Sun Jian
Sun Jian, courtesy name Wentai, was a military general and warlord who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. He allied himself with Yuan Shu in 190 when warlords from eastern China formed a coalition to oust Dong Zhuo, a tyrannical warlord who held the puppet Emperor Xian in his power. Although he controlled neither many troops nor much land, Sun Jian's personal bravery and resourcefulness were feared by Dong Zhuo, who placed him among Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu and Liu Biao as the most influential men at that time. After the coalition disbanded in the next year, China fell into massive civil war. In 191, Sun Jian was killed in battle during an offensive campaign against Liu Biao. Sun Jian was the father of Sun Quan, one of the central figures of the Three Kingdoms era who established the Eastern Wu state and declared himself its first emperor in 229, whereupon Sun Jian was given the posthumous title "Emperor Wulie". Sun Jian was born in Wu Commandery, in present day Fuyang, Zhejiang.
He was a descendant of Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War. No more immediate records survive, indicating his family played a small part during the Han dynasty, his father's name is unrecorded, although a folk tradition gives it as Sun Zhong. Sun Jian was a civil official in his home county during his youth; when he was 16, Sun Jian travelled with his father to Qiantang, where they encountered a band of pirates dividing up their spoils on land. Sun Jian jumped on shore with a sabre in hand and pointed in different directions as if commanding a detachment of soldiers to surround the pirates. Seeing this, the pirates fled. Sun Jian pursued, only after taking the head of every pirate did he return, his name henceforth spread. In 184, the Yellow Turban Rebellion led by Zhang Jiao broke out across the country. Sun Jian joined the general Zhu Jun to quell the rebellion in Yu Province; the soldiers fought hard. Sun Jian climbed onto the city walls alone; the rest swarmed in and defeated the rebels. Around this time, Bian Zhang and Han Sui colluded with the Qiang tribes and rebelled in Liang Province.
After Dong Zhuo failed to put down the rebellion, the central government sent in his place the Minister of Works Zhang Wen, who invited Sun Jian along as an adviser. When Zhang Wen summoned Dong Zhuo to the encampment at Chang'an, Dong Zhuo procrastinated and took a long time to arrive; when he did, he showed little respect for Zhang Wen. Sun Jian advised Zhang Wen to execute Dong Zhuo, but Zhang Wen declined as Dong Zhuo held high reputation in the west. Despite scoring a major victory against the rebels at Meiyang, Zhang Wen could not press their advantage and the rebellion was still not quelled. Zhang Wen and the rest returned to the capital Luoyang in disgrace and thus. Meanwhile, another local-scale rebellion broke out near Changsha Commandery and the rebels besieged the city. Sun Jian was appointed as the Administrator of Changsha Commandery. Within a month upon taking up office, Sun Jian had quelled the rebellion. Meanwhile, rebellions broke out in the neighbouring commanderies of Lingling and Guiyang.
Sun Jian defeated the rebel leaders Ou Xing, Zhou Chao and Guo Shi, suppressed both rebellions. The Han imperial court enfeoffed as the Marquis of Wucheng in recognition of his contributions. In 189, Emperor Ling died, leaving his young son in the care of Empress Dowager He and General-in-Chief He Jin, he Jin summoned Dong Zhuo to lead troops into the capital to assist in a plot to eliminate the powerful eunuch faction. Before Dong Zhuo arrived, however, He Jin was assassinated by the eunuchs and Luoyang fell into chaos following a clash between supporters of both sides. Dong Zhuo seized military control of the capital and deposed the young emperor for the puppet Emperor Xian. However, his tyrannical ways incurred the wrath of many and in the following year, warlords from eastern China formed a coalition against him. Sun Jian raised an army and joined Yuan Shu, one of the leaders of the coalition at Luyang. On his way, he killed Administrator of Nanyang Zhang Zi. Yuan Shu appointed Sun Jian as General Who Destroys Inspector of Yu Province.
