1.
The Art of War
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The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from the 5th century BC. Attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu the text is composed of 13 chapters and it is commonly thought of as a definitive work on military strategy and tactics. It was placed at the head of Chinas Seven Military Classics upon the creation in 1080 by Emperor Shenzong of Song. It has had an influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy, the book was first translated into French in 1772 by the Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot and a partial translation into English was attempted by British officer Everard Ferguson Calthrop in 1905. The first annotated English translation was completed and published by Lionel Giles in 1910, leaders such as Mao Zedong, General Võ Nguyên Giáp, General Douglas MacArthur and leaders of Imperial Japan have drawn inspiration from the work. This text was identified with the received Master Suns Art of War. The prominent strategist, poet, and warlord Cao Cao in the early 3rd century AD authored the earliest known commentary to the Art of War, caos preface makes clear that he edited the text and removed certain passages, but the extent of his changes were unclear historically. The Art of War appears throughout the bibliographical catalogs of the Chinese dynastic histories, in 1972, the Yinqueshan Han slips were discovered in two Han dynasty tombs near the city of Linyi in Shandong Province. The Sun Bin texts material overlaps with much of the Sunzi text, and this discovery showed that much of the historical confusion was due to the fact that there were two texts that could have been referred to as Master Suns Art of War, not one. The content of the text is about one-third of the chapters of the modern The Art of War. It is now accepted that the earlier The Art of War was completed sometime between 500 and 450 BC. The Art of War is divided into 13 chapters, the collection is referred to as being one zhuàn, detail Assessment and Planning explores the five fundamental factors and seven elements that determine the outcomes of military engagements. By thinking, assessing and comparing these points, a commander can calculate his chances of victory, habitual deviation from these calculations will ensure failure via improper action. The text stresses that war is a grave matter for the state. Waging War explains how to understand the economy of warfare and how success requires winning decisive engagements quickly and this section advises that successful military campaigns require limiting the cost of competition and conflict. Strategic Attack defines the source of strength as unity, not size, in order of importance, these critical factors are, Attack, Strategy, Alliances, Army and Cities. Disposition of the Army explains the importance of defending existing positions until a commander is capable of advancing from those positions in safety and it teaches commanders the importance of recognizing strategic opportunities, and teaches not to create opportunities for the enemy. Forces explains the use of creativity and timing in building an armys momentum, Military Maneuvers explains the dangers of direct conflict and how to win those confrontations when they are forced upon the commander
2.
Sun Bin's Art of War
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As a consequence, Sun Bins Art of War is sometimes conflated with Sun Tzus The Art of War. In April 1972, bamboo slips of both Sun Tzus and Sun Bins works were unearthed in the Yinque Hills, due to natural erosion, some of the bamboo slips were damaged and difficult to reinterpret. The current edition of Sun Bins Art of War contains 16 chapters from 222 bamboo slips, Sun believes that the historically progressive unification accomplished in war had been an important means of facilitating the submission of feudal lords. To start a war, one must have a storage of materials, Sun also pointed out that Warmongers will inevitably lose and those who expect to make a fortune out of war will also suffer defeat and disgrace. Sun Bin advises King Wei and Tian Ji, engaging them in a discussion on his basic thoughts about strategy. The chapter focuses on attacks on weakly defended key enemy positions and on the military philosophy of using Tao. Set in the Battle of Maling, Sun Bin and Tian Ji discuss the problems of battlefield positions in field operations, the combination of terrain, weapons and the types of soldiers is emphasized. Comments on the principles of building and training an army. On the topic of building an army, Sun Bin focuses on the employment of the best soldiers in terms of field command and he stresses five factors that will lead to constant victory, The commander who has won the sovereigns trust and has an independent command will win. The one who knows the art of war will win, the one who gets uniform support from his soldiers will win. The one whose work in concert with each other will win. The one who is good at analysing and utilising terrain will win, there are also five corollaries that will lead to constant defeat, The one whose command is constrained by the sovereign will be defeated. The one who does not know the art of war will be defeated, the one who does not have the support of his soldiers will be defeated. The one whose subordinates do not work in harmony will be defeated, the one who does not know to use spies will be defeated. Discusses the methods of a commander and the principles of battle formation and it emphasises that a commander must be well versed in both meteorology and geography. He also must get the support of his people at home, in a direct battle, he knows well the basic points of the eight formations. If one is sure of victory he will fight, if unsure he should not fight, Sun Bin also emphasises that in laying a formation, the army can be divided into three divisions. In each, the best soldiers should be placed as a vanguard and he emphasises dividing the army into three teams and engaging one team in battle in while leaving the other two strictly in defence
3.
Thirty-Six Stratagems
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The Thirty-Six Stratagems was a Chinese essay used to illustrate a series of stratagems used in politics, war, and civil interaction. The name of the collection comes from the Book of Qi, in its seventh biographical volume, Wáng was a general who had served Southern Qi since the first Emperor Gao of the dynasty. When Emperor Ming came to power and executed members of the court and royal family for fear that they would threaten his reign, Wáng believed that he would be targeted next. It should be noted that the number thirty-six was used by Wáng as a figure of speech in this context, and is meant to denote numerous stratagems instead of any specific number. Wángs choice of term was in reference to the I Ching. As thirty-six is the square of six, it acted as a metaphor for numerous strategies. Some stratagems reference occurrences in the time of Sun Bin, approx,150 years after Sun Wus death. The Thirty-Six Stratagems only came to the attention after a review of it was published in the Chinese Communist Partys Guangming Daily newspaper on September 16,1961. It was subsequently reprinted and distributed with growing popularity, the Thirty-Six Stratagems are divided into a preface, six chapters containing six stratagems each, and an afterword that was incomplete with missing text. The first three chapters generally describe tactics for use in situations, whereas the last three chapters contain stratagems that are more suitable for disadvantageous situations. The original text of the Thirty-Six Stratagems has a style that is common to Classical Chinese. Each proverb is accompanied by a comment, no longer than a sentence or two, that explains how said proverb is applicable to military tactics. These 36 Chinese proverbs are related to 36 battle scenarios in Chinese history and folklore, predominantly of the Warring States period, the Thirty-Six Stratagems consists of 6 chapters, each chapter consists of 6 stratagems. Mask your real goals, by using the ruse of a fake goal, tactically, this is known as an open feint, in front of everyone, you point west, when your goal is actually in the east. When the enemy is too strong to be attacked directly, then attack something he holds dear, know that he cannot be superior in all things. Somewhere there is a gap in the armour, a weakness that can be attacked instead, the idea here is to avoid a head-on battle with a strong enemy, and instead strike at his weakness elsewhere. This will force the enemy to retreat in order to support his weakness. Battling against the now tired and low-morale enemy will give a higher chance of success
4.
Wujing Zongyao
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The Wujing Zongyao, known in English as the Complete Essentials for the Military Classics, is a Chinese military compendium written from around 1040 to 1044. It contains the earliest known written formulas for gunpowder, made from saltpeter, sulphur, the book was compiled during the Northern Song dynasty by scholars such as Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du and Yang Weide, whose writing influenced many later Chinese military writers. The compendium was published under the auspices of Emperor Renzong, who authored the books preface. The book covers a range of subjects, everything from naval warships to different types of catapults. In addition to formulas for gunpowder, the compendium contains details on various weapons such as incendiary bombs, fire arrows, incendiary projectiles, grenades. The Wujing Zongyao was compiled under the sponsorship of Emperor Renzong of Song. A team of Chinese scholars compiled the treatise of the Wujing Zongyao from 1040 to 1044 and its chief editor was Zeng Gongliang, while he was assisted by the prominent astronomer Yang Weide and the scholar Ding Du. After five years, the book was published with a preface authored by Emperor Renzong, historian Peter Lorge theorizes that the purpose of the compendium was to disseminate military knowledge to a wider government audience. Emperor Renzong was concerned that many officials were unfamiliar with the military classics, Lorge remarks that Zeng Gongliang, the chief editor, was a government official rather than a military general. The book was written to be read by other government officials. Parts of the Wujing Zongyao were copied form older sources, historian Ralph D. Sawyer calls it essentially a cut-and-paste job, the book contains many passages from earlier classical military writings whose original authors are left unidentified, a common practice at the time. During the Song dynasty, the Wujing Zongyao was appended to two books, the Xingjun xuzhi and the Baizhan qifa, which were written by anonymous authors. The Wujing Zongyao was one of 347 military treatises listed in the chapters of the Song Shi. After the original was lost, there was only a number of surviving copies rewritten by hand. Nevertheless, from a copy of the Wujing Zongyao, it was remade into a newly published edition in 1231 AD during the Southern Song dynasty era. Then there was an edition of the entire Wujing Zongyao in 1510 AD. After the edition of 1510 was printed, other Ming Dynasty copies were made and this included the Jiajing edition, the Wanli edition of Quanzhou, and the Wanli edition of Jinling by Tang Xinyün. During the Qing Dynasty it was reprinted in two different editions during the 18th century, and again in 1934 with the Shanghai edition
5.
