1.
National Palace Museum
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The National Palace Museum is located in Taipei and Taibao, Taiwan. It has a permanent collection of nearly 700,000 pieces of ancient Chinese imperial artifacts and artworks, the collection encompasses 8,000 years of history of Chinese art from the Neolithic age to the modern. Most of the collection are high quality pieces collected by Chinas emperors, the National Palace Museum and the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City in Beijing, mainland China, share the same roots. In English, the institution in Taipei is distinguished from the one in Beijing by the additional National designation, in common usage in Chinese, the institution in Taipei is known as the Taipei Former Palace, while that in Beijing is known as the Beijing Former Palace. The articles in the consisted of the valuables of the former Imperial family. In 1936, the collection was moved to Nanking after the construction of the storage in the Taoist monastery Chaotian Palace was complete, in 1947, it was shipped back to the Nanjing warehouse. Hang Li-wu, later director of the museum, supervised the transport of some of the collection in three groups from Nanking to the harbor in Keelung, Taiwan between December 1948 and February 1949. By the time the items arrived in Taiwan, the Communist army had seized control of the National Beiping Palace Museum collection so not all of the collection could be sent to Taiwan. For security reasons, the Joint Managerial Office chose the village of Beigou. In the following year, the collection stored in cane sugar mill was transported to the new site in Beigou, with the National Central Librarys reinstatement in 1955, the collection from the National Beiping Library was simultaneously incorporated into the National Central Library. The Joint Managerial Office of the National Beiping Palace Museum and the Preparatory Office of the National Central Museum stayed in Beigou for another ten years, during the decade, the Office obtained a grant from the Asia Foundation to construct a small-scale exhibition hall in the spring of 1956. The exhibition hall, opened in March 1957, was divided into four galleries in which it was possible to more than 200 items. In the autumn of 1960, the Office received a grant of NT$32 million from AID, the Republic of China government also contributed more than NT$30 million to establish a special fund for the construction of a museum in the Taipei suburb of Waishuanxi. The construction of the museum in Waishuanxi was completed in August 1965, the new museum site was christened the Chung-Shan Museum in honor of the founding father of the ROC, Sun Yat-sen, and first opened to the public on the centenary of Sun Yat-sens birthday. Since then, the museum in Taipei has managed, conserved and exhibited the collections of the National Beiping Palace Museum and the Preparatory Office of the National Central Museum. However, relations regarding this treasure have warmed in recent years, the Palace Museum curator Zheng Xinmiao has said that the artifacts in both mainland and Taiwan museums are Chinas cultural heritage jointly owned by people across the Taiwan Strait. Among the artifacts were a white marble tablet from the Tang Dynasty, gold nails and it was not until after Ma died that his wife went to Taiwan in 1971 from America to bring the artifacts to Chiang Kai-shek, who turned them over to the National Palace Museum. The National Palace Museums main building in Taipei was designed by Huang Baoyu, due to the insufficient space to put on display over 600,000 artifacts, the museum underwent expansions in 1967,1970,1984 and 1996
2.
Taiwan
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Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is a state in East Asia. Neighbours include China to the west, Japan to the northeast, Taiwan is the most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations, and the one with the largest economy. The island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, was inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before the 17th century. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty, following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROCs loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, in the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage, Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, the PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refused diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC, the PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible. There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, the former name Formosa dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means beautiful island. The name Formosa eventually replaced all others in European literature and was in use in English in the early 20th century. This name was adopted into the Chinese vernacular as the name of the sandbar. The modern word Taiwan is derived from this usage, which is seen in forms in Chinese historical records. Use of the current Chinese name was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture, through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as Taiwan. The official name of the state is the Republic of China and it was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when it lost its seat to the Peoples Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become known as Taiwan. In some contexts, especially ones from the ROC government
3.
