Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a war fought between the Kuomintang -led government of the Republic of China and the Communist Party of China lasting intermittently between 1927 and 1949. Although particular attention is paid to the four years of Chinese Communist Revolution from 1945 to 1949, the war started in August 1927, with the White Terror at the end of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition, ended when major hostilities between the two sides ceased in 1950; the conflict took place in two stages, the first between 1927 and 1937, the second from 1946 to 1950. The Civil War marked a major turning point in modern Chinese history, with the Communists gaining control of mainland China and establishing the People's Republic of China in 1949, forcing the Republic of China to retreat to Taiwan, it resulted in a lasting political and military standoff between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, with the ROC in Taiwan and the PRC in mainland China both claiming to be the legitimate government of all China.
The war represented an ideological split between the Communist Party of China and the Nationalist Party of China. Conflict continued intermittently until late 1937, when the two parties came together to form the Second United Front to counter the Imperial Japanese Army threat and to prevent the country from crumbling. Full-scale civil war in China resumed in 1946, a year after the end of hostilities with the Empire of Japan in September 1945. Four years came the cessation of major military activity, with the newly founded People's Republic of China controlling mainland China, the Republic of China's jurisdiction restricted to Taiwan, Kinmen and several outlying islands; as of December 2018 no armistice or peace treaty has been signed, the debate continues as to whether the civil war has ended. Relations between both sides called the Cross-Strait relations, have been hindered by military threats and political and economic pressure over Taiwan's political status, with both governments adhering to the One-China policy.
The PRC still claims Taiwan as part of its territory and continues to threaten the ROC with a military invasion if the ROC declares independence by changing its name to and gaining international recognition as the "Republic of Taiwan". The ROC, for its part, claims mainland China, both parties continue the fight over diplomatic recognition; as of 2018 the war as such occurs on the political and economic fronts, without actual military action. However, the two separate governments in China have close economic ties. Following the collapse of the Qing dynasty in the aftermath of the Xinhai Revolution, China fell into a brief period of civil war before Yuan Shikai assumed the presidency of the newly formed Republic of China; the administration became known with its capital in Peking. After the death of Yuan Shikai in 1916, the following years were characterized by the power struggle between different cliques in the former Beiyang Army. In the meantime, the Kuomintang, led by Sun Yat-sen, created a new government in Guangzhou to resist the rule of Beiyang Government through a series of movements.
Sun's efforts to obtain aid from the Western countries were ignored, thus he turned to the Soviet Union in 1921. For political expediency, the Soviet leadership initiated a dual policy of support for both Sun and the newly established Communist Party of China, which would found the People's Republic of China, thus the struggle for power in China began between the KMT and the CPC. In 1923, a joint statement by Sun and Soviet representative Adolph Joffe in Shanghai pledged Soviet assistance to China's unification; the Sun-Joffe Manifesto was a declaration of cooperation among the Comintern, KMT and CPC. Comintern agent Mikhail Borodin arrived in China in 1923 to aid in the reorganization and consolidation of the KMT along the lines of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; the CPC joined the KMT to form the First United Front. In 1923, Sun sent Chiang Kai-shek, one of his lieutenants from his Tongmenghui days, for several months of military and political study in the Soviet capital Moscow. By 1924, Chiang became the head of the Whampoa Military Academy, rose to prominence as Sun's successor as head of the KMT.
The Soviets provided the academy with much educational material and equipment, including munitions. They provided education in many of the techniques for mass mobilization. With this aid, Sun was able to raise a dedicated "army of the party," with which he hoped to defeat the warlords militarily. CPC members were present in the academy, many of them became instructors, including Zhou Enlai, made a political instructor. Communist members were allowed to join the KMT on an individual basis; the CPC itself was still small at the time, having a membership of 300 in 1922 and only 1,500 by 1925. As of 1923, the KMT had 50,000 members. However, after Sun died in 1925, the KMT split into left- and right-wing movements. KMT members worried that the Soviets were trying to destroy the KMT from inside using the CPC; the CPC began movements in opposition of the Northern Expedition, passing a resolution against it at a party meeting. In March 1927, the KMT held its second party meeting where the Soviets helped pass resolutions against the Expedition and curbing Chiang's power.
