of more than a dozen chariot burial pits that have
0:38:06 > 0:38:09been uncovered in the middle of Luoyang in the last few years.
0:38:09 > 0:38:14This with excavated in 2003 during the modern building boom.
0:38:16 > 0:38:19There's 18 chariots and their horses here,
0:38:19 > 0:38:23associated with the tombs of the Kings of the Eastern Zhou.
0:38:24 > 0:38:27It's the world of Achilles and Hector
0:38:27 > 0:38:31in more than just the military hardware.
0:38:31 > 0:38:35Politically, just like Agamemnon, the kings here in the central plain
0:38:35 > 0:38:41of China depended on the co-operation of vassal states, smaller kingdoms.
0:38:41 > 0:38:44Sometimes more than 100 of them.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47But these were rivals fighting each other,
0:38:47 > 0:38:48just like the Greek heroes
0:38:48 > 0:38:52sacking cities and enslaving their populations.
0:38:52 > 0:38:57So political instability, warfare and violence were endemic.
0:38:57 > 0:39:00And for that reason, perhaps, this is the time
0:39:00 > 0:39:04when a ferment of ideas grows about the nature of kingship,
0:39:04 > 0:39:11the function of states, duties, obligation and morality.
0:39:11 > 0:39:16Out of this begins the first golden age of Chinese philosophy.
0:39:19 > 0:39:22Right across the Old World in the sixth century BC,
0:39:22 > 0:39:26thinkers and rulers were debating these ideas.
0:39:27 > 0:39:34A new age of human thought had dawned, what we call the Axis Age.
0:39:36 > 0:39:39The Greek philosophers, the Old Testament prophets,
0:39:39 > 0:39:42the Buddha in India, all of them were wrestling with
0:39:42 > 0:39:46ideas about conscience and social justice
0:39:46 > 0:39:48and human autonomy.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55How can a king be just in violent times?
0:39:55 > 0:39:58What is law and what is virtue?
0:39:59 > 0:40:03Here in China it was said 100 schools bloomed.
0:40:08 > 0:40:13And the most famous thinker came from an obscure state in eastern China.
0:40:16 > 0:40:21He was descended from a family of Shang diviners, oracle-bone crackers.
0:40:22 > 0:40:24And his obsession was not the inner life
0:40:24 > 0:40:26but how we act in the public world.
0:40:27 > 0:40:33Small-town China, but what a small town.
0:40:33 > 0:40:35Because this place, Qufu,
0:40:35 > 0:40:39has nearly 3,000 years of continuity, life on this spot.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43And it gave birth to one of the most influential figures
0:40:43 > 0:40:45in the history of the world,
0:40:45 > 0:40:46Confucius.
0:40:53 > 0:40:54Ni hao.
0:40:54 > 0:40:58Confucius lived in a time of cultural and political crisis.
0:40:58 > 0:41:02China divided into many small states that were always
0:41:02 > 0:41:06fighting each other and sometimes even divided in themselves,
0:41:06 > 0:41:11like this one, the state of Lu, whose capital was Qufu.
0:41:16 > 0:41:22Confucius rose eventually to a quite high ministerial job
0:41:22 > 0:41:24in which he played a crucial role...
0:41:25 > 0:41:29..brokering a peace deal between three feuding clans
0:41:29 > 0:41:33and persuading them to demolish their fortifications
0:41:33 > 0:41:36and acknowledge the duke here as their lord.
0:41:36 > 0:41:38And that kind of experience gave him
0:41:38 > 0:41:42the idea of his mission, which was nothing less than to restore
0:41:42 > 0:41:47civilisation by teaching rulers to be virtuous.
0:41:50 > 0:41:52Confucius had a very clear vision.
0:41:52 > 0:41:55There is definitely this sense of passion in him
0:41:55 > 0:41:58that he wants to be recognised.
0:41:59 > 0:42:03He wants to contribute to the social order of society and
0:42:03 > 0:42:08he wants to make sure that ritual practices are followed very closely.
0:42:10 > 0:42:15Confucius was very keen on the idea of humaneness, or benevolence,
0:42:15 > 0:42:21and that the ruler set a direct example for the people to follow.