Sun Jian began training and preparing his troops at Luyang. A force sent by Dong Zhuo was so impressed with the strict discipline of Sun Jian's troops that they gave up the plan to attack Luyang; when Sun Jian moved out to Liangdong, he was outnumbered by Dong Zhuo's forces. With several dozen horsemen, Sun Jian broke out of the encirclement, he took off the red felt scarf he had always been wearing and handed it to his trusted aide Zu Mao, whom Dong Zhuo's soldiers chased after while Sun Jian escaped. Unable to shake off his pursuers, Zu Mao dismounted, hung the scarf onto a half-burnt pillar, hid himself in the tall grass nearby; the enemies surrounded the pillar and approached cautiously till they realised they had been fooled, whereupon they retreated. After regrouping his troops, Sun Jian pressed his troops towards Luoyang and engaged in battle against Dong Zhuo's forces at Yangren, he scored a brilliant victory and kil
East Asian cultural sphere
The "East Asian cultural sphere" or "Sinosphere" are the countries and regions in East Asia that were influenced by the Chinese culture. Other names for the concept include the Sinic world, the Confucian world, the Taoist world, the Chinese cultural sphere, though the last is used to refer to the Sinophone world: the areas which speak varieties of Chinese; the East Asian cultural sphere shares a Confucian ethical philosophy, Taoism and a common writing system. The core regions of the East Asian cultural sphere are China, Korea and Vietnam; the terms East Asian cultural sphere and "Chinese character cultural sphere" are used interchangeably with "Sinosphere" but have different denotations. The British historian Arnold J. Toynbee listed the Far Eastern civilization as one of the main civilizations outlined in his book, A Study of History, he included Japan and Korea in his Far Eastern civilization, proposed that it grew out of the Sinic civilization that originated in the Yellow River basin. Toynbee compared the relationship between the Sinic and Far Eastern civilization with that of the Hellenic and Western civilizations.
According to Toynbee, the Hellenic and Western civilizations had an "apparentation-affiliation" relationship, while the Far Eastern world was controlled by the "ghost" of the "Sinic universal state." The Japanese historian Nishijima Sadao conceived a Chinese or East Asian cultural sphere isolated from other cultures. According to Nishijima, this cultural sphere shared the philosophy of Confucianism, the religion of Buddhism, similar political and social structures, his cultural sphere includes China, Korea and areas between Mongolia and the Himalayas. The American Sinologist and historian Edwin O. Reischauer grouped China and Japan together into a cultural sphere that he called the Sinic world; these countries are centralized states. Reischauer states that this culture originated in Northern China, compared the relationship between Northern China and East Asia to that of Greco-Roman civilization and Europe; the elites of East Asia were tied together through a common written language based on Chinese characters, much in the way that Latin had functioned in Europe.
The American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington considered the Sinic world as one of many civilizations in his The Clash of Civilizations, he notes that "all scholars recognize the existence of either a single distinct Chinese civilization dating back to at least 1500 B. C. and a thousand years earlier, or of two Chinese civilizations one succeeding the other in the early centuries of the Christian epoch." He comments that he used the term "Confucian", but "Sinic" is more accurate because it describes "the common culture of China and the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and elsewhere outside of China as well as the related cultures of Vietnam and Korea."Huntington's Sinic civilization includes China, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan and Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. Of the many civilizations that Huntington discusses, the Sinic world is the only one, based on a cultural, rather than religious, identity. Huntington's theory was that in a post-Cold War world, humanity "identify with cultural groups: tribes, ethnic groups, religious communities, at the broadest level, civilizations."
