The best-known piece of Suona (suǒ nà 唢呐) is One Hundred Birds Serenade the Phoenix (bǎi niǎo cháo fèng 百鸟朝凤), which is especially popular in Shandong (shān dōng shěng 山东省), Anhui (ān huī shěng 安徽省), Henan (hé nán shěng 河南省) and Hebei (hé běi shěng 河北省) provinces. After a spirited introduction, the orchestra settles down to a fixed accompaniment mode. With this background, the Suona section plays a vigorous, piping tune in imitation of the chirping of birds in flight. The closeness of the mimicry expresses the people's love for nature and the intense scrutiny of ordinary life by folk artists, as well as their virtuosity in performance. Such beautiful and auspicious tunes help to account for the popularity of this instrument.

Prehistoric and Ancient History (1.7 million years ago-476 B.C.)

China's earliest primitive human discovered so far is known as "Yuanmou Man"(yuán móu rén 元谋人), a fossil anthropoid unearthed in Yuanmou (yuán móu 元谋) in Yunnan Province (yún nán shěng 云南省) who lived approximately 1.7 million years ago. The better-known "Peking Man"(běi jīng rén 北京人), discovered in the Zhoukoudian (zhōu kǒu diàn 周口店) area in the suburbs of Beijing, lived about 600,000 years ago. Peking Man was able to walk upright, make and use simple tools, and make fire. By the start of the Neolithic Age in China about 10,000 years ago, people were cultivating rice and millet with farming tools, something revealed by relics found in the ruins of Hemudu (hé mǔ dù  河姆渡) in Yuyao (yú yáo 余姚), Zhejiang Province (zhè jiāng shěng 浙江省), and Banpo (bàn pō  半坡), near Xi'an City (xī ān shì 西安市), Shaanxi Province (shǎn xī shěng 陕西省). The Hemudu site, about 7,000 years old, was one of the earliest New Stone Age locations along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River (cháng jiāng 长江).

         
Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.)

In 221 B.C., Ying Zheng (yíng zhèng 嬴政), ruler of the State of Qin (qín guó 秦国) and a man of great talent and bold vision, ended the 250-odd years of rivalry among the independent principalities during the Warring States Period (zhàn guó shí qī 战国时期), and established the first centralized, unified, multi-ethnic feudal state in Chinese history — the Qin Dynasty (qín cháo 秦朝, 221-206 B.C.).

Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220)and "Silk Road "

Liu Bang (liú bāng 刘邦) established the powerful Han Dynasty (hàn cháo 汉朝) in 206 B.C. During the Han Dynasty, agriculture, handicrafts and commerce flourished, and the population reached 50 million. During the most prosperous period of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wudi (hàn wǔ dì 汉武帝, 140-87 B.C.) expanded from the Central Plains (zhōng yuán 中原) to the Western Regions (xī yù 西域, present-day Xinjiang and Central Asia).