Soon, the KMT would be divided. Throughout this time the Soviet Union had a large impact on the Communist Party of China, they sent money and spies to support the Chinese Communist P
Chen Shou
Chen Shou, courtesy name Chengzuo, was an official and writer who lived during the Three Kingdoms period and Jin dynasty of China. He started his career as an official in the state of Shu during the Three Kingdoms era but was demoted and sent out of the capital for his refusal to fawn on Huang Hao, an influential court eunuch in Shu in its twilight years. After the fall of Shu in 263, Chen Shou's career entered a period of stagnation before Zhang Hua recommended him to serve in the Jin government, he held scribal and secretarial positions under the Jin government before dying from illness in 297. He had over 200 writings -- -- attributed to him. Chen Shou's most celebrated work, the Records of the Three Kingdoms, which records the history of the late Eastern Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period in the form of biographies of notable persons of those eras, is part of the Twenty-Four Histories canon of Chinese history. Despite his achievements, Chen Shou's life was marred by disgraceful incidents, including his making of false accusations against another official and the controversies surrounding his writing of the Sanguozhi.
There are two biographies of Chen Shou. The first one is in the Book of Jin, written by Fang Xuanling and others in the seventh century during the Tang dynasty; the second one is in the Chronicles of Huayang, written by Chang Qu in the fourth century during the Eastern Jin dynasty. Chen Shou was from Anhan County, Baxi Commandery, in present-day Nanchong, Sichuan, he was known for being studious since he was young and was described as intelligent and knowledgeable. He was mentored by the Shu official Qiao Zhou, from Baxi Commandery. Under Qiao Zhou's tutelage, he read the Classic of History and Three Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals, he was well versed in the Records of the Grand Historian and Book of Han. According to the Jin Shu, Chen Shou served as a guange lingshi in Shu. However, the Huayang Guozhi mentioned that he held the following appointments consecutively: Registrar of the General of the Guards. In the final years of Shu, many officials fawned on Huang Hao, an influential court eunuch, in their bid to win his favour.
Chen Shou's refusal to engage in such flattering and obsequious behaviour took a toll on his career: He was demoted on several occasions and sent out of the Shu capital, Chengdu. After the fall of Shu in 263, Chen Shou's career entered a period of stagnation until Zhang Hua recommended him to serve in the government of the Jin dynasty. Zhang Hua appreciated Chen Shou's talent and felt that though Chen did not have an untarnished reputation, he did not deserve to be demoted and dismissed while he was in Shu. Chen Shou was recommended as a xiaolian, appointed as a zuo zhuzuo lang and the acting Prefect of Yangping County. In 274, he collected and compiled the writings of Zhuge Liang, the first chancellor of Shu, submitted them to the Jin imperial court, he was appointed as the zhongzheng of Baxi Commandery. The Huayang Guozhi mentioned that he served as the Chancellor to the Marquis of Pingyang; when Zhang Hua recommended Chen Shou to serve as a Gentleman Palace Writer, the Ministry of Personnel appointed Chen Shou as the Administrator of Changguang Commandery instead on the recommendation of Xun Xu.
The Jin Shu mentioned that Xun Xu detested Zhang Hua and disliked Chen Shou for his association with Zhang Hua, so he urged the Ministry of Personnel to reassign Chen Shou to another position. Chen Shou declined the appointment on the grounds; the Huayang Guozhi gave a different account of Chen Shou's relationship with Xun Xu. It stated that Xun Xu and Zhang Hua were pleased with Chen Shou's Sanguozhi and they remarked that Chen Shou surpassed Ban Gu and Sima Qian; however Xun Xu was displeased by the Wei Shu – one of the three sections in the Sanguozhi – and did not want Chen Shou to work in the same office as him, so he had Chen Shou reassigned to be the Administrator of Changguang. In 278, before the general Du Yu assumed his appointment as the commander of the Jin military forces in Jing Province, he recommended Chen Shou to Emperor Wu and stated that Chen Shou was capable of serving as a Gentleman of the Yellow Gate or Gentleman of Scattered Cavalry. Emperor Wu appointed Chen Shou as a yushi zhishu.
