New Army
The New Armies, more fully called the Newly Created Army was the modernized army corps formed under the Qing Dynasty in December 1895, following its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War. It was envisioned as militia fully trained and equipped according to Western standards, the Newly Created Army that was 7,000 men strong became the most formidable of the three army groups stationed near Beijing and proved effective against the Boxers in Shandong province. Instead Yuan helped the Alliance in their anti Boxer campaign after the fall of Beijing, the New Army was gradually expanded and upgraded in the following years. Yuan became increasingly disrespectful of the dynasty and only loyal to the party from which he benefited, after 1900, Yuans troops were the only militia that the Qing court could rely on amidst revolutionary uprisings throughout China. The Chien Men gate refers to the Zhengyangmen, the successful example of the new army was followed in other provinces. The New Army of Yuan was renamed the Beiyang Army on June 25,1902 after Yuan was officially promoted to the Minister of Beiyang.
By the end of the dynasty in 1911, most provinces had established sizable new armies, Yuans army was still most powerful, comprising six groups and numbering more than 75,000 men. The Qing unified all of Chinas armies into one force, the Chinese Army, two-thirds of the Chinese Army was Yuans Beiyang Army. During the Xinhai Revolution, most of the forces as well as some Beiyang units in the Chinese Army revolted against the Qing. Yuan led the Beiyang Army into opposing the revolution while negotiating for the Qings surrender, one of the most important legacies of the New Army was the professionalization of the military and perhaps introduction of militarism to China. Previously, almost any male could join and soldiers were mostly poor, the New Army began screening volunteers and created modern military academies to train officers. The modernization and professionalization of the New Army impressed many in the class to join. The young Chiang Kai-shek, for instance, briefly attended Yuans Baoding Military Academy, which influenced him in forming his Whampoa Academy.
Yuan and his successors equated military dominance of the sphere with national survival. The political army would become a dominant force in China for much of the twentieth century, testing the Self-Strengthening, The Chinese Army in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. The Military Dimension of the Chinese Revolution, The New Army, University of British Columbia Press. Ssù Yü Têng, Jeremy Ingalls edd, the Rise of Chinese Military Power 1895-1912. The Boxer Uprising, A Background Study, abstract Reprinted in, Douglas R. ed. China, 1895-1912 State Sponsored Reforms and Chinas Late-Qing
Northern Expedition
The Northern Expedition was a Kuomintang military campaign, led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, from 1926–28. Its main objective was to unify China under its own control by ending the rule of the Beiyang government as well as the local warlords and it led to the end of the Warlord Era, the reunification of China in 1928 and the establishment of the Nanjing government. The Northern Expedition, known as the Northern March, began from the KMTs power base in Guangdong province, in 1925 the May 30 Movement announced plans for a strike and protest against western imperialism and its warlord agents in China. At the same time the First United Front between the KMT and the Communist Party of China was questioned after the Zhongshan Warship Incident in March 1926, subsequent events made Chiang Kai-shek the paramount military leader of the KMT. Although Chiang doubted Sun Yat-sens policy of alliance with the Soviet Union, notable military leaders and well-trained soldiers came from the Whampoa Military Academy, which was set up by Sun Yat-sen in 1924.
The Academy accepted all persons regardless of party alignment, the success of the Northern Expedition can largely be attributed to both the KMT and CPC working together militarily. This unison, at the time, was encouraged by the Soviet Union. The main targets of this expedition were three notorious and powerful warlords, Zhang Zuolin, who governed Manchuria, Wu Peifu in the Central Plain region, and Sun Chuanfang on the east coast. On July 9,1926, Chiang gave a lecture to 100,000 soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army in a ceremony that was the commencement of the Northern Expedition. Following the defeat of the Zhili clique, Chiang decided to purge all Communists from the Kuomintang, in the Shanghai massacre of April 12, thousands of Communists were executed or went missing, while others were arrested and imprisoned. The purge caused a split between the KMTs left and right wings, the leftists, led by Wang Jingwei in the KMT capital at Wuhan, condemned Chiangs purge. Chiang, subsequently established his own capital in Nanjing, as a result, the Nationalist party and its military forces were in a state of disarray during the summer of 1927.