0:42:24 > 0:42:26There's a very lively metaphor in the Analects
0:42:26 > 0:42:30when the character of the ruler is compared to the wind
0:42:30 > 0:42:34and the character of the ordinary people is compared to the grass,
0:42:34 > 0:42:40so it's said that when the wind blows the grass naturally bends.
0:42:40 > 0:42:43Like Socrates or the Buddha, his sayings were turned into a book
0:42:43 > 0:42:46after his death by his disciples.
0:42:46 > 0:42:49The Analects. Horrible word, isn't it?
0:42:49 > 0:42:53What a mouthful. It means the sort of quotations from...
0:42:53 > 0:42:57but really it should be called the conversations of Confucius,
0:42:57 > 0:42:58cos that's what it really is.
0:42:58 > 0:43:00It's his sayings,
0:43:00 > 0:43:04and it's been said that no book in the history of the world,
0:43:04 > 0:43:06even the Bible, has exerted
0:43:06 > 0:43:11so much influence for such a long period on so many people.
0:43:14 > 0:43:16That's Confucius's little blue book.
0:43:17 > 0:43:20- 18?- 18.- 18, OK, great.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24'The Analects would become China's guide
0:43:24 > 0:43:27'to the principles of good government.'
0:43:28 > 0:43:33He says that if you govern people by cheng -
0:43:33 > 0:43:37it could be translated as "law" or "punishment" -
0:43:37 > 0:43:41then you get people who have no sense of shame.
0:43:41 > 0:43:48You get order but people don't really know what they're doing wrong.
0:43:48 > 0:43:50But then if you govern by de -
0:43:50 > 0:43:56a sense of virtue, morality - then people have a sense of shame
0:43:56 > 0:44:01and with that idea it's implied that they will have moral progress as well.
0:44:04 > 0:44:07It's a very old idea in the story of China
0:44:07 > 0:44:09that the basis of all government
0:44:09 > 0:44:13is not law but established morality.
0:44:13 > 0:44:17And the key end - to preserve the state.
0:44:23 > 0:44:26In the West we tend to think of Confucius
0:44:26 > 0:44:30as an archconservative, a bit pious and a bit pompous.
0:44:32 > 0:44:34But without virtue he thought any rule
0:44:34 > 0:44:40is morally bankrupt and should be resisted, even until death.
0:44:41 > 0:44:45He travelled the roads of China like some intellectual
0:44:45 > 0:44:50trouble-shooter, trying to sell China's local rulers his new deal.
0:44:55 > 0:44:59At his tomb I met a group of Confucian teachers from Korea.
0:45:01 > 0:45:04These gentlemen are not priests, they're scholars.
0:45:05 > 0:45:09And what they're doing is not so much religion as ritual.
0:45:11 > 0:45:13An active reverence for the old master
0:45:13 > 0:45:17and his ideal of universal brotherhood.
0:45:21 > 0:45:26Bowing before his tombstone, which was smashed to pieces
0:45:26 > 0:45:29by the Communist Red Guards only 50 years ago
0:45:29 > 0:45:31but is now restored.
0:45:43 > 0:45:45Ah, very good question!
0:45:45 > 0:45:49We are interested in the history of China and Confucius is
0:45:49 > 0:45:52so important that that is why we are here.
0:45:52 > 0:45:53THEY ALL SPEAK
0:46:03 > 0:46:05HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE
0:46:06 > 0:46:11Confucius is covering all over the world...love.
0:46:11 > 0:46:16Should spread all over the world. Not just individual.
0:46:16 > 0:46:20- Love, benevolence, courtesy... - Courtesy.- ..good manners.
0:46:20 > 0:46:22These are the way society works,
0:46:22 > 0:46:26- when society works well, in Confucius's idea.- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:46:29 > 0:46:32Confucius was condemned during the Communist revolution as
0:46:32 > 0:46:35the embodiment of old ideas and old customs.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38But now, once more, he's a national treasure,
0:46:38 > 0:46:42praised by the government for his stress on social values,
0:46:42 > 0:46:46though not so much perhaps for his insistence that it is
0:46:46 > 0:46:49the intellectual's duty to speak truth to power.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55But in both he's a symbol of the Chinese way.
0:47:02 > 0:47:07Very good! Oh, very good! Xie xie!
0:47:08 > 0:47:10Thank you very much! Fantastic!