Coronation
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The ceremony can also be conducted for the monarchs consort, either simultaneously with the monarch or as a separate event. A ceremony without the placement of a crown on the head is known as an enthronement. Coronations are still observed in the United Kingdom, Tonga, in addition to investing the monarch with symbols of state, Western-style coronations have often traditionally involve anointing with holy oil, or chrism as it is often called. Wherever a ruler is anointed in this way, as in Great Britain and Tonga, some other lands use bathing or cleansing rites, the drinking of a sacred beverage, or other religious practices to achieve a comparable effect. Such acts symbolise the granting of divine favour to the monarch within the relevant spiritual-religious paradigm of the country, in the past, concepts of royalty, coronation and deity were often inexorably linked. Rome promulgated the practice of worship, in Medieval Europe. Coronations were once a direct expression of these alleged connections. Thus, coronations have often been discarded altogether or altered to reflect the nature of the states in which they are held. However, some monarchies still choose to retain an overtly religious dimension to their accession rituals, others have adopted simpler enthronement or inauguration ceremonies, or even no ceremony at all. In non-Christian states, coronation rites evolved from a variety of sources, buddhism, for instance, influenced the coronation rituals of Thailand, Cambodia and Bhutan, while Hindu elements played a significant role in Nepalese rites. The ceremonies used in modern Egypt, Malaysia, Brunei and Iran were shaped by Islam, Coronations, in one form or another, have existed since ancient times. Egyptian records show coronation scenes, such as that of Seti I in 1290 BC, judeo-Christian scriptures testify to particular rites associated with the conferring of kingship, the most detailed accounts of which are found in II Kings 11,12 and II Chronicles 23,11. Following the assumption of the diadem by Constantine, Roman and Byzantine emperors continued to wear it as the symbol of their authority. Although no specific coronation ceremony was observed at first, one gradually evolved over the following century, the emperor Julian was hoisted upon a shield and crowned with a gold necklace provided by one of his standard-bearers, he later wore a jewel-studded diadem. Later emperors were crowned and acclaimed in a manner, until the momentous decision was taken to permit the Patriarch of Constantinople to physically place the crown on the emperors head. Historians debate when exactly this first took place, but the precedent was established by the reign of Leo II. This ritual included recitation of prayers by the Byzantine prelate over the crown, after this event, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the ecclesiastical element in the coronation ceremonial rapidly develop. This was usually performed three times, following this, the king was given a spear, and a diadem wrought of silk or linen was bound around his forehead as a token of regal authority
4.
House of Zhao
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The House of Zhao was the imperial clan of the Song Empire of China. The House of Zhao originated from the Zhao family of Zhuo Commandery and this Zhao family has a long history since the Spring and Autumn period. The Song dynasty Emperors hailed from the Guandong Zhao while the Longxi Li produced the Tang Emperors, the founder of the Song Empire, Zhao Kuangyin, was born in a military family. His father, Zhao Hongyin, moved from Zhuo Commandery to Luoyang, Zhao Kuangyin also had an elder brother Zhao Guangji, two younger brothers Zhao Kuangyi and Zhao Guangmei, and two younger sisters. During the reign of Emperor Zhenzong, the Yellow Emperor was claimed to be as an ancestor of the Song emperors, Zhao Kuangyin started his military career under the Later Han dynasty. However, he changed his stance, and came to serve Chai Rong. He also persuaded his father, who was a Later Han general and this caused the decline and collapse of the Later Han. With Chai Rongs trust, Zhao Kuangyin was assigned to be a guardian for Chai Rongs seven-year-old son, Guo Zongxun, through years of effort, Zhao Kuangyin conquered other rival states in the south and unified them under his newly established Song Empire. In order to prevent a military coup from happening again and to strengthen civilian control over the military, Zhao Kuangyin dismissed his generals. This inadvertently resulted in the Song Empire having a weak military later, Zhao Kuangyin reigned for 17 years and died suddenly and suspiciously in 976 at the age of 49. His younger brother, Zhao Kuangyi became the new emperor and it was suspected that Zhao Kuangyi murdered his brother for the throne, and did the same to his two nephews to prevent them from seizing the throne. The subsequent emperors – Emperor Zhenzong through Emperor Gaozong – were all descendants of Zhao Kuangyi, until Emperor Gaozong passed the throne to Zhao Shen, nevertheless, the Song Empire still thrived under Zhao Kuangyi s reign. But the threats of northern nomadic empires, such as the Khitan-led Liao Empire, Jurchen-led Jin Empire, on 20 March 1127, the Song capital, Bianjing fell to Jin forces during the Jin–Song Wars. After several days looting and raping, the Emperors Huizong and Qinzong, along with most of their members, were captured and taken to the Jin capital, Shangjing. This event is known as the Jingkang Incident. Many of these died from illness, hunger, torture. Some of them committed suicide to avoid being humiliated by the Jurchens, Emperor Huizongs ninth son, Zhao Gou, escaped from Bianjing and fled to southern China, where he reestablished the Song Empire with its capital at Linan and himself as the new emperor. As his only son died prematurely, Emperor Gaozong had to pass his throne to Zhao Shen, the imperial lineage now went back to Zhao Kuangyins line
5.