The Jin Shu mentioned that Chen Shou took a leave of absence when his mother died, he fulfilled her dying wish to be buried in Luoyang. However, he ended up being castigated and demoted because his act of burying his mother in Luoyang – instead of in his hometown in Anhan County – was a violation of the proprieties of his time; the Huayang Guozhi gave a varying account of the events: It was Chen Shou's stepmother who died. She did not want to be buried together with his father, so Chen Shou buried her in Luoyang. According to the Jin Shu, many years after his demotion, Chen Shou was appointed as a zhongshuzi to the crown prince Sima Yu, but he did not assume his role, he died of illness at the age of 65 in 297 during the reign of Emperor Hui. The Huayang Guozhi gave a different account of the events before Chen Shou's death, it stated that Chen Shou was appointed as a zhongshuzi to Sima Yu, but was reassigned to be a Regu
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty the Great Qing, was the last imperial dynasty of China. It was established in 1636, ruled China proper from 1644 to 1912, it was succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted for three centuries and formed the territorial base for modern China, it was the fifth largest empire in world history. The dynasty was founded by the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria. In the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci a Ming Jianzhou Guard vassal, began organizing "Banners", military-social units that included Manchu and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Manchu clans into a unified entity. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of the Liaodong Peninsula and declared a new dynasty, the Qing. In an unrelated development, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing, in 1644. Rather than serve them, Ming general Wu Sangui made an alliance with the Manchus and opened the Shanhai Pass to the Banner Armies led by the regent Prince Dorgon.
He seized the capital. Resistance from the Southern Ming and the Revolt of the Three Feudatories led by Wu Sangui delayed the Qing conquest of China proper by nearly four decades; the conquest was only completed in 1683 under the Kangxi Emperor reign. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Inner Asia; the early Qing rulers maintained their Manchu customs, while their title was Emperor, they used "Bogd khaan" when dealing with the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of bureaucratic government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus, they adapted the ideals of the tributary system in dealing with neighboring territories. During the Qianlong Emperor reign the dynasty reached its apogee, but began its initial decline in prosperity and imperial control; the population rose to some 400 millions, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate guaranteeing eventual fiscal crisis.
Corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, ruling elites failed to change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium Wars, European powers imposed "unequal treaties", free trade, extraterritoriality and treaty ports under foreign control; the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of these disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order and the Qing rulers; the initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea and the possession of Taiwan. New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days' Reform of 1898 was turned back in a coup by the conservative Empress Dowager Cixi; when the Scramble for Concessions by foreign powers triggered the violently anti-foreign "Boxers", the foreign powers invaded China, Cixi declared war on them, leading to defeat and the flight of the Imperial Court to Xi'an.
After agreeing to sign the Boxer Protocol, the government initiated unprecedented fiscal and administrative reforms, including elections, a new legal code, abolition of the examination system. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with constitutional monarchists such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao to transform the Qing Empire into a modern nation. After the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike by obstructing social reform; the Wuchang Uprising on 11 October 1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution. General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on 12 February 1912. Nurhaci declared himself the "Bright Khan" of the Later Jin state in honor both of the 12th–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan, his son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636. There are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng; the name may have been selected in reaction to the name of the Ming dynasty, which consists of the Chinese characters for "sun" and "moon", both associated with the fire element of the Chinese zodiacal system.