The purge gave the warlords an opportunity to rebuild their armies, Sun Chuanfang began to marshal his forces with his ally Xu Kun, one of Chinas best generals. At the same time Sun was communicating with Zhang Zuolin of Manchuria, requesting assistance of any kind in the hopes of regaining his lost territory and he brought up an army of 100,000 men and arranged them around the Lower Yangtze River. The Nationalists were able to muster the same amount of manpower but were riven by political tensions, in addition, Sun and Xu Kun had the element of surprise on their side, for their attack was not fully expected by Chiang or his commanders. Finally, the Nationalists had stationed many of their troops north of the Yangtze in order to hold Xuzhou, leaving them exposed to the warlord armies, many of Chiangs troops were in exposed and isolated positions that they could not defend properly, or with purpose. The stage was set for the last great struggle of the Warlord Era, on July 24 Sun Chuanfang ordered the counterattack to begin.
His army, including Xu Kuns forces, tore through the surprised Nationalist troops, the Second Route Army, stationed in the area, was forced to withdraw south, using the Long-Hai railway as an escape route
Shanxi
Shanxi is a province of China, located in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is 晋, after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring, the name Shanxi means West of the Mountains, a reference to the provinces location west of the Taihang Mountains. Shanxi borders Hebei to the east, Henan to the south, Shaanxi to the west, the capital of the province is Taiyuan. In the Spring and Autumn period, the state of Jin was located in what is now Shanxi and it underwent a three-way split into the states of Han and Wei in 403 BC, the traditional date taken as the start of the Warring States period. By 221 BC, all of states had fallen to the state of Qin. The Han Dynasty ruled Shanxi as the province of Bingzhou, during the invasion of northern nomads in the Sixteen Kingdoms period, several regimes including the Later Zhao, Former Yan, Former Qin, and Later Yan continuously controlled Shanxi. They were followed by Northern Wei, a Xianbei kingdom, which had one of its earlier capitals at present-day Datong in northern Shanxi, the Tang Dynasty originated in Taiyuan.
During the Tang Dynasty and after, present day Shanxi was called Hédōng, empress Wu Zetian, Chinas only female ruler, was born in Shanxi. Shanxi was initially home to the jiedushi of Hedong, Li Cunxu, shi Jingtang, founder of the Later Jin, the third of the Five Dynasties, ceded a piece of northern China to the Khitans in return for military assistance. This territory, called The Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, included a part of northern Shanxi, the ceded territory became a major problem for Chinas defense against the Khitans for the next 100 years, because it lay south of the Great Wall. He founded his dynasty by launching a coup against the Turkic Later Han Emperor. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the sixteen ceded prefectures continued to be an area of contention between Song China and the Liao Dynasty. Later the Southern Song Dynasty abandoned all of North China, including Shanxi, the Mongol Yuan Dynasty divided China into provinces but did not establish Shanxi as a province.
Shanxi only gained its present name and approximate borders during the Ming Dynasty which were of the same landarea, with the collapse of the Qing dynasty, Shanxi became part of the newly established Republic of China. During most of the Republic of Chinas period of rule over mainland China, Yan Xishan devoted himself to modernizing Shanxi and developing its resources during his reign over the province. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Japan occupied much of the province after winning the Battle of Taiyuan, Shanxi was a major battlefield between the Japanese and the Chinese communist guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army during the war. The soldiers of Shanxi province under Yan Xishan viciously fought against the invading Japanese, right after the defeat of Japan, much of the Shanxi countryside became important bases for the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the ensuing Chinese Civil War. Shanxi was eventually conquered by the communists, resulting in the warlord Yan Xishans retreat to Taiwan Island, for centuries, Shanxi served as the center of trade and banking, the Shanxi merchants were once synonymous with wealth
Yuan Shikai
There the Yuans had built a fortified village, Yuanzhaicun. Yuans family was affluent enough to provide Yuan with a traditional Confucian education, as a young man he enjoyed riding and entertainment with friends. His career began with the purchase of an official title in 1880. Using his fathers connections, Yuan travelled to Tengzhou, Yuans first marriage was in 1876 to a woman of the Yu family who bore him a first son, Keding, in 1878. Yuan Shikai married nine more concubines throughout the course of his life, after the Meiji Restoration, Japan had adopted an aggressive foreign policy, contesting Chinese domination of the peninsula. Under the unequal Treaty of Ganghwa, which the Koreans signed with reluctance in 1876, Japan was allowed to send missions to Hanseong. Amidst an internal struggle which resulted in the queens exile. The Korean king proposed training 500 troops in the art of modern warfare, Li Hongzhang recommended Yuans promotion, with Yuan given the rank of sub-prefect. In 1885, Yuan was appointed Imperial Resident of Seoul, on the surface the position equalled that of ambassador but in practice, as head official from the suzerain, Yuan had become the supreme adviser on all Korean government policies.
