User:Linziyu1823/Five thousand years of Chinese civilization

Five thousand years of Chinese civilization is a common saying in the Chinese-speaking world since the beginning of the 20th century that China has five thousand years of history. Similar expressions include "China is an ancient civilization with a history of 5,000 years", "China has a history of 5,000 years" and so on. Although the archaeological evidence for China's ancient history is not yet sufficient, the Chinese people generally believe that the history of China is at least 5,000 years old, and regard China as one of Four Great Ancient Civilizations

Basis

The Xia Dynasty was the first hereditary dynasty to rule the Central Plains recorded in Chinese history. According to the conclusion of the Xia-Shang-Zhou dating project, the Xia Dynasty began around 2070 BC. At the same time, most ancient Chinese documents place the beginning of history and humanity in the era of the Five Emperors, and the Yellow Emperor, as the head of the five emperors, was about a thousand years before the Xia Dynasty. According to the "Imperial Century" written by Huangfumi in Jin Dynasty, it is believed that there were five emperors above Yao(尧）, which lasted 341 years, and the first year of Huangdi should be 2698 BC. According to this calculation, Chinese civilization has a history of nearly 5,000 years since the time of the Yellow Emperor. In addition, some scholars believe that before the Yellow Emperor, there was another era of a tribal leader named Yan Emperor, which became the beginning of Chinese civilization in the Chinese public consciousness. In this way, whether it began with the Yellow Emperor or the Yan Emperor before it, "five thousand years of Chinese civilization" gradually became a conventional saying.

According to research, the first person to put forward the 5,000-year history of Chinese civilization was an Italian missionary in the early Qing Dynasty. Around 1650, during the reign of Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty, the Italian missionary Wei Kuangguo came to China. His primary purpose was to preach. At the same time, he was also a Sinologist who had a good understanding of Chinese culture and was the first person to systematically introduce Chinese geography, culture, history and language to Europe. In his book The Ancient History of China, he covered a wide range of subjects and was the first person to put forward the concept of five thousand years of China.^[1]

By the late Qing Dynasty, the concept of "5,000 years of Chinese culture" had gradually been officially recognized and promoted by the Qing Dynasty. For example, the textbook of Chinese History approved by the Qing Dynasty Department at the end of the Qing Dynasty began with the statement that "the founding of China was 5,000 years ago and had the longest history in the world. And its culture is the crown of the ancient Oriental countries..." . In the "China" section of the trilingual textbook of Manchu, Han and Mongolian at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Textbook of Manchu, Mongolian and Han also says, "My China is located in the east of Asia, with mild climate, vast land and numerous people. Five thousand years ago, culture has opened, the most famous ancient country on earth also ", and so on.

When Sun Yat-sen took office as the provisional President of the Republic of China in early 1912, he sent power to all provinces, "taking the year 4609 of the Yellow Emperor as the first year of the Republic of China", which was the first time in Chinese history that he publicly acknowledged the "five thousand years theory" as a head of state. During this period, there was also a "Yellow Emperor fever" in China.

Since then, the saying "five thousand years of Chinese civilization" has become more popular. Similar theories have also emerged and gradually become popular in China, such as the popular history books on Chinese history compiled by mainland Chinese writers Lin Handa and Cao Yuzhang under the title of "Five Thousand Years Up and Down".

Query

Although "five thousand years of Chinese civilization" has become a common saying in China, both inside and outside China, especially in the Western academic world, the Chinese civilization is only 3,000 years old and not recognized as 5,000 years old. Although there are many records about the Xia Dynasty in traditional Chinese literature, since they were written late and no recognized direct evidence of the existence of the Xia Dynasty has been found so far, such as the writings of the same period of the Xia Dynasty as self-evidence, many people in modern history circle question the existence of the Xia Dynasty and regard it as a period of suspicion rather than a belief in history. If we start from the later Shang Dynasty, which is recognized by Chinese and foreign historians, China has only about 3,700 years of religious history, which is still a big gap from 5,000 years.

At the same time, some Chinese scholars believe that China's history is more than 5,000 years old. For example, it is said that 8,000 years ago, there was a well-ordered society and a certain degree of social differentiation in most parts of China, which produced relatively advanced and complex ideas and knowledge systems. At the same time, the culture of most areas of China had been initially integrated and connected into an embryonic "early Chinese cultural circle", and there was the bud of "early China" in culture. Therefore, 8,000 years ago was already the first step in the origin of Chinese civilization

Basis

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