He portrayed the cultural sphere's political culture as one with "little room for social or political pluralism and the division of power" with "international politics as hierarchical because their domestic policies are." Huntington argued that the Sinic world would oppose the West's hegemony in Asia through forming an alliance with the Islamic world. Countries from the East Asian cultural sphere share a common architectural style stemming from the architecture of ancient China. Buddhism The countries of China, Korea and Vietnam share a history of Mahayana Buddhism. Taoism The countries of China, Korea and Vietnam have been influenced by Taoism; the countries of China, Korea and Vietnam share a Confucian philosophical worldview. Confucianism is a humanistic philosophy that believes that human beings are teachable and perfectible through personal and communal endeavour including self-cultivation and self-creation. Confucianism focuses on the cultivation of virtue and maintenance of ethics, the most basic of which are rén, yì, lǐ.
Ren is an obligation of altruism and humaneness for other individuals, yi is the upholding of righteousness and the moral disposition to do good, li is a system of norms and propriety that determines how a person should properly act in everyday life. Mid-Imperial Chinese philosophy is defined by the development of Neo-Confucianism. During the Tang dynasty, Buddhism from Nepal became a prominent philosophical and religious discipline. Neo-Confucianism has its origins in the Tang dynasty; the Song dynasty philosopher Zhou Dunyi is seen as the first true "pioneer" of Neo-Confucianism, using Daoist metaphysics as a framework for his ethical philosophy. Elsewhere in East Asia, Japanese philosophy began to develop as indigenous Shinto beliefs fused with Buddhism and other schools of Chinese philosophy. Similar to Japan, in Korean philosophy elements of Shamanism were integrated into the Neo-Confucianism imported from China. In Vietnam, neo-Confucianism was developed into Vietnamese own Tam giáo as well, along with indigenous Vietnamese beliefs and Mahayana Buddhism.
East Asian literary culture was based on the use of Literary
Confucius
Confucius was a Chinese teacher, editor and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history. The philosophy of Confucius known as Confucianism, emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships and sincerity, his followers competed with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin dynasty. Following the victory of Han over Chu after the collapse of Qin, Confucius's thoughts received official sanction and were further developed into a system known in the West as Neo-Confucianism, New Confucianism. Confucius is traditionally credited with having authored or edited many of the Chinese classic texts including all of the Five Classics, but modern scholars are cautious of attributing specific assertions to Confucius himself. Aphorisms concerning his teachings were compiled in the Analects, but only many years after his death. Confucius's principles have commonality with Chinese belief.
He championed strong family loyalty, ancestor veneration, respect of elders by their children and of husbands by their wives, recommending family as a basis for ideal government. He espoused the well-known principle "Do not do unto others what you do not want done to yourself", the Golden Rule, he is a traditional deity in Daoism. Confucius is considered as one of the most important and influential individuals in shaping human history, his teaching and philosophy impacted people around the world and remains influential today. The name "Confucius" is a Latinized form of the Mandarin Chinese "Kǒng Fūzǐ", was coined in the late 16th century by the early Jesuit missionaries to China. Confucius's clan name was "Kǒng", his given name was "Qiū", his "capping name", given upon reaching adulthood and by which he would have been known to all but his older family members, was "Zhòngní", the "Zhòng" indicating that he was the second son in his family. It is thought that Confucius was born on September 28, 551 BC, in the district of Zou near present-day Qufu, China.
The area was notionally controlled by the kings of Zhou but independent under the local lords of Lu. His father Kong He was an elderly commandant of the local Lu garrison, his ancestry traced back through the dukes of Song to the Shang dynasty. Traditional accounts of Confucius's life relate that Kong He's grandfather had migrated the family from Song to Lu. Kong He died when Confucius was three years old, Confucius was raised by his mother Yan Zhengzai in poverty, his mother would die at less than 40 years of age. At age 19 he married Qiguan, a year the couple had their first child, Kong Li. Qiguan and Confucius would have two daughters together, one of whom is thought to have died as a child. Confucius was educated at schools for commoners, where he learned the Six Arts. Confucius was born into the class between the aristocracy and the common people, he is said to have worked in various government jobs during his early 20s, as a bookkeeper and a caretaker of sheep and horses, using the proceeds to give his mother a proper burial.