Perceiving Chinas increasing influence on the Korean government, Japan sought more influence through co-suzerainty with China, a series of documents were released to Yuan Shikai, claiming the Korean government had changed its stance towards Chinese protection and would rather turn to Russia for protection. Yuan was outraged yet skeptical, and asked Li Hongzhang for advice, in a treaty signed between Japan and Qing, the two parties agreed only to send troops into Korea after notifying the other. Although the Korean government was now stable, it was still a protectorate of Qing, another more radicalised group, the Donghak Society, promoting an early nationalist doctrine based partly upon Confucian principles, rose in rebellion against the government. Yuan and Li Hongzhang sent troops into Korea to protect Seoul and Qings interests, tensions boiled over between Japan and China when Japan refused to withdraw its forces and placed a blockade at the 38th Parallel. Li Hongzhang wanted at all costs to avoid a war with Japan, Japan refused, and war broke out.
Yuan, having put in an ineffective position, was recalled to Tianjin in July 1894. Yuans rise to fame began with his participation in the First Sino-Japanese War as commander of the Chinese garrison forces in Korea. Unlike other officers, however, he avoided the humiliation of Chinese defeat by having been recalled to Beijing several days before the outbreak of conflict, as an ally of Li Hongzhang, Yuan was appointed the commander of the first New army in 1895. The Qing court relied heavily on his army due to the proximity of its garrison to the capital, of the new armies that formed part of the Self-Strengthening Movement, Yuans was the best trained and most effective
Port
A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land. Port locations are selected to optimize access to land and navigable water, for commercial demand, Ports with deeper water are rarer, but can handle larger ships. Since ports throughout history handled every kind of traffic and storage facilities vary widely, may extend for miles, some ports have an important military role. One of the worlds oldest known artificial harbors is at Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea, along with the finding of harbor structures, ancient anchors have been found. Guangzhou was an important port during the ancient times as far back as the Qin Dynasty, canopus was the principal port in Egypt for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria. Athens port of Piraeus was the base for the Athenian fleet, lothal is one of the most prominent cities of the ancient Indus valley civilisation, located in the Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarāt and dating from 3700 BCE.
Ostia Antica was the port of ancient Rome with Portus established by Claudius, Ports often have cargo-handling equipment, such as cranes and forklifts for use in loading ships, which may be provided by private interests or public bodies. Often, canneries or other processing facilities will be located nearby, some ports feature canals, which allow ships further movement inland. Access to intermodal transportation, such as railroads and highways, is critical to a port, so that passengers, Ports with international traffic have customs facilities. Harbor pilots and tugboats may maneuver large ships in tight quarters when near docks, the terms port and seaport are used for different types of port facilities that handle ocean-going vessels, and river port is used for river traffic, such as barges and other shallow-draft vessels. An inland port is a port on a lake, river, or canal with access to a sea or ocean. An example of this is the St. Lawrence Seaway which allows ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean several thousand kilometers inland to Great Lakes ports like Duluth-Superior, a fishing port is a port or harbor for landing and distributing fish.
