Lesson video

Hello, and welcome back.

We're about to start lesson two of our history unit, all about the Shang Dynasty.

So we're going to get started straight away with lesson two.

I'm looking forward to this lesson, and today we're going to be looking at how the Shang Dynasty began.

So by the end of today's lesson, you should be able to answer the question, how did the Shang Dynasty begin? Last lesson, remember we were finding out how we know about the Shang Dynasty, how we have different artefacts and writing from that period.

Today, we're going to be using some of that evidence to find out how the Shang Dynasty actually began.

And the first thing we'll be doing in this lesson is actually having a bit of a wider look at the world, and finding out what else was happening in the world during this period.

It was a long time ago.

It was three and a half thousand years ago, 1600 BC.

So what else was happening at that time around the world? We'll be learning about somebody called Chen Tang and how he becomes the first emperor of the Shang.

We'll be learning about how he was a great emperor, a really loved leader, and why he was a loved and popular leader.

We're going to learn how to write emperor Tang's name.

That's going to take lots of practise, but that's a fun part of the lesson.

And then finally, you have a chance to do a quiz to make sure you recap all of your key knowledge and lock it into your brain.

In today's lesson, you're going to need a piece of paper or an exercise book like this one to write down all of your key knowledge.

I'm going to ask you to stop and answer some questions.

So make sure you have something ready to write on.

You're need a pen or a pencil to write those down with.

And lastly, you'll need your brain.

I'm going to be getting you to think very hard again today so that you become real experts in the Shang Dynasty.

And here's our knowledge organised with all of the key facts.

One of the things that you might like to do is pause the video and write some flashcards.

I know that some children across the country have already been doing that.

They've been getting some pieces of paper and a one side writing a key term from the vocabulary, like archaeologists.

And then on the other side, writing down what that word means so that they can quiz themselves whenever they want to, and make sure that they know all of the key facts about this topic, and they are incredible experts on the Shang Dynasty.

So maybe you might like to make your own flashcards and the knowledge organiser.

That's a fun thing to do.

So let's start by looking at what else was happening around the world in 1600 BC to about the time 1066 BC when the Shang Dynasty was flourishing.

Have a look at this map.

Can you remember where the Shang Dynasty was? Point to it.

Can you point to it on the map? Where was the Shang Dynasty? Did you find it? The Shang Dynasty was in China.

That's where it was.

It was on China, along the Yellow River, about 1600 BCE to about 1066 BCE.

But during this time, people all over the world were doing interesting things.

In Mexico, in Central America, there was the Olmec civilization that was flourishing.

In Greece there was a famous war, the Trojan Wars, for the city of Troy that were being fought.

And around the world, other interesting things were happening, about the same time that we're looking at the Shang Dynasty.

About this same time, the Pharaoh.

Well, do you know which Pharaoh that is? Tutankhamun.

Well done if you got that right.

The Pharaoh, Tutankhamun was in charge of Egypt about this time.

And back home, this is in England.

Do you know what this is? This is a picture of Stonehenge, a real mystery.

Those rocks come from hundreds of miles away, and nobody's quite sure how people managed to get those stones all that distance, and put them up into this amazing circle arrangement.

And it was about 1066, about the same time as the Shang Dynasty there in England, the Celts were making Stonehenge.

But let's go back to ancient China.

Let's go back to the Shang Dynasty.

I'm great to tell you a little story about how the Shang Dynasty began.

In 1600 BCE, it wasn't the Shang Dynasty that was in charge of all the tribes around the Yellow River, it was a dynasty called the Xia Dynasty, and the Xia Dynasty was led by an emperor called emperor Jie.

But emperor Jie wasn't very kind.

He wasn't very nice to all of the people.

He raised really high taxes, which is money that people have to give to the emperor.

He also, so much money that some families even had to sell their children.

And so people weren't really happy with emperor Jie, and one person that wasn't happy was somebody called Chen Tang.

Chen Tang was a great nobleman and also a great warrior.

He was a leader of some of the other tribes.

Here's a picture of Chen Tang.

It was painted much later, but this is what he might have looked like, Chen Tang.

And in about 1600 BC, something amazing happened.

There was what's called a Mandate of Heaven.

Try and say that, a Mandate of Heaven.

A Mandate of Heaven was very important to the Shang.

This is the name they gave for when all of the planets and stars lined up in a very special way in the sky.

It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes the stars and the planets line up in a special kind of line.

And because for the Shang, they believed that spirits and ancestors lived up in the sky, they thought this was a message, a message from the spirits or the gods or their ancestors, saying that it was time for a change.

It was time for a change and emperor Jie shouldn't be in charge anymore.

He was being too unkind.

And so Chen Tang saw that Mandate of Heaven, and he decided that he was going to try and take over and be in charge of all of the Shang people around the Yellow River.

And so he led people into a great battle called the battle called the Battle of Mingtiao, and Chen Tang was such wonderful warrior that he managed to win that victory and become the new emperor, and so a new dynasty began, the Shang Dynasty.

The one that we're learning all about, and Chen Tang was the first emperor of the Chang dynasty, of the Shang Dynasty, sorry.

Emperor Tang was very different to emperor Jie.

He was seen as a great leader.

Why is that? Let's do some reading to find out.

There are four paragraphs on your screen.

I'd like you to pause the video and read them, and then I'm going to read them to you.

Okay, hopefully you've had a chance to read through all of that text.

Let me read it through to you as well, to make sure you've heard it properly.

"Emperor Tang: a great leader.

"As well as being a great warrior, "Tang believed and emperor should look after his people.

"So, Tang lowered the taxes," the money that people had to pay to the emperor.

He lowered the taxes and he also reduced the number of people that had to be soldiers.

So people didn't have to be soldiers if they didn't want to.

They could stay with their family.

