1.
Emperor Gaozong of Song
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Emperor Gaozong of Song, personal name Zhao Gou, courtesy name Deji, was the tenth emperor of the Song dynasty in China and the first emperor of the Southern Song dynasty. He was the son of Emperor Huizong and a younger brother of Emperor Qinzong. In 1127, during the wars between the Song dynasty and Jurchen-led Jin dynasty, the Song capital Bianjing fell to Jin forces in an event historically known as the Jingkang Incident. Emperors Huizong and Qinzong were taken prisoner by the Jurchens, while Zhao Gou managed to escape to southern China and he reestablished the Song dynasty in Linan and was proclaimed emperor. He reigned from 1127 until 1162, when he abdicated the throne in favour of his adopted son Zhao Shen, Emperor Gaozong was the ninth son of Emperor Huizong and a younger brother of Emperor Qinzong. His mother, whose family name was Wei, was a concubine of Emperor Huizong. She was posthumously honoured as Empress Xianren, Emperor Gaozong was originally a prince during the reigns of his father and brother. The Great Chu, a state created by the Jin Empire, was abolished when Zhang Bangchang submitted to Emperor Gaozong. During Emperor Gaozongs reign, the Jurchens often attacked his realm, initially, he employed military leaders such as Li Gang, Zong Ze, Yue Fei, Han Shizhong, and Yu Yunwen to lead the Song forces to hold off the Jurchens. However, after years of fighting and significant military success, Emperor Gaozong settled on a pacifist stance, as a result, Emperor Gaozong and Qin Hui plotted to frame Yue Fei for some ambiguous offence and had him put to death. Han Shizhong was also dismissed from his military duties, Emperor Gaozong was also a notable poet and had significant influence on other Chinese poets. Among his surviving works is the Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain, Emperor Gaozong abdicated in 1162 after reigning for more than 35 years, and passed the throne to his adopted son Zhao Shen, because his only son, Zhao Fu, died prematurely around the age of two. Emperor Gaozong then assumed the title of Taishang Huang but remained the de facto ruler until his death in 1187
2.
Poetry
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Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Early poems evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing, or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ancient attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotles Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy. Later attempts concentrated on such as repetition, verse form and rhyme. From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more generally regarded as a creative act employing language. Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly figures of such as metaphor, simile and metonymy create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm. Some poetry types are specific to cultures and genres and respond to characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Much modern poetry reflects a critique of poetic tradition, playing with and testing, among other things, in todays increasingly globalized world, poets often adapt forms, styles and techniques from diverse cultures and languages. Some scholars believe that the art of poetry may predate literacy, others, however, suggest that poetry did not necessarily predate writing. The oldest surviving poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, comes from the 3rd millennium BCE in Sumer. An example of Egyptian epic poetry is The Story of Sinuhe, other forms of poetry developed directly from folk songs. The earliest entries in the oldest extant collection of Chinese poetry, the efforts of ancient thinkers to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a form, and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulted in poetics—the study of the aesthetics of poetry. Some ancient societies, such as Chinas through her Shijing, developed canons of poetic works that had ritual as well as aesthetic importance, Classical thinkers employed classification as a way to define and assess the quality of poetry. Later aestheticians identified three major genres, epic poetry, lyric poetry, and dramatic poetry, treating comedy and tragedy as subgenres of dramatic poetry, Aristotles work was influential throughout the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age, as well as in Europe during the Renaissance. English Romantic poet John Keats termed this escape from logic Negative Capability and this romantic approach views form as a key element of successful poetry because form is abstract and distinct from the underlying notional logic
3.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
4.
Classical Chinese
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Classical Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese that evolved from the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Literary Chinese was used for almost all formal writing in China until the early 20th century, Literary Chinese is known as kanbun in Japanese, hanmun in Korean, and cổ văn or văn ngôn in Vietnamese. It is often referred to as Classical Chinese, but sinologists generally distinguish it from the language of the early period. During this period the dialects of China became more and more disparate and this situation, the use of Literary Chinese throughout the Chinese cultural sphere despite the existence of disparate regional vernaculars, is called diglossia. It can be compared to the position of Classical Arabic relative to the various regional vernaculars in Arab lands, or of Latin in medieval Europe. The Romance languages continued to evolve, influencing Latin texts of the period, so that by the Middle Ages. Christian missionaries coined the term Wen-li for Literary Chinese, though composed from Chinese roots, this term was never used in that sense in Chinese, and was rejected by non-missionary sinologues. Chinese characters are not alphabetic and only palely reflect sound changes, the tentative reconstruction of Old Chinese is an endeavor only a few centuries old. With the progress of time, every dynasty has updated and modified the official Phonology Dictionary, by the time of the Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, the Phonology Dictionary was based on early Mandarin. In practice, all varieties of Chinese combine these two extremes, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese readers of Classical Chinese use systems of pronunciation specific to their own languages. Poetry and other rhyme-based writing thus becomes less coherent than the reading must have been. However, some modern Chinese varieties have certain characteristics that are closer to the older pronunciations than others. Another phenomenon that is common in reading Classical Chinese is homophony and it was written to show how Classical Chinese has become an impractical language for speakers of modern Chinese because Classical Chinese when spoken aloud is largely incomprehensible. However, such homophones are far more common in Literary Chinese than in English, romanizations have been devised giving distinct spellings for the words of Classical Chinese, together with rules for pronunciation in various modern varieties. However none of these systems has seen extensive use, an essay in Classical Chinese, for example, might use half as many Chinese characters as in vernacular Chinese to relate the same content. In terms of conciseness and compactness, Classical Chinese rarely uses words composed of two Chinese characters, nearly all words are of one syllable only and this phenomenon exists, in part, because polysyllabic words evolved in Chinese to disambiguate homophones that result from sound changes. Because Classical Chinese is based on the examples of ancient Chinese literature. Classical Chinese has more pronouns compared to the modern vernacular, in particular, whereas Mandarin has one general character to refer to the first-person pronoun, Literary Chinese has several, many of which are used as part of honorific language
5.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
6.
Mandarin Chinese
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Mandarin is a group of related varieties of Chinese spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of Standard Mandarin or Standard Chinese, because most Mandarin dialects are found in the north, the group is sometimes referred to as the Northern dialects. Many local Mandarin varieties are not mutually intelligible, nevertheless, Mandarin is often placed first in any list of languages by number of native speakers. Most Mandarin varieties have four tones, the final stops of Middle Chinese have disappeared in most of these varieties, but some have merged them as a final glottal stop. Many Mandarin varieties, including the Beijing dialect, retain retroflex initial consonants, the capital has been within the Mandarin area for most of the last millennium, making these dialects very influential. Some form of Mandarin has served as a lingua franca since the 14th century. In the early 20th century, a form based on the Beijing dialect. Standard Chinese is the language of the Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan. It is also one of the most frequently used varieties of Chinese among Chinese diaspora communities internationally, the English word mandarin originally meant an official of the Ming and Qing empires. Since their native varieties were often mutually unintelligible, these officials communicated using a Koiné language based on various northern varieties, when Jesuit missionaries learned this standard language in the 16th century, they called it Mandarin, from its Chinese name Guānhuà, or language of the officials. In everyday English, Mandarin refers to Standard Chinese, which is called simply Chinese. Standard Chinese is based on the particular Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing, with some lexical and it is the official spoken language of the Peoples Republic of China, the official language of the Republic of China, and one of the four official languages of the Republic of Singapore. It also functions as the language of instruction in Mainland China and it is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, under the name Chinese. Chinese speakers refer to the standard language as Pǔtōnghuà in Mainland China, Guóyǔ in Taiwan, or Huáyǔ in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines. Linguists use the term Mandarin to refer to the group of dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China. The alternative term Běifānghuà, or Northern dialects, is used less and less among Chinese linguists, by extension, the term Old Mandarin or Early Mandarin is used by linguists to refer to the northern dialects recorded in materials from the Yuan dynasty. Native speakers who are not academic linguists may not recognize that the variants they speak are classified in linguistics as members of Mandarin in a broader sense, the hundreds of modern local varieties of Chinese developed from regional variants of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese. Traditionally, seven groups of dialects have been recognized
7.