Ming dynasty
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The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China – then known as the Empire of the Great Ming – for 276 years following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as one of the greatest eras of orderly government, although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1683. He rewarded his supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia, the rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances, the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade, haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced an influx of Japanese. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty, consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351, the Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352. In 1356, Zhus rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, with the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of ships, Zhus force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley, Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or Vastly Martial, as his era name. Hongwu made an effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces, Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule
6.
Architecture of the Song dynasty
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The architecture of the Song dynasty was noted for its towering Buddhist pagodas, enormous stone and wooden bridges, lavish tombs, and extravagant palaces. The professions of architect, master craftsman, carpenter, and structural engineer did not have the status of the Confucian scholar-officials during the dynastic era. Architectural knowledge had been passed down orally for thousands of years, there were also government agencies and schools for construction, building, and engineering. The Song dynastys building manuals aided not only the private workshops. The outer city of ancient Bianjing was built during the reign of Emperor Shenzong to a plan, almost square in proportions. The south wall had three gates, with Nanxun Gate in the center, Chenzhou Gate to the east, and this method of using bracket assemblies to support superstructure was specified in Li Jies 12th-century building manual Yingzao Fashi as pingzuo. The city wall itself was built with rammed earth, a technique also detailed in Yingzao Fashi, vol. III, Standards for Moat, Stronghold and Masonry Work, Foundation, For every square chi, apply two dan of earth, on top of it lay a mixture of brick, tile and crushed stones. Following this, tamp the surface with pestles or stamp with feet randomly to even out the surface, every five-cun layer of earth should be compressed to three cun, every three-cun layer of brick and stone to one and a half cun. Rammed-earth walls during this time were tapered, the thickness of the wall is greatest at the base and decreases steadily with increasing height, as detailed in Li Jies book. During the Song dynasty, the city of Bianjing had three enclosures, the city wall, the inner city wall, and the palace at the center. The inner city was rectangular, with three doors on each side, the palace enclosure was also rectangular, with a watch tower on each of the four corners. It had four gates, Xihua Gate to the west, Donghua Gate to the east, Gongchen Gate to the north. There were also two glazed dragons, each biting an end of the ridge, its tail pointing to the sky. However, they misnamed it sparrow-hawk tail, running southward from Xuande Gate was the Imperial Boulevard, about two hundred paces wide, with the Imperial Corridors on either side. Merchants opened shops in the Corridors until 1112, when they were banned, two rows of black fencing were placed at the center of the boulevard as a barrier to pedestrians and carriages. Along the inner sides of the fences ran the brick-lined Imperial Water Furrows, about 400 m south from Xuande Gate, the Bian River intercepted the Imperial Boulevard, which crossed it over the stone Zhou Bridge, balustraded and flat-decked. This design of a boulevard with a bridge crossing a river was later imitated in the Forbidden City
7.