Jixiao Xinshu
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The Jixiao Xinshu or New Treatise on Military Efficiency was a military manual written by the Ming dynasty general Qi Jiguang. The book discusses military strategy, combat tactics, weapons and equipment, training, armed and unarmed fighting techniques, logistics, several contemporary martial arts styles of Qis era are mentioned in the book, including the staff method of the Shaolin temple. In the late 16th century the military of the Ming dynasty was in poor condition, as the Mongol forces of Altan Khan raided the northern frontier, Chinas coastline fell prey to wokou pirates, who were ostensibly Japanese in origin. Qi Jiguang was assigned to the defense of Zhejiang in 1555, where he created his own standards of organization, equipment, tactics, training. He published his thoughts on military techniques, tactics, and strategies in the Jixiao Xinshu after achieving several victories in battle, there are two editions of the Jixiao Xinshu. The first edition was written from 1560-1561 and consists of 18 chapters and it is known as the 18 chapter edition. The second edition was published in 1584 during Qis forced retirement with re-edited and it is known as the 14 chapter edition. Excluding the corporal and cook/porter, the ten remaining men could be split into two identical five-man squads and this was so that when Japanese pirates made it past the long lances, the saber-and-shield men formed a protective screen for the vulnerable lancers. In battle, the two men had different roles. The one on the right would hold the position of the squad, while the one on the left was to throw javelins. The two men with multiple tip bamboo spears would entangle the pirates while the lancers attacked them, the trident carriers guarded the flanks and rear. Qi became enamored with the musket after his defeats and became one of the proponents of their use in the Ming army. Ideally an entire team would have 10 musketeers, but often had 4 or 2 in practice. The optimal musket formation that Qi proposed was a 12 man musket team similar to the mandarin duck formation. However, instead of fighting in a hand to hand formation, they operated on the principle of the volley fire. Or if melee is not a possibility, then, Each squad was drilled in coordinated, because Qis troops were recruited from among peasants, and were not considered the equals of their Japanese foes, Qi Jiguang emphasized the use of combined arms and squad tactics. Units were rewarded or punished collectively, an officer was executed if his entire unit fled the enemy, and if a leader was killed in battle. The resulting weapons produced under this system varied widely in quality, muskets in particular exploded with alarming frequency, leading Qi to eschew reliance on firearms in favor of using melee tools such as swords, rattan shields, and sharpened bamboo poles
6.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
7.
Simplified Chinese characters
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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 also 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, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
8.
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
9.
Jiao Yu
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Jiao Yu was a Ming dynasty military officer under Zhu Yuanzhang, who founded the dynasty and became known as the Hongwu Emperor. He was entrusted by Zhu as an artillery officer for the rebel army that overthrew the Mongol Yuan dynasty. As a senior adviser and general, he was appointed to the venerable and noble status of the Count of Dongning. He edited and wrote a military treatise that outlined the use of Chinese military technology during the mid 14th century based on his military campaign of 1355 AD. However, descriptions of gunpowder weapons in his treatise derive from Song Dynasty materials on battles against the Khitans, Jurchens. Before Jiao Yu took up the cause against the ruling Mongols over China, like Jiao Yu, Daoren accepted the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, but in military affairs Jiao was convinced that he had inherited the skill of the ancient Sun Tzu. After Jiao Yu became his protege, Daoren urged Yu to join the cause of Zhu Yuanzhangs rebellion, Daoren had also shared with him various literary works on fire-weapons and their recorded uses in battle. After joining his ranks, Jiao Yu became one of Zhu Yuanzhangs trusted confidants in the Red Turban Rebellion against the Yuan dynasty, Zhu was impressed with Jiaos knowledge of firearms which he had earlier acquired from Daoren, yet Zhu wanted to test their abilities. Zhu ordered his officer Xu Da to provide a demonstration of their destructive capabilities, with the aid of Jiaos fire-weapons, Zhus army, once stationed in Hezhou among a plethora of different rebel groups in surrounding towns, conquered Jingzhou and Xiangzhou in one expedition. In the second expedition the provinces of Jiang and Zhe, and in the campaign the entire province of Fujian was taken. After this, Zhus army captured the whole of Shandong in one campaign, Zhu finally drove the Mongols north in 1367, establishing a new capital at Nanjing soon after while Beijing became the secondary capital. After the successful rebellion and establishment of Zhu as the Ming dynastys new Hongwu Emperor, Jiao was eventually appointed as the head officer of the enormous Shen Zhi Ying Armory, where multitudes of manufactured guns and artillery were deposited for storage and safekeeping. The Hongwu Emperor established a new Gunpowder Department in the administration of the capital. This is what fire-weapons are all about, along with the scholar, general, and court adviser Liu Bowen, Jiao Yu became an editor of the 14th century military treatise known as the Huolongjing. The Nanyang publication of the book, known as the Huolongjing Quanzhi featured a preface written by Jiao Yu much later in 1412 AD, the oldest passages found in the Huolongjing were collected from sources no earlier than circa 1270 AD. Although Jiao Yus biography does not appear in the History of Ming, Yu was mentioned in Zhao Shizhens Shenqipu, He Rubins Binglu and his text Huolongjing was reprinted in the 19th century, during the late Qing Dynasty. The Huolongjing, compiled and edited by Jiao Yu and Liu Zhi and it provided information for, Various gunpowder compositions Descriptions of the Chinese hollow cast iron grenade bomb Descriptions of the Chinese fire arrow. Descriptions of fire lances and proto-guns, Descriptions of hollow, gunpowder-packed exploding cannonballs Descriptions of handguns with possible serpentines used as components in matchlocks
10.
Liu Bowen
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Liu Ji, courtesy name Bowen, better known as Liu Bowen, was a Chinese military strategist, statesman and poet who lived in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties. He was born in Qingtian County and he served as a key advisor to Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming dynasty, in the latters struggle to overthrow the Yuan dynasty and unify China under his rule. Liu is also known for his prophecies and has described as the Divine Chinese Nostradamus. He and Jiao Yu co-edited the military treatise known as the Huolongjing, Liu served Zhu Yuanzhang in his rebellion against the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty in China, which had ruled since the conquest of the Southern Song dynasty in 1279. He dabbled in fields of statecraft, philosophy, scholarly works. His philosophical outlook was that of a skeptical naturalist, and he became interested in astronomy, calendrical science, magnetism and he was very interested in the latter, and once said that thunder is like fire shot from a cannon. Liu sat for the examination and obtained the position of a jinshi in the final years of the Yuan dynasty. He spent much of his career attempting to save the Yuan dynasty from collapse. He served the Yuan dynasty as an official for 25 years, gaining a reputation for integrity and honesty, in 1348, he was appointed to a military position and assigned to put down a southern rebellion against the dynasty. The leader of the rebellion attempted to save himself by offering Liu a bribe, when Liu refused, the rebel went to Beijing and succeeded in bribing his way into favour there. Once the secessionist had bribed his way into the favour, he was given a public office. Lius relationship with the Yuan government deteriorated after this event and he attempted to resign twice, in 1349 and 1352. He was demoted in 1358, and finally left service to retire in his ancestral homeland, in 1360, Liu was introduced to Zhu Yuanzhang, a former leader of a radical White Lotus rebellion who was then the leader of a broad anti-Yuan rebellion. Liu served not only in the administration of Zhu Yuanzhang, but also in many battles as an officer on land and water. Zhu Yuanzhang placed Liu in charge of the campaign to all of Zhejiang from Yuan forces. Liu was also responsible for military ventures against opposing Chinese rebel groups and his forces owed much of their success to the use of the medieval Chinese firearm known as the fire lance. It was during this period that he wrote the books Extraordinary Strategies of a Hundred Battles and Eighteen Strategies and Affairs. Later in the rebellion, Zhu Yuanzhang only rarely relied on Liu to personally command his armies in the field, as he acquired other capable generals, including Xu Da, Deng Yu, Liu was most often consulted for his strategic advice during this period
11.
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
12.
Gunpowder
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Gunpowder, also known as black powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate, the sulfur and charcoal act as fuels, and the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Black powder firearms are in limited use today in hunting, shooting, Black powder has been replaced for most industrial uses by high explosives such as dynamite. Black powder is assigned the UN number UN0027 and has a class of 1. 1D. It has a point of approximately 427–464 °C. The specific flash point may vary based on the composition of the gunpowder. Gunpowders specific gravity is 1. 70–1.82 or 1. 92–2.08, Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate at subsonic speeds, whereas high explosives detonate, ignition of the powder packed behind a bullet must generate enough pressure to force it from the muzzle at high speed, but not enough to rupture the gun barrel. Gunpowder thus makes a good propellant, but is suitable for shattering rock or fortifications. Gunpowder was widely used to fill artillery shells and in mining and civil engineering to blast rock until the half of the 19th century. Black powder is used as a delay element in various munitions where its slow-burning properties are valuable. The spread of gunpowder across Asia from China is widely attributed to the Mongols, the earliest record of a written formula for gunpowder appears in the 11th century Song dynasty text, Wujing Zongyao. This discovery led to the invention of fireworks and the earliest gunpowder weapons in China, in the centuries following the Chinese discovery, gunpowder weapons began appearing in the Muslim world and Europe. The technology spread from China through the Middle East or Central Asia, the earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century. The most ardent protagonists were Nathaniel Halhad, Johann Backmann, Quintin Craufurd, however, due to lack of sufficient proof, these theories have not been widely accepted. A major problem confronting the study of the history of gunpowder is ready access to sources close to the events described. The translation difficulty has led to errors or loose interpretations bordering on artistic licence, early writings potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where old words acquired new meanings. For instance, the Arabic word naft transitioned from denoting naphtha to denoting gunpowder, saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and there is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various largely medicinal combinations
13.