"However, as soon as Chen Tang became emperor, "there was a huge drought." A drought is when it stops raining, and this is very dangerous, because it means the crops won't grow.

People wouldn't be able to get their food and they might starve.

And as soon as emperor Tang became and emperor, there was a huge drought.

"But legend has it that Tang took himself to a temple, "and he offered himself to be a sacrifice." He said, "I will die." And he said this to the supreme god, "If it rains.

." He said to the god, "If you make it rain, then I will die.

"I will kill myself or sacrifice myself." He didn't need to sacrifice himself because the rain started pouring straight away.

So Tang was celebrated by his people.

They all thought, wow, he was going to sacrifice himself to make sure we had rain.

"But that wasn't the only heroic act "that Tang is supposed to have done.

"He also united, "he brought together all of the different tribes "living around the Yellow River, "and he made special gold coins "to give to the poor families." And those families who have been forced to sell their children because of the drought, they could use the gold coin to buy them back.

Tang also built a huge palace, and that became the capital China, and that was in a place called Anyang.

And it's still in China now.

There's a place called Anyang, and that was the capital of the Shang Dynasty in China.

So I'd like you to read that text again, and I'd like you to pick out two things, two things that tell us why emperor Tang was so popular with his people.

So pause the video, read through, and write down in full sentences, two things that show that emperor Tang was really popular with the Shang people.

Pause the video and write out your answers now.

Okay, let's see if we can do that together.

So, I can see from this piece of text, that there's lots of pieces of evidence that tell me why Chen Tang was so popular.

You might have picked up that he lowered the taxes.

I'll highlight that, he lowered the taxes.

You might've picked out that he reduced the number of people that had to become soldiers.

Well done if you got that.

You might have said that he offered to sacrifice himself.

You might've said that he united the different tribes.

You might have said that he gave a special gold coin to the families so that they could buy their people back.

And you might've said that he built a huge palace.

You could have picked any of those and written them down.

So let me show you how I would have written those down.

So I've got my book here.

I'll look at the text, and I'm going to pick the gold coin because I love that one.

So I'm going to say, in my book, writing my neatest handwriting.

I'm going to say, emperor Tang gave all the poor families a special gold coin so that they can buy back their children.

So that they could.

In the past tense.

Could buy back their children.

Full stop.

Check about capital letter of my name, emperor Tang.

What about the poor families get a special gold coin so they could buy back their children? Yes! I'm happy with that.

If you wrote about emperor Tang, giving a gold coin to buy back there children, you can give yourself a tick.

If you didn't write it in a full sentence like this, why don't you pause the video and write in a nice full sentence so that you can remember that fact? I'm going to write one more facts about emperor Tangs.

The task said to do two.

And I'm going to say, he also united all of the tribes.

So I think that's important as a leader that you unite all of the people and bring them together.

So I'm going to write, he also united the different tribes, the different groups of people, the different tribes.

Have a look at your answer now, and you can tick, give your a sentence to tick if you got any of the reasons that we discussed.

And let's go back to our presentation.

So now let's see if you can remember all of the different events that led to the beginning of the Shang Dynasty.

So it's all the things that we've just talked about, and I've modelled them all up.

So they're in the wrong order.

Let's read them.

Chen Tang, the leader of the Shang people, defeats the cruel emperor Jie.

The Xia Dynasty rules over the different areas and tribes of China.

Tang offers himself as a sacrifice to the gods.

The Shang Dynasty is in charge of China.

There was a huge drought.

Tang lowers the taxes of the people.

The drought ends as lots of rain falls on China.

Crops can grow again.

They're all.

I'd like you to pause the video and put these in the correct order.

You might like to write them out in the correct order.

Pause the video now and do that task.

Okay, so our first one was done for you.

The Xia Dynasty was in charge, the dynasty before the Shang Dynasty.

What came next? Get ready to tick if you've got these correct.

Next, Chen Tang defeated emperor Jie.

That meant that third, the Shang Dynasty was in charge of China.

And the first thing that Tang did was to lower all the taxes for the people so they didn't have to pay as much money.

But then, oh, no, there was a drought.

It stopped raining.

Tang said, "I'll sacrifice myself to the gods "so there can be rain." But he didn't need to sacrifice himself because lots of rains began to fall and the crops grew again.

Well done if you've got those correct.

Our last task is very fun.

We're going to learn how to write emperor Tang's name.

We've learned so much about him.

What a wonderful leader he was.

Let's find out how to write his name.

So, as we know in Chinese, we write from top to bottom, and these two characters here tell us Chen Tang.

They tell us Chen Tang's name, and your task is to see if you can copy these out, and it's a bit tricky.

It takes a bit of practise.

So I've got one, two, three, four sets of boxes here to practise with.

I'm going to have a go at the first one.

You can watch me if you like.

So I'm going to start with this Chen here.

I'm going to go up, across straight, then it flicks down like this, and then there's one sweeping up here.

One comes across, down and back, and then a flick here.

Mm, I think I need to sharpen my pen a bit.

Then there is this one which starts with a flick up here, then there's these sorts of two boxes here.

A straight line across that flicks once, then another straight line across that goes down and back, and then there's another sweep and a sweep, and finally two dashes up here.

Okay, I can prove those a little bit if I practise a bit more.

Why don't you pause the video and see if you can practise writing Chen Tang's name, and I bet that you could do a better job than me.

Pause the video and have a go at writing his name now.

So, the last thing to do is for you to log off from this video and complete the end of lesson quiz, which would just test you to see if you can remember the key facts that we learned about in this lesson, and I'll see you next week.

Have a wonderful weekend.

I'm going to practise my ukulele a bit more.

Have a wonderful weekend, and I'll see you next week on Monday, the lesson three about the Shang Dynasty.

Bye.