| A | B |
|---|
| bureaucracy | system of government with many departments and bureaus led by appointed officials |
| scholar-official | highly educated men who passed the civil service examinations |
| merit system | when people are hired and promoted based on talent and skills, rather than wealth or social status |
| urbanization | growth of cities |
| money economy | an economy in which people use currency rather than bartering to buy and sell goods |
| porcelain | a hard white pottery of extremely fine quality |
| nomads | people who move from place to place at different times of the year |
| Mongols | nomads who came from the steppes northwest of China |
| steppe | a large, dry, grass-covered plain |
| khan | ruler |
| despot | tyrant or dictator |
| tribute | a payment or gift to a more powerful country |
| smugglers | people who trade illegally |
| compass | a device with a magnatized piece of metal that points to the north |
| block printing | making books by carving text into blocks of wood |
| Daoism | basic teaching is that earth, heaven and people should follow the way to achieve piece |
| Buddhism | religion based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama |
| Confucianism | System of moral behavior that stressed the importance of virtue and stated a ruler should rule through moral example not force. |
