There is a close correlation between politics, social-culture, and economics with a successful traditional administration being premised on its ability to control them all. Today, nations are only led by their leaders but traditionally, they were reigned upon by monarchs. This introduce the element of need for absolute control for the populace to control the nation. Social and cultural issues supplemented the military as the means of control. An army could capture a region and bring it under subjugation but could not keep it viable for decades. Finally, economic aspects were also fundamental to the success of the control. A hungry population could seldom be reigned upon as the fear of the military would pale when compared to the fear of starvation. It is the combination of the three issues of politics, social-culture, and economics that led to the rise and fall of the Sui, Tang and eventually Song Dynasties that made China the greatest Empire during the Dark Ages.
The Sui Dynasty
When the rest of the civilized world fell into disarray in the 6th century due to the fall of Rome, China was getting into the advent of its golden age. This began when Emperor Wen of Sui united the Southern and Northern dynasties of China, bringing together a powerful empire with over fifty million people.
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Political Structures
The Sui dynasty conquered more than it ruled thus during a majority of its reign, the primary center of the empire was the army. This army was under the control of the emperor himself. This results in a political structure that can in modern parlance be considered as an absolute dictatorship. There was no standing army and with most fighting, a majority of the prime-aged citizens found themselves drafted into the army. The emperor ruled under the Three Departments and Six Ministries system. These were the Chancellery, State Affairs, and Secretariat, which include the expansion of the Great Wall and the construction of the Grand Canal (Cartwright, 2017). The Sui’s were absolute monarchs in China and the adjoining lands that they conquered, and this contributed immensely to their downfall.
Social Structures
The conquering ways of the Sui’s also extended to the Chinese culture upon which they held a careful grasp. Being a relatively new regime, the Sui dynasty was not taking any chances when it came to the control of the minds of the populace. Whereas China had many native and traditional religions, the dynasty discouraged this for the more disciplined and formal Buddhism, which was practiced over almost all of China (Cartwright, 2017). From a cultural perspective, there was almost too much to do for the government to find time for culture.
Economic Life
Political strife had robbed the Chinese off their livelihoods and peace created a much longed for opportunity to invest and prosper. The Chinese populace took advantage of this, farmed hard and prospered. Food was not only abundant in China but also was in surplus. The government also become a major employer through a well-established civil service that helped the economic outlook. The creation of the massive Grand Canal bolstered trade bringing China to the edge of a golden age (Cartwright, 2017).
The Tang Dynasty
The Tang dynasty followed the fall of the Sui dynasty and mainly profited from the conquering undertaken by the Sui together with the well-established system of governance.
Political Structure
Where the Sui focused on conquering, the Tang focused on the ruling. They adopted the Three Departments and Six Ministries system with an expanded focus on a larger civil service. This civil service was now focused on service proviso and not procuring services from the public. The Tang also conquered their neighbors and retained the lands conquered by the Sui but not as absolute colonies. Instead, they classified their satellites-states into two sets. The first was the protectorates who were loosely governed by the Tang while the rest were allowed full autonomy as long as they pledged allegiance and paid tribute to the Tangs (Lewis, 2009).
Social Structures
At the beginning, the Tang encouraged social freedom under which Chinese culture and traditional religions such as Taoism and Chinese folk religion flourished. There was no state religion and people were allowed to freely interact. Chinese poetry, music and other social systems developed and came of age during the Tang dynasty. Towards the end of the dynasty, however, the state began to interfere with social and cultural issues including the persecution of Buddhism (Lewis, 2009). This was among the contributing factors to the eventual fall of the Tang dynasty.
Economic Life
The period under the Tang dynasty lasted from 618 to 907 CE with intermittent breaks. This period has been considered the economic golden age of China. The Chinese became the most powerful economy in the world through farming and trade. It is during this time that trade through the Silk Road was augmented (Lewis, 2009). Through trade, China influenced most of the civilized world. This can be credited as among the reasons why the Tang’s lasted so long in power. A satisfied populace will mostly love its rulers.
The Song Dynasty
The Song dynasty came in the aftermath of the political crisis that followed the fall of the mighty Tang dynasty. This dynasty begun with a united China but eventually lost the north thus ruling over the southern China alone. It was a powerful dynasty until it was finally conquered by the Mongols in the 13th century CE.
Political Structure
The Song dynasty was always facing powerful foes from all sides thus their need for a motivated rather than enforced loyalty from the populace. Law and order were maintained through a well-established judicial system made up of traveling sheriffs. The civil service became focused purely on merit and not background. Anyone who would work for the government would only qualify through passing standardized examinations (Liu, 2015). To avoid corruption, most of these civil servants focused on study and government work and not trade. In line with this specialization, the Song had a standing navy made up of professional soldiers. This reduced the need for drafts and forced conscriptions. This government thus operated through the support of its populace thus ruling more than they reigned.
Social Structures
Religion was still at the epicenter of the social life during the Song dynasty. There was also a form of aristocracy with a gentry that, however, was not actively involved in governance as the role went to the merited civil servants. A new form of gentry also emerged, based on wealth, rather than family names. China became a center of learning with many scholars, philosophers, and poets (Liu, 2015). Traditional religions such as the Chinese folk religion operated side by side with Buddhism, which was a prominent but foreign religion.
Economic Life
The modern global economy borrows heavily from the economic life during the Song dynasty, developed a thousand years ago. It was the Song dynasty that introduced a centralized economy managed through bank notes. Investors could pool their resources through joint stock companies. Under them, China prospered economically. Iron mining and processing were among the major investments (Liu, 2015). Approximately hundred million kilograms of iron was mined and processed annually. Through to its end, the Song dynasty presided over a very affluent China.
Three separate dynasties led a very powerful and affluent China from an economic perspective. Economic success, however, came because of the great political and social stability that was enforced by the dynasties. Yet, economic success was not just the product of good governance but a bearing factor to the same as without a good economy, governannce would have been almost impossible. This brings together the three aforementioned factors of politics, social-cultural issues and economic lifestyles that have a close correlation to the success of a regime.
Cartwright, M. (2017). Sui Dynasty . Retrieved November 13, 2017, from https://www.ancient.eu/Sui_Dynasty/
Lewis, M. E. (2009). China's cosmopolitan empire: the Tang dynasty (Vol. 3). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press
Liu, W. G. (2015). The making of a fiscal state in Song China, 960-1279. Economic History Review , 68 (1), 48-78. doi:10.1111/ehr.1205