0:47:18 > 0:47:21Confucius was not an innovator, he was
0:47:21 > 0:47:27the distiller, the crystalliser of an already ancient tradition.
0:47:27 > 0:47:30The idea of the virtuous ruler.
0:47:30 > 0:47:34Of filial piety, of ritual and ceremony as the glue that
0:47:34 > 0:47:40bound society together and the overruling power of education.
0:47:40 > 0:47:45Those are the values that still underlie Chinese values today.
0:47:45 > 0:47:49And South Asian values from Korea and Japan
0:47:49 > 0:47:52all the way down to Vietnam.
0:47:52 > 0:47:53What a legacy.
0:48:02 > 0:48:07But the truth is in his own lifetime Confucius was a complete failure.
0:48:07 > 0:48:10No ruler bought into his manifesto for change.
0:48:10 > 0:48:16After his death in 469 BC the warring states fought each other
0:48:16 > 0:48:21for two more centuries until the fall of the last of the Zhou.
0:48:25 > 0:48:27And when their end came
0:48:27 > 0:48:30no-one was listening to arguments about morality
0:48:30 > 0:48:34but only the claims of violence and war.
0:48:38 > 0:48:40BATTLE CRIES
0:48:41 > 0:48:44And one of those warring states was the Qin.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49Through military conquest they swallowed up the Zhou
0:48:49 > 0:48:52and the other states of the Yellow River plain.
0:48:57 > 0:49:01And in 221 BC they proclaimed their leader
0:49:01 > 0:49:03the First Emperor of all China...
0:49:06 > 0:49:07..Qin Shi Huangdi.
0:49:22 > 0:49:26The First Emperor imposed his own revolutionary political system
0:49:26 > 0:49:28on the conquered lands.
0:49:29 > 0:49:34Dispossessing the old aristocracies, creating an enormous captive
0:49:34 > 0:49:38labour force to build his new state, the Qin.
0:49:38 > 0:49:44That's the source of the name China used today by the outside world,
0:49:44 > 0:49:46although not by the Chinese themselves.
0:49:54 > 0:49:58Qin Shi Huangdi built the first Great Wall.
0:49:58 > 0:50:03He made a new road system linking the 36 military provinces.
0:50:03 > 0:50:07For tax and commerce the weights and measures were standardised.
0:50:07 > 0:50:09There was to be a uniform coinage.
0:50:12 > 0:50:16And the Chinese script itself was simplified so the Emperor's
0:50:16 > 0:50:21will could be conveyed right down to the local magistrates,
0:50:21 > 0:50:25who administered a population of more than 30 million people.
0:50:26 > 0:50:28Almost a third of the world.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41And the key to the Qin Emperor's power was the army.
0:50:45 > 0:50:51It was the image of the empire - discipline, obedience, hierarchy.
0:50:53 > 0:50:58With their mass-produced bronze weapons and mechanical crossbows
0:50:58 > 0:51:01there'd been nothing like this in the whole of history.
0:51:05 > 0:51:11Infantry, archers and cavalry and charioteers,
0:51:11 > 0:51:15so that's really the battle formation of the Qin Dynasty.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18So...how Qin...how the First Emperor
0:51:18 > 0:51:22conquered the other states, used his military troops.
0:51:22 > 0:51:26- Frightening actually!- Yeah.- When you're faced with them like this!
0:51:26 > 0:51:29One of the most amazing discoveries ever, isn't it, really?
0:51:29 > 0:51:34- Yeah.- And more recently you've discovered pits, not with warriors
0:51:34 > 0:51:37but with other people attached to the court.
0:51:37 > 0:51:42We found terracotta acrobats, terracotta musicians
0:51:42 > 0:51:46and actually bronze birds, bronze chariots.
0:51:48 > 0:51:50All part of the whole tomb complex.
0:51:50 > 0:51:53They serve the Emperor in his afterlife.
0:51:57 > 0:52:03This pit is one of nearly 200, large and small, found so far.
0:52:03 > 0:52:07The more the archaeologists look, the more they find.
0:52:12 > 0:52:14I think we are very similar to the doctor.
0:52:14 > 0:52:18The only difference is our patient is different.
0:52:19 > 0:52:23'Paranoid to the end, the Emperor took no chances,
0:52:23 > 0:52:27'magically protected by his army even in the afterlife.'
