China was really the first modern state -- by which I mean it had a centralized government and a corps of bureaucrats who could execute the wishes of that government.
And it lasted, in pretty much the same form, from 150 BCE until 1911 CE, which is technically known as a long-ass time.
The Chinese were also among the first people to write history. In fact, one of the Confucian Classics is called the Shujing, or Classic of History.
This is great for us, because we can now see the things that the Chinese recorded as they were happening, but it is also problematic because of the way the story is told.
So even Me From The Past with his five minutes of World History knows that Chinese History is conveniently divided into periods called Dynasties.
Mr. Green, I didn't even say anything. That doesn't seem very fair… Shh! What makes a dynasty a dynasty is that it's ruled by a king, or as the Chinese know him, an emperor, who comes from a continuous ruling family.
As long as that family produces emperors -- and they are always dudes -- No they aren't.
First off, there were several empress dowagers who wielded tremendous power throughout Chinese history, and there was one very important full-fledged empress, Empress Wu, who WU-led China for more than 20 years and founded her own freaking dynasty!
And those emperors keep ruling, the dynasty gets to be a dynasty.
So the dynasty can end for two reasons: either they run out of dudes (which never happened thanks to the hard work of many, many concubines), or the emperor's overthrown after a rebellion or a war.