Yue Chinese
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Yue or Yueh is one of the primary branches of Chinese spoken in southern China, particularly the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, collectively known as Liangguang. The name Cantonese is often used for the branch, but linguists prefer to reserve that name for the variety of Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau. Taishanese, from the area of Jiangmen located southwest of Guangzhou, was the language of most of the 19th-century emigrants from Guangdong to Southeast Asia. Most later migrants have been speakers of Cantonese, Yue varieties are not mutually intelligible with other varieties of Chinese. The prototypical use of the name Cantonese in English is for the Yue variety of Guangzhou, in Chinese, people of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Cantonese immigrants abroad, usually call their language Gwóngdùng wá speech of Guangdong. The people of Guangdong and Guangxi do not use that term and they also use baahk wá on its own to refer to the Guangzhou dialect. It is also used in Guangxi to refer to Yue varieties, as for example in an expression like 南寧白話, the area of China south of the Nanling Mountains, known as the Lingnan, was originally home to peoples known to the Chinese as the Hundred Yue. Large-scale Han Chinese migration to the area began after the Qin conquest of the region in 214 BC, successive waves followed at times of upheaval in North China, such as the falls of the Han, Tang and Song dynasties. The most popular route was via the Xiang River, which the Qin had connected to the Li River by the Lingqu Canal, a secondary route followed the Gan River and then the Bei Jiang into eastern Guangdong. Yue-speakers were later joined by Hakka-speakers following the North River route, after the fall of Qin, the Lingnan area was part of the independent state of Nanyue for about a century, before being incorporated in the Han empire. After the Tang dynasty collapsed, much of the Yue area became part of the Southern Han, one of the states of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. The waves of Chinese migration assimilated huge numbers of aborigines, with the result that todays Yue-speaking population is descended from both groups. The colloquial layers of Yue varieties contain elements influenced by the Tai languages formerly spoken widely in the area and still spoken by people such as the Zhuang. The port city of Guangzhou lies in the middle of Pearl River Delta, with access to the interior via the West River, North River and East River and it has been the economic centre of the Lingnan region since Qin times, when it was an important shipbuilding centre. By 660, it was the largest port in China, part of a network stretching as far as Arabia. During the Southern Song, it became the cultural centre of the region. Like many other Chinese varieties it developed a distinct literary layer associated with the tradition of reading the classics. The Guangzhou dialect was used in the popular Yuèōu, Mùyú and Nányīn folksong genres, there was also a small amount of vernacular literature, written with Chinese characters extended with a number of non-traditional characters for Cantonese words
8.
Classical Chinese poetry
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Its existence is documented at least as early as the publication of the Classic of Poetry. Various combinations of forms and genres exist, many or most of these were developed by the end of the Tang Dynasty, in 907 CE. Use and development of Classical Chinese poetry actively continued up to until the May Fourth Movement, in 1919, Poetry created during this 2, 500-year period of more-or-less continuous development displays a great deal of diversity – categorized by both major historical periods and by dynastic periods. Another key aspect of Classical Chinese poetry is its intense inter-relationship with other forms of Chinese art, such as Chinese painting, Classical Chinese poetry has proven to be of immense influence upon poetry worldwide. The stylistic development of Classical Chinese poetry consists of literary and oral cultural processes. The poems preserved in form the poetic literature. Parallel traditions of oral and traditional poetry known as popular or folk poems or ballads also exist, some of these poems have been preserved in written form. Generally, folk-type poems are anonymous, and many signs of having been edited or polished in the process of recording them in written characters. The main source sources for the earliest preserved poems are the Classic of Poetry, or Shijing, some individual pieces or fragments survive in other forms - embedded, for example, in classical histories or other literature. The literary tradition of Classical Chinese poetry begins with the Classic of Poetry, or Shijing, according to tradition, Confucius was the final editor of the collection in its present form, although the individual poems were mostly older than this. Burton Watson dates the anthologys main compilation date to about the 7th century BCE and this, among other factors, indicates a sustained cross-class popularity for this type of poetry, including their characteristic four-character per line meter. Despite their commendation by Confucius, there are no extant samples of any poetry of this style made within the three hundred years. Another early poetry collection/genre is the Chu Ci, which is typified by various line lengths, one important part of this is the Li Sao, attributed to Qu Yuan. The classic shi poetry, with its lines, was revived by Han and Three Kingdoms poets. The development of this form of shi poetry occurred in conjunction with other phenomena related to Han poetry. The new form of shi developed during the Han and the Jianan period would become known as gushi, another important Han dynasty poetry collection is the Nineteen Old Poems. One exponent of this style was Sima Xiangru, Jianan poetry refers to those poetic movements occurring during the final years of the failing Han Dynasty and continuing their development into the beginning of the Six Dynasties period. Jianan is considered as a period because this is one case where the poetic developments fail to correspond with the neat categories aligned to chronology by dynasty
9.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
10.
Chinese New Year
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Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival in modern Mainland China, is an important Chinese festival celebrated at the turn of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. Celebrations traditionally run from the preceding the first day, to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first calendar month. The first day of the New Year falls on the new moon between 21 January and 20 February, in 2017, the first day of the Chinese New Year was on Saturday,28 January, initiating the year of the Rooster. The New Year festival is centuries old and gains significance because of several myths, traditionally, the festival was a time to honor deities as well as ancestors. Chinese New Year is considered a holiday for the Chinese and has had influence on the lunar new year celebrations of its geographic neighbors. Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese New Year vary widely, often, the evening preceding Chinese New Years Day is an occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annual reunion dinner. It is also traditional for every family to clean the house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune. Windows and doors are decorated with red color paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of fortune or happiness, wealth. Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes, in about one third of the Mainland population, or 500 million Northerners, dumplings feature prominently in the meals celebrating the festival. It is one of the worlds most prominent and celebrated festivals, the lunisolar Chinese calendar determines the date of Chinese New Year. In the Gregorian calendar, Chinese Lunar New Year begins at the new moon that falls between 21 January and 20 February, the median date of Chinese New Years Day is lichun on 4 or 5 February, the solar term next to Dahan. In the Chinese calendar, winter solstice must occur in the 11th month, to determine whether a year has an intercalary month, one only needs to check whether Chinese New Year is within the month of January. The Gregorian Calendar dates for Chinese New Year from 1912 to 2101 are below, along with the years presiding animal zodiac, the traditional Chinese calendar follows a Metonic cycle, and returns to the same date in Gregorian calendar roughly. The names of the Earthly Branches have no English counterparts and are not the Chinese translations of the animals, alongside the 12-year cycle of the animal zodiac there is a 10-year cycle of heavenly stems. Each of the ten heavenly stems is associated with one of the five elements of Chinese astrology, namely, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, the elements are rotated every two years while a yin and yang association alternates every year. The elements are distinguished, Yang Wood, Yin Wood, Yang Fire, Yin Fire. These produce a cycle that repeats every 60 years. For example, the year of the Yang Fire Rat occurred in 1936, many people inaccurately calculate their Chinese birth-year by converting it from their Gregorian birth-year
11.
Antithetical couplet
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In Chinese poetry, a couplet is a pair of lines of poetry which adhere to certain rules. Outside of poems, they are seen on the sides of doors leading to peoples homes or as hanging scrolls in an interior. Although often called antithetical couplet, they can better be described as a form of counterpoint. The two lines have a correspondence in their metrical length, and each pair of characters must have certain corresponding properties. A couplet is ideally profound yet concise, using one character per word in the style of Classical Chinese, a special, widely seen type of couplet is the spring couplet, used as a New Years decoration that expresses happiness and hopeful thoughts for the coming year. A couplet must adhere to the rules, Both lines must have the same number of Chinese characters. The lexical category of each character must be the same as its corresponding character, the tone pattern of one line must be the inverse of the other. This generally means if one character is of the level tone, the last character of the first line should be of an oblique tone, which forces the last character of the second line to be of a level tone. The meaning of the two lines need to be related, with pair of corresponding characters having related meanings too. Often, couplets are written on red paper and stuck on walls, sometimes, they are carved onto plaques of wood for a more permanent display. Dueling couplets are a popular pastime with Chinese speakers, a game of verbal and intellectual dexterity, wit, a notable modern-day example occurs at the 7,24 point of the second segment of the satirical machinima War of Internet Addiction. Couplet China the beautiful web site on duilian and chunlian Hubert Delahaye, The duilian, parallel, a few sociological aspects, Études chinoises, vol
12.