Bomb
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A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Bombs have been in use since the 11th century in Song Dynasty China, the term bomb is not usually applied to explosive devices used for civilian purposes such as construction or mining, although the people using the devices may sometimes refer to them as a bomb. The military use of the bomb, or more specifically aerial bomb action, typically refers to airdropped, unpowered explosive weapons most commonly used by air forces. Other military explosive weapons not classified as bombs include grenades, shells, depth charges, warheads when in missiles, in unconventional warfare, other names can refer to a range of offensive weaponry. For instance, in recent Middle Eastern conflicts, bombs called improvised explosive devices have been employed by insurgent fighters to great effectiveness, the word comes from the Latin bombus, which in turn comes from the Greek βόμβος, an onomatopoetic term meaning booming, buzzing. Explosive bombs were used in China in 1221, by a Jin dynasty army against a Song Dynasty city, Bombs built using bamboo tubes appear in the 11th century. Bombs made of cast iron shells packed with explosive gunpowder date to 13th century China, the term was coined for this bomb during a Jin dynasty naval battle of 1231 against the Mongols. When hit, even iron armour was pierced through. The Ming Dynasty text Huolongjing describes the use of gunpowder bombs. During the Mongol invasions of Japan, the Mongols used the explosive thunder-crash bombs against the Japanese, archaeological evidence of the thunder-crash bombs has been discovered in an underwater shipwreck off the shore of Japan by the Kyushu Okinawa Society for Underwater Archaeology. X-rays by Japanese scientists of the excavated shells confirmed that they contained gunpowder, explosive shock waves can cause situations such as body displacement, dismemberment, internal bleeding and ruptured eardrums. Shock waves produced by explosive events have two components, the positive and negative wave. The positive wave shoves outward from the point of detonation, followed by the vacuum space sucking back towards the point of origin as the shock bubble collapses. The greatest defense against shock injuries is distance from the source of shock, as a point of reference, the overpressure at the Oklahoma City bombing was estimated in the range of 28 MPa. A thermal wave is created by the release of heat caused by an explosion. Military bomb tests have documented temperatures of up to 2,480 °C, while capable of inflicting severe to catastrophic burns and causing secondary fires, thermal wave effects are considered very limited in range compared to shock and fragmentation. This would be fatal to humans, as tests have proven. Fragmentation is produced by the acceleration of shattered pieces of bomb casing, the use of fragmentation in bombs dates to the 14th century, and appears in the Ming Dynasty text Huolongjing
14.
Fire arrow
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Fire arrows are one of the earliest forms of weaponized gunpowder. The first fire arrows were bags of gunpowder attached the shaft of an arrow. Later on gunpowder rockets were used to provide rockets with propulsive force, fire arrows are the predecessors of fire lances, the first firearm. Although the fire arrow is most commonly associated with its rocket mechanism and this type of fire arrow served the function of an incendiary and was launched using a bow or crossbow. The rocket propelled fire arrow appeared later, by the mid 1300s rocket arrow launchers had appeared in the Ming dynasty and later on mobile rocket arrow launchers were utilized in both China and Korea. The fire arrows propelled by gunpowder may have had a range of up to 1,000 feet, fire arrows were first reported to be used by the Southern Wu in 904 during the siege of Yuzhang. In 969 gunpowder propelled rocket arrows were invented by Yue Yifang and Feng Jisheng, in 1083 Song records state that the court produced 350,000 fire arrows and sent them to two garrisons. On March 1,1126, the Song general Li Gang used a fire arrow machine known as the Thunderbolt Thrower during the Jingkang Incident, by 1127 the Jin were also using fire arrows produced by captured Song artisans. In 1159 fire arrows were used by the Song navy in sinking a Jin fleet, in 1161 the general Yu Yunwen used fire arrows at the Battle of Caishi, near present-day Maanshan, during a Jin maritime incursion. The Mongols also made use of the fire arrow during their campaigns in Japan, as a result of the Mongolian military campaigns the fire arrow later spread into the Middle East. In 1374 the kingdom of Joseon also started producing gunpowder and by 1377 were producing fire arrows and cannons, korean fire arrows were used against the Japanese during the invasion of Korea. In 1380 an order of wasp nest arrow rocket launchers were ordered by the Ming army, in 1451 a type of mobile arrow rocket launcher known as the Munjong Hwacha was invented in Joseon. The Japanese version of the fire arrow were known as bo-hiya, Japanese pirates in the 16th century were reported to have used bo hiya. During one sea battle it was said the bo-hiya were falling like rain, andrade, Tonio, The Gunpowder Age, China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-13597-7. Chase, Kenneth, Firearms, A Global History to 1700, Cambridge University Press, liang, Jieming, Chinese Siege Warfare, Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity, Singapore, Republic of Singapore, Leong Kit Meng, ISBN 981-05-5380-3 Lu Zhen. Alternative Twenty-Five Histories, Records of Nine Kingdoms, needham, Joseph, Science & Civilisation in China, V,7, The Gunpowder Epic, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-30358-3
15.
Rocket
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A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle that obtains thrust from a rocket engine. Rocket engine exhaust is formed entirely from propellant carried within the rocket before use, Rocket engines work by action and reaction and push rockets forward simply by expelling their exhaust in the opposite direction at high speed, and can therefore work in the vacuum of space. In fact, rockets work more efficiently in space than in an atmosphere, multistage rockets are capable of attaining escape velocity from Earth and therefore can achieve unlimited maximum altitude. Compared with airbreathing engines, rockets are lightweight and powerful and capable of generating large accelerations. To control their flight, rockets rely on momentum, airfoils, auxiliary engines, gimballed thrust, momentum wheels, deflection of the exhaust stream, propellant flow, spin. Rockets for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th century China, significant scientific, interplanetary and industrial use did not occur until the 20th century, when rocketry was the enabling technology for the Space Age, including setting foot on the Earths moon. Rockets are now used for fireworks, weaponry, ejection seats, launch vehicles for satellites, human spaceflight. Chemical rockets are the most common type of high power rocket, chemical rockets store a large amount of energy in an easily released form, and can be very dangerous. However, careful design, testing, construction and use minimizes risks, the first gunpowder-powered rockets were developed in Song China, by the 13th century. The Chinese rocket technology was adopted by the Mongols and the invention was spread via the Mongol invasions to the Near East, medieval and early modern rockets were used militarily as incendiary weapons in sieges. An early Chinese text to mention the use of rockets was the Huolongjing, between 1270 and 1280, Hasan al-Rammah wrote al-furusiyyah wa al-manasib al-harbiyya, which included 107 gunpowder recipes,22 of which are for rockets. In Europe, Konrad Kyeser described rockets in his military treatise Bellifortis around 1405. The name Rocket comes from the Italian rocchetta, meaning bobbin or little spindle, the Italian term was adopted into German in the mid 16th century by Leonhard Fronsperger and Conrad Haas, and by the early 17th century into English. Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima, an important early work on rocket artillery. The first iron-cased rockets were developed in the late 18th century in the Kingdom of Mysore, in 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote the line rockets red glare while held captive on a British ship that was laying siege to Fort McHenry. The first mathematical treatment of the dynamics of rocket propulsion is due to William Moore, in 1815, Alexander Dmitrievich Zasyadko constructed rocket-launching platforms, which allowed rockets to be fired in salvos, and gun-laying devices. William Hale in 1844 greatly increased the accuracy of rocket artillery, the Congreve rocket was further improved by Edward Mounier Boxer in 1865. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky first speculated on the possibility of manned spaceflight with rocket technology, robert Goddard in 1920 published proposed improvements to rocket technology in A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes
16.