When his mother died, Confucius is said to have mourned for three years. In Confucius's time, the state of Lu was headed by a ruling ducal house. Under the duke were three aristocratic families, whose heads bore the title of viscount and held hereditary positions in the Lu bureaucracy; the Ji family held the position "Minister over the Masses", the "Prime Minister". In the winter of 505 BC, Yang Hu—a retainer of the Ji family—rose up in rebellion and seized power from the Ji family. However, by the summer of 501 BC, the three hereditary families had succeeded in expelling Yang Hu from Lu. By Confucius had built up a considerable reputation through his teachings, while the families came to see the value of proper conduct and righteousness, so they could achieve loyalty to a legitimate government. Thus, that year, Confucius came to be appointed to the minor position of governor of a town, he rose to the position of Minister of Crime. Confucius desired to return the authority of the state to the duke by dismantling the fortifications of the city—strongholds belonging to the three families.
This way, he could establish a centralized government. However, Confucius relied on diplomacy as he had no military authority himself. In 500 BC, Hou Fan—the governor of Hou—revolted against his lord of the Shu family. Although the Meng and Shu families unsuccessfully besieged Hou, a loyalist official rose up with the people of Hou and forced Hou Fan to flee to the Qi state; the situation may have been in favor for Confucius as this made it possible for Confucius and his disciples to convince the aristocratic families to dismantle the fortifications of their cities. After a year and a half and his disciples succeeded in convincing the Shu family to raze the walls of Hou, the Ji family in razing the walls of Bi, the Meng family in razing the walls of Cheng. First, the Shu family led an army towards their city Hou and tore down its walls in 498 BC. Soon thereafter, Gongshan Furao or Buniu, a retainer of the Ji family and took control of the forces at Bi, he launched an attack and entered the capital Lu.
Earlier, Gongshan had approached Confucius to join him. Though he disapproved
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters that are used in the Japanese writing system. They are used alongside katakana; the Japanese term kanji for the Chinese characters means "Han characters". It is written with the same characters in the Chinese language to refer to the character writing system, hanzi. Chinese characters first came to Japan on official seals, swords, coins and other decorative items imported from China; the earliest known instance of such an import was the King of Na gold seal given by Emperor Guangwu of Han to a Yamato emissary in 57 AD. Chinese coins from the first century AD have been found in Yayoi period archaeological sites. However, the Japanese of that era had no comprehension of the script, would remain illiterate until the fifth century AD. According to the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki, a semi-legendary scholar called Wani was dispatched to Japan by the Kingdom of Baekje during the reign of Emperor Ōjin in the early fifth century, bringing with him knowledge of Confucianism and Chinese characters.
The earliest Japanese documents were written by bilingual Chinese or Korean officials employed at the Yamato court. For example, the diplomatic correspondence from King Bu of Wa to Emperor Shun of Liu Song in 478 has been praised for its skillful use of allusion. Groups of people called fuhito were organized under the monarch to read and write Classical Chinese. During the reign of Empress Suiko, the Yamato court began sending full-scale diplomatic missions to China, which resulted in a large increase in Chinese literacy at the Japanese court. In ancient times paper was so rare that people stenciled kanji onto thin, rectangular strips of wood; these wooden boards were used for communication between government offices, tags for goods transported between various countries, the practice of writing. The oldest written kanji in Japan discovered so far was written in ink on wood as a wooden strip dated to the 7th century, it is a record of trading for salt. The Japanese language had no written form at the time Chinese characters were introduced, texts were written and read only in Chinese.
During the Heian period, however, a system known as kanbun emerged, which involved using Chinese text with diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to restructure and read Chinese sentences, by changing word order and adding particles and verb endings, in accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar. Chinese characters came to be used to write Japanese words, resulting in the modern kana syllabaries. Around 650 AD, a writing system called man'yōgana evolved that used a number of Chinese characters for their sound, rather than for their meaning. Man'yōgana written in cursive style evolved into hiragana, or onna-de, that is, "ladies' hand," a writing system, accessible to women. Major works of Heian-era literature by women were written in hiragana. Katakana emerged via a parallel path: monastery students simplified man'yōgana to a single constituent element, thus the two other writing systems and katakana, referred to collectively as kana, are descended from kanji. In comparison to kana kanji are called mana.
