After 800 years the Zhou dynasty is brought to an end by the ruler of the Qin kingdom

The ruthless Qin dynasty establishes control over the whole of central China

The Qin emperor joins up earlier fortifications to create the Great Wall of China

In the Qin dictatorship, all Confucian books are burnt (except those of any practical use) and 460 Confucian scholars are executed

A delegate from imperial China establishes the kingdom of Nam-Viet with himself as king

The Qin emperor, Shi Huangdi, is buried at Xi'an with a vast army of terracotta soldiers

The Han, the first of the great Chinese dynasties, is established

Zhang Qian, a Chinese diplomat, begins a spell of twelve years as a captive of the nomadic horde, the Xiongnu

Zhang Qian reaches Bactria and is the first to bring news of western Asia back to China

Under the Han dynasty the Confucians become the official civil servants in China, with entry to the service regulated by examination

Sima Qian undertakes (and carries through against unusual odds) a major survey of Chinese history

A caravan leaves China with goods destined for Persia - proof that the eastern half of the Silk Road is now open

The practice of acupuncture is described in Nei Qing, a Chinese medical text

The Xiongnu split into two hordes, one of them submitting to China and the other moving west

The Han dynasty recovers control, after a 15-year interlude, and moves the capital to Loyang - starting the Eastern Han period

Buddhism, arriving with trade along the Silk Road from India, puts down firm roots in China

The eunuch Ts'ai Lun either invents paper or presents a report on the new substance to the Chinese emperor

The Han emperor in China has the six main Confucian classics engraved in stone, so that scholars may take rubbings - a first step towards printing

The Han dynasty is brought to an end, after more than four centuries, by decades of peasant unrest

The Chinese transform the toe loop of nomadic horsemen into the metal stirrup

Ten dynasties and nineteen kingdoms jockey for power in the three centuries after the fall of the Han dynasty

The Chinese solve the difficult problem of harnessing a horse without strangling it

After three centuries of chaos and disunion in China, a stable dynasty - the Sui - is established by Wen Ti (the Cultured Emperor)

Chan (later known as Zen) Buddhism, emphasizing personal enlightenment, is developed in China and soon spreads widely through the far East

The Grand Canal is constructed in China, joining a network of existing waterways to link the Yangtze and Yellow rivers