Lijiang
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Lijiang is a prefecture-level city in the northwest of Yunnan province, China. It has an area of 21,219 square kilometres and had a population of 1,244,769 at the 2010 census, Lijiang is famous for its UNESCO Heritage Site, the Old Town of Lijiang. Lijiang City replaced the administrative region of Lijiang Naxi Autonomous Prefecture. It was under the rule of the Mu family local commanders during the Ming Dynasty, the Baisha Old Town was the political, commercial and cultural center for the local Naxi people and other ethnic groups for 400 years from the year 658 AD to 1107 AD. The Dabaoji Palace of the Baisha Fresco, very close to the Baisha Naxi Hand-made Embroidery Institute, was built in the year 658 AD in the Tang Dynasty. The Ancient Southern Silk Road started from Burma, crossed Lijiang, Shangri-La County, Tibet, journeyed through Iran, the Fertile Crescent, the government of Lijiang City sits in Gucheng District. Lijiang City comprises one district and four counties, Lijiang is located in the portion of Yunnan. It is in a region where the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau converge, owing to its low latitude and high elevation, the city centre of Lijiang experiences a mild subtropical highland climate. Winters are mild and very dry and sunny, although lows in December and January are just below the freezing mark, January. Spring begins early and remains dry and sunny until late May, summers are warm, rainy and damp, with June, the warmest month, averaging 18.4 °C. Autumn sees a reduction in rainfall and return to sunniness. The annual mean temperature is 12.70 °C, while precipitation averages 968 mm, with monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 32% in July to 80% in December, the city receives 2,463 hours of bright sunshine annually. Lijiang Airport, Lijiang Airport is located in the south of Lijiang city,28 km away from downtown, there is an airport shuttle bus service in downtown Lijiang. The airport was opened in July 1995 and has flights to Kunming, Chengdu, Xishuangbanna, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and it also offers chartered airplane service. There are flights from Kunming to Lijiang every day and is about 30 minutes flight time, there are bus services to, amongst others, Kunming, Dali, the Tiger Leaping Gorge and Shangri-La. There is a service to Kunming with one overnight and two day trains, and one day train to Dali. Lijiang has several bridges over the Jinsha River, including the Jinlong Bridge, built in 1936, the world-famous Old Town of Lijiang is located in Lijiang City. It is a UNESCO Heritage Site, the town has a history going back more than 800 years and was once a confluence for trade along the old tea horse road
13.
Yunnan
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Yunnan is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country. It spans approximately 394,000 square kilometres and has a population of 45.7 million in 2009, the capital of the province is Kunming, formerly also known as Yunnan. The province borders Vietnam, Laos, and Burma, Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with high elevations in the northwest and low elevations in the southeast. Most of the lives in the eastern part of the province. In the west, the altitude can vary from the peaks to river valleys as much as 3,000 metres. Yunnan is rich in resources and has the largest diversity of plant life in China. Of the approximately 30,000 species of plants in China. Yunnans reserves of aluminium, lead, zinc and tin are the largest in China, the Han Empire first recorded diplomatic relations with the province at the end of the 2nd century BC. It became the seat of a Sino-Tibetan-speaking kingdom of Nanzhao in the 8th centuryAD, Nanzhao was multi-ethnic, but the elite most-likely spoke a northern dialect of Yi. The Mongols conquered the region in the 13th century, with local control exercised by warlords until the 1930s, as with other parts of Chinas southwest, Japanese occupation in the north during World War II forced another migration of majority Han people into the region. These two wave of migration contributed to Yunnan being one of the most ethnically diverse provinces of China, major ethnic groups include Yi, Bai, Hani, Zhuang, Dai and Miao. The Yuanmou Man, a Homo erectus fossil unearthed by railway engineers in the 1960s, has determined to be the oldest-known hominid fossil in China. By the Neolithic period, there were settlements in the area of Lake Dian. These people used tools and constructed simple wooden structures. Around the 3rd century BC, the area of Yunnan around present day Kunming was known as Dian. The Chu general Zhuang Qiao entered the region from the upper Yangtze River and he and his followers brought into Yunnan an influx of Chinese influence, the start of a long history of migration and cultural expansion. In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang unified China and extended his authority south, commanderies and counties were established in Yunnan. An existing road in Sichuan – the Five Foot Way – was extended south to present day Qujing
14.
Shi (poetry)
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Shi and shih are romanizations of the character 詩 or 诗, the Chinese word for all poetry generally and across all languages. This anthology included both aristocratic poems and more rustic works believed to have derived from Huaxia folk songs and they are composed in ancient Chinese, mostly in four-character lines. In such analysis, shi poetry is contrasted with forms such as the Chu-derived ci. This use is not common within Chinese literature, however, which instead classifies these poems into other categories such as classical Chinese poetry, Field and Garden poetry, gushi, literally Ancient Poetry, may be used in either of two senses. It may also be used strictly to refer to poems in the styles of the Confucian classic, owing to the variety of pieces included in the Classic, there are few formal constraints apart from line length and rhyming every other line. Jintishi, literally Modern Poetry, was composed from the 5th century onwards and is considered to have been fully developed by the early Tang dynasty. The works were written in five- and seven-character lines and involve constrained tone patterns. The principal forms are the four-line jueju, the eight-line lüshi, gushi Classical Chinese poetry forms Classical Chinese poetry genres List of Chinese-language poets Davis, Albert The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse. Chinese Poems, a collection of Chinese poems with pinyin and parallel translation Jintishi, an introduction to regulated verse
15.
Chinese literature
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In more modern times, the author Lu Xun is considered the founder of baihua literature in China. An attempt at tracing the genealogy of Chinese literature to religious spells, there is a wealth of early Chinese literature dating from the Hundred Schools of Thought that occurred during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. The most important of these include the Classics of Confucianism, of Daoism, of Mohism, of Legalism, as well as works of military science and Chinese history. Note that, except for the books of poems and songs, most of this literature is philosophical and didactic, however, these texts maintained their significance through both their ideas and their prose style. These nine books therefore became the center of the educational system and they have been grouped into two categories, the Five Classics, allegedly commented and edited by Confucius, and the Four Books. Other important philosophical works include the Mohist Mozi, which taught inclusive love as both an ethical and social principle, and Hanfeizi, one of the central Legalist texts, important Daoist classics include the Dao De Jing, the Zhuangzi, and the Classic of the Perfect Emptiness. Later authors combined Daoism with Confucianism and Legalism, such as Liu An, among the classics of military science, The Art of War by Sun Tzu was perhaps the first to outline guidelines for effective international diplomacy. It was also the first in a tradition of Chinese military treatises, such as the Wujing Zongyao, the Chinese kept consistent and accurate court records after the year 841 BC, with the beginning of the Gonghe Regency of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The earliest known history of China was the Zuo Zhuan, which was compiled no later than 389 BC. The Book of Documents included early information on geography in the Yu Gong chapter, the oldest extant dictionary in China is the Erya, dated to the 3rd century BC, anonymously written but with later commentary by the historian Guo Pu. Other early dictionaries include the Fangyan by Yang Xiong and the Shuowen Jiezi by Xu Shen, one of the largest was the Kangxi Dictionary compiled by 1716 under the auspices of the Kangxi Emperor, it provides definitions for over 47,000 characters. This groundbreaking text laid the foundation for Chinese historiography and the many official Chinese historical texts compiled for each dynasty thereafter and this was often difficult for the official dynastic historians, who used historical works to justify the reign of the current dynasty. Large encyclopedias were also produced in China through the ages, the Yiwen Leiju encyclopedia was completed by Ouyang Xun in 624 during the Tang Dynasty, with aid from scholars Linghu Defen and Chen Shuda. This included the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era, the Finest Blossoms in the Garden of Literature, the rich tradition of Chinese poetry began with two influential collections. In northern China, the Shijing or Classic of Poetry comprises over 300 poems in a variety of styles ranging from those with a suggestion of folk music to ceremonial hymns. The word shi has the meaning of poem or poetry. Confucius is traditionally credited with editing the Shijing and its stately verses are usually composed of couplets with lines of four characters each, and a formal structure of end rhymes. Many of these early poems establish the tradition of starting with a description of nature that leads into emotionally expressive statements, known as bi, xing
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Fu (poetry)
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Fu, variously translated as rhapsody or poetic exposition, is a form of Chinese rhymed prose that was the dominant literary form during the Han dynasty. Fu are intermediary pieces between poetry and prose in which a place, object, feeling, or other subject is described and rhapsodized in exhaustive detail and from as many angles as possible. Classical fu composers attempted to use as wide a vocabulary as they could, Fu poems employ alternating rhyme and prose, varying line length, close alliteration, onomatopoeia, loose parallelism, and extensive cataloging of their topics. Unlike the songs of the Classic of Poetry or the Verses of Chu, fu were meant to be recited aloud or chanted, the fu genre came into being around the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC and continued to be regularly used into the Song dynasty. Fu were used as grand praises for the courts, palaces, and cities. The largest collections of historical fu are the Selections of Refined Literature, the Book of Han, the New Songs from the Jade Terrace, there is no counterpart or similar form to the fu genre in Western literature. During a large part of the century, fu poetry was harshly criticized by Chinese scholars as excessively ornate, lacking in real emotion. Because of these associations, scholarship on fu poetry in China almost ceased entirely between 1949 and the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. Since then, study of fu has gradually returned to its previous level, the term fu, when applied to Chinese literature, first appears in the Zhou dynasty, where it meant to present, as in poetic recitations. It was also one of the three literary devices traditionally assigned to the songs of the Classic of Poetry. Over the course of the late 1st millennium BC, fu became the name of poetic expositions in which an author or composer created a comprehensive exposition, Han dynasty historian Ban Gu in the Monograph on Arts and Letters defined fu as to recite without singing. Fu poetry is often viewed as a descendant of the Verses of Chu songs combined with the expositions of the Intrigues of the Warring States. During the golden age of fu in the 2nd century BC, a chapter of Xunzi containing a series of riddles has been theorized to be the earliest known fu. The earliest preserved and definitely datable fu is Jia Yis Fu on the Owl, jias surviving writings mention an earlier fu he wrote upon his exile to Changsha which he modeled upon Qu Yuans Encountering Sorrow, but it has not survived to the present. Much of the surviving Han fu and other poetry survives through Six Dynasty anthologies and other sources, Fu achieved its greatest prominence during the early Han dynasty. Jia Yis Fu on the Owl, written around 170 BC, was composed following on the year of his exile to Changsha. Fu on the Owl, besides being the earliest known fu, is unusual in the extended use of philosophical reflection upon his own situation in life. Emperor Wu of Han ascended the throne in 141 BC, Emperor Wu summoned famous fu writers to the imperial court in Changan, where many of them composed and presented fu to the entire court
17.