The character Qīng is associated with the water element. This association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water; the water imagery of the new name may have had Buddhist overtones of perspicacity and enlightenment and connections with the Bodhisattva Manjusri. The Manchu name daicing, which sounds like a phonetic rendering of Dà Qīng or Dai Ching, may in fact have been derived from a Mongolian word "ᠳᠠᠢᠢᠴᠢᠨ, дайчин" that means "warrior". Daicing gurun may therefore have meant "warrior state", a pun, only intelligible to Manchu and Mongol people. In the part of the dynasty, however the Manchus themselves had forgotten this possible meaning. After conquering "China proper", the Manchus identified their state as "China", referred to it as Dulimbai Gurun in Manchu; the emperors equated the lands of the Qing state as "China" in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, defining China as a multi-ethnic state, rejecting the idea that "China" only meant Han areas. The Qing emperors proclaimed that bo
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China referred to as the Chinese Communist Party, is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China. The Communist Party is the sole governing party within mainland China, permitting only eight other, subordinated parties to co-exist, those making up the United Front, it was founded in 1921, chiefly by Li Dazhao. The party grew and by 1949 it had driven the nationalist Kuomintang government from mainland China after the Chinese Civil War, leading to the establishment of the People's Republic of China, it controls the world's largest armed forces, the People's Liberation Army. The CPC is organised on the basis of democratic centralism, a principle conceived by Russian Marxist theoretician Vladimir Lenin which entails democratic and open discussion on policy on the condition of unity in upholding the agreed upon policies; the highest body of the CPC is the National Congress, convened every fifth year. When the National Congress is not in session, the Central Committee is the highest body, but since the body meets only once a year most duties and responsibilities are vested in the Politburo and its Standing Committee.
The party's leader holds the offices of General Secretary, Chairman of the Central Military Commission and State President. Through these posts, the party leader is the country's paramount leader; the current paramount leader is Xi Jinping, elected at the 18th National Congress held in October 2012. The CPC is committed to communism and continues to participate in the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties each year. According to the party constitution, the CPC adheres to Marxism–Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, socialism with Chinese characteristics, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristics for a New Era; the official explanation for China's economic reforms is that the country is in the primary stage of socialism, a developmental stage similar to the capitalist mode of production. The command economy established under Mao Zedong was replaced by the socialist market economy, the current economic system, on the basis that "Practice is the Sole Criterion for the Truth".
Since the collapse of Eastern European communist governments in 1989–1990 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the CPC has emphasised its party-to-party relations with the ruling parties of the remaining socialist states. While the CPC still maintains party-to-party relations with non-ruling communist parties around the world, since the 1980s it has established relations with several non-communist parties, most notably with ruling parties of one-party states, dominant parties in democracies and social democratic parties; the CPC has its origins in the May Fourth Movement of 1919, during which radical Western ideologies like Marxism and anarchism gained traction among Chinese intellectuals. Other influences stemming from the Bolshevik revolution and Marxist theory inspired the Communist Party of China. Li Dazhao was the first leading Chinese intellectual who publicly supported Leninism and world revolution. In contrast to Chen Duxiu, Li did not renounce participation in the affairs of the Republic of China.
Both of them regarded the October Revolution in Russia as groundbreaking, believing it to herald a new era for oppressed countries everywhere. The CPC was modeled on Vladimir Lenin's theory of a vanguard party. Study circles were, according to Cai Hesen, "the rudiments ". Several study circles were established during the New Culture Movement, but "by 1920 skepticism about their suitability as vehicles for reform had become widespread."The founding National Congress of the CPC was held on 23–31 July 1921. With only 50 members in the beginning of 1921, the CPC organization and authorities grew tremendously. While it was held in a house in the Shanghai French Concession, French police interrupted the meeting on 30 July and the congress was moved to a tourist boat on South Lake in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province. Only 12 delegates attended the congress, with neither Li nor Chen being able to attend, the latter sending a personal representative in his stead; the resolutions of the congress called for the establishment of a communist party and elected Chen as its leader.