In modern Japanese, kanji are used to write parts of the language such as nouns, adjective stems, verb stems, while hiragana are used to write inflected verb and adjective endings and as phonetic complements to disambiguate readings and miscellaneous words which have no kanji or whose kanji is considered obscure or too difficult to read or remember. Katakana are used for representing onomatopoeia, non-Japanese loanwords, the names of plants and animals, for emphasis on certain words. In 1946, after World War II and under the Allied Occupation of Japan, the Japanese government, guided by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, instituted a series of orthographic reforms, to help children learn and to simplify kanji use in literature and periodicals; the number of characters in circulation was reduced, formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade of school were established. Some characters were given simplified glyphs, called shinjitai. Many variant forms of characters and obscure alternatives for common characters were discouraged.
These are guidelines, so many characters outside these standards are still known and used. The kyōiku kanji are 1,006 characters; the list only contained 881 characters. This was expanded to 996 characters in 1977, it was not until 1982 the list was expanded to its current size. The grade-level breakdown of these kanji is known as the gakunen-betsu kanji haitōhyō, or the gakushū kanji; the jōyō kanji are 2,136 characters consisting of all the Kyōiku kanji, plus 1,130 additional kanji taught in junior high and high school. In publishing, characters outside this category are given furigana; the jōyō kanji were introduced in 1981, replacing an older list of 1,850 characters known as the tōyō kanji, introduced in 1946. Numbering 1,945 characters, the jōyō kanji list was extended to 2,136 in 2010; some of the new characters were Jinmeiyō kanji. Since September 27, 2004, the jinmeiyō k
Zhou dynasty
The Zhou dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang dynasty and preceded the Qin dynasty. The Zhou dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history; the military control of China by the royal house, surnamed Ji, lasted from 1046 until 771 BC for a period known as the Western Zhou and the political sphere of influence it created continued well into Eastern Zhou for another 500 years. During the Zhou Dynasty, centralized power decreased throughout the Spring and Autumn period until the Warring States period in the last two centuries of the Zhou Dynasty. In this period, the Zhou court had little control over its constituent states that were at war with each other until the Qin state consolidated power and formed the Qin dynasty in 221 BC; the Zhou Dynasty had formally collapsed only 35 years earlier, although the dynasty had only nominal power at that point. This period of Chinese history produced; the Zhou dynasty spans the period in which the written script evolved into its almost-modern form with the use of an archaic clerical script that emerged during the late Warring States period.
According to Chinese mythology, the Zhou lineage began when Jiang Yuan, a consort of the legendary Emperor Ku, miraculously conceived a child, Qi "the Abandoned One", after stepping into the divine footprint of Shangdi. Qi was a culture hero credited with surviving three abandonments by his mother and with improving Xia agriculture, to the point where he was granted lordship over Tai and the surname Ji by his own Xia king and a posthumous name, Houji "Lord of Millet", by the Tang of Shang, he received sacrifice as a harvest god. The term Hòujì was a hereditary title attached to a lineage. Qi's son, or rather that of the Hòujì, Buzhu is said to have abandoned his position as Agrarian Master in old age and either he or his son Ju abandoned agriculture living a nomadic life in the manner of the Xirong and Rongdi. Ju's son Liu, led his people to prosperity by restoring agriculture and settling them at a place called Bin, which his descendants ruled for generations. Tai led the clan from Bin to Zhou, an area in the Wei River valley of modern-day Qishan County.
