Unit 1.1 — East Asia, c. 1200–1450

Unit 1 covers the world c. 1200–1450, region by region, before trade networks tie everything closer together in Unit 2. This lesson is Topic 1.1: East Asia — China, Japan, and Korea.

Song Dynasty China (960–1279): the economic and technological peak

By 1200, Song China was the most economically advanced state in the world. Three things to know cold:

• Economic revolution. The Song oversaw a commercial boom: paper money (the world's first), a nationwide network of canals (extending the Grand Canal), and enormous urban centers — the capital Hangzhou may have held over a million people, larger than any European city.
• Technology. Movable-type printing, the magnetic compass for navigation, and gunpowder weapons (fire lances, early bombs) all existed in Song China well before they reached Europe.
• Neo-Confucianism. A revival of Confucian philosophy (blending in Buddhist and Daoist ideas) became the basis of the civil service exam system — the merit-based bureaucracy that Chinese dynasties used for centuries to select officials.

The Mongol conquest and the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368)

The Song fell to the Mongols in 1279. Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, founded the Yuan Dynasty — the first time a non-Chinese group ruled all of China. Key facts:

• The Mongols kept the exam-based bureaucracy but placed ethnic Mongols and other foreigners (like Marco Polo, by his own account) above ethnic Chinese in a rigid social hierarchy.
• Yuan China was part of the broader Mongol Empire and its "Pax Mongolica" — a period when Mongol control of the Silk Roads made long-distance Afro-Eurasian trade and travel safer than it had been in centuries. This connects directly to Topic 2 (Networks of Exchange).

The Ming Dynasty (founded 1368)

A rebellion led by Zhu Yuanzhang (Hongwu Emperor) overthrew the Yuan and founded the Ming — a restoration of ethnic Chinese rule. The early Ming is famous for the tribute system: neighboring states sent envoys and gifts to the Chinese emperor, acknowledging China's superior status, in exchange for trade access and recognition. (The Ming's massive maritime tribute-collecting voyages under Admiral Zheng He, 1405–1433, are Topic 1.1 material that also connects forward to Unit 2.)

Japan: the Kamakura Shogunate and decentralized rule

Unlike China's centralized bureaucracy, Japan in this period was ruled by a shogun (military dictator) governing through a class of regional warrior-lords and their samurai retainers — a feudal structure with real parallels to contemporary Europe (a comparison the exam likes to test). The Kamakura Shogunate famously repelled two Mongol invasion attempts (1274 and 1281); a typhoon that destroyed the second Mongol fleet was remembered as the kamikaze, or "divine wind."

Korea: the Goryeo Dynasty

Korea under the Goryeo Dynasty (918–1392) was a tributary state to both the Mongols and, after 1392, the new Joseon Dynasty continued this relationship with Ming China — another concrete example of the tribute system in action, and a useful comparison point against Japan's more independent posture.

Why this matters for the exam

Topic 1.1 sets up two ideas that recur constantly across the whole course: (1) how states legitimize and organize their rule — bureaucracy and merit exams in China vs. feudal military hierarchy in Japan vs. tributary status in Korea — and (2) how a region's technology and trade position (Song commercial and technological leadership, the Mongol Silk Road network) shapes what comes next. Expect MCQ questions that compare state-building methods across regions, not just recall facts about one dynasty in isolation.