Land mine
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A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automatically by way of pressure when a target steps on it or drives over it, a land mine may cause damage by direct blast effect, by fragments that are thrown by the blast, or by both. The name originates from the ancient practice of mining, where tunnels were dug under enemy fortifications or troop formations. These killing tunnels were at first collapsed to destroy targets located above, nowadays, in common parlance, land mine generally refers to devices specifically manufactured as anti-personnel or anti-vehicle weapons. The use of mines is controversial because of their potential as indiscriminate weapons. They can remain dangerous many years after a conflict has ended, harming the economy, to date,162 nations have signed the treaty. To act as passive area-denial weapons, land mines are currently used in large quantities mostly for this first purpose, thus their widespread use in the demilitarized zones of likely flashpoints such as Cyprus, Afghanistan and Korea. As of 2013, the governments that still laid land mines were Myanmar in its internal conflict. Land mines continue to kill or injure at least 4,300 people every year, even decades after the ends of the conflicts for which they were placed. This claim is dubious, as gunpowder warfare did not develop in China until the advent of the flamethrower in the 10th century, while the land mine was not seen in China until the late 13th century. Explosive land mines were being used in 1277 by the Chinese during the Song dynasty against an assault of the Mongols, the invention of this detonated enormous bomb was credited to one Lou Qianxia of the 13th century. The wad of the mine was made of wood, carrying three different fuses in case of defective connection to the touch hole. Pieces of bamboo are sawn into sections nine feet in length, all septa in the bamboo being removed, save only the last, boiling oil is next poured into and left there for some time before being removed. The fuse starts from the bottom, and is compressed into it to form an explosive mine, the gunpowder fills up eight-tenths of the tube, while lead or iron pellets take up the rest of the space, then the open end is sealed with wax. A trench five feet in depth is dug, the fuse is connected to a firing device which ignites them when disturbed. Further description of how this flint device operated was not made until a Chinese text of 1606 AD revealed that a drive had been used to work the steel wheel. Besides the use of steel wheels providing sparks for the fuses, there were other methods used as well, when the weapons were removed from the mound, this movement disturbed the bowl beneath them where the butt ends of the staffs were, which in turn ignited the fuses. According to the Wubei Huolongjing volume of the 17th century, the formula for this slow-burning incandescent material allowed it to burn continuously for 20 to 30 days without going out
17.
Naval mine
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A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, Naval mines can be used offensively—to hamper enemy shipping movements or lock vessels into a harbour, or defensively—to protect friendly vessels and create safe zones. Mines can be laid in many ways, by purpose-built minelayers, refitted ships, submarines and their flexibility and cost-effectiveness make mines attractive to the less powerful belligerent in asymmetric warfare. The cost of producing and laying a mine is usually anywhere from 0. 5% to 10% of the cost of removing it, parts of some World War II naval minefields still exist because they are too extensive and expensive to clear. It is possible for some of these 1940s-era mines to remain dangerous for many years to come, Mines have been employed as offensive or defensive weapons in rivers, lakes, estuaries, seas, and oceans, but they can also be used as tools of psychological warfare. Offensive mines are placed in enemy waters, outside harbours and across important shipping routes with the aim of sinking both merchant and military vessels. Defensive minefields safeguard key stretches of coast from enemy ships and submarines, forcing them into more easily defended areas, minefields designed for psychological effect are usually placed on trade routes and are used to stop shipping from reaching an enemy nation. They are often spread thinly, to create an impression of minefields existing across large areas, a single mine inserted strategically on a shipping route can stop maritime movements for days while the entire area is swept. International law requires nations to declare when they mine an area, the warnings do not have to be specific, for example, during World War II, Britain declared simply that it had mined the English Channel, North Sea, and French coast. Chinese records tell of naval explosives in the 16th century, used to fight against Japanese pirates and this kind of naval mine was loaded in a wooden box, sealed with putty. General Qi Jiguang made several timed, drifting explosives, to harass Japanese pirate ships, although this is the rotating steel wheellocks first use in naval mines, Jiao Yu had described their use for land mines back in the 14th century. The first plan for a sea mine in the West was by Ralph Rabbards, the Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel was employed in the Office of Ordnance by King Charles I of England to make weapons, including a floating petard which proved a failure. Weapons of this type were apparently tried by the English at the Siege of La Rochelle in 1627, American David Bushnell developed the first American naval mine for use against the British in the American War of Independence. It was a watertight keg filled with gunpowder that was floated toward the enemy and it was used on the Delaware River as a drift mine. In 1812 Russian engineer Pavel Shilling exploded a mine using an electrical circuit. Russian naval specialists set more than 1500 naval mines, or infernal machines, designed by Moritz von Jacobi and by Immanuel Nobel, the mining of Vulcan led to the worlds first minesweeping operation. During the next 72 hours,33 mines were swept, the Jacobi mine was designed by German born, Russian engineer Jacobi, in 1853. The mine was tied to the sea bottom by an anchor, a cable connected it to a cell which powered it from the shore
18.
Fire lance
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The fire lance was a gunpowder weapon that appeared in 10th century China during the Jin-Song Wars. It is considered to be a proto-gun, the predecessor of the cannon. Fire lances were relatively short range weapons and were used to give its user an advantage in close quarters combat, the first fire lances consisted of a tube, usually bamboo, containing gunpowder and a slow match, strapped to a spear or other polearm weapon. Once ignited, the tube would ideally eject a stream of flames in the direction of the spearhead. Co-viative projectiles such as pellets or pottery shards were later added to the gunpowder. Upon firing, the gunpowder charge ejected the projectiles along with the flame, metal fire lance barrels appeared around the mid 13th century and these began to be used independently of the lance itself. The independent metal barrel was known as an eruptor, and became the forerunner of the hand cannon, the first fire-lances appeared in the Song dynasty as early as the year 950 and were mentioned in the military text Wujing Zongyao of 1044. They were at this point antipersonnel weapons, in 1163 fire lances were attached to war carts known as at-your-desire-carts used to defend mobile firembomb trebuchets. In the late 1100s shrapnel such as iron pellets and porcelain shards were added to the gunpowder tube. Some fire lances discarded the spearhead altogether and relied solely on their firepower, by 1232 the Jin were also using fire lances, but with improved reusable barrels consisting of durable paper material. Jin soldiers also used them in combat and in one instance. In 1259 a pellet wad that occluded the barrel was recorded to have used as a fire lance projectile. By 1276 fire lances had transitioned to metal barrels, the metal-barreled fire lance began to be used independently of the lance around the mid to late 13th century. These proto-cannons which fired co-viative projectiles, known as eruptors, were the forerunners of the hand cannon, needham, Joseph, Science & Civilisation in China, V,7, The Gunpowder Epic, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-30358-3. Little Bit of Info on the Fire Lance Medieval Chinese Armies, ISBN 1-85532-599-3 Chinese Siege Warfare, Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity
19.
Hand cannon
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The hand cannon or gonne is the first firearm and the successor of the fire lance. It is the oldest type of arms as well as the most mechanically simplistic form of firearm. Unlike matchlock firearms it requires direct manual external ignition through a hole without any form of firing mechanism. It may also be considered a forerunner of the handgun, in modern usage, the term hand cannon may also be used colloquially to refer to a pistol or revolver chambered for a powerful cartridge, such as the.454 Casull or.500 S&W Magnum. This term is sometimes used to refer to a novelty toy gun known as pocket artillery. Hand cannons first saw use in China sometime during the 13th century and were spread from there to the rest of the world. However the earliest artistic depiction of a cannon is a hand cannon wielding rock sculpture found among the Dazu Rock Carvings dated to 1128. Other specimens are also older and have been dated to the Western Xia period. The Heilongjiang hand cannon weighs 7.8 pounds, and could be carried by a soldier, the earliest reliable evidence of hand cannons in Europe comes from the 14th century, during which time both Europeans and Arabs appear to have begun using them. In East Asia, the Koreans acquired knowledge of the cannon from China in the 14th century. The hand cannon consists of a barrel, a handle, extant samples show that some hand cannons also featured a metal extension as a handle. The hand cannon could be held in two hands, but another person is shown aiding in the ignition process using smoldering wood, coal, red-hot iron rods. The hand cannon could be placed on a rest and held by one hand, projectiles used in hand cannons were known to include rocks, pebbles, and arrows. Eventually stone projectiles in the shape of balls became the form of ammunition. Later hand cannons have been shown to include a pan attached to the barrel. The flash pan had a cover and, later on. These features were carried over to subsequent firearms, the hand cannon was the first firearm used in the history of warfare, the first hand held fireweapon, and the predecessor of subsequent firearm weapons. In Europe depictions of hand cannons appeared as early as 1326, the first recorded use of gunpowder weapons in Europe was in 1331 when two mounted Germanic knights attacked Cividale del Friuli with gunpowder weapons of some sort
20.