The duke passed over his two elder sons Taibo and Zhongyong to favor Jili, a warrior who conquered several Xirong tribes as a vassal of the Shang kings Wu Yi and Wen Ding before being treacherously killed. Taibo and Zhongyong had already fled to the Yangtze delta, where they established the state of Wu among the tribes there. Jili's son Wen moved the Zhou capital to Feng. Around 1046 BC, Wen's son Wu and his ally Jiang Ziya led an army of 45,000 men and 300 chariots across the Yellow River and defeated King Zhou of Shang at the Battle of Muye, marking the beginning of the Zhou dynasty; the Zhou enfeoffed a member of the defeated Shang royal family as the Duke of Song, held by descendants of the Shang royal family until its end. This practice was referred to Three Reverences. According to Nicholas Bodman, the Zhou appear to have spoken a language not different in vocabulary and syntax from that of the Shang. A recent study by David McCraw, using lexical statistics, reached the same conclusion.
The Zhou emulated extensively Shang cultural practices to legitimize their own rule, became the successors to Shang culture. At the same time, the Zhou may have been connected to the Xirong, a broadly defined cultural group to the west of the Shang, which the Shang regarded as tributaries. According to the historian Li Feng, the term "Rong" during the Western Zhou period was used to designate political and military adversaries rather than cultural and ethnic'others.' King Wu maintained the old capital for ceremonial purposes but constructed a new one for his palace and administration nearby at Hao. Although Wu's early death left a young and inexperienced heir, the Duke of Zhou assisted his nephew King Cheng in consolidating royal power. Wary of the Duke of Zhou's increasing power, the "Three Guards", Zhou princes stationed on the eastern plain, rose in rebellion against his regency. Though they garnered the support of independent-minded nobles, Shang partisans and several Dongyi tribes, the Duke of Zhou quelled the rebellion, further expanded the Zhou Kingdom into the east.
To maintain Zhou authority over its expanded territory and prevent other revolts, he set up the fengjian system. Furthermore, he countered Zhou's crisis of legitimacy by expounding the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven while accommodating important Shang rituals at Wangcheng and Chengzhou. Over time, this decentralized system became strained as the familial relationships between the Zhou kings and the regional dynasties thinned over the generations. Peripheral territories developed local prestige on par with that of the Zhou; when King You demoted and exiled his Jiang queen in favor of the beautiful commoner Bao Si, the disgraced queen's father the Marquis of Shen joined with Zeng and the Quanrong barbarians to sack Hao in 771 BC. Some modern scholars have surmised that the sack of Haojing might have been connected to a Scythian raid from the Altai before their westward expansion. With King You dead, a conclave of nobles declared the Marquis's grandson King Ping; the capital was moved eastward to Wangcheng, marking the end of the "Western Zhou" and the beginning of the "Eastern Zhou" dynasty.
The Eastern Zhou was characterized by an accelerating collapse of royal authority, although the king's ritual importance allowed over five more cent
Laozi
Laozi rendered as Lao Tzu and Lao-Tze, was an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He is the reputed author of the Tao Te Ching, the founder of philosophical Taoism, a deity in religious Taoism and traditional Chinese religions. A semi-legendary figure, Laozi was portrayed as a 6th-century BC contemporary of Confucius, but some modern historians consider him to have lived during the Warring States period of the 4th century BC. A central figure in Chinese culture, Laozi is claimed by both the emperors of the Tang dynasty and modern people of the Li surname as a founder of their lineage. Laozi's work has been embraced by Chinese Legalism. In traditional accounts, Laozi's personal name is given as Li Er and his courtesy name as Boyang. A prominent posthumous name was Li Dan. Laozi itself is a honorific title: 老 and 子, it has been romanized numerous ways. The most common present form is Laozi or Lǎozǐ, based on the Hanyu Pinyin system adopted by Mainland China in 1958 and by Taiwan in 2009. During the 20th century, Lao-tzu was more common, based on the prevalent Wade–Giles system.