Culture of the Song dynasty
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The Song dynasty was a culturally rich and sophisticated age for China. There was blossoming of and advancements in the arts, music, literature. Appreciation of art among the gentry class flourished during the Song dynasty, especially in regard to paintings, trends in painting styles amongst the gentry notably shifted from the Northern to Southern Song periods, influenced in part by the gradual embrace of the Neo-Confucian political ideology at court. Chinese painting during the Song dynasty reached a new level of sophistication with further development of landscape painting, the shan shui style painting—shan meaning mountain, and shui meaning river—became prominent features in Chinese landscape art. The making of glazed and translucent porcelain and celadon wares with complex use of enamels was also developed further during the Song period, longquan celadon wares were particularly popular in the Song period. Black and red lacquerwares of the Song period featured beautifully carved artwork of miniature nature scenes, landscapes, by the beginning of the Song dynasty a distinctive landscape style had emerged. Artists mastered the formula of creating intricate and realistic scenes placed in the foreground, while the background retained qualities of vast, distant mountain peaks rise out of high clouds and mist, while streaming rivers run from afar into the foreground. There was a significant difference in painting trends between the Northern Song period and Southern Song period. On the other hand, Southern Song officials were interested in reforming society from the bottom up and on a much smaller scale. This change in attitude from one era to the next stemmed largely from the influence of Neo-Confucian philosophy. During the Song dynasty there were art collectors that would often meet in groups to discuss their own paintings, as well as rate those of their colleagues. The poet and statesman Su Shi and his accomplice Mi Fu often partook in these affairs, borrowing art pieces to study and copy, or if they really admired a piece then an exchange was often proposed. The small round paintings popular in the Southern Song were often collected into albums as poets would write poems along the side to match the theme and they were not to be considered real artists. However, during the Song period, there were many acclaimed court painters and they were esteemed by emperors. Emperor Gaozong of Song once commissioned an art project of numerous paintings for the Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute, the Southern Song dynasty court painters included Zhao Mengjian, a member of the Imperial family, known for popularising the Three Friends of Winter. During the Song period Buddhism saw a revival since its persecution during the Tang dynasty. This could be seen in the construction of sculpture artwork at the Dazu Rock Carvings in Sichuan province. Chinese literature during the Song period contained a range of different genres and was enriched by the social complexity of the period
8.
Economy of the Song dynasty
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In north China, the main fuel source for ceramic kilns and iron furnaces shifted from wood to coal. During the Song dynasty, there was also an increase in commercial contacts with global markets. Merchants engaged in trade through investments in trading vessels and trade which reached ports as far away as East Africa. This period also witnessed the development of the worlds first banknote, or printed paper money, combined with a unified tax system and efficient trade routes by road and canal, this meant the development of a truly nationwide market. Regional specialization promoted economic efficiency and increased productivity, although much of the central governments treasury went to the military, taxes imposed on the rising commercial base refilled the coffers and further encouraged the monetary economy. Reformers and conservatives debated the role of government in the economy, the emperor and his government still took responsibility for the economy, but generally made fewer claims than in earlier dynasties. These changes made China a global leader, leading historians to call this an early modern economy many centuries before Western Europe made its breakthrough. Many of these gains were lost, however, in the succeeding Yuan dynasty. There was an expansion of ploughland during the Song dynasty. The government encouraged people to reclaim barren lands and put them under cultivation, anyone who opened up new lands and paid taxes were granted permanent possession of the new land. Under this policy, the land in the Song dynasty is estimated to have reached a peak number of 720 million mu. Irrigation of arable land was greatly fostered during this period. Prominent statesman and economist Wang Anshi issued the Law and Decree on Irrigation in 1069 that encouraged expansion of the system in China. By 1076, about 10,800 irrigation projects were completed, major irrigation projects included dredging the Yellow River at northern China and artificial silt land in the Lake Tai valley. As a result of policy, crop production in China tripled. Agricultural yields were about 2 tan of grain per mu during the Song dynasty, the economic development of China under the Song dynasty was marked by improvements in farm tools, seeds, and fertilizers. The Song inherited the plow innovations described in the Tang dynasty text The Classic of the Plow, the Song improved on the Tang curved iron plough and invented a special steel plough design specifically for reclaiming wasteland. A tool designed to facilitate seedling called seedling horse was invented under the Song, it was made of jujube wood, Song farms used bamboo water wheels to harness the flow energy of rivers to raise water for irrigation of farmland
9.
