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41-778: The part of the North China Plain around the banks of the middle and lower Yellow River is commonly referred to as the Central Plain ( pinyin : Zhōngyuán ). This portion of the North China Plain formed the cradle of Chinese civilization , and is the region from which the Han Chinese people emerged. Beijing , the capital of China, is located on the northeast edge of the plain, with Tianjin , an important industrial city and commercial port, near its northeast coast. Jinan (the capital of Shandong province) and Zhengzhou (the capital of Henan province) lie on

82-789: A sutra which points out that water was set in motion by digging ( khatapravrittim ) from a river-dam ( nandinibhandayatana ) or a tank. Apart from Ancient Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush , the Ajuran Sultanate of the Horn of Africa was the only other hydraulic empire in Africa. In the 13th century, the Ajuran began to monopolize the water resources of the Jubba and Shebelle rivers. Through hydraulic engineering , they also constructed many of

123-683: A confederation of tribes that later developed into the Han ethnicity, lived along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. The term 'Zhongguo' (Central State) was used to distinguish themselves from the Siyi tribes that were perceived as 'barbaric'. For a large part of Chinese history , Zhongyuan had been the political, economic, and cultural center of the Chinese civilization, as over 20 dynasties had located their capitals in this region. In

164-487: A disproportionate effect on extreme temperatures, it will also increase heat stress felt in areas that are already hot and/or with high humidity . The North China Plain is expected to be highly affected, as the region's extensive irrigation networks result in unusually moist air. In scenarios without aggressive action to stop climate change , the worst heatwaves are projected to become severe enough to cause mass mortality in agricultural labourers working outdoors. Under

205-539: A grandiose hydraulic economy. Kautilya while referring to the udakabhaga (water-cess, cess being a term used in India, Scotland and Ireland for an additional tax) lists various kinds of irrigation, viz., irrigated by manual labour, by carrying water on the shoulder, by water lifts, and by raising water from lakes, rivers etc. Some scholars believe the Arthashastra makes a clear reference to canals for irrigation, in

246-652: A historical and cultural concept that represents the dominance of the Han ethnicity. The history of Zhongyuan can be dated back to prehistoric times. There were traces of human activities in Zhongyuan about half a million years ago. Archaeological studies have shown that as far back as 80,000 to 100,000 years ago, the ancient people of Zhongyuan were using stone tools. The excavation of painted pottery and stone tools found from relics of Yangshao culture (5000 to 3000 BC) and Longshan culture (3000 to 1900 BC) prove that Zhongyuan

287-416: A major canal system." On China, which Carneiro called "the prototypical area for Wittfogel's hydraulic theories", he quoted Jacques Gernet who had recently written: “although the establishment of a system of regulation of water courses and irrigation, and the control of this system, may have affected the political constitution of the military states and imperial China, the fact remains that, historically, it

328-480: A result, communication by horse is rapid within the plain, and the spoken language of the plain is relatively uniform, in contrast to the plethora of languages and dialects in southern China . In addition the possibility of rapid communication has meant that the political center of China has tended to be located here. Because the fertile soil of the North China Plain gradually merges with the steppes and deserts of Dzungaria , Inner Mongolia , and Northeast China ,

369-491: A specialized bureaucracy . Often associated with these terms and concepts is the notion of a water dynasty . This body is a political structure which is commonly characterized by a system of hierarchy and control often based on class or caste. Power, both over resources (food, water , energy ) and a means of enforcement such as the military, is vital for the maintenance of control. A developed hydraulic civilization maintains control over its population by means of controlling

410-439: A state was impossible: a dynasty might die out or be overthrown by force, but the new regime would differ very little from the old one. Hydraulic empires were only ever destroyed by foreign conquerors, he states. Wittfogel's ideas, when applied to China, have been harshly criticized by scholars such as Joseph Needham who argued essentially that Wittfogel was operating from ignorance of basic Chinese history . Needham argued that

451-423: Is extremely centralized, with no trace of an independent aristocracy – in contrast to the decentralized feudalism of medieval Europe. Though tribal societies had structures that were usually personal in nature, exercised by a patriarch over a tribal group related by various degrees of kinship, hydraulic hierarchies gave rise to the established permanent institution of impersonal government. Popular revolution in such

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492-588: Is mainly used in Henan, Shandong, Anhui, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Hebei. The population of native Central Plains Mandarin speakers is approximately 124 million. In terms of tone, the key characteristics of modern Central Plains Mandarin are: The neutral and aspirated voiced initial consonants of entering tone in Early Mandarin are now pronounced as the first tone (high tone), and voiced initial consonants of entering tone in Early Mandarin are now pronounced as

533-406: Is not to say, of course, that large-scale irrigation, where it occurred, did not contribute significantly to increasing the power and scope of the state. It unquestionably did. To the extent that Wittfogel limits himself to this contention, I have no quarrel with him whatever. However, the point at issue is not how the state increased its power but how it arose in the first place. And to this issue