Cannon
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A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellants to launch a projectile, which may or may not be explosive. The word cannon is derived from languages, in which the original definition can usually be translated as tube, cane. The Greeks invented the first type—a steam cannon—designed by Archimedes during the Siege of Syracuse, ctesibius built a steam cannon in Alexandria and in the fifteenth century Leonardo da Vinci designed another, the Architonnerre, based on Archimedes work. The earliest form of artillery was developed in Song China, over time replacing siege engines. In the Middle East, the first use of the cannon is argued to be during the 1260 Battle of Ain Jalut between the Mamluk Sultanate and Mongol Empire. The first cannon in Europe were in use in the Iberian Peninsula by the mid-13th century and it was during this period, the Middle Ages, that cannon became standardised, and more effective in both the anti-infantry and siege roles. After the Middle Ages most large cannon were abandoned in favour of greater numbers of lighter, Cannon also transformed naval warfare in the early modern period, as European navies took advantage of their firepower. In World War I, the majority of fatalities were caused by artillery. Most modern cannon are similar to those used in the Second World War, Cannon was widely known as the earliest form of a gun and artillery, before early firearms were invented. The word has been used to refer to a gun since 1326 in Italy, both Cannons and Cannon are correct and in common usage, with one or the other having preference in different parts of the English-speaking world. Cannons is more common in North America and Australia, while cannon as plural is more common in the United Kingdom, Cannon in general have the form of a truncated cone with an internal cylindrical bore for holding an explosive charge and a projectile. The thickest, strongest, and closed part of the cone is located near the explosive charge, as any explosive charge will dissipate in all directions equally, the thickest portion of the cannon is useful for containing and directing this force. Field artillery cannon in Europe and the Americas were initially made most often of bronze, though later forms were constructed of cast iron and eventually steel. However, cast iron cannon have a tendency to burst without having any previous weakness or wear. The following terms refer to the components or aspects of a classical western cannon as illustrated here. In what follows, the words near, close, and behind will refer to those parts towards the thick, closed end of the piece, and far, front, in front of, and before to the thinner, open end. Bore, The hollow cylinder bored down the centre of the cannon, including the base of the bore or bottom of the bore, the diameter of the bore represents the cannons calibre. Chamber, The cylindrical, conical, or spherical recess at the nearest end of the bottom of the bore into which the gunpowder is packed
21.
Xiangyang
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Xiangyang is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Hubei province, Peoples Republic of China. It was known as Xiangfan until December 2,2010, Xiangyang is divided by the Han River, which runs through its heart and divides the city north-south. The city itself is an incorporation of two separate, ancient cities, Fancheng and Xiangzhou. What remains of old Xianyang is located south of the Han River, both cities served prominent historical roles in both the Ancient and Pre-Modern Periods of Chinese history. Today, the city is, after the capital Wuhan, the second largest in the province and it is considered one of the third tier cities in China and has been a target of government and private investment as the country seeks to urbanize and develop the interior provinces. Its built-up area made up of 3 urban districts had 2,199,689 inhabitants at the 2010 census while the municipality contained approximately 5,500,307 people. The prefecture-level city of Xiangyang administers 9 county-level divisions, including 3 districts,3 county-level cities and 3 counties, Xiangfan has a history of over 2800 years. It was the location of battles during the Three Kingdoms period in 191 A. D. between Sun Jian and Liu Biao and in 1267-1273 A. D. between the Southern Song and the Mongols. Its major scenic spots and cultural sites include Xiangyang City Moat, the wall of Xiangfan city is very old, but the condition is fine now. The urban area, however, has a range of 31° 54−32°10 N, or 29 km. It borders Suizhou to the east, Jingmen and Yichang to the south, Shennongjia and Shiyan to the west and its administrative border has a total length of 1,332.8 km. Xiangyang has a monsoon-influenced, four season humid subtropical climate, with cold, damp, winters, and hot, humid summers. Xiangyang possesses large water energy resources whilst its mineral deposits include rutile, ilmenite, phosphorus, barite, coal, iron, aluminum, gold, manganese, nitre, the reserves of rutile and ilmenite rank highly in China. Textile production is the industry of Xiangfan followed by machinery manufacture, chemical processing, electronics. Agricultural resources are significant with Xiangfans chief farm products including grain, cotton, vegetable oil crops, tobacco, tea, as the home of Dongfeng Motors, Xiangfan is a well known automobile hub and partners with foreign manufacturers to produce Nissan and Infiniti models for domestic sales. In addition, there are a number of chemical fibre enterprises in the city including Birla Jingwei Fibres, the city has also invested in many industrial, technology and clean energy parks. Rail and highway transportation facilities in Xiangfan are very good, Xiangfan is a railway junction for the Xiangfan-Chongqing, Hankou-Danjiangkou, and Jiaozuo-Liuzhou Railways. Three National Highways including Route 207 pass through the city, the Han River and four other rivers are open to commercial navigation year-round
22.
Nanyang, Henan
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Nanyang is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Henan province, China. It had 10,263,660 inhabitants at the 2010 census, however,1,811,812 residents live in the built-up area made of two urban districts. Dinosaur egg fossils have been discovered in the Nanyang Basin, the 35,000 capacity Nanyang Sports Centre Stadium is the main venue in the city. Wan is the abbreviation for Nanyang which in ancient times was known as Wancheng, meaning Wan City. The city lies within the Nanyang Basin, which is part of a region in Central China that lies in the gap between the end of the Qin Mountains and the source of the Huai River. Thus, using those two features as the standard dividing line, it is difficult to classify the city into northern or southern China. To the north of Nanyang city proper, there is a mountain called Mount Du, to the southwest is Neixiang County with the newly developing Baotianman Biosphere Reserve—an area of high biodiversity, with 65 rare and endangered species. The climate is moderate and is a four-season humid subtropical climate, with strong monsoon influences, winters are cool but dry. Spring and autumn provide transitions of reasonable length, the monthly daily average temperature in January is 1.4 °C and in July it is 26.9 °C, the annual mean is 14.9 °C. More than half the rainfall occurs from June to August. The prefecture-level city of Nanyang administers 2 districts,1 county-level city and 10 counties, there are also several other small stations serving suburban areas. Nanyang is a junction for the Nanjing-Xian Railway and the Jiaozuo-Liuzhou Railway. Direct train service is available to Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hefei to the east, Xian and Lanzhou to the west, Luoyang to the north, over 500 km of highway network has been built along the railway line and others. An 80 km beltway is being constructed surrounding the city, as of 2009, feasibility studies for 80 km of elevated rope suspension pathways hanging 10 meters high for pedestrian and bicycle use have been approved by city level governance. China National Highway 312 Nanyang Airport is one of three civil airports in the province. It is only 20 minutes bus time from the urban area, passengers can take flights to and from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Guilin. There are also two avion airports, Nanyang city buses have about 30 lines in the urban area. The whole city area has a population over 10.26 million, the built-up area has over 1.8 million people, which is the fifth largest city in Henan Province
23.
Hongwu Emperor
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The Hongwu Emperor, personal name Zhu Yuanzhang, was the founder and first emperor of Chinas Ming dynasty. Following his seizure of the Yuan capital, Khanbaliq, Zhu claimed the Mandate of Heaven, trusting only in his family, he made his many sons powerful feudal princes along the northern marches and the Yangtze valley. Most of the sites related to the Hongwu Emperor are located in Nanjing. Zhu was a born into a poor peasant tenant farmer family in Zhongli Village in the Huai River plain. His father was Zhu Shizhen and his mother was Chen Erniang and he had seven older siblings, several of whom were given away by his parents, as they did not have enough food to support the family. When he was 16, severe drought ruined the harvest where his family lived, subsequently, famine killed his entire family, except one of his brothers. He then buried them by wrapping them in white clothes, destitute, Zhu accepted a suggestion to take up a pledge made by his brother and became a novice monk at the Huangjue Temple, a local Buddhist monastery. He did not remain there for long, as the monastery ran short of funds, for the next few years, Zhu led the life of a wandering beggar and personally experienced and saw the hardships of the common people. After about three years, he returned to the monastery and stayed there until he was around 24 years old and he learned to read and write during the time he spent with the Buddhist monks. The monastery where Zhu lived was eventually destroyed by an army that was suppressing a local rebellion, in 1352, Zhu joined one of the many insurgent forces that had risen in rebellion against the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. He rose rapidly through the ranks and became a commander, in 1356, Zhu, and his army conquered Nanjing, which became his base of operations, and the capital of the Ming dynasty during his reign. Zhus government in Nanjing became famous for good governance, and the city attracted vast numbers of people fleeing from other and it is estimated that Nanjings population increased by 10 times over the next 10 years. In the meantime, the Yuan government had weakened by internal factions fighting for control. By 1358, central and southern China had fallen into the hands of different rebel groups, during that time the Red Turbans also split up. Zhu became the leader of a faction, while the larger faction, under Chen Youliang. Zhu was able to attract many talents into his service, one of them was Zhu Sheng, who advised him, Build high walls, stock up rations, and dont be too quick to call yourself a king. Another, Jiao Yu, was an officer, who later compiled a military treatise outlining the various types of gunpowder weapons. Another one, Liu Bowen, became one of Zhus key advisors, starting from 1360, Zhu, and Chen Youliang fought a protracted war for supremacy over the former territories controlled by the Red Turbans
24.