I Ching
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The I Ching, or Classic of Changes, is an ancient divination text and the oldest of the Chinese classics. The I Ching uses a type of divination called cleromancy, which produces apparently random numbers. Four numbers,6 to 9, are turned into a hexagram, the hexagrams themselves have often acquired cosmological significance and paralleled with many other traditional names for the processes of change such as yin and yang and Wu Xing. The core of the I Ching is a Western Zhou divination text called the Changes of Zhou, various modern scholars suggest dates ranging between the 10th and 4th centuries BC for the assembly of the text in approximately its current form. It is possible that other systems existed at this time. The name Zhou yi literally means the changes of the Zhou dynasty, the changes involved have been interpreted as the transformations of hexagrams, of their lines, or of the numbers obtained from the divination. Feng Youlan proposed that the word for changes originally meant easy, as in a form of divination easier than the oracle bones, there is also an ancient folk etymology that sees the character for changes as containing the sun and moon, the cycle of the day. Modern Sinologists believe the character to be derived either from an image of the sun emerging from clouds, the Zhou yi was traditionally ascribed to the Zhou cultural heroes King Wen of Zhou and the Duke of Zhou, and was also associated with the legendary world ruler Fu Xi. The Zhou yi itself does not contain this legend and indeed says nothing about its own origins, the Rites of Zhou, however, also claims that the hexagrams of the Zhou yi were derived from an initial set of eight trigrams. During the Han dynasty there were various opinions about the relationship between the trigrams and the hexagrams. The basic unit of the Zhou yi is the hexagram, a composed of six stacked horizontal lines. Each line is broken or unbroken. The received text of the Zhou yi contains all 64 possible hexagrams, along with the name, a short hexagram statement. The book opens with the first hexagram statement, yuán hēng lì zhēn, edward Shaughnessy describes this statement as affirming an initial receipt of an offering, beneficial for further divining. The word zhēn was also used for the divine in the oracle bones of the late Shang dynasty. It also carried meanings of being or making upright or correct, the names of the hexagrams are usually words that appear in their respective line statements, but in five cases an unrelated character of unclear purpose appears. The hexagram names could have been chosen arbitrarily from the line statements, the line statements, which make up most of the book, are exceedingly cryptic. Each line begins with a word indicating the number, base,2,3,4,5, top
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Pre-Socratic philosophy
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Pre-Socratic philosophy is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates and schools contemporary to Socrates that were not influenced by him. In Classical antiquity, the Presocratic philosophers were called physiologoi, Aristotle called them physikoi because they sought natural explanations for phenomena, as opposed to the earlier theologoi, whose philosophical basis was supernatural. Diogenes Laërtius divides the physiologoi into two groups, Ionian, led by Anaximander, and the Italiote, led by Pythagoras, hermann Diels popularized the term pre-socratic in Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker in 1903. However, the term pre-Sokratic was in use as early as George Grotes Plato, edouard Zeller was also important in dividing thought before and after Socrates. Major analyses of pre-Socratic thought have been made by Gregory Vlastos, Jonathan Barnes and it may sometimes be difficult to determine the actual line of argument some Presocratics used in supporting their particular views. While most of them produced significant texts, none of the texts has survived in complete form, all that is available are quotations by later philosophers and historians, and the occasional textual fragment. The Presocratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological explanations of the phenomena they saw them in favor of more rational explanations. These philosophers asked questions about the essence of things, From where does everything come, how do we explain the plurality of things found in nature. How might we describe nature mathematically, others concentrated on defining problems and paradoxes that became the basis for later mathematical, scientific and philosophic study. Later philosophers rejected many of the answers the early Greek philosophers provided, furthermore, the cosmologies proposed by them have been updated by later developments in science. Western philosophy began in ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE, the Presocratics were mostly from the eastern or western fringes of the Greek world. Their efforts were directed to the investigation of the ultimate basis and they sought the material principle of things, and the method of their origin and disappearance. As the first philosophers, they emphasized the unity of things. Only fragments of the writings of the presocratics survive. The knowledge we have of them derives from accounts - known as doxography - of later philosophical writers, the first Presocratic philosophers were from Miletus on the western coast of Anatolia. Thales is reputedly the father of Greek philosophy, he declared water to be the basis of all things, next came Anaximander, the first writer on philosophy. He assumed as the first principle an undefined, unlimited substance without qualities, out of which the primary opposites, hot and cold, moist and dry, became differentiated. His younger contemporary, Anaximenes, took for his air, conceiving it as modified, by thickening and thinning, into fire, wind, clouds, water
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Ancient Greece
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Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Jewish, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent. The end of the Dark Ages is also dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC
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Classic of Poetry
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It is one of the Five Classics traditionally said to have been compiled by Confucius, and has been studied and memorized by scholars in China and neighboring countries over two millennia. Since the Qing dynasty, its rhyme patterns have also analysed in the study of Old Chinese phonology. Early references refer to the anthology as the 300 Poems, with a typically inexact use of three hundred. The Odes first became known as a jīng, or a book, in the canonical sense. The same word shi later became a term for poetry. In English, lacking an exact equivalent for the Chinese, the translation of the word shi in this regard is generally as poem, song, before its elevation as a canonical classic, the Classic of Poetry was known as the Three Hundred Songs or the Songs. The Classic of Poetry contains the oldest chronologically authenticated Chinese poems, the majority of the Odes date to the Western Zhou period. A final section of 5 Eulogies of Shang purports to be songs of the Shang Dynasty as handed down by their descendents in the state of Song. According to the Eastern Han scholar Zheng Xuan, the latest material in the Shijing was the song Tree-stump Grove in the Odes of Chen, dated to the middle of the Spring and Autumn period. The content of the Poetry can be divided into two sections, the Airs of the States, and the eulogies and hymns. The Airs of the States are shorter lyrics in simple language that are generally ancient folk songs which record the voice of the common people. They often speak of love and courtship, longing for an absent lover, soldiers on campaign, farming and housework and they also include hymns used in sacrificial rites and songs used by the aristocracy in their sacrificial ceremonies or at banquets. Whatever the origin of the various Shijing poems as folk songs or not, in other words, they show an overall literary polish together with some general stylistic consistency. About 95% of lines in the Poetry are written in a four-syllable meter, lines tend to occur in syntactically related couplets, with occasional parallelism, and longer poems are generally divided into similarly structured stanzas. All but six of the Eulogies consist of a single stanza, almost all of the Airs, however, consist of three stanzas, with four-line stanzas being most common. Although a few rhyming couplets occur, the pattern in such four-line stanzas required a rhyme between the second and fourth lines. Often the first or third lines would rhyme with these, or with each other and this style later became known as the shi style for much of Chinese history. One of the characteristics of the poems in the Classic of Poetry is that they tend to possess elements of repetition and variation
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Chu Ci
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The traditional version of the Chu Ci contains 17 major sections, anthologized with its current contents by Wang Yi, a 2nd-century AD librarian who served under Emperor Shun of Han. The early Classical Chinese poetry is known through the two anthologies, the Chu Ci and the Shi Jing. Chu Ci was named after a form of poetry that originated in the State of Chu, which was located in what is now central China, but was then in the southern fringe of the Chinese cultural area. The territory of Chu was known for its blend of culture from the Chinese heartland, or north, with cultural influences. Thus, in the north of China, Chu had a reputation for various features. A Chinese form of shamanism was prominent in Chu, and a number of the Chu Ci verses describe spirit journeys. The Book of Han noted 106 Chu poets with 1,318 compositions, other chu ci style verses were written, including some which survive, but are not generally included in the standard anthology. Wang Yi made a commentary on the Chu Ci, as well as appending his own Nine Longings, as the seventeenth. Although Chu Ci is an anthology of poems by poets, Qu Yuan was its central figure. There are various other authors which are thought to have written various sections of the Chu Ci. Various scholarly sources propose solutions for who wrote what, in the Chu Ci, besides the authorship of the actual content, much commentary has been written in regard to the Chu Ci, some of which is traditionally incorporated into the printed editions. The name Qu Yuan does not occur in any prior to the Han dynasty. It is also said that it is in remembrance of the circumstances of Qu Yuans death that the annual Dragon boat races are held. During his days of exile, Qu Yuan is thought to have written Li Sao, his magnum opus, the authorship, as in many a case of ancient literature, can be neither confirmed nor denied. Written in 373 verses containing 2490 characters, Li Sao is the earliest Chinese long poem and is acclaimed as the representative of Qu Yuans high moral conduct. Also, among the other Chu Ci works sometimes attributed to Qu Yuan, modern scholars have devoted long studies to the question of the Chu ci pieces authorship, but there is no consensus on which may actually be by Qu Yuan himself. Sima Qians Records of the Grand Historian mentions five of Qu Yuans works, Li Sao, Tian Wen, Zhao Hun, Ai Ying, Huai Sha. According to Wang Yi of the Eastern Han dynasty, a total of 25 works can be attributed to Qu Yuan, Li Sao, Jiu Ge, Heavenly Questions, Jiu Zhang, Yuan You, Pu Ju, and Yu Fu
