Shang Dynasty, Muaryan Empire, Ottoman Empire

Shang Dynasty, Muaryan Empire, Ottoman Empire
Shang Dynasty, Muaryan Empire, Ottoman Empire
The Shang dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty after the Xia. They ruled in the Yellow River Valley. Widely accepted chronological calculations say that the Shang ruled between 1766 BC and 1122 BC(ancienthistory.about.com). According to Chinese tradition, a rebel king, Tang, who overthrew the last Xia ruler in the Battle of Mingtiao, founded the Shang dynasty. The Shang had a fully developed system of writing, as attested on bronze inscriptions, oracle bones, and a small number of other writings on pottery, jade and other stones, and horn. Their writing system 's complexity and sophistication indicates an earlier
The later Shang armies were centered on their chariots, which, as well as being efficient weapons of war, functioned as mobile command units. The western military frontier was at the Taihang Mountains, where they fought the ma or "horse" barbarians. Although the Shang depended upon the military skills of their nobility, Shang rulers could mobilize the masses of town-dwelling and rural commoners as conscript laborers and soldiers for both campaigns of defense and conquest. Aristocrats and other state rulers were obligated to furnish their local garrisons with all necessary equipment, armor, and armaments. The Shang king maintained a force of about a thousand troops at his capital and would personally lead this force into battle. A rudimentary military bureaucracy was also needed in order to muster forces ranging from three to five thousand troops for border campaigns to thirteen thousand troops for dealing with large invasions or major rebellions against Shang authority. Shang Zhou, the last Shang king, committed suicide after rebels led by the king of Zhou defeated his army. Legends say that a large part of the Shang army betrayed him by joining the Zhou in the decisive Battle of
Decline was not only slow, gradual, interrupted, lasting more than three centuries, but also it was relative only to its own Golden Age and to the remarkable progress of its Christian European neighbors.
Bribery, purchase of office, favoritism, nepotism: Promotion by merit, long the hallmark of Ottoman administration, became less common. Corruption spread to the provinces where an official would buy his office, then squeeze more taxes from the populace to reimburse him. There were frequent shifts in judicial as well as civil officials, with justice also sometimes for sale. In the mid-to-late 17th c., the great Koprulu family of viziers attempted to root out corruption and improve administrative and military efficiency. They were temporarily successful in arresting “decline “through traditional reforms and in 1663 Ottoman forces besieged Vienna for the second time. Nevertheless, in the 17th century, an extended arc of opponents, Venice, Austria, Poland, Russia, confronted the Ottomans and Iran, often obliged to confront several at once. In 1699, after defeat by a coalition of all Central and East European powers,