A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD BY H. G. WELLS42.THE DYNASTIES OF SUY AND TANG IN CHINA
Throughout the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth centuries, there was a steady drift of Mongolian peoples westward. The Huns of Attila were merely precursors of this advance, which led at last to the establishment of Mongolian peoples in Finland, Esthonia, Hungary and Bulgaria, where their descendants, speaking languages akin to Turkish, survive to this day. The Mongolian nomads were, in fact, playing a role towards the Aryanized civilizations of Europe and Persia and India that the Aryans had played to the Ægean and Semitic civilizations ten or fifteen centuries before.
In Central Asia the Turkish peoples had taken root in what is now
Western Turkestan, and Persia already employed many Turkish officials
and Turkish mercenaries. The Parthians had gone out of history,
absorbed into the general population of Persia. There were no more
Aryan nomads in the history of Central Asia; Mongolian people had
replaced them. The Turks became masters of Asia from China to the
Caspian.
The same great pestilence at the end of the second century A.D. that
had shattered the Roman Empire had overthrown the Han dynasty in China.
Then came a period of division and of Hunnish conquests from which
China arose refreshed, more rapidly and more completely than Europe was
destined to do. Before the end of the sixth century China was reunited
under the Suy dynasty, and this by the time of Heraclius gave place to
the Tang dynasty, whose reign marks another great period of prosperity
for China.
CHINESE EARTHENWARE ART OF THE TANG DYNASTY, 616-906
CHINESE EARTHENWARE ART OF THE TANG DYNASTY, 616-906
Specimens in glazed earthenware, in brown, green and buff, discovered
in tombs in China
_(In the Victoria and Albert Museum)_
Throughout the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries China was the most
secure and civilized country in the world. The Han dynasty had
extended her boundaries in the north; the Suy and Tang dynasties now
spread her civilization to the south, and China began to assume the
proportions she has to-day. In Central Asia indeed she reached much
further, extending at last, through tributary Turkish tribes, to Persia
and the Caspian Sea.
The new China that had arisen was a very different land from the old
China of the Hans. A new and more vigorous literary school appeared,
there was a great poetic revival; Buddhism had revolutionized
philosophical and religious thought. There were great advances in
artistic work, in technical skill and in all the amenities of life.
Tea was first used, paper manufactured and wood-block printing began.
Millions of people indeed were leading orderly, graceful and kindly
lives in China during these centuries when the attenuated populations
of Europe and Western Asia were living either in hovels, small walled
cities or grim robber fortresses. While the mind of the west was black
with theological obsessions, the mind of China was open and tolerant
and enquiring.
One of the earliest monarchs of the Tang dynasty was Tai- tsung, who
began to reign in 627, the year of the victory of Heraclius at Nineveh.
He received an embassy from Heraclius, who was probably seeking an
ally in the rear of Persia. From Persia itself came a party of
Christian missionaries (635). They were allowed to explain their creed
to Tai-tsung and he examined a Chinese translation of their Scriptures.
He pronounced this strange religion acceptable, and gave permission
for the foundation of a church and monastery.
To this monarch also (in 628) came messengers from Muhammad. They came
to Canton on a trading ship. They had sailed the whole way from Arabia
along the Indian coasts. Unlike Heraclius and Kavadh, Tai-Tsung gave
these envoys a courteous hearing. He expressed his interest in their
theological ideas and assisted them to build a mosque in Canton, a
mosque which survives, it is said, to this day, the oldest mosque in
the world.