0:52:29 > 0:52:32Do we know what rank he was in the army?
0:52:32 > 0:52:34No, he's a normal soldier.
0:52:34 > 0:52:37You can tell that by the headdress and the armour?
0:52:37 > 0:52:44Depends on his armour and depends on his...his troops,
0:52:44 > 0:52:47because general has more detail,
0:52:47 > 0:52:49- more...- Posh clothes.- Yeah.
0:52:53 > 0:52:55More...
0:52:55 > 0:53:00- Yeah! More...- A stern look of command, hasn't he?
0:53:07 > 0:53:11We've all become so familiar with the images of the Terracotta Army.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14So familiar perhaps that it's easy to forget their significance
0:53:14 > 0:53:17in the history of China and of the world.
0:53:20 > 0:53:25How this vast and diverse area became one state,
0:53:25 > 0:53:28that's one of the great themes of our story.
0:53:28 > 0:53:32As we've already seen, it began a long time before,
0:53:32 > 0:53:34with the Xia and Shang Dynasties,
0:53:34 > 0:53:38but without the Qin Emperor, whose army is
0:53:38 > 0:53:42arrayed before us now, it might never have happened.
0:53:42 > 0:53:47The beginnings of China as a unitary state, as the world's first
0:53:47 > 0:53:53bureaucratic, centralised empire, begin with Qin Shi Huangdi.
0:53:56 > 0:54:01But the First Emperor's rule over China was brief, just 11 years,
0:54:01 > 0:54:03his son's even briefer,
0:54:03 > 0:54:07their hated regime overthrown by a rebellion led by
0:54:07 > 0:54:11the peasant Liu Bang, who founded the dynasty
0:54:11 > 0:54:14after whom the Chinese still name themselves today,
0:54:14 > 0:54:16the Han.
0:54:16 > 0:54:18FIREWORKS EXPLODE
0:54:24 > 0:54:25HE YELLS
0:55:27 > 0:55:30And for all the wars and revolutions, the triumphs
0:55:30 > 0:55:34and tragedies that would follow, the idea will never be lost
0:55:34 > 0:55:37that China, a land of so many peoples and cultures,
0:55:37 > 0:55:41is a single state and a single civilisation.
0:55:43 > 0:55:46Still today the Chinese call themselves Han.
0:55:47 > 0:55:50They speak of "our Han culture" and "Han speech".
0:55:52 > 0:55:54As if one great tribe.
0:55:55 > 0:56:01A tribe with many stories but one great story - China itself.
0:56:04 > 0:56:09And at the very heart of the story the link between the state
0:56:09 > 0:56:12and the family and the ancestors.
0:56:13 > 0:56:18Over the next 2,000 years these values will run under
0:56:18 > 0:56:21the surface of the great river of Chinese history.
0:56:22 > 0:56:26Often tested, sometimes seemingly broken, but still
0:56:26 > 0:56:32passed on across even the tyrannies and cruelties of the 20th century.
0:56:36 > 0:56:40At the Temple of Nuwa, the mother goddess of the Chinese people,
0:56:40 > 0:56:44the pilgrims are gathering again to give thanks to the ancestors.
0:56:52 > 0:56:55This prayer ceremony was last done 100 years ago
0:56:55 > 0:56:57at the end of the empire.
0:56:57 > 0:57:01Now the rituals are brought back to life for today's people,
0:57:01 > 0:57:06recreated with words from sacred books over 2,000 years old.
0:57:06 > 0:57:09It's a symbol of today's China.
0:57:09 > 0:57:13After the ravages of the 20th century
0:57:13 > 0:57:17the Chinese people's belief in their history as a source of strength,
0:57:17 > 0:57:19not weakness, has returned.
0:57:20 > 0:57:25The ideas that nourished their identity for so long handed down now
0:57:25 > 0:57:29into an ever more competent and expansive Chinese future.
0:57:31 > 0:57:35With a new text, may our country's great traditions be
0:57:35 > 0:57:41passed down once more from generation to generation.
0:58:08 > 0:58:13So that's the first part of this great adventure, the story of China.
0:58:14 > 0:58:16And this is just the beginning.
0:58:16 > 0:58:21In the next chapter of the story, China goes out to the world in
0:58:21 > 0:58:25one of the greatest epochs in world civilisation, the Tang Dynasty.