The communists dominated the left wing of the KMT, a party organized on Leninist lines, struggling for power with the party's right wing. When KMT leader Sun Yat-sen died in March 1925, he was succeeded by a rightist, Chiang Kai-shek, who initiated moves to marginalize the position of the communists. Fresh from the success of the Northern Expedition to overthrow the warlords, Chiang Kai-shek turned on the communists, who by now numbered in the tens of thousands across China. Ignoring the orders of the Wuhan-based KMT government, he marched on Shanghai, a city controlled by communist militias. Although the communists welcomed Chiang's arrival, he turned on them, massacring 5000 with the aid of the Green Gang. Chiang's army marched on Wuhan, but was prevented from taking the city by CPC General Ye Ting and his troops. Chiang's allies attacked communists; that May, tens of thousands of communists and their sympathizers were killed by nationalists, with the CPC losing 15,000 of its 25,000 members.
The CPC continued supporting the Wuhan KMT government, but on 15 July 1927 the Wuhan government expelled all communis
Zhao Erxun
Zhao Erxun, courtesy name Cishan, art name Wubu, was a Chinese political and military officeholder who lived in the late Qing dynasty. He served in numerous high-ranking positions under the Qing government, including Viceroy of Sichuan, Viceroy of Huguang, Viceroy of the Three Northeast Provinces. After the fall of the Qing dynasty, he became a historian and was the lead editor of the Draft History of Qing. Zhao's ancestral roots were in Fengtian Province, his family was under the Plain Blue Banner of the Han Chinese Eight Banners. He obtained the position of a juren. In 1874, he sat for the palace-level examination and emerged as a jinshi, after which he was admitted to the Hanlin Academy as a bianxiu; the first position Zhao held was an assistant examiner for the provincial-level imperial examination in Hubei Province. He was promoted to a Supervising Censor of the Ministry of Works. In 1893, he was promoted to a daotai, he was transferred to Guangdong Province later. He subsequently served as the anchashi in Anhui and Shaanxi provinces, as the buzhengshi of Gansu and Xinjiang provinces.
In November 1902, Zhao was appointed as the xunfu of Shanxi Province. A year he was made acting xunfu of Hunan Province. In August 1904, he was recalled to the imperial capital, Beijing, to serve as acting Secretary of Revenue. One year he was sent to Fengtian Province to serve as "General of Shengjing". In March 1907, Zhao never assumed office, his brother, Zhao Erfeng, succeeded him as the Viceroy of Sichuan. Around August, when Zhang Zhidong was recalled to Beijing to serve on the Grand Council, Zhao was appointed as Viceroy of Huguang to replace Zhang, he was given the honorary appointments of Secretary of Defence and Censor-in-Chief. During his tenure as Viceroy of Huguang, he set up the Hubei Law School. Zhao and his brother Zhao Erfeng extended Qing rule into Eastern Tibet and sent an army to Lhasa in 1908; this worked with the restored 13th Dalai Lama but drove him out after strong disagreements about a conflict between Lamas in Eastern Tibet and the Qing government in Sichuan. It has been suggested that this conflict, along with an increase in taxes, caused the September 1911 rebellion in Sichuan.
Han Suyin takes a different view and says that the main issue in the conflict was control over a planned railway that would have linked Sichuan to the rest of China. In March 1908, Zhao was reassigned to serve as the Viceroy of Sichuan again. Around April 1911, he was transferred to Manchuria to serve as the Viceroy of the Three Northeast Provinces and awarded an honorary title as an Imperial Commissioner. During his tenure, he established the Fengtian Military School and promoted Zhang Zuolin to deputy military chief of the Fengtian Citizen Security Association, he served as Viceroy of the Three Northeast Provinces until the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty in early 1912. In March 1912, the Provisional Assembly of the Republic of China passed a bill appointing Zhao as the Viceroy of Fengtian Province, giving him control over Manchuria just like when he was Viceroy of the Three Northeast Provinces. However, Zhao returned to Beijing. In 1914, Yuan Shikai appointed Zhao as the director of the Qing History Bureau to create a Draft History of Qing.