Red Turban Rebellion
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The Red Turban Rebellion was an uprising influenced by the White Lotus Society members that, between 1351 and 1368, targeted the ruling Yuan dynasty of China, eventually leading to its overthrow. Since the 1340s, the Mongol Yuan dynasty was experiencing problems, the Yellow River flooded constantly, and other natural disasters also occurred. At the same time, the Yuan dynasty required considerable military expenditure to maintain its vast empire, the Red Turban Army was originally started by the followers of White Lotus and Manichaeism and was founded by Guo Zixing to resist the Mongols. The name Red Turban was used because of their tradition of using red banners and these rebellions began on a sporadic basis, firstly on the coast of Zhejiang, when Fang Guozhen and his men assaulted a group of Yuan officials. After that, the White Lotus society led by Han Shantong in the north of the Yellow River became the centre of anti-Mongol sentiment, a few rebel groups crossed the Yalu River from their base in Liaoning to capture Pyongyang on the Korean Peninsula. This invasion was repelled by Goryeo, under generals Choe Yeong, in 1351, the society plotted an armed rebellion, but the plan was disclosed and Han Shantong was arrested and executed by the Yuan Government. After his death, Liu Futong, a prominent member of the White Lotus, assisted Hans son, Han Liner, to succeed his father, after that, several other Han rebels in the south of the Yangtze River revolted under the name of the Southern Red Turbans. Among the key leaders of the Southern Red Turbans were Xu Shouhui, the rebellion was also supported by the leadership of Peng Yingyu and Zou Pusheng. One of the more significant Red Turban leaders was Zhu Yuanzhang, at first, he followed Guo Zixing, and in fact later married Guos step-daughter. After Guos death, Zhu was seen as his successor and took over Guos army, between 1356 and 1367, Zhu began a series of campaigns seeking to defeat his opponents in the Red Turbans. At first, he nominally supported Han Liner to stabilize his northern frontier, then he defeated his rivals Chen Youliang, Zhang Shicheng and Fang Guozhen one by one. After rising to dominance, he drowned Han Liner, calling to overthrow the Mongols and restore the Han Chinese, Zhu gained popular support. In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed himself emperor in Yingtian, historically known as the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty, the next year, the Ming army captured Dadu, and the rule of Mongol Yuan dynasty was officially over. China was unified again under the Han Chinese. Historical records commonly portray the Red Turban Army as dealing with captive Yuan officials, battle of Lake Poyang Ispah Rebellion
25.
Yuan dynasty
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The Yuan dynasty, officially the Great Yuan, was the empire or ruling dynasty of China established by Kublai Khan, leader of the Mongolian Borjigin clan. His realm was, by point, isolated from the other khanates and controlled most of present-day China and its surrounding areas. Some of the Mongolian Emperors of the Yuan mastered the Chinese language, while others used their native language. The Yuan dynasty is considered both a successor to the Mongol Empire and an imperial Chinese dynasty and it was the khanate ruled by the successors of Möngke Khan after the division of the Mongol Empire. In official Chinese histories, the Yuan dynasty bore the Mandate of Heaven, following the Song dynasty, the dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, yet he placed his grandfather Genghis Khan on the imperial records as the official founder of the dynasty as Taizu. In addition to Emperor of China, Kublai Khan also claimed the title of Great Khan, supreme over the other khanates, the Chagatai, the Golden Horde. As such, the Yuan was also referred to as the Empire of the Great Khan. However, while the claim of supremacy by the Yuan emperors was at times recognized by the khans, their subservience was nominal. In 1271, Kublai Khan imposed the name Great Yuan, establishing the Yuan dynasty, dà Yuán is from the clause 大哉乾元 in the Commentaries on the Classic of Changes section regarding Qián. The counterpart in Mongolian language was Dai Ön Ulus, also rendered as Ikh Yuan Üls or Yekhe Yuan Ulus, in Mongolian, Dai Ön is often used in conjunction with the Yeke Mongghul Ulus, resulting in Dai Ön Yeke Mongghul Ulus, meaning Great Mongol State. Nevertheless, both terms can refer to the khanate within the Mongol Empire directly ruled by Great Khans before the actual establishment of the Yuan dynasty by Kublai Khan in 1271. Genghis Khan united the Mongol and Turkic tribes of the steppes and he and his successors expanded the Mongol empire across Asia. Under the reign of Genghis third son, Ögedei Khan, the Mongols destroyed the weakened Jin dynasty in 1234, Ögedei offered his nephew Kublai a position in Xingzhou, Hebei. Kublai was unable to read Chinese but had several Han Chinese teachers attached to him since his early years by his mother Sorghaghtani and he sought the counsel of Chinese Buddhist and Confucian advisers. Möngke Khan succeeded Ögedeis son, Güyük, as Great Khan in 1251 and he granted his brother Kublai control over Mongol held territories in China. Kublai built schools for Confucian scholars, issued paper money, revived Chinese rituals and he adopted as his capital city Kaiping in Inner Mongolia, later renamed Shangdu. Many Han Chinese and Khitan defected to the Mongols to fight against the Jin, two Han Chinese leaders, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima, and the Khitan Xiao Zhala defected and commanded the 3 Tumens in the Mongol army. Liu Heima and Shi Tianze served Ogödei Khan, Liu Heima and Shi Tianxiang led armies against Western Xia for the Mongols
26.
Musket
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A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore firearm, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry, a soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer. The musket replaced the arquebus, and was in turn replaced by the rifle. By the end of the 17th century, a version of the musket had edged out the arquebus, and the addition of the bayonet edged out the pike. In the 18th century, improvements in ammunition and firing methods allowed rifling to be practical for use. In the 19th century, rifled muskets became common, combining the advantages of rifles, about the time of the introduction of cartridge, breechloading, and multiple rounds of ammunition just a few years later, muskets fell out of fashion. Musket calibers generally ranged from 0.50 to 0.90 in, rifled muskets of the mid-19th century, like the Springfield Model 1861, were significantly more accurate, with the ability to hit a man sized target at a distance of 500 yards or more. However, in the Italian War of 1859, French forces were able to defeat the longer range of Austrian rifle muskets by aggressive skirmishing and rapid bayonet assaults during close quarters combat. According to the Etymology Dictionary, firearms were often named after animals, and the word derived from the French word mousquette. An alternative theory is that derives from the 16th century French mousquet, -ette, from the Italian moscetto, -etta, the Italian moscetto is a diminutive of mosca, a fly. Hand cannons arrived in Europe from Asia sometime in the early 14th century and they were more commonly used by the early 15th century, particularly in the Hussite wars. It is possible that the noise was at least as important as the missile and these were very short ranged, inaccurate and difficult to load and fire. Hand cannons had a handle, or no handle at all. A wooden stock was added, allowing the weapon to be easily held. The hand cannon evolved into the arquebus by the mid 15th century, the matchlock mechanism was a simple solution to this problem, and placed the match in a clamp on the end of a lever. When a trigger was pulled, the lever would rotate and allowed the match to come in contact with the touch hole, the first European usage of firearms in large ratios was in Hungary under king Matthias Corvinus. Every third soldier in the Black Army of Hungary had an arquebus, gradual advances in the empirical understanding of the corning of gunpowder made possible a more powerful explosive. The cost of gunpowder also gradually fell, by the 16th century the handheld firearm became commonplace, replacing the crossbow and longbow in all advanced armies, and known as the arquebus
27.
Qing dynasty
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It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, 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 disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. 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, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th 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 character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
28.
Manchu people
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The Manchu are an ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. They are sometimes called red-tasseled Manchus, a reference to the ornamentation on traditional Manchu hats, the Later Jin, and Qing dynasty are established by Manchus, who are descended from the Jurchen people who earlier established the Jin dynasty in China. Manchus form the largest branch of the Tungusic peoples and are distributed throughout China and they can be found in 31 Chinese provincial regions. They also form the largest minority group in China without an autonomous region, among them, Liaoning has the largest population and Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia and Beijing have over 100,000 Manchu residents. About half of the live in Liaoning and one-fifth in Hebei. The Sushen used flint-headed wooden arrows, farmed, hunted and fished, the cognates Sushen or Jichen again appear in the Shan Hai Jing and Book of Wei during the dynastic era referring to the Tungusic Mohe tribes of the far northeast. The Mohe practiced pig farming extensively and were sedentary. They were predominantly farmers and grew soybeans, wheat, millet and rice, in the 10th century CE, the term Jurchen first appeared in documents of the late Tang dynasty in reference to the state of Balhae in present-day northeastern China. Following the fall of Balhae, the Jurchens became vassals of the Khitan-led Liao dynasty, in the year 1114, Wanyan Aguda united the Jurchen tribes and established the Jin dynasty. His brother and successor, Wanyan Wuqimai defeated the Liao dynasty, after the fall of the Liao dynasty, the Jurchens went to war with the Northern Song dynasty, and captured most of northern China in the Jin–Song wars. During the Jin dynasty, the first Jurchen script came into use in the 1120s and it was mainly derived from the Khitan script. The Jurchens were sedentary, settled farmers with advanced agriculture and they farmed grain and millet as their cereal crops, grew flax, and raised oxen, pigs, sheep and horses. Their farming way of life was different from the pastoral nomadism of the Mongols. In 1206, the Mongols, vassals to the Jurchens, rose in Mongolia and their leader, Genghis Khan, led Mongol troops against the Jurchens, who were finally defeated by Ögedei Khan in 1234. From that time, the Jurchens of North China increasingly merged with the Han Chinese while those living in their homeland started to be Mongolized and they adopted Mongolian customs, names and the Mongolian language. As time went on, fewer and fewer Jurchens could recognize their own script, the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty was replaced by the Ming dynasty in 1368. In 1387, Ming forces defeated the Mongol commander Naghachus resisting forces who settled in the Haixi area, at the time, some Jurchen clans were vassals to the Joseon dynasty of Korea such as Odoli and Huligai. Their elites served in the Korean royal bodyguard, the Joseon Koreans tried to deal with the military threat posed by the Jurchen by using both forceful means and incentives, and by launching military attacks
29.
