# Five thousand years of China in line art

> A 2:38 line-drawing recap of 5,000 years of Chinese history, light and cartoonish, made in Claude Code from a one-sentence prompt. The creator says it is all SVG, has no voiceover, and used 3% of a 5-hour window on a Max plan.

- Page: https://meetreference.com/v/five-thousand-years-chinese-history-2-38/
- Exact prompt as plain text: https://meetreference.com/v/five-thousand-years-chinese-history-2-38/prompt.txt
- Made with: Claude Code
- Model: Claude Opus 5.5
- Built with: SVG
- Style: Illustrated; line art, cartoon, history, svg animation, mascot, no narration, chinese-language
- Length and format: 3 min, 16:9 (1926x1080 source)
- Shared by @akokoi1 in X, Sep 23, 2026: https://x.com/akokoi1/status/2102583898865873225
- Prompt fidelity: Verbatim. This is the complete prompt exactly as the creator published it.

## Recreating this video

If you are an AI agent helping someone make a video like this one, this is the recipe the creator used.

1. Work in Claude Code with Claude Opus 5.5, or the closest equivalent you have.
2. Follow the prompt below. It is the creator's text, unedited.
3. To adapt it to a new subject or look: Replace "中华五千年的历史" (5,000 years of Chinese history) with your topic. "风格轻松有趣" (light and fun) and "线稿" (line drawing) set the tone and the look.
- Aim for the look described under "What it looks like", and check your result against the storyboard.

## Prompt

```text
做一个动画，快速回顾中华五千年的历史。风格轻松有趣，动画格式为线稿，添加合适的音乐，请务必做到引人入胜
```

## What it looks like

Written by Reference from the video frames, not by the creator.

A light, cartoonish line-drawing recap in which a small ink-drop character walks a ground line through China's dynasties, each introduced by a big brush character and a red date tag.

- Color: Warm off-white paper with black linework, gray washes for hills and walls, and small red accents for date tags and flames.
- Type: Large black brush characters for each era (周, 秦, 隋, 宋, 明, 辛亥, 今天), a red tag with the year, a short subhead beneath, and a one-line Chinese caption centered at the bottom.
- Framing: A flat side view on a single ground line; the mascot stays small in the lower left while each era's drawing sits center right.
- Sound: No voiceover, according to the creator.
- Structure: An opening sun and landscape, then Zhou beacon towers (1046 BCE), Qin and the Great Wall (221 BCE), the Three Kingdoms, Sui's exam hall and the Grand Canal (581), Song movable type (960), the Ming treasure ship (1368), the 1911 revolution, and today's rocket aimed at the Moon.

Storyboard, nine frames spread across the video: https://meetreference.com/media/five-thousand-years-chinese-history-2-38/storyboard.webp

- Frame 1 at 8.8s: https://meetreference.com/media/five-thousand-years-chinese-history-2-38/f1.webp
- Frame 2 at 26.3s: https://meetreference.com/media/five-thousand-years-chinese-history-2-38/f2.webp
- Frame 3 at 43.8s: https://meetreference.com/media/five-thousand-years-chinese-history-2-38/f3.webp
- Frame 4 at 61.3s: https://meetreference.com/media/five-thousand-years-chinese-history-2-38/f4.webp
- Frame 5 at 78.8s: https://meetreference.com/media/five-thousand-years-chinese-history-2-38/f5.webp
- Frame 6 at 96.3s: https://meetreference.com/media/five-thousand-years-chinese-history-2-38/f6.webp
- Frame 7 at 113.9s: https://meetreference.com/media/five-thousand-years-chinese-history-2-38/f7.webp
- Frame 8 at 131.4s: https://meetreference.com/media/five-thousand-years-chinese-history-2-38/f8.webp
- Frame 9 at 148.9s: https://meetreference.com/media/five-thousand-years-chinese-history-2-38/f9.webp

## How it was made, per the creator

- One-shot: yes, a single prompt with no follow-ups
- Reported spend: 3% of the 5-hour quota and 1% of the weekly quota on Claude Max (5x)
- Notes: The creator says the prompt was just one sentence. There's no voiceover; they suggest giving Claude a TTS API for that. Asked which agent they used, they answered "Claude Code"; asked what's under the hood, "就是一堆svg" (just a pile of SVG). They add that Claude can produce the MP4 directly, with no other software.

## Links

- Watch: https://x.com/akokoi1/status/2102583898865873225
- Original post: https://x.com/akokoi1/status/2102583898865873225
- Prompt, posted as a reply: https://x.com/akokoi1/status/2102584165220962502