Science and technology of the Song dynasty
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The Song dynasty provided some of the most significant technological advances in Chinese history, many of which came from talented statesmen drafted by the government through imperial examinations. The ingenuity of advanced mechanical engineering had a tradition in China. The application of movable type printing advanced the already widespread use of printing to educate and amuse Confucian students. Notable advances in engineering, nautics, and metallurgy were made in Song China. These advances, along with the introduction of paper-printed money, helped revolutionize, polymath geniuses – that is, people knowledgeable across an encyclopaedic range of topics – such as Shen Kuo and Su Song embodied the spirit of early empirical science and technology in the Song era. This allowed sailors to navigate the seas more accurately with the magnetic needle compass, Shen was made famous for his written description of Bi Sheng, the inventor of movable type printing. Shen was also interested in geology, as he formulated a theory of geomorphology, along with his colleague Wei Pu in the Bureau of Astronomy, Shen used cosmological hypotheses when describing the variations of planetary motion, including retrogradation. One of Shens greatest achievements, aided by Wei Pu, was correcting the error by diligently recording and plotting the moons orbital path three times a night over a period of five years. Unfortunately Shen had many political rivals at court who were determined to sabotage his work, the court fully accepted their corrections to lunar and solar error, but only partially adopted Shen and Weis corrected plotting of the planetary orbital paths and various speeds. This treatise included many medicinal applications, including the use of ephedrin as a pharmaceutical drug, however, Su was most famous for his hydraulic-powered astronomical clock tower, crowned with a mechanically driven armillary sphere, which was erected in the capital city of Kaifeng in the year 1088. Sus clock tower employed the escapement mechanism two centuries before it was applied in clocks of Europe, sus clock tower also featured the earliest known endless power-transmitting chain drive in the world, as outlined in his horological treatise of 1092. On a court mission to inspect a frontier region, Shen Kuo once made a map of wood and glue-soaked sawdust to show the mountains, roads, rivers. Shen Kuo also experimented with camera obscura, only a few decades after the first to do so, there were many other important figures in the Song era besides Shen Kuo and Su Song, many of whom contributed greatly to the technological innovations of the time period. The Song Shi states, The odometer. is painted red, with pictures of flowers and birds on the four sides, and constructed in two storeys, handsomely adorned with carvings. At the completion of every li, the figure of a man in the lower storey strikes a drum, at the completion of every ten li. The carriage-pole ends in a phoenix-head, and the carriage is drawn by four horses, the escort was formerly of 18 men, but in the 4th year of the Yongxi reign period the emperor Taizong increased it to 30. When the upper horizontal wheel has made 1 revolution, the carriage will have gone 10 li, the number of wheels used, great and small, is 8 inches in all, with a total of 285 teeth. Thus the motion is transmitted as if by the links of a chain, in the Song period, the odometer device was combined with the south-pointing chariot device, which was probably first invented by the ancient Chinese mechanical engineer Ma Jun
10.