History of gunpowder
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Gunpowder is the first physical explosive and propellant. Before its invention, many incendiary and burning devices had been used, the invention of gunpowder is usually attributed to experimentation in Chinese alchemy by Taoists in the pursuit of immortality, and is popularly listed as one of the Four Great Inventions of China. It was invented during the late Tang dynasty but the earliest record of a written formula appeared in the Song dynasty. It was employed in warfare to some effect from at least the 12th century in such as fire arrows, bombs. While the fire lance was eventually supplanted by the gun, other weapons such as rockets continued to see use in China, Korea, India. Bombs too never ceased to develop and continued to progress into the day as grenades, mines. Gunpowder can also be used for purposes such as fireworks for entertainment. The evolution of guns led to the development of artillery during the 15th century, Firearms came to dominate early modern warfare in Europe by the 17th century. The use of technology also spread throughout the Islamic world and to India, Korea. The so-called Gunpowder Empires of the modern period consisted of the Mughal Empire, Safavid Empire. The use of gunpowder in warfare during the course of the 19th century diminished due to the invention of smokeless powder, Gunpowder is often referred to today as black powder to distinguish it from the propellant used in contemporary firearms. Although it is impossible to know if he was referring to gunpowder. The next possible reference to gunpowder appeared in the year 300 during the Jin dynasty, a Taoist philosopher by the name of Ge Hong wrote down the ingredients of gunpowder in his surviving works, collectively known as the Baopuzi. In 492, Taoist alchemists had noted that saltpeter, one of the most important ingredients in gunpowder, burns with a purple flame and this was probably because some weapons were deemed too onerous or ineffective to deploy. One of the first, if not the first of these weapons was the fire arrow, a later account of this event corroborated with the report and explained that by let fire is meant things like firebombs and fire arrows. Afterwards fire arrows started transitioning to rocket propelled weapons rather than being fired from a bow and these fire arrows were shown to the emperor in 970 when the head of a weapons manufacturing bureau sent Feng Jisheng to demonstrate the gunpowder arrow design, for which he was heavily rewarded. In 1000 a soldier by the name of Tang Fu also demonstrated his own designs of gunpowder arrows, gunpowder pots, and gunpowder caltrops, for which he was richly rewarded as well. One surviving source circa 1023 lists all the working in Kaifeng while another notes that in 1083 the imperial court sent 100,000 gunpowder arrows to one garrison and 250,000 to another
30.
Exocet
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The Exocet is a French-built anti-ship missile whose various versions can be launched from surface vessels, submarines, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. The missiles name was given by M. Guillot, then the director at Nord Aviation. The Exocet is built by MBDA, a European missile company, development began in 1967 by Nord as a ship-launched weapon named the MM38. A few years later Aerospatiale and Nord merged, the basic body design was based on the Nord AS30 air-to-ground tactical missile. The air-launched Exocet was developed in 1974 and entered service with the French Navy five years later, the relatively compact missile is designed for attacking small- to medium-size warships, although multiple hits are effective against larger vessels, such as aircraft carriers. It is guided inertially in mid-flight and turns on active radar late in its flight to find, as a countermeasure against air defence around the target, it maintains a very low altitude during ingress, staying one–two m above the sea surface. Due to the effect of the horizon, this means that the target may not detect an incoming attack until the missile is only 6,000 m from impact. This leaves little time for reaction and stimulated the design of close-in weapon systems and its rocket motor, which is fuelled by solid propellant, gives the Exocet a maximum range of 70 kilometres. The submarine-launched version places the missile inside a launch capsule, the Exocet has been manufactured in a number of versions, including, MM38 – deployed on warships. A coast defence version known as Excalibur was developed in the United Kingdom, aM38 AM39 – B2 Mod 2, deployed on 14 types of aircraft. Range between 50 and 70 km, depending on the altitude and the speed of the launch aircraft, SM39 – B2 Mod 2, deployed on submarines. The missile is housed inside a watertight launched capsule, which is fired by the submarines torpedo-launch tubes, on leaving the water, the capsule is ejected and the missiles motor is ignited. It then behaves like an MM40, the missile will be fired at depth, which makes it particularly suitable for discreet submarine operations. MM40 – Block 1, Block 2 and Block 3, deployed on warships, range,72 km for the Block 2, in excess of 180 km for the Block3. In February 2004, the Délégation Générale pour lArmement notified MBDA of a contract for the design and production of a new missile, the MM40 Block 3. It has a range, in excess of 180 kilometres —through the use of a turbojet engine. The Block 3 Exocet is lighter than the previous MM40 Block 2 Exocet,45 Block 3 Exocets were ordered by the French Navy in December 2008 for its ships which were carrying Block 2 missiles, namely Horizon-class and Aquitaine-class frigates. These are not to be new productions but the conversion of older Block 2 missiles to the Block 3 standard, a MM40 Block 3 last qualification firing took place on the Île du Levant test range on 25 April 2007 and series manufacturing began in October 2008
31.
Shanxi
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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, Zhao 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 also 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
32.
Hebei
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Hebei is a province of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is 冀, named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei, the name Hebei literally means north of the river, referring to its location entirely to the north of the Huang He 黄河. Hebei was formed in 1928 after the government dissolved the province of Chihli. Beijing and Tianjin Municipalities, which each other, were carved out of Hebei. The province borders Liaoning to the northeast, Inner Mongolia to the north, Shanxi to the west, Henan to the south, Bohai Bay of the Yellow Sea is to the east. A common alternate name for Hebei is Yānzhào, after the state of Yan, plains in Hebei were the home of Peking man, a group of Homo erectus that lived in the area around 200,000 to 700,000 years ago. Neolithic findings at the prehistoric Beifudi site date back to 7000 and 8000 BC, during the Spring and Autumn period, Hebei was under the rule of the states of Yan in the north and Jin in the south. Also during this period, a people known as Dí invaded the plains of northern China. During the Warring States period, Jin was partitioned, and much of its territory within Hebei went to Zhao, the Qin Dynasty unified China in 221 BC. The Han Dynasty ruled the area under two provinces, Youzhou Province in the north and Jizhou Province in the south, Hebei then came under the rule of the Kingdom of Wei, established by the descendants of Cao Cao. After the invasions of nomadic peoples at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the chaos of the Sixteen Kingdoms. Hebei, firmly in North China and right at the frontier, changed hands many times, being controlled at various points in history by the Later Zhao, Former Yan, Former Qin. The Northern Wei reunified northern China in 440, but split in half in 534, with Hebei coming under the eastern half, the Sui Dynasty again unified China in 589. During the Tang Dynasty, the area was formally designated Hebei for the first time, during the earlier part of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Hebei was fragmented among several regimes, though it was eventually unified by Li Cunxu, who established the Later Tang. During the Northern Song Dynasty, the sixteen ceded prefectures continued to be an area of hot contention between Song China and the Liao Dynasty. The Southern Song Dynasty that came after abandoned all of North China, including Hebei, the Mongol Yuan Dynasty divided China into provinces but did not establish Hebei as a province. Rather, the area was administrated by the Secretariat at capital Dadu. When the Manchu Qing Dynasty came to power in 1644, they abolished the southern counterpart, during the Qing Dynasty, the northern borders of Zhili extended deep into what is now Inner Mongolia, and overlapped in jurisdiction with the leagues of Inner Mongolia
33.
