Ancient Chinese History Song

Chorus:

China, O China, dragons guard your ancient cites,

Middle Kingdom ruled by emperors and  dynasties.

At the time of Abraham, Xia people ruled the land.      (Xia is pronounced "Shia")

They cast in bronze and plowed the ground and wove their cloth from silk unwound.

After Xia came the Shang.  Their first king was King Cheng Tang.

In their chariots Shang went out, and to their grannies were devout.   (ancestor worship started)

Chorus

Xia, Shang and then the Zhou, Confucious, Buddha and King Wu.

Zhou ruled for eight hundred years, from David’s joy to exile’s tears.

Then in 221 BC, came emperor Qin Shi Huang-di.

He built the Wall, then did decay, with an army made of clay.   (the famous Terra Cotta warriors of Xi'an)

Chorus

While the Romans ruled the West, the Han their Sons of Heaven blessed.  (meaning their emperors)

Merchants trod the long Silk Road and into China commerce flowed.

While Europe had their Ages Dark, the great Han Empire fell apart.

Hard to count those dynasties, some say six, others three.  (a confusing time, with many successions and small kingdoms)

Chorus

Hail the Sui Dynasty, the Grand Canal, their legacy.

Sui’s “yin” was seed of Tang, a Golden Age of blessed “yang.”

Goodbye Tang, in 906; chaos ruled their politics.

In this time the wars got louder; in their fights they used gunpowder.

Chorus

After chaos came the Sung;  brought ten kingdoms back to one.

Sung had peace three hundred years, though at the end had Mongol fears.

Sure enough, the Mongols came, 80 years the Khans did reign.

A Han revolt changed everything, and brought the Golden Age of Ming.

Chorus

The Ming made vases blue and white, until the Manchus came in sight.

In sixteen hundred forty-four, the kingdom from the Mings they tore.

Qing Manchu were scared of change.  Modern life seemed very strange.

The dynasties we now must shelve; their story ends in 1912.  (some books say 1911;  the official date was Feb. 12, 1912)

China, O China, searching for your destiny,

No longer ruled by emperor or dynasty.

An epilogue, if you insist:  China now is Communist.

Led at first by Dr. Sun, then Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung. 

China, O China, searching for your destiny,

No longer ruled by emperor or dynasty.