Taipei
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Taipei, officially known as Taipei City, is the capital city and a special municipality of the Republic of China. Sitting at the tip of the island, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City. It is about 25 km southwest of the port city Keelung. Since 1949, Taipei has been the capital of the ROC after losing the mainland to the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, the name Taipei can refer either to the whole metropolitan area or the city proper. Taipei is the political, economic, educational, and cultural center of Taiwan, considered to be a global city, Taipei is part of a major high-tech industrial area. Railways, high-speed rail, highways, airports, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island, the city is served by two airports – Taipei Songshan and Taiwan Taoyuan. Its natural features such as Maokong, Yangmingshan, and hot springs are also known to international visitors. As the capital city, Taipei is sometimes used as a synecdoche for Taiwan, prior to the significant influx of Han Chinese immigrants, the region of Taipei Basin was mainly inhabited by the Ketagalan plains aborigines. The number of Han immigrants gradually increased in the early 18th century under Qing Dynasty rule after the government began permitting development in the area, in 1875, the northern part of the island was incorporated into the new Taipeh Prefecture. The Qing dynasty of China made Taipeh the temporary capital of Fujian-Taiwan Province in 1886 when Taiwan was separated from Fujian Province, Taipeh was formally made the provincial capital in 1894. Japan acquired Taiwan in 1895 under the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the First Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan became a colony of Imperial Japan with Taihoku as its capital, in which the city was administered under Taihoku Prefecture. Taiwans Japanese rulers embarked on a program of advanced urban planning that featured extensive railroad links. A number of Taipei landmarks and cultural institutions date from this period, following the Japanese surrender of 1945, control of Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China. In 1990 Taipei provided the backdrop for the Wild Lily student rallies that moved Taiwanese society from one-party rule to multi-party democracy, the city is today home to Taiwans democratically elected national government. The region known as the Taipei Basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century, Han Chinese mainly from Fujian Province of Qing dynasty China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In 1875, the part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture. From 1875 until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Tamsui County of Taipeh Prefecture, in 1885, work commenced to create an independent Taiwan Province, and Taipei City was temporarily made the provincial capital. Taipei officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894, all that remains from the Qing era is the north gate
11.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is 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, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and 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, 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 effect of the kana syllabaries. 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 actually 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, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several 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 Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
12.
History of the Song dynasty
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The Song dynasty of China was a ruling dynasty that controlled China proper and southern China from the middle of the 10th century into the last quarter of the 13th century. However, it was also a period of political and military turmoil, with opposing and often aggressive political factions formed at court, the frontier management policies of the Chancellor Wang Anshi exacerbated hostile conditions along the Chinese-Vietnamese border, sparking a border war with the Lý dynasty. It was there that new naval strength was developed to combat the Jurchens Jin dynasty formed in the north, the Later Zhou was the last of the Five Dynasties that had controlled northern China after the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907. Zhao Kuangyin, later known as Emperor Taizu, usurped the throne from the Zhou with the support of commanders in 960. Upon taking the throne, his first goal was the reunification of China after half a century of political division. This included the conquests of Nanping, Wu-Yue, Southern Han, Later Shu, and Southern Tang in the south as well as the Northern Han and the Sixteen Prefectures in the north. With capable military officers such as Yang Ye, Liu Tingrang, Cao Bin and Huyan Zan, consolidation in the south was completed in 978, with the conquest of Wu-Yue. Song military forces then turned north against the Northern Han, which fell to Song forces in 979, however, efforts to take the Sixteen Prefectures were unsuccessful and they were incorporated into the Liao state based in Manchuria to the immediate north instead. Although the Song state was evenly matched against the Liao dynasty, after political consolidation through military conquest, Emperor Taizu held a famous banquet inviting many of the high-ranking military officers that had served him in Songs various conquests. As his military officers drank wine and feasted with Taizu, he spoke to them about the potential of a coup against him like those of Five Dynasties era. His military officers protested against this notion, and insisted that none were as qualified as him to lead the country, the passage of this account in the Song Shi follows as such, The emperor said, The life of man is short. Happiness is to have the wealth and means to enjoy life and this system of civilian rule led to a greater concentration of power in the central government headed by the emperor than had been possible during the previous dynasties. Although new municipal governments were established, the same number of prefectures and provinces were in existence as before the Song came to power. In 971, he ordered Lu Duosun to update and re-write all the Tu Jing in the world, nonetheless, he traveled throughout the provinces to collect illustrative gazetteers and as much data as possible. With the aid of Song Zhun, the work was completed in 1010. The later Song Shi historical text stated, Yuan Hsieh was Director-General of governmental grain stores. In pursuance of his schemes for the relief of famines he issued orders that each pao should prepare a map which would show the fields and mountains, the rivers and the roads in fullest detail. The maps of all the pao were joined together to make a map of the tu, and these in turn were joined with others to make a map of the hsiang, Taizu also displayed a strong interest in science and technology