It may be a facility, but it is usually commercial. A fishing port is the port that depends on an ocean product. In recent decades, regulations to save fishing stock may limit the use of a fishing port, a dry port is an inland intermodal terminal directly connected by road or rail to a seaport and operating as a centre for the transshipment of sea cargo to inland destinations. A warm-water port is one where the water does not freeze in wintertime, because they are available year-round, warm-water ports can be of great geopolitical or economic interest. A seaport is further categorized as a port or a cargo port. Additionally, cruise ports are known as a home port or a port of call
Liu Changqing
Liu Changqing was a poet of the middle Tang dynasty. Eleven of his poems were collected in the popular anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems, guqin history Huang Ruheng Watson, Burton. CHINESE LYRICISM, Shih Poetry from the Second to the Twelfth Century
Battle of Wuhan
The Battle of Wuhan, popularly known to the Chinese as the Defense of Wuhan, and to the Japanese as the Capture of Wuhan, was a large-scale battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War. More than one million National Revolutionary Army troops were gathered, with Chiang Kai-shek personally in command, engagements were in both the northern and southern shores of the Yangtze River, spreading across vast areas of the Anhui, Henan and Hubei provinces. On 7 July 1937, the Imperial Japanese Army launched an invasion of China. With the onset of the war and Tianjin fell to the Japanese in less one month. On 12 November, the Japanese Army captured Shanghai, Nanjing was at risk of being besieged, and the Chinese government was forced to transfer its capital to Chongqing. However, the Chinese government did not transfer its elite troops, assistance from the USSR provided additional military and technical resources, including a small band of Soviet Air Force volunteers. Wuhan, located halfway up the Yangtze River, was the second largest city at the time with a population of two million, the city was divided by the Yangtze River and Hanshui into three regions, Wuchang and Hanyang.
Wuchang was the center, Hankou was a commercial district while Hanyang was the industrial estate. After the completion of the Yuehan Railway, the importance of Wuhan as a transportation hub in inland China was further established. When Japan captured Nanjing on 13 December, the Chinese shifted structures and industries to Wuhan, the Chinese war effort was focused on protecting Wuhan from being occupied by the Japanese. The Japanese government and the headquarters of the China Expeditionary Force thereby expected that the fall of Wuhan would lead to the end of Chinese resistance, the Battle of Wuhan was preceded by a Japanese air strike on 28 February 1938. It was known as the 2.28 Air battle and the Chinese were able to repel the attack, on 24 March, the Diet of Japan passed the National Mobilization Law that authorized unlimited funding of war. As part of the law, the National Service Draft Ordinance allowed the conscription of civilians, on 29 April, the Japanese air force launched major air strikes on Wuhan to celebrate Emperor Hirohitos birthday.
The Chinese, knowing this beforehand, were well prepared and this battle was known as the 4.29 Air battle, one of the most intense air battles of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The ROCAF shot down 21 Japanese planes at a loss of 12, after the fall of Xuzhou in May 1938, the Japanese planned an extensive invasion of Hankou and the takeover of Wuhan, intending to destroy the main force of the National Revolutionary Army. The Chinese, on the hand, were preparing for the defense of Wuhan. They managed to gather up more than one million troops, around 300 planes and 50 naval ships. In an attempt to buy time for the preparation of the defense of Wuhan
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, Boxer Uprising or Yihequan Movement a violent anti-foreign and anti-Christian uprising that took place in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty. The uprising took place against a background of severe drought and the disruption caused by the growth of foreign spheres of influence and Chinese Christians sought refuge in the Legation Quarter. Diplomats, foreign civilians and soldiers as well as Chinese Christians in the Legation Quarter were placed under siege by the Imperial Army of China, Chinese officialdom was split between those supporting the Boxers and those favoring conciliation, led by Prince Qing. The supreme commander of the Chinese forces, the Manchu General Ronglu, the Eight-Nation Alliance, after being initially turned back, brought 20,000 armed troops to China, defeated the Imperial Army, and captured Beijing on August 14, lifting the siege of the Legations. Uncontrolled plunder of the capital and the surrounding countryside ensued, along with the execution of those suspected of being Boxers.