In March 1925, when Duan Qirui convened the Shanhou Conference, he nominated Zhao to lead the conference. In June, when the Provisional National Council was established, Zhao was nominated to lead the council. Zhao died in Beijing in 1927, his tomb is located at the north of Huaibei Town, Huairou District, Beijing. Draft History of Qing Zhao Erfeng, younger brother of Zhao Erxun. Amban of Tibet
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin abbreviated to pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China and to some extent in Taiwan. It is used to teach Standard Mandarin Chinese, written using Chinese characters; the system includes four diacritics denoting tones. Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters; the pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang, based on earlier forms of romanizations of Chinese. It was published by revised several times; the International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as an international standard in 1982, was followed by the United Nations in 1986. The system was adopted as the official standard in Taiwan in 2009, where it is used for international events rather than for educational or computer-input purposes, but "some cities and organizations, notably in the south of Taiwan, did not accept this", so it remains one of several rival romanization systems in use.
The word Hànyǔ means'the spoken language of the Han people', while Pīnyīn means'spelled sounds'. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing; this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, issued his Xi Ru Ermu Zi at Hangzhou. Neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing dynasty scholar-official, Fang Yizhi; the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the stunning effect of the kana syllabaries and Western learning there; this galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script.
While Song did not himself create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, further improved by Herbert Giles in the Chinese–English Dictionary of 1892, it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. In the early 1930s, Communist Party of China leaders trained in Moscow introduced a phonetic alphabet using Roman letters, developed in the Soviet Oriental Institute of Leningrad and was intended to improve literacy in the Russian Far East; this Sin Wenz or "New Writing" was much more linguistically sophisticated than earlier alphabets, but with the major exception that it did not indicate tones of Chinese. In 1940, several thousand members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Society's new journal.
Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Fo. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, some contemporary Chinese literature, a spectrum of textbooks. In 1940, the movement reached an apex when Mao's Border Region Government declared that the Sin Wenz had the same legal status as traditional characters in government and public documents. Many educators and political leaders looked forward to the day when they would be universally accepted and replace Chinese characters. Opposition arose, because the system was less well adapted to writing regional languages, therefore would require learning Mandarin. Sin Wenz fell into relative disuse during the following years. In 1943, the U. S. military engaged Yale University to develop a romanization of Mandarin Chinese for its pilots flying over China. The resulting system is close to pinyin, but does not use English letters in unfamiliar ways. Medial semivowels are written with y and w, apical vowels with r or z.
Accent marks are used to indicate tone. Pinyin was created by Chinese linguists, including Zhou Youguang, as part of a Chinese government project in the 1950s. Zhou is called "the father of pinyin," Zhou worked as a banker in New York when he decided to return to China to help rebuild the country after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, he became an economics professor in Shanghai, in 1955, when China's Ministry of Education created a Committee for the Reform of the Chinese Written Language, Premier Zhou Enlai assigned Zhou Youguang the task of developing a new romanization system, despite the fact that he was not a professional linguist. Hanyu Pinyin was based on several existing systems: Gwoyeu Romatzyh of 1928, Latinxua Sin Wenz of 1931, the diacritic markings from zhuyin. "I'm not the father of pinyin," Zhou said years later. It's a lo
Book of Han
The Book of Han or History of the Former Han is a history of China finished in 111, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. It is called the Book of Former Han; the work was composed by Ban Gu, a court official, with the help of his sister Ban Zhao, continuing the work of their father, Ban Biao. They modeled their work on the Records of the Grand Historian, a universal history, but theirs was the first in this annals-biography form to cover a single dynasty, it is the best source, sometimes the only one, for many topics in this period. A second work, the Book of the Later Han covers the Eastern Han period from 25 to 220, was composed in the fifth century by Fan Ye; this history developed from a continuation of Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, initiated by Ban Gu's father, Ban Biao, at the beginning of the Later Han dynasty. This work is referred to as Later Traditions, which indicates that the elder Ban's work was meant to be a continuation.