574-616: The Classical Chinese writing system, Confucianism swept throughout China and onto Korea , Japan , and Vietnam , heavily influencing their respective political, legal, and educational bureaucracies. The initial project of the Great Leap Forward was accelerating the construction of waterworks on the North China Plain during the 1957-1958 winter. As climate change increases the Earth's average temperature, and has

615-657: The Taihang Mountains from the northwestern side, Funiu and Xionger Mountains to the west. The central and eastern areas of Zhongyuan form part of the North China Plain . The Yellow River flows through the region from west to east. The Huai River and Hai River , as well as Tributaries of the Yangtze River, also pass through Zhongyuan. Since ancient times, Zhongyuan has been a strategically important site of China, regarded as 'The center and hub of

656-455: The first civilizations in history, such as Ancient Egypt , Mesopotamia , China , India , Pre-Columbian Mexico and Peru , are believed to have been hydraulic empires. Most hydraulic empires existed in arid or desert regions, but imperial China also had some such characteristics, due to the exacting needs of rice cultivation. The Maurya Empire in India was classified by Wittfogel as

697-608: The supply of water . The term was coined by the German-American historian Karl August Wittfogel (1896–1988), in his book Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (1957). Wittfogel asserted that such "hydraulic civilizations", although they were not all located in the Orient or characteristic of all Oriental societies, were essentially different from those of the Western world. According to Wittfogel, most of

738-555: The Chinese government was not despotic, was not dominated by a priesthood, had many peasant rebellions, and that Wittfogel's perspective does not address the necessity and presence of bureaucracy in modern Western civilization. Robert L. Carneiro was also critical of Wittfogel's theory, writing in Science in August 1970: "This theory has recently run into difficulties. Archeological evidence now makes it appear that in at least three of

779-492: The North China Plain's nickname is "Land of the yellow earth". The plain covers an area of about 409,500 square kilometers (158,100 sq mi), most of which is less than 50 metres (160 ft) above sea level. The geography of the North China Plain has had profound cultural and political implications. Unlike areas to the south of the Yangtze, the plain generally runs uninterrupted by mountains and has far fewer rivers. As

820-429: The North China Plain, a great delta created from silt deposited at the Yellow River's mouth over millennia. The North China Plain encompasses much of Henan , Hebei , and Shandong provinces, as well as the northern portions of Jiangsu and Anhui . Further south, the North China Plain merges with the similarly flat Yangtze Delta . The North China Plain is fertile, and it is one of the most densely populated regions in

861-630: The Yuan dynasty in Dadu (Khanbaliq, now Beijing). Later, Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty moved the capital at his power base in Beijing. Central Plains Mandarin (or Zhongyuan Mandarin) is the major language and native tongue spoken in the Zhongyuan region. It is a variety of Mandarin Chinese , formed and developed gradually based on the standard pronunciations of Mandarin and its predecessor, Yayan . In

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902-667: The Yuan dynasty, the rime book Zhongyuan Yinyun (Rhymes of the Central Plains) written by Zhou Deqing reflected the standard pronunciation of Early Mandarin. Some linguists argue that the Early Mandarin recorded in Zhongyuan Yinyun was based on the pronunciation standards derived from the Luoyang and Bianliang dialects of Zhongyuan, which had been prevalent in the Song dynasty. In modern China, Central Plains Mandarin

943-415: The areas that Wittfogel cites as exemplifying his "hydraulic hypothesis"—Mesopotamia, China, and Mexico—full-fledged states developed well before large-scale irrigation". With regard to Mesopotamia , Carneiro cited Robert McCormick Adams, Jr. , who had concluded: "In short, there is nothing to suggest that the rise of dynastic authority in southern Mesopotamia was linked to the administrative requirements of

984-687: The central region. From the rise of the Xia dynasty (c. 2070–c. 1600 BC) to the fall of the Song dynasty (960–1279), most of the legitimate dynasties established their capitals within the Zhongyuan area, except for Eastern Jin and the Southern Song . It was not until the Yuan (1271–1368) and Ming dynasties (1368–1644) that the political center of China re-located, as the Mongol Empire established

1025-493: The flatness of the plain promotes massive flooding when river works are damaged. Many historians have proposed that these factors have encouraged the development of a centralized Chinese state to manage granaries , maintain hydraulic works, and administer fortifications against the steppe peoples. (The " hydraulic society " school holds that early states developed in the valleys of the Nile, Euphrates, Indus and Yellow Rivers due to

1066-412: The hydraulic hypothesis does not appear to hold the key." The same elements of resource control central to hydraulic empire were also central to Europe's colonization of much of the global South . Colonies were resource rich areas located on the periphery, and the contemporary models of core-periphery interaction were focused on the extraction and control of these resources for the use of the core. This

1107-572: The modern concept, the term 'Central Plains Region' is used to define the Zhongyuan area. In a narrow sense, it refers to the present-day Henan Province in the central part of China. A broader interpretation of the Central Plains' measure would also include Henan's neighborhood province, Shaanxi , Hebei , Shanxi , and Shandong , as well as the northern part of Anhui and the northwestern part of Jiangsu . The north, west, and south sides of Zhongyuan are encircled by mountains, predominantly