In the 19th century, the title was romanized as Lao-tse. Other forms include the variants Lao-tsu; as a religious figure, he is worshipped under the name "Supreme Old Lord" and as one of the "Three Pure Ones." During the Tang dynasty, he was granted the title "Supremely Mysterious and Primordial Emperor". In the mid-twentieth century, a consensus emerged among scholars that the historicity of the person known as Laozi is doubtful and that the Tao Te Ching was "a compilation of Taoist sayings by many hands". Alan Watts urged more caution, holding that this view was part of an academic fashion for skepticism about historical spiritual and religious figures and stating that not enough would be known for years – or ever – to make a firm judgment; the earliest certain reference to the present figure of Laozi is found in the 1st‑century BC Records of the Grand Historian collected by the historian Sima Qian from earlier accounts. In one account, Laozi was said to be a contemporary of Confucius during the 6th or 5th century BC.
His surname was Li and his personal name was Er or Dan. He was an official in the imperial archives and wrote a book in two parts before departing to the west. In another, Laozi was a different contemporary of Confucius titled Lao Laizi and wrote a book in 15 parts. In a third, he was the court astrologer Lao Dan who lived during the 4th century BC reign of Duke Xian of the Qin Dynasty; the oldest text of the Tao Te Ching so far recovered was written on bamboo slips and dates to the late 4th century BC. According to traditional accounts, Laozi was a scholar who worked as the Keeper of the Archives for the royal court of Zhou; this allowed him broad access to the works of the Yellow Emperor and other classics of the time. The stories assert that Laozi never opened a formal school but nonetheless attracted a large number of students and loyal disciples. There are many variations of a story retelling his encounter with Confucius, most famously in the Zhuangzi, he was sometimes held to have come from the village of Chu Jen in Chu.
In accounts where Laozi married, he was said to have had a son named Zong who became a celebrated soldier. The story tells of Zong the Warrior who defeats the enemy and triumphs, abandons the corpses of the enemy soldiers to be eaten by vultures. By coincidence Laozi and teaching the way of the Tao, comes on the scene and is revealed to be the father of Zong, from whom he was separated in childhood. Laozi tells his son that it is better to treat respectfully a beaten enemy, that the disrespect to their dead would cause his foes to seek revenge. Convinced, Zong orders his soldiers to bury the enemy dead. Funeral mourning is held for the dead of both parties and a lasting peace is made. Many clans of the Li family trace their descent to Laozi, including the emperors of the Tang dynasty; this family was known as the Longxi Li lineage. According to the Simpkinses, while many of these lineages are questionable, they provide a testament to Laozi's impact on Chinese culture; the third story in Sima Qian states that Laozi grew weary of the moral decay of life in Chengzhou and noted the kingdom's decline.
He ventured west to live as a hermit in the unsettled frontier at the age of 80. At the western gate of the city, he was recognized by the guard Yinxi; the sentry asked the old master to record his wisdom for the good of the country before he would be permitted to pass. The text Laozi wrote was said to be the Tao Te Ching, although the present version of the text includes additions from periods. In some versions of the tale, the sentry was so touched by the work that he became a disciple and left with Laozi, never to be seen again. In others, the "Old Master" journeyed all the way to India and was the teacher of Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha. Others say. A seventh-century work, the Sandong Zhunang, embellished the relationship between Yinxi. Laozi pretended to be a farmer when reaching the western gate, but was recognized by Yinxi, who asked to be taught by the great master. Laozi was not satisfied by being noticed by the guard and demanded an explanation. Yinxi expressed his deep desire to find the Tao and explained that his long study of astrology allowed him to recognize Laozi's approach.
