Essay Example on My name is Wen Yan I was the royal scribe of the Shang Dynasty

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My name is Wen Yan I was the royal scribe of the Shang dynasty at the capital of Yin where I was taught the interpretation and analyzing of the oracle bones that we were used to contact with our ancestors to know about the time of rainfall and the livelihood of crops Moreover I participate with the rulers ceremonial and bureaucratic routines which relied on detailed written records to integrate our urban capital with tributary states Now I m using the writing skills that I learned from my ancestors to inform you about the fall of our dynasty as I m now captured by the emperor Wu Wang who is the son of the emperor Wen Wang who come up with the idea of getting rid of our dynasty

Unfortunately Wang could defeat us once and forever which allows him to create the bedrock of the Zhou Dynasty and diminished our existence Under the ruling of the Shang dynasty our state was fighting with the states on the frontiers and with pastoral nomads from the central Asian steppes in order to expand and protect our borders Thanks to those fightings we could copied the chariots of the nomads and improved them by create fittings and harnesses made out of bronze which in turn gave the warriors devastating range and speed Besides that they were fangs people who were living in non Shang areas but they were wealthy and rustic peoples Thus we held trade activities with them Through our lives we were having a huge advantage and an advanced step over our neighbors since we were having the access to copper tin and to new metallurgy technology so that we were able to produce bronze that had been used in making made weapons fittings for chariots and ritual vessels so with those superior weapons we were able to destroy armies easily using wielding wooden clubs and stone tipped spears In addition we come up with several new technologies to improve the agriculture production where the farmers could be able to cleared forested areas As a result the cultivation of millet wheat barley and rice had been expanded

Moreover new tools had been used to do that such as stone plows spades and sickles Also farmers could make cloths out of the cultivated silkworms and benefited from the pigs dogs sheep and oxen After I have been captured by the Zhous they threatened me with the slaughtering of my family if I do not work with them and provide them with our writing scripts Hence I lived with them at the capital of Xianyang and support them with creating their writing system which in reality based on ours However they created a more formal system of bureaucratic governance restructured the court and military and instituted a formal legal code Also the king created a royal calendar that remember him with the agricultural activities and celebrating rituals and shows if the ruler is successful in his job or not Zhou Dynasty ruled over a much larger territory than what we did but it was not highly centralized where Zhou were spreading military campaigns into the lands that they take control of it so that they could defend themselves from enemies Also rulers give their neighbors and allies power protect them from aggression and create an intermarriage with them to improve their relationship In addition Zhou dynasty derived its legitimacy indirectly from our material culture such as ritual vessels and weapons Despite that Zhou came with great achievements where they provide the farmers with iron plows to dig the stony lands near the river basins which increase the fertility of the soil Moreover cultivators learned how they could prevent the exhausting of the soil nutrients by using field rotation In addition they built long canals for the purpose of communication and trade create irrigation networks to convert arid lands into a fertile ones

As a result the agriculture production flourished as the canals linked China's two big rivers which are Yellow and Yangzi Rivers where the fields of wheat millet and rice are located there Despite those developments political and social chaos happened which in turn generate new ideas that dominated Chinese thinking where the political elites lose their prestige and they are trying new methods to gain prominence through social and intellectual achievements As a result a lot of scholars and philosophers emerged such as Confucius Thanks to one of the priests who provide me with a magic medication that makes me live thousand year more Thus I lived with the Zhou for the most of my life However I did not forget what they did for us and I was just waiting for the right moment to turn against them so secretly I helped the Qin emperor to conquer Zhou Empire and get rid of it forever where Qin Empire emerged as the strongest state and replaced the Zhou dynasty at the capital of Xianyang and I was appointed as the prime minister of emperor Qin During Qin s interval a lot of development had been achieved such as the invention of the crossbow and Siege warfare which caused a huge transformation in the role of projectile weaponry Also Qin emperor carried out wide ranging reforms for the Qin state as he divided the state into administrative districts appointed magistrates vice magistrates military commanders overseers divided land into households introduced a head tax and a harsh penal code Moreover standardized coinage and better infrastructure has been established which help making the trade much easier

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