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Burning of books and burying of scholars
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The event caused the loss of many philosophical treatises of the Hundred Schools of Thought. The official philosophy of government survived and it is also now believed that many scholars were killed, but that they were not Confucians and were not buried alive. In any case, the incidents and the burning of books. Chancellor Li Si Said, I, your servant, propose that all historians records other than those of Qins be burned, anyone who dares to discuss the Shi Jing or the Classic of History shall be publicly executed. Anyone who uses history to criticize the present shall have his family executed, any official who sees the violations but fails to report them is equally guilty. Anyone who has failed to burn the books after thirty days of this announcement shall be subjected to tattooing, the books that have exemption are those on medicine, divination, agriculture, and forestry. Those who have interest in laws shall instead study from officials, the Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin thirty-fourth year Three categories of books were viewed by Li Si to be most dangerous politically. These were poetry, history, and philosophy, the ancient collection of poetry and historical records contained many stories concerning the ancient virtuous rulers. Li Si believed that if the people were to read these works they were likely to invoke the past, the reason for opposing various schools of philosophy was that they advocated political ideas often incompatible with the totalitarian regime. The extent of the damage to Chinese intellectual heritage is difficult to assess, there are several facts, however, that indicate the consequences of this event, although enduring, had not been extensive. First, it is recorded in Li Sis memorial that all books were to be spared. Secondly, even the books, poetry and philosophy in particular, were preserved in imperial archives. Of the various categories of books mentioned, history suffered the greatest loss, extremely few state history books before Qin have survived. Li Si stated that all history books not in the Qin interpretation were to be burned and it is not clear whether copies of these books were allowed to stay in the imperial archives. Even if some histories were preserved, they would have destroyed in 206 B. C. when enemies captured and burned the Qin imperial palaces in which the archives were most likely located. At the end of the Qin, the Epang Palaces national records were destroyed by fire, the belief was based on this passage in the Shiji, The first emperor therefore directed the imperial censor to investigate the scholars one by one. The scholars accused each other, and so the emperor personally determined their fate, more than 460 of them were buried alive at Xianyang, and the event is announced to all under heaven for warning followers. More people were exiled to border regions
23.
Qin Shi Huang
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Qin Shi Huang was the founder of the Qin dynasty and was the first emperor of a unified China. He was born Ying Zheng or Zhao Zheng, a prince of the state of Qin. He became the King Zheng of Qin when he was thirteen, then Chinas first emperor when he was 38 after the Qin had conquered all of the other Warring States and unified all of China in 221 BC. Rather than maintain the title of king borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers and his self-invented title emperor, as indicated by his use of the word First, would continue to be borne by Chinese rulers for the next two millennia. Qin Shi Huang also worked with his minister Li Si to enact major economic and he is traditionally said to have banned and burned many books and executed scholars, though a closer examination renders the account doubtful. In ancient China however the naming convention differed, and Zhao may be used as the surname, the rulers of Qin had styled themselves kings from the time of King Huiwen in 325 BC. Upon his ascension, Zheng became known as the King of Qin or King Zheng of Qin and this title made him the nominal equal of the rulers of Shang and of Zhou, the last of whose kings had been deposed by King Zhaoxiang of Qin in 256 BC. Following the surrender of Qi in 221 BC, King Zheng had reunited all of the lands of the former Kingdom of Zhou, rather than maintain his rank as king, however, he created a new title of huángdì for himself. This new title combined two titles—huáng of the mythical Three Sovereigns and the dì of the legendary Five Emperors of Chinese prehistory. King Zheng chose the new name of First Emperor on the understanding that his successors would be successively titled the Second Emperor, Third Emperor. The new title carried religious overtones, for that reason, Sinologists—starting with Peter Boodberg or Edward Schafer—sometimes translate it as thearch and the First Emperor as the First Thearch. The First Emperor intended that his realm would remain intact through the ages but, following its overthrow and replacement by Han after his death, following his elevation as emperor, both Zhengs personal name 政 and possibly its homophone 正 became taboo. The First Emperor also arrogated the first-person Chinese pronoun 朕 for his exclusive use, others were to address him as Your Majesty in person and Your Highness in writing. According to the Records of the Grand Historian, written by Sima Qian during the Han dynasty, the first emperor was the eldest son of the Qin prince Yiren, who later became King Zhuangxiang of Qin. Prince Yiren at that time was residing at the court of Zhao, Prince Yiren had fallen in love at first sight with a concubine of Lü Buwei, a rich merchant from the State of Wey. Lü consented for her to be Yirens wife, who became known as Lady Zhao after the state of Zhao. Lü Buweis machinations later helped Yiren become King Zhuangxiang of Qin in 250 BC, however, the Records of the Grand Historian also claimed that the first emperor was not the actual son of Prince Yiren but that of Lü Buwei. According to translations of the Annals of Lü Buwei, Zhao Ji gave birth to the emperor in the city of Handan in 259 BC
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Chu (state)
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Chu was a hegemonic, Zhou dynasty era state. From King Wu of Chu in the early 8th century BCE, with its continued expansion Chu became a great Warring States period power. Also known as Jing, Jingchu and Shu, Chu included most of the provinces of Hubei and Hunan, along with parts of Chongqing, Guizhou, Henan, Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang. For more than 400 years, the Chu capital Danyang was located at the junction of the Dan and Xi Rivers near present-day Xichuan County, Henan, but later moved to Ying. The ruling house of Chu originally bore the clan name Nai and lineage name Yan, according to legends recounted in Sima Qians Records of the Grand Historian, the royal family of Chu descended from the Yellow Emperor and his grandson and successor Zhuanxu. Zhuanxus great-grandson Wuhui was put in charge of fire by Emperor Ku, wuhuis son Luzhong had six sons, all born by Caesarian section. The youngest, Jilian, adopted the ancestral surname Mi, jilian’s descendant Yuxiong was the teacher of King Wen of Zhou. After the Zhou overthrew the Shang dynasty, King Cheng awarded Yuxiongs great-grandson Xiong Yi with the fiefdom of Chu, Xiong Yi built the first capital of Chu at Danyang. In 977 BCE, during his campaign against Chu, King Zhao of Zhous boat sank, after this death, Zhou ceased to expand to the south, allowing the southern tribes and Chu to cement their own autonomy much earlier than the states to the north. The Chu viscount Xiong Qu overthrew E in 863 BCE but subsequently made its capital Ezhou one of his capitals, in either 703 or 706, the ruler Xiong Tong proclaimed himself king, establishing Chus full independence from the Zhou dynasty. In its early years, Chu was a successful expansionist and militaristic state that developed a reputation for coercing and absorbing its allies, Chu grew from a small state into a large kingdom. King Zhuang was even considered one of the five Hegemons of the era, after a number of battles with neighboring states, sometime between 695 and 689 BCE, the Chu capital moved southeast from Danyang to Ying. Chu first consolidated its power by absorbing lesser states in its original area, the threat from Chu resulted in multiple northern alliances under the leadership of Jin. These alliances kept Chu in check, with the first major victory won at the Chengpu in 632 BCE, at the beginning of the sixth century BCE, Jin strengthened the state of Wu near the Yangtze delta to act as a counterweight against Chu. Wu defeated Qi and then invaded Chu in 506 BCE, following the Battle of Boju, it occupied Chus capital at Ying, forcing King Zhao to flee to his allies in Yun and Sui. King Zhao eventually returned to Ying but, after another attack from Wu in 504 BCE, Chu began to strengthen Yue in modern Zhejiang to serve as allies against Wu. Yue was initially subjugated by King Fuchai of Wu until he released their king Goujian, freed from its difficulties with Wu, Chu annexed Chen in 479 BCE and overran Cai to the north in 447 BCE. This policy of expansion continued until the last generation before the fall to Qin, however, by the end of the 5th century BCE, the Chu government had become very corrupt and inefficient, with much of the states treasury used primarily to pay for the royal entourage
25.