The Empress Dowager sponsored a set of institutional and fiscal changes in an attempt to save the dynasty by reforming it. The Righteous and Harmonious Fists arose in the sections of the northern coastal province of Shandong long known for social unrest, religious sects. American Christian missionaries were probably the first to refer to the well-trained, athletic men as Boxers, because of the martial arts. Their primary practice was a type of possession which involved the whirling of swords, violent prostrations. The opportunities to fight back Western encroachment and colonization were especially attractive to unemployed village men, the tradition of possession and invulnerability went back several hundred years but took on special meaning against the powerful new weapons of the West. The Boxers, armed with rifles and swords, claimed supernatural invulnerability towards blows of cannon, rifle shots, the Boxer groups popularly claimed that millions of soldiers of Heaven would descend to assist them in purifying China of foreign oppression.
The Big Swords, emboldened by this support, attacked their local Catholic village rivals. The Big Swords responded by attacking Catholic churches and burning them, the line between Christians and bandits, remarks one recent historian, became increasingly indistinct. As a result of pressure in the capital, Yuxian executed several Big Sword leaders. More martial secret societies started emerging after this, the early years saw a variety of village activities, not a broad movement or a united purpose. Martial folk religious societies such as the Baguadao prepared the way for the Boxers, like the Red Boxing school or the Plum Flower Boxers, the Boxers of Shandong were more concerned with traditional social and moral values, such as filial piety, than with foreign influences. One leader, for instance, Zhu Hongdeng, started as a healer, specializing in skin ulcers. Zhu claimed descent from Ming dynasty emperors, since his surname was the surname of the Ming imperial family and he announced that his goal was to Revive the Qing and destroy the foreigners
Simplified Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters.
Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants.
However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished.
Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. It is generally regarded as a point in Chinese civilization. Its territory, acquired through the campaigns of its early rulers, rivaled that of the Han dynasty. The dynasty was founded by the Lǐ family, who seized power during the decline, the dynasty was briefly interrupted when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, proclaiming the Second Zhou dynasty and becoming the only Chinese empress regnant. In two censuses of the 7th and 8th centuries, the Tang records estimated the population by number of registered households at about 50 million people. Various kingdoms and states paid tribute to the Tang court, while the Tang conquered or subdued several regions which it controlled through a protectorate system. Besides political hegemony, the Tang exerted a powerful influence over neighboring states such as those in Korea, Japan. Like the previous Sui dynasty, the Tang dynasty maintained a service system by recruiting scholar-officials through standardized examinations and recommendations to office.
This civil order was undermined by the rise of military governors known as jiedushi during the 9th century. Chinese culture flourished and further matured during the Tang era, it is considered the greatest age for Chinese poetry. Two of Chinas most famous poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, belonged to this age, as did many famous painters such as Han Gan, Zhang Xuan, there was a rich variety of historical literature compiled by scholars, as well as encyclopedias and geographical works. The adoption of the title Tängri Qaghan by the Tang Emperor Taizong in addition to his title as emperor was eastern Asias first simultaneous kingship, there were many notable innovations during the Tang, including the development of woodblock printing. Buddhism became an influence in Chinese culture, with native Chinese sects gaining prominence. However, Buddhism would be persecuted by the state, subsequently declining in influence, although the dynasty and central government were in decline by the 9th century and culture continued to flourish.
This family was known as the Longxi Li lineage, which includes the Tang poet Li Bai, the Tang Emperors had Xianbei maternal ancestry, from Emperor Gaozu of Tangs Xianbei mother Duchess Dugu. He had prestige and military experience, and was a first cousin of Emperor Yang of Sui, Li Yuan rose in rebellion in 617, along with his son and his equally militant daughter Princess Pingyang, who raised and commanded her own troops. In winter 617, Li Yuan occupied Changan, relegated Emperor Yang to the position of Taishang Huang or retired emperor, and acted as regent to the puppet child-emperor, Emperor Gong of Sui. On the news of Emperor Yangs murder by General Yuwen Huaji on June 18,618, Li Yuan declared himself the emperor of a new dynasty, the Tang