Yinxi was ac
Pseudonym
A pseudonym or alias is a name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which can differ from their first or true name. Pseudonyms include stage names and user names, ring names, pen names, aliases, superhero or villain identities and code names, gamer identifications, regnal names of emperors and other monarchs, they have taken the form of anagrams and Latinisations, although there are many other methods of choosing a pseudonym. Pseudonyms should not be confused with new names that replace old ones and become the individual's full-time name. Pseudonyms are "part-time" names, used only in certain contexts – to provide a more clear-cut separation between one's private and professional lives, to showcase or enhance a particular persona, or to hide an individual's real identity, as with writers' pen names, graffiti artists' tags, resistance fighters' or terrorists' noms de guerre, computer hackers' handles. Actors, voice-over artists and other performers sometimes use stage names, for example, to better channel a relevant energy, gain a greater sense of security and comfort via privacy, more avoid troublesome fans/"stalkers", or to mask their ethnic backgrounds.
In some cases, pseudonyms are adopted because they are part of a cultural or organisational tradition: for example devotional names used by members of some religious institutes, "cadre names" used by Communist party leaders such as Trotsky and Lenin. A pseudonym may be used for personal reasons: for example, an individual may prefer to be called or known by a name that differs from their given or legal name, but is not ready to take the numerous steps to get their name changed. A collective name or collective pseudonym is one shared by two or more persons, for example the co-authors of a work, such as Carolyn Keene, Ellery Queen, Nicolas Bourbaki. Or James S. A. Corey; the term is derived from the Greek ψευδώνυμον "false name", from ψεῦδος, "lie, falsehood" and ὄνομα, "name". A pseudonym is distinct from an allonym, the name of another person, assumed by the author of a work of art; this may occur when someone is ghostwriting a book or play, or in parody, or when using a "front" name, such as by screenwriters blacklisted in Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s.
See pseudepigraph, for falsely attributed authorship. Sometimes people change their name in such a manner that the new name becomes permanent and is used by all who know the person; this is not an alias or pseudonym, but in fact a new name. In many countries, including common law countries, a name change can be ratified by a court and become a person's new legal name. For example, in the 1960s, black civil rights campaigner Malcolm Little changed his surname to "X", to represent his unknown African ancestral name, lost when his ancestors were brought to North America as slaves, he changed his name again to Malik El-Shabazz when he converted to Islam. Some Jews adopted Hebrew family names upon immigrating to Israel, dropping surnames, in their families for generations; the politician David Ben-Gurion, for example, was born David Grün in Poland. He adopted his Hebrew name in 1910, when he published his first article in a Zionist journal in Jerusalem. Many transgender people choose to adopt a new name around the time of their social transitioning, to resemble their desired gender better than their birth name.
Businesspersons of ethnic minorities in some parts of the world are sometimes advised by an employer to use a pseudonym, common or acceptable in that area when conducting business, to overcome racial or religious bias. Criminals may use aliases, fictitious business names, dummy corporations to hide their identity, or to impersonate other persons or entities in order to commit fraud. Aliases and fictitious business names used for dummy corporations may become so complex that, in the words of the Washington Post, "getting to the truth requires a walk down a bizarre labyrinth" and multiple government agencies may become involved to uncover the truth. A pen name, or "nom de plume", is a pseudonym adopted by an author; some female authors used male pen names, in particular in the 19th century, when writing was a male-dominated profession. The Brontë family used pen names for their early work, so as not to reveal their gender and so that local residents would not know that the books related to people of the neighbourhood.
The Brontës used their neighbours as inspiration for characters in many of their books. Anne Brontë published The Tenant of Wildfell Hall under the name Acton Bell. Charlotte Brontë published Jane Eyre under the name Currer Bell. Emily Brontë published Wuthering Heights as Ellis Bell. A well-known example of the former is Mary Ann Evans. Another example is Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, a 19th-century French writer who used the pen name George Sand. In contrast, some twentieth and twenty first century male romance novelists have used female pen names. A few examples of male authors using female pseudonyms include Brindle Chase, Peter O'Donnell and Christopher Wood. A pen name may be used if a writer's real name is to be confused with the name of another writer or notable individual, or if their real name is deemed to be unsuitable. Authors who write both fiction and non-fiction, or in different genres, may use
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