Qu Yuan
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Qu Yuan was a Chinese poet and minister who lived during the Warring States period of ancient China. Together with the Shi Jing, the Chu Ci is one of the two collections of ancient Chinese verse. He is also remembered as the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival. Historical details about Qu Yuans life are few, and his authorship of many Chu Ci poems have been questioned at length, however, he is widely accepted to have written Li Sao, the most well-known of the Chu Ci poems. The first known reference to Qu Yuan appears in a written in 174 BC by Jia Yi. While traveling, he wrote a poem describing the fate of a previous Qu Yuan. Eighty years later, the first known biography of Qu Yuans life appeared in Han Dynasty historian Sima Qians Records of the Grand Historian, Sima wrote that Qu was a member of the Chu royal clan and served as an official under King Huai of Chu. During the early days of King Huais reign, Qu Yuan was serving the State of Chu as its Left Minister, however, King Huai exiled Qu Yuan to the region north of the Han River, because corrupt ministers slandered him and influenced the king. Eventually, Qu Yuan was reinstated and sent on a mission to the State of Qi. He tried to resume relations between Chu and Qi, which King Huai had broken under the pretense of King Hui of Qin to cede territory near Shangyu. During King Qingxiangs reign, Prime Minister Zilan slandered Qu Yuan and this caused Qu Yuans exile to the regions south of the Yangtze River. It is said that Qu Yuan returned first to his home town, in his exile, he spent much of this time collecting legends and rearranging folk odes while traveling the countryside. Furthermore, he wrote some of the greatest poetry in Chinese literature, according to legend, his anxiety brought him to an increasingly troubled state of health. During his depression, he would take walks near a certain well to look upon his thin. This well became known as the Face Reflection Well, on a hillside in Xiangluping, there is a well that is considered to be the original well from the time of Qu Yuan. Eventually, he committed suicide by wading into the Miluo River in todays Hunan Province while holding a rock. Qu Yuan is regarded as the first author of verse in China to have his name associated to his work, since prior to that time and this resulted in poems with more rhythm and latitude in expression. During the Han Dynasty, Qu Yuan became established as a example of how a scholar
26.
Han dynasty
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The Han dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period. Spanning over four centuries, the Han period is considered an age in Chinese history. To this day, Chinas majority ethnic group refers to itself as the Han people and it was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han, and briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang. This interregnum separates the Han dynasty into two periods, the Western Han or Former Han and the Eastern Han or Later Han, the emperor was at the pinnacle of Han society. He presided over the Han government but shared power with both the nobility and appointed ministers who came largely from the gentry class. The Han Empire was divided into areas controlled by the central government using an innovation inherited from the Qin known as commanderies. These kingdoms gradually lost all vestiges of their independence, particularly following the Rebellion of the Seven States, from the reign of Emperor Wu onward, the Chinese court officially sponsored Confucianism in education and court politics, synthesized with the cosmology of later scholars such as Dong Zhongshu. This policy endured until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 AD, the Han dynasty was an age of economic prosperity and saw a significant growth of the money economy first established during the Zhou dynasty. The coinage issued by the government mint in 119 BC remained the standard coinage of China until the Tang dynasty. The period saw a number of limited institutional innovations, the Xiongnu, a nomadic steppe confederation, defeated the Han in 200 BC and forced the Han to submit as a de facto inferior partner, but continued their raids on the Han borders. Emperor Wu of Han launched several campaigns against them. The ultimate Han victory in these wars eventually forced the Xiongnu to accept vassal status as Han tributaries, the territories north of Hans borders were quickly overrun by the nomadic Xianbei confederation. Imperial authority was seriously challenged by large Daoist religious societies which instigated the Yellow Turban Rebellion. When Cao Pi, King of Wei, usurped the throne from Emperor Xian, following Liu Bangs victory in the Chu–Han Contention, the resulting Han dynasty was named after the Hanzhong fief. Chinas first imperial dynasty was the Qin dynasty, the Qin unified the Chinese Warring States by conquest, but their empire became unstable after the death of the first emperor Qin Shi Huangdi. Within four years, the authority had collapsed in the face of rebellion. Although Xiang Yu proved to be a commander, Liu Bang defeated him at Battle of Gaixia. Liu Bang assumed the title emperor at the urging of his followers and is known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu, Changan was chosen as the new capital of the reunified empire under Han
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Six Dynasties
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Six Dynasties is a collective term for six Chinese dynasties in China during the periods of the Three Kingdoms, Jin dynasty, and Southern and Northern Dynasties. It also coincides with the era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and this era immediately followed the fall of the Han Dynasty in 220 AD, and was an era of disunity, instability and warfare. The term generally refers to two groupings of dynasties during that period, Six dynasties with capitals in Jiankang, and Six dynasties with legitimate lineage. Xu Song in Tang Dynasty wrote a book, Jiankang Shilu, that provides an account of Jiankang. Later Chinese called this period the Six Dynasties period, or Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Six Dynasties was an important era in the history of Chinese poetry, especially remarkable for its frank descriptions of love and beauty. Also significant, is the Zi Ye, or Lady Midnight style, buddhism, which first reached China in Eastern Han Dynasty, flourished in the Six Dynasties and became a major religion in China since then. The Japanese scholar Tanigawa Michio analyzed the Six Dynasty period to test general theories of Chinas historical development and that is, there an argument between those who see unilinear, monistic world history and those who conceive of a two-tracked or multitracked world history. The period established social and political patterns which shaped Chinas history from that point on, Chinese history Chinese sovereign Northern Dynasties Southern Dynasties Nanking Dien, Albert E. Medieval Chinese Society and the Local Community, Chinese Lyricism, Shih Poetry from the Second to the Twelfth Century. ISBN 0-231-03464-4 http, //as. ff. uni-lj. si/datoteke/6. pdf SIX DYNASTIES CIVILIZATION Intellectual Trends Of The Early Six Dynasties Period Indiana University, ch 1 The Six Dynasties Dien, Six Dynasties Civilization. 300 to 600 CE, CHINA Asia for Educators Columbia University Weatherhead Institute
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Tang dynasty
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The Tang dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. It is generally regarded as a point in Chinese civilization. Its territory, acquired through the campaigns of its early rulers, rivaled that of the Han dynasty. The dynasty was founded by the Lǐ family, who seized power during the decline, the dynasty was briefly interrupted when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, proclaiming the Second Zhou dynasty and becoming the only Chinese empress regnant. In two censuses of the 7th and 8th centuries, the Tang records estimated the population by number of registered households at about 50 million people. Various kingdoms and states paid tribute to the Tang court, while the Tang also conquered or subdued several regions which it controlled through a protectorate system. Besides political hegemony, the Tang also exerted a powerful influence over neighboring states such as those in Korea, Japan. Like the previous Sui dynasty, the Tang dynasty maintained a service system by recruiting scholar-officials through standardized examinations and recommendations to office. This civil order was undermined by the rise of military governors known as jiedushi during the 9th century. Chinese culture flourished and further matured during the Tang era, it is considered the greatest age for Chinese poetry. Two of Chinas most famous poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, belonged to this age, as did many famous painters such as Han Gan, Zhang Xuan, there was a rich variety of historical literature compiled by scholars, as well as encyclopedias and geographical works. The adoption of the title Tängri Qaghan by the Tang Emperor Taizong in addition to his title as emperor was eastern Asias first simultaneous kingship, there were many notable innovations during the Tang, including the development of woodblock printing. Buddhism became an influence in Chinese culture, with native Chinese sects gaining prominence. However, Buddhism would later be persecuted by the state, subsequently declining in influence, although the dynasty and central government were in decline by the 9th century, art and culture continued to flourish. This family was known as the Longxi Li lineage, which includes the Tang poet Li Bai, the Tang Emperors also had Xianbei maternal ancestry, from Emperor Gaozu of Tangs Xianbei mother Duchess Dugu. He had prestige and military experience, and was a first cousin of Emperor Yang of Sui, Li Yuan rose in rebellion in 617, along with his son and his equally militant daughter Princess Pingyang, who raised and commanded her own troops. In winter 617, Li Yuan occupied Changan, relegated Emperor Yang to the position of Taishang Huang or retired emperor, and acted as regent to the puppet child-emperor, Emperor Gong of Sui. On the news of Emperor Yangs murder by General Yuwen Huaji on June 18,618, Li Yuan declared himself the emperor of a new dynasty, the Tang