Other scholars of the time, including Liu Xin and Yang Xiong worked on continuations of Sima's history. After Ban Biao's death, his eldest son Ban Gu was dissatisfied with what his father had completed, he began a new history that started with the beginning of the Han dynasty; this distinguished it from Sima Qian's history, which had begun with China's earliest legendary rulers. In this way, Ban Gu initiated the Jizhuanti format for dynastic histories, to remain the model for the official histories until modern times. For the periods where they overlapped, Ban Gu adopted nearly verbatim much of Sima Qian's material, though in some cases he expanded it, he incorporated at least some of what his father had written, though it is difficult to know how much. The completed work ran to a total of 100 fascicles 卷, included essays on law, science and literature. Ban Gu's younger sister Ban Zhao finished writing the book in 111, 19 years after Ban Gu had died in prison. An outstanding scholar in her own right, she is thought to have written volumes 13–20 and 26, the latter with the help of Ma Xu.
As with the Records of the Grand Historian, Zhang Qian, a notable Chinese general who travelled to the west, was a key source for the cultural and socio-economic data on the Western Regions contained in the 96th fascicle. The "Annals" section and the three chapters covering the reign of Wang Mang were translated into English by Homer H. Dubs. Other chapters have been rendered into English by A. F. P. Hulsewé, Clyde B. Sargent, Nancy Lee Swann, Burton Watson; the text includes a description of the Triple Concordance Calendar System 三統曆 developed by Liu Xin in fascicle 21. This is translated to English by Cullen. Ban Gu's history set the standard for the writings of Chinese dynasties, today it is a reference used to study the Han period, it is regarded as one of the "Four Histories" 四史 of the Twenty-Four Histories canon, together with the Records of the Grand Historian, Records of the Three Kingdoms and History of the Later Han. Ji, 12 volumes. Emperors' biographies in strict annal form, which offer a chronological overview of the most important occurrences, as seen from the imperial court.
Biao, 8 volumes. Chronological tables of important people. Zhi, 10 volumes; each treatise describes an area of effort of the state. Zhuan, 70 volumes. Biographies of important people; the biographies confine themselves to the description of events that show the exemplary character of the person. Two or more people are treated in one main article; the last articles describe the various peoples beyond the frontiers. The people of Japan make their first unambiguous appearance in written history in this book, in which it is recorded, "The people of Wo are located across the ocean from Lelang Commandery, are divided into more than one hundred tribes, come to offer tribute from time to time." It is recorded that in 57, the southern Wa kingdom of Na sent an emissary named Taifu to pay tribute to Emperor Guangwu and received a golden seal. The seal itself was discovered in northern Kyūshū in the 18th century. According to the Book of Wei, the most powerful kingdom on the archipelago in the third century was called Yamatai and was ruled by the legendary Queen Himiko.
Dorn'eich, Chris M.. Chinese sources on the History of the Niusi-Wusi-Asi-Rishi-Arsi-Arshi-Ruzhi and their Kueishuang-Kushan Dynasty. Shiji 110/Hanshu 94A: The Xiongnu: Synopsis of Chinese original Text and several Western Translations with Extant Annotations. Berlin. To read or download go to: Dubs, Homer H; the History of the Former Han Dynasty. 3 vols. Baltimore: Waverly, 1938-55. Digitized text. Glossary. Honey, David B. "The Han shu Manuscript Evidence, the Textual Criticism of the Shih-chi: The Case of the Hsiung-nu lieh-chuan," CLEAR 21, 67-97. Hulsewe, A. F. P. "A Striking Discrepancy between the Shih chi and the Han shu." T'oung Pao 76.4-5: 322-23. Hulsewé, A. F. P.. ""Han shu 漢書"". In Loewe, Michael. Early Chinese Texts – A Bibliographical Guide. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China & Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California Berkeley. Pp. 129–136. ISBN 1-55729-043-1. Hulsewé, A. F. P. and Loewe, M. A. N. China in Central Asia: The Early Stage 125 BC – AD 23: an annotated translation of chapters 61 and 96 of the History of the Former Han Dynasty.
Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979. Knech