1148-472: The most control was exhibited, this was commonly the case due to the central role of the resource in economic processes and its environmentally limited, or constrained nature. This made controlling supply and demand easier and allowed a more complete monopoly to be established, as well as preventing the use of alternative resources to compensate. The typical hydraulic empire government, in Wittfogel's thesis,

1189-679: The most extreme climate change scenario, the warming reached by 2100 would be sufficient to cause such heatwaves across the North China Plain approximately once per decade. 36°34′48″N 117°09′36″E  /  36.58000°N 117.16000°E  / 36.58000; 117.16000 Central Plain (China) Zhongyuan ( Chinese : 中原 ; pinyin : Zhōngyuán ), the Central Plain(s) , also known as Zhongtu ( Chinese : 中土 ; pinyin : Zhōngtǔ , lit. 'central land') and Zhongzhou ( Chinese : 中州 ; pinyin : Zhōngzhōu , lit. 'central region'), commonly refers to

1230-526: The need to supervise large numbers of laborers to build irrigation canals and control floods.) Philosophically, the North China Plain was also the birthplace of Confucius , the traditional patriarch of East Asian philosophy. Confucius lived and taught in the State of Lu from 551 to 479 BCE . His teachings, recorded in The Analects , eventually became the school of thought known as Confucianism . Tied to

1271-661: The part of the North China Plain surrounding the lower and middle reaches of the Yellow River , centered on the region between Luoyang and Kaifeng . It has been perceived as the birthplace of the Chinese civilization . Historically, the Huaxia people viewed Zhongyuan as 'the center of the world '. Human activities in the Zhongyuan region can be traced back to the Palaeolithic period. In prehistoric times, Huaxia,

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1312-499: The plain as well, along the banks of the Yellow River . Additionally, the capitals of several Imperial Chinese dynasties were located on the plain, including Luoyang (which at various points was the capital of the Han , Jin , Sui , and Tang dynasties) and Kaifeng (the capital of the Northern Song dynasty ). The multipurpose Xiaolangdi Dam marks the location of the Yellow River's last valley before its waters flow onto

1353-593: The plain has been prone to invasion from nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes originating from those regions, prompting the construction of the Great Wall of China . Although the soil of the North China Plain is fertile, the weather is unpredictable, being at the intersection of humid winds from the Pacific and dry winds from the interior of the Asian continent. This makes the plain prone to both floods and drought. Moreover,

1394-424: The second tone (rising tone). Hydraulic despotism A hydraulic empire , also known as a hydraulic despotism , hydraulic society , hydraulic civilization , or water monopoly empire , is a social or government structure which maintains power and control through exclusive control over access to water . It arises through the need for flood control and irrigation , which requires central coordination and

1435-562: The state's limestone wells and cisterns that are still in use today. Its rulers developed new systems for agriculture and taxation, which continued to be used in parts of the Horn of Africa as late as the 19th century. Wittfogel argues that climate caused some parts of the world to develop higher levels of civilization than others. He is known for claiming that climate in the Orient led to despotic rule. This environmental determinism comes to bear when considering that in those societies where

1476-461: The term 'Zhongyuan' were widely accepted as a geographical concept. The geographical view of Zhongyuan may depict different regions. It usually refers to the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, but sometimes also encompasses the reaches along the Yangtze and Huai River , and even the whole North China Plain. Apart from being a geographical location, the term 'Zhongyuan' is also used as

1517-580: The winter. The concept of Zhongyuan had often been changing in different historical periods, under different contexts. The term Zhongyuan first appeared in the Classic of Poetry not specifying any exact geographic locations. It was during the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BC) that the word came to denote the Central Plains region. Only until the Northern and Southern dynasties (420–589 AD) onward,

1558-469: The world'. The alluvial deposits of the Yellow River formed the vast plains of Zhongyuan in the Palaeozoic period. The region has sufficient water resources for plant growth, making it the center of the Chinese agrarian civilization, known as the 'Breadbasket of China'. Zhongyuan has a temperate monsoon climate with distinct seasons. It is usually hot and humid during the summer, cold and dry in

1599-453: The world. The plain is one of China's most important agricultural regions, producing wheat , maize , sorghum , millet , peanuts , sesame seed, cotton , and various vegetables . It is the main area of sorghum , millet , maize , and cotton production in China. In the eastern part of the plain, Shandong's Shengli Oil Field serves as an important petroleum base. Due to its yellow soil,

1640-533: Was in the forefront of Chinese civilization throughout the Stone Age . After the rise of Erlitou culture (1900 to 1500 BC), Zhongyuan entered the Bronze Age. The emergence of private ownership and social classes led to the formation of the first dynasty in Chinese history, the Xia dynasty . The Xia dynasty established its regime centered on Zhongyuan, setting the tone for later dynasties to make Zhongyuan

1681-480: Was the pre-existing state structures and the large, well-trained labour force provided by the armies that made the great irrigation projects possible”. Turning to Mexico, Carneiro wrote: “large-scale irrigation systems do not appear to antedate the Classic period, whereas it is clear that the first states arose in the preceding Formative or Pre-Classic period”. Of hydraulic empires generally, Carneiro commented: "This

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