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Han poetry
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He was posthumously honored as Han High Founder or Han Great Ancestor Emperor. Despite his folksy background, general lack of literacy, and what were considered generally vulgar ways, Liu Bang had a regard for literature. Also important in the history of the Han dynasty is the method of recording words, brushing characters with ink is archeologically attested to during the Han period, including on silk, hemp paper, and bamboo slips. The bamboo slips were tied together carefully with delicate string cords, when these rotted and broke, the individual slips would become mixed up, and the text which was written upon them thus have often become scrambled. Methods such as stamping or marking on clay or engraving on stone were also used, little poetry from the Han dynasty survives as originally recorded or published, instead most of the preserved poems exist as passed on to the future by the Six Dynasties poetry era anthologies. An important part of the poetic legacy received by Han dynasty poets was the Shijing verse style, furthermore, there was a received tradition of orally transmitted folk songs and folk ballads. There was little or no direct influence from that source. The extension of the Han empire into new areas introduced new and exotic concepts and material objects, important individual Han era authors of poetry include Zhang Heng and Liu Xiang. Many of the Han poets who wrote in their own personal voice under their own name or pen-name wrote in the fu style, in the sao style, or both. In other cases, poems have been attributed to specific Han dynasty persons, or written in perspective of their persona, for example, the cases of the poems attributed to Su Wu and Consort Ban are not determined. Other Han poets include Sima Xiangru, Ban Gu, and Mi Heng, Sima Xiangru was one of the most important poets of the Han dynastic era, writing in both the Chuci and the fu styles. Su Wu was held captive for 19 years, returning to China in 81 BC,4 poems collected in the Wen Xuan are only attributed to him. However, at the time, it was not uncustomary to confuse the persona of a poem with the person of the author, there is a story about Su Wu which became a common allusion in Chinese poetry. Later Su was elevated in status, even it is given a wife who bore him children. Ban Jieyu also known as Lady Pan was a concubine to Emperor Cheng of Han and the great-aunt of the poet, historian, a well-known poem in the Wen Xuan is attributed to her. Although most unlikely to actually be by her, it is written as if it could have been written by her or someone in her position. It is an important early example of the secluded palace lady genre of poetry, Ban Gu was a 1st-century Chinese historian and poet best known for his part in compiling the historical compendium the Book of Han. Ban Gu also wrote a number of fu, which are anthologized in the Wen Xuan, the meaning of Chuci is something like The Material of Chu, referring to the ancient Land of Chu
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Jian'an poetry
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Jianan poetry, or Chienan poetry refers to those styles of poetry particularly associated with the end of the Han dynasty and the beginning of the Six Dynasties era of China. Besides their role as leaders in war and politics, the Cao family also had an important role in the field of poetry, Cao Cao and his sons Cao Pi and Cao Zhi are collectively known as the Three Caos of poetry. Along with several other poets, such as Xu Gan and the other Seven Scholars of Jianan, the Seven Scholars of Jianan was a name which Cao Pi came up with in an essay to describe seven major literati of the Jianan era. Among them were Kong Rong, who was executed by Cao Cao. Wang Can, a known for his Poem of Seven Sorrows. Another important aspect of Han poetry was the institution of the Music Bureau, the developments in both of these forms of poetry in the Han Dynasty help in the understanding of the work of the Jianan poets. Classical Chinese poetry Han poetry Six dynasties poetry Ruan Ji Seven Scholars of Jianan Xu Gan The Quatrain of Seven Steps Poetry of Cao Cao Birrell, popular Songs and Ballads of Han China. CHINESE LYRICISM, Shih Poetry from the Second to the Twelfth Century
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Cao Cao
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Cao Cao, courtesy name Mengde, was a Chinese warlord and the penultimate Chancellor of the Eastern Han dynasty who rose to great power in the final years of the dynasty. As one of the figures of the Three Kingdoms period. During the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty, Cao Cao was able to secure the most populated and prosperous cities of the central plains and northern China. Cao had much success as the Han chancellor, but his handling of the Han emperor Liu Xie was heavily criticized and resulted in a continued, opposition directly gathered around warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan, whom Cao was unable to quell. Cao was also skilled in poetry and martial arts and wrote many war journals, Cao Cao was born in Qiao in 155. His father Cao Song was a son of Cao Teng. Some historical records, including the Biography of Cao Man, claim that Cao Songs original family name was Xiahou, Cao was known for his craftiness as an adolescent. According to the Biography of Cao Man, Cao Caos uncle complained to Cao Song about Cao Caos indulgence in hunting, in retaliation, Cao Cao feigned a fit before his uncle, who immediately rushed to inform Cao Song. When Cao Song went to see his son, Cao Cao behaved normally, when asked, Cao Cao replied, I have never had a fit, but I lost the love of my uncle, and therefore he deceived you. Afterwards, Cao Song ceased to believe his brother regarding Cao Cao, at that time, there was a man named Xu Shao who lived in Runan and was famous for his ability to evaluate a persons potentials and talents. Cao Cao paid him a visit in hopes of receiving an evaluation that would help him politically. At first, Xu Shao refused to make a statement, however, under persistent questioning, he said, You would be a capable minister in peaceful times. There are two versions of this comment in other unofficial historical records. At the age of 20, Cao Cao was appointed captain of Luoyang. Upon taking up the post, he placed rows of multicolored stakes outside his office and ordered his deputies to flog those who violated the law, regardless of their status. An uncle of Jian Shuo, one of the most powerful and this prompted Jian Shuo and other higher authorities to ostensibly promote Cao Cao to the post of governor of Dunqiu County while actually moving him out of the imperial capital. Cao Cao remained in position for little more than a year. Around 180, Cao Cao returned to court as a Consultant, when the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out in 184, Cao Cao was recalled to Luoyang and appointed Captain of the Cavalry and sent to Yingchuan in Yu Province to suppress the rebels
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Cao Pi
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Cao Pi, courtesy name Zihuan, was the first emperor of the state of Cao Wei in the Three Kingdoms period. He was born in Qiao as the son of Cao Cao. However, he was the eldest son among all the children born to Cao Cao by his concubine Lady Bian, of all his brothers, Cao Pi was the shrewdest. Instead of focusing on academic studies or administering military affairs, he was always in the presence of officials in order to gain their support. He was mostly in charge of defence at the start of his career. After the defeat of Cao Caos rival Yuan Shao at the Battle of Guandu, he took the widow of Yuan Shaos son Yuan Xi, Lady Zhen, as a concubine, but in 221 Lady Zhen died and Guo Nüwang became empress. In 220, Cao Pi forced Emperor Xian, the last ruler of the Han Dynasty, to abdicate the throne to him, and he proclaimed himself emperor and established the state of Cao Wei. Cao Pi continued the wars against the states of Shu Han and Eastern Wu, founded by his fathers rivals Liu Bei and Sun Quan respectively, unlike his father, Cao Pi concentrated most of his efforts on internal administration rather than on waging wars against his rivals. During his reign, he formally established Chen Quns nine-rank system as the base for civil service nomination, after Cao Pis death, his successor Cao Rui granted him the posthumous name Emperor Wen and the temple name Shizu. Cao Pi was also a poet and scholar, just like his father Cao Cao. He wrote Yan Ge Xing, the first Chinese poem in the style of seven syllables per line and he also wrote over a hundred articles on various subjects. Cao Pi was the eldest son of Cao Cao and his concubine Lady Bian, Cao Pi was recorded as excellent swordsman as he studied martial arts from Shi E, a gentleman of household from Rapid as Tigers division of the imperial guards. In the period after 190 when Cao Cao was constantly waging war against other rival warlords, it is not known where Cao Pi and Lady Bian were, or what they did. The lone reference to Cao Pi during this period was in 204, the next immediate reference to Cao Pis activities was in 211, when he was appointed General of the Household for All Purposes and Vice Chancellor. This position placed him second to his father, who was then Chancellor, the eldest of all of Cao Caos sons, Cao Ang, had died early, so Cao Pi was regarded as the eldest among all his fathers sons. Besides, Cao Pis mother had also become Cao Caos official spouse after Cao Caos first wife Lady Ding was deposed, Cao Pi thus became the presumptive heir to his father. However, Cao Pis status as heir was not immediately made legal, Cao Cao greatly favoured Cao Zhi, who was known for his literary talents. Both Cao Pi and Cao Zhi were talented poets, but Cao Zhi was more highly regarded as a poet and speaker
