Thanks for downloading the in-artime podcast. For more details about in-artime and for our terms of use

Please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the program

Hello in the analytics the Chinese sage Confucius says of state craft

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the North Polar Star

Which keeps its place and all the stars turn to it saying such as this made a reputation which is endured for

2,500 years

Confucianism had been all but outlawed under the chin emperor, but in 206 BC the hand in us to came to power and

Held sway for over 400 years. They brought Confucian thought to the heart of government

His favorite books became set text for the world's first civil service exam and in a grand intellectual project

The great Dao was combined with the five phases and with the Yin and the Yang who were the Han how did they bring these strands of

Thought together into the great founding moment of Chinese culture and what drove them to their extraordinary intellectual task with me to discuss what

Synologists call the Han synthesis is Christopher Colin director of the need and research institute in Cambridge

Karl Michaelson assistant keeper of Chinese art and the Department of Asia at the British Museum and rules Turks lecture in Chinese studies at the University of Cambridge

Christopher Colin now hand in us to succeeded the chin

Which was the first unified dynasty of China and go China its name? What did the chin dynasty achieved?

What did first of all what did the chin dynasty achieved? Well, the chin dynasty achieved was to put a definitive end to the

Chaos of the warring states period in which China had been a little like medieval Europe

Divided just before the chin into seven great states in a conditional almost permanent warfare with one another

This is two two two two one BC. That's right. That's right

They extinguished all those states they

Pulled down the old feudal order under which China had been run up to that time. They

In set up a form of government by civil servants all directly responsible for the emperor working under a rigid system of rules with the rewards and

...