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Cao Zhi
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Cao Zhi, courtesy name Zijian, was a prince of the state of Cao Wei in the Three Kingdoms period and an accomplished poet in his time. His poetry style, greatly revered during the Jin Dynasty and Southern and Northern Dynasties, Cao Zhi was a son of Cao Cao, a warlord who rose to power towards the end of the Han Dynasty and laid the foundation of Wei. As Cao Zhi once engaged his elder brother Cao Pi in a struggle to succeed their father, he was ostracised by his victorious brother after the latter became the emperor. In his later life, Cao Zhi was not allowed to meddle in politics, born in 192, Cao Zhi was the third son of the warlord Cao Cao and Lady Bian. According to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Zhi could recite the Shi Jing, Analects and his literary talent made him a favorite son of Cao Cao in the early stage of his life. However, Cao Zhi was a man with little self-discipline. He was also a heavy drinker, on the other hand, his older brother Cao Pi was a shrewd man who knew how to feign emotions at the right times. Cao Pi also enjoyed a closer relationship to the servants and subjects around Cao Cao. In 217, Cao Cao eventually picked Cao Pi to succeed himself and this further aggravated Cao Zhis already eccentric behavior. He once rode his chariot along the road reserved for the emperor and this infuriated his father, who sentenced the chariot driver to death. Having chosen a successor, Cao Cao took measures to emasculate other contestants and he did this by executing Yang Xiu, a chief advisor to Cao Zhi. This greatly unsettled Cao Zhi, but failed to jolt him back to his senses, on the contrary, he sank further into his drunken habits. In 219, Cao Caos cousin and leading general Cao Ren was besieged at the fortress at Fancheng by Guan Yu, Cao Cao named Cao Zhi to lead a relief force to the rescue, in the hope that the task would instill into the latter a sense of responsibility. However, Cao Zhi was so drunk that he could not come forth to take the order, Cao Cao then gave up on this son. One of the first things Cao Pi did was to do away with Ding Yi and Ding Yi and he also sent Cao Zhi, along with the other brothers, away from the capital and prohibited them from taking part in central political issues. Prospects for Cao Zhi did not improve after Cao Pi died in 226 and he wrote to the second Wei emperor Cao Rui many times, seeking a position to apply his talents. In 232, he sought a private meeting with Cao Rui to discuss politics. However, Cao Rui probably still considered him a threat to the throne, severely depressed by the setbacks, Cao Zhi soon died of illness, leaving behind instructions for a simple burial
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Lantingji Xu
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The Lantingji Xu or Lanting Xu, is a piece of Chinese calligraphy work generally considered to be written by the well-known calligrapher Wang Xizhi from the East Jin Dynasty. In the ninth year of the Emperor Yonghe, a Spring Purification Ceremony was held at Lanting, at the end of the day, twenty-six literati composed thirty-seven poems in total and the Lantingji Xu, as a preface to the collection was produced by Wang on the spot. The original preface was long lost, but multiple copies with ink on papers or stone inscriptions remain until today, the Lantingji Xu was written in the Running Style on a cocoon paper with a weasel-whisker brush. It consists of three-hundred and twenty-four characters in twenty-eight columns, the script of the Lantingji Xu was often celebrated as the high point of the Running Style in the history of Chinese calligraphy. The improvisational work demonstrated Wang’s extraordinary calligraphy skill with the elegant and fluent strokes in a coherent spirit throughout the entire preface, the character Zhi also appeared twenty times but was never repeated to be the same. Not only the form of the manuscript is highly appreciated but also the transcendent sentiments expressed in the preface about life. Wang reckoned the same emotion would be shared by the ancestors and his future generations even though the world, the scholars, who study Wang, refer to his ideology expressed in the preface as a fusion of the Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. The original of the Lantingji Xu was told to be completed by Wang in the state of insobriety, Wang tried to rewrite the preface but failed to create the same sublime beauty as the first time. When it came to the reign of the second Emperor from the Tang dynasty, Emperor Taizong was an admirer of Wang’s calligraphy, xiao managed to gain the trust from the monk and successfully spirited away the original work. Today, among the copies of the preface, a few outstanding imitations were attributed to Feng Chengsu, Ouyang Xun, Yu Shinan. Feng’s version, also called the Shenlong version, was regarded as the closest resemblance to the original, Feng, as the royal copyist, mastered the calligraphy tracing technique which was named Xiang Tuo. The Shenlong version is preserved at the Palace Museum in Beijing. Given there is not a piece of original work of Wang survived in our time. In the 1960s, the debate was intensified along with discoveries of more calligraphy rubbings, moreover, the earliest anecdotes collection in China Shishuo Xinyu, annotated by writer Liu Xiaobiao, asserted that the preface written by Wang was actually named Linhe Xu. Guo also stated that the emotions manifested in the preface was overly pessimistic for an aristocrat so that it was not a reflection of Wang’s temperament. As a result, by the early 1970s, the conclusion was almost reached that the Lantingji Xu scroll was a work forged by Wang’s descendant. In addition, since the preface was named by the ages of Wang. In fact, before Liu Xiaobiao’s annotations, the version of the Shishuo Xinyu compiled by the first editor Liu Yiqing was already referring to the preface by Wang as Lantingji Xu
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Orchid Pavilion Gathering
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The Orchid Pavilion Gathering of 353 CE was a cultural and poetic event during the Six Dynasties era, in China. This event itself has an inherent and poetic interest in regard to the development of landscape poetry. This was known as floating goblets, in the end, twenty-six of the participants composed thirty-seven poems. The events of the Orchid Pavilion Gathering and the poems have inspired not only generations of poets. Admonitions Scroll History of graphic design Juran Lantingji Xu Orchidaceae Shangsi Festival Six Dynasties poetry Xie An Zhejiang Chang, chinese Poetry, An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres
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Wang Xizhi
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Wang Xizhi was a Chinese writer and official who lived during the Jin Dynasty, best known for his mastery of Chinese calligraphy. Wang is generally regarded as the greatest Chinese calligrapher in history, emperor Taizong of Tang admired his works so much that the original Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion was said to be buried with the emperor in his mausoleum. In addition to the esteem in which he is held in China, he has been, born in Linyi, Shandong, Wang spent most of his life in present-day Shaoxing, Zhejiang and Wenzhou. He learned the art of calligraphy from Lady Wei Shuo and he excelled in every script but particularly in semi-cursive script. Unfortunately, none of his works remains today. The original is lost, but the work survives in a number of finely traced copies, 627-650 by Feng Chengsu, and it is located in the Palace Museum in Beijing. Wang Xizhi is particularly remembered for one of his hobbies, that of rearing geese, legend has it that he learned that the key to how to turn his wrist whilst writing was to observe how geese moved their necks. There is a porcelain cup depicting Wang Xizhi walking geese in the China Gallery of the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore. The other side of the cup depicts a scholar taking a zither to a friend, Wang Xizhi had seven children, all of whom were notable calligraphers. The most distinguished was his youngest son, Wang Xianzhi, in 2010, a small Tang reproduction of one of Wangs calligraphy scrolls on silk with four lines was sold in China at an auction for ¥308 million RMB. Knechtges, David R. Wang Xizhi 王羲之, in Knechtges, David R. Chang, Taiping. Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature, A Reference Guide, Part Two, encyclopedia of China, 1st ed. Khoo Seow Hwa and Penrose, Nancy L, Behind the Brushstrokes, Tales from Chinese Calligraphy. Animation of Wangs Calligraphy AniGraphy by Marion Tzui Yan