Pyrite
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The mineral pyrite, or iron pyrite, also known as fools gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula FeS2. This minerals metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue give it a resemblance to gold. The color has led to the nicknames brass, brazzle. Pyrite is the most common of the sulfide minerals, the name pyrite is derived from the Greek πυρίτης, of fire or in fire, in turn from πύρ, fire. 1550, the term had become a term for all of the sulfide minerals. Pyrite is usually associated with other sulfides or oxides in quartz veins, sedimentary rock. Despite being nicknamed fools gold, pyrite is sometimes found in association with small quantities of gold, Gold and arsenic occur as a coupled substitution in the pyrite structure. In the Carlin–type gold deposits, arsenian pyrite contains up to 0.37 wt% gold, Pyrite has been used since classical times to manufacture copperas, that is, iron sulfate. Iron pyrite was heaped up and allowed to weather, the acidic runoff from the heap was then boiled with iron to produce iron sulfate. In the 15th century, such leaching began to replace the burning of sulfur as a source of sulfuric acid, by the 19th century, it had become the dominant method. Pyrite remains in use for the production of sulfur dioxide, for use in such applications as the paper industry. Thermal decomposition of pyrite into FeS and elemental sulfur starts at 540 °C, a newer commercial use for pyrite is as the cathode material in Energizer brand non-rechargeable lithium batteries. Pyrite is a material with a band gap of 0.95 eV. During the early years of the 20th century, pyrite was used as a detector in radio receivers. Pyrite detectors occupied a midway point between galena detectors and the more mechanically complicated perikon mineral pairs, Pyrite detectors can be as sensitive as a modern 1N34A germanium diode detector. Pyrite has been proposed as an abundant, inexpensive material in low-cost photovoltaic solar panels, synthetic iron sulfide was used with copper sulfide to create the photovoltaic material. Pyrite is used to make marcasite jewelry, marcasite jewelry, made from small faceted pieces of pyrite, often set in silver, was known since ancient times and was popular in the Victorian era. Marcasite jewelry does not actually contain the mineral marcasite, from the perspective of classical inorganic chemistry, which assigns formal oxidation states to each atom, pyrite is probably best described as Fe2+S22−
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Nitrate
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Nitrate is a polyatomic ion with the molecular formula NO−3 and a molecular mass of 62.0049 g/mol. Nitrates also describe the functional group RONO2. These nitrate esters are a class of explosives. The anion is the base of nitric acid, consisting of one central nitrogen atom surrounded by three identically bonded oxygen atoms in a trigonal planar arrangement. The nitrate ion carries a charge of −1. This arrangement is used as an example of resonance. Like the isoelectronic carbonate ion, the ion can be represented by resonance structures. A common example of a nitrate salt is potassium nitrate. A rich source of nitrate in the human body comes from diets rich in leafy green foods, such as spinach. NO3- is the active component within beetroot juice and other vegetables. Nitrite and water are converted in the body to nitric oxide, nitrate salts are found naturally on earth as large deposits, particularly of nitratine, a major source of sodium nitrate. Nitrates are found in man-made fertilizers, as a byproduct of lightning strikes in earths nitrogen-oxygen rich atmosphere, nitric acid is produced when nitrogen dioxide reacts with water vapor. Nitrates are mainly produced for use as fertilizers in agriculture because of their solubility and biodegradability. The main nitrate fertilizers are ammonium, sodium, potassium, several million kilograms are produced annually for this purpose. The second major application of nitrates is as oxidizing agents, most notably in explosives where the oxidation of carbon compounds liberates large volumes of gases. Sodium nitrate is used to air bubbles from molten glass. Mixtures of the salt are used to harden some metals. Explosives and table tennis balls are made from celluloid, although nitrites are the nitrogen compound chiefly used in meat curing, nitrates are used in certain specialty curing processes where a long release of nitrite from parent nitrate stores is needed
35.
Qingzhou
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Qingzhou, formerly Yidu County, is a county-level city, which is located in the west of Weifang City, Shandong Province, China. Qingzhou is a dynamic city, and also grows a great number of farm products. The local government holds an open policy of introduction of foreign capital, Qingzhou is named after one of the nine provinces that appear in the Yu Gong geography chapter of the classic Book of Documents composed during the Warring States period of Chinese history. The history of this old city dates back to ancient times twenty two centuries ago when it was part of the Dongyi area. Fan Gongting an ancient pavilion built in Song Dynasty and it was a private garden of Fan Zhongyan who was the most notable poet and prosiast in an age of lively literature prosperous. A Muslim district, including at least two large and historic mosques, the oldest one is the Zhenjiao Mosque. It can date from eight centuries ago, which is one of the three most well-known mosques of the Yuan dynasty, ou Yuan, a Ming Dynasty garden. It turned to be a combination of park and zoo, and is used as an area for citizens in the dawn. Qingzhou Museum, featuring some of the Buddhist statues unearthed in 1996-7 Tuoshan, the mountain is located approximately 4 kilometres southwest of the city center. Yang Tian, a park with marverlous surface features. It is covered by virgin forest, through which crystal rivers are flowing, what makes this park more amazing is the so-called thousand Buddhas cave, which is considered as the first cave for the Buddhas. This is because of the volume of the cavern and the 1048 Buddhas in it that are in different postures. 1986, The name Qingzhou is recovered from Yi Du,1996, The discovery of over 200 buried Buddhist statues at Qingzhou was hailed as a major archaeological find. The statues included early examples of painted figures, and are thought to have been buried due to Emperor Huizongs Song Dynasty repression of Buddhism
36.
Tung oil
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Tung oil or China wood oil is a drying oil obtained by pressing the seed from the nut of the tung tree. Tung oil hardens upon exposure to air, and the coating is transparent. Used mostly for finishing/protecting wood, after numerous coats the finish can even look plastic like, related drying oils include linseed, safflower, poppy and soybean oils. The oil and its use are believed to have originated in ancient China, raw tung oil tends to dry to a fine wrinkled finish, the US name for this is gas checking, this property was used to make wrinkle finishes, usually by adding excess cobalt drier. To stop this, the oil is heated to gas-proof it, thus, to avoid the wrinkling, all tung oil available for finishing today is boiled. The tung oil tree originates in southern China and was cultivated there for tung oil, during the Song Dynasty, tung oil was used for waterproofing ships. Tung oil is derived from the Chinese tongyou. The major fatty acids in tung oil and their concentration are listed in the table, the primary constituent is an aliphatic carboxylic acid with a chain of 18 linked carbon atoms or methylene units containing three conjugated double bonds. They are especially sensitive to autoxidation which encourages cross linking of neighbouring chains, Tung oil is very popular today because of 2 properties, First it is natural or green product when it has dried. Secondly, after it cures, the result is a very hard and this is why it is used on boat decks and now on floors. The oil is diluted with hydrocarbon thinner so that the viscosity is very low. This thinning vehicle evaporates within 15 to 20 minutes and results in a totally green residual finish, as mentioned above, when applied in many fine/thinner coats over wood, tung oil slowly cures to a satin wetted wood look with slight golden tint. Tung oil resists liquid water better than any other pure oil finish, most importantly, of all the oil finishes, tung oil is the only drying oil that will polymerize 100%. Linseed oil, for example, never completely hardens, product packaging will usually clearly state if it is pure tung oil. For example, Danish Oil has been thought to have oil in it. However you go to the material data source page you will see that tung oil is not mentioned. Heating tung oil to about 500 °F in an environment will substantially increase the viscosity. Most polymerized tung oils are mixed with mineral spirits to make them easier to work with
37.
Sal ammoniac
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Sal ammoniac is a rare mineral composed of ammonium chloride, NH4Cl. It forms colorless, white, or yellow-brown crystals in the isometric-hexoctahedral class and it has very poor cleavage and a brittle to conchoidal fracture. It is quite soft, with a Mohs hardness of 1.5 to 2, sal ammoniac is also the archaic name for the chemical compound ammonium chloride. The Romans called the ammonium chloride deposits that they collected from near the Temple of Jupiter Amun in ancient Libya sal ammoniacus because of proximity to the nearby temple. Salts of ammonia have been known from early times, the term Hammoniacus sal appears in the writings of Pliny. In any case, that ultimately gave ammonia and ammonium compounds their name. It typically forms as encrustations formed by sublimation around volcanic vents and is found around volcanic fumaroles, guano deposits, associated minerals include sodium alum, native sulfur and other fumarole minerals. Notable occurrences include Tajikistan, Mount Vesuvius, Italy, and Parícutin, Michoacan and it is commonly used to clean the soldering iron in the soldering of stained-glass windows. Sal ammoniac has also used in the past in bakery products to give cookies a very crisp texture. However, in areas of Europe, particularly Nordic countries. Sal ammoniac was the electrolyte in Leclanche cells, a forerunner of the dry battery, a carbon rod, media related to Salammoniac at Wikimedia Commons Mineral galleries
38.
Scallion
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Scallion, green onion, spring onion and salad onion are English names for various Allium species. All of the Allium have hollow green leaves, but these are used while they lack a developed root bulb. Used as a vegetable, they are either raw or cooked. Scallions have a milder taste than most onions, the words scallion and shallot are related and can be traced back to the Greek ασκολόνιον as described by the Greek writer Theophrastus. This name, in turn, seems to originate from the name of the ancient Canaan city of Ashkelon, the plant itself came from farther east of Europe. However, the scallions from A. cepa var. cepa is from a plant, harvested before bulbs form. A. cepa var. aggregatum, formerly A. ascalonicum), shallots are also referred to as eschalot. Diced scallions are used in soup, noodle and seafood dishes, in many Eastern sauces, the bottom half-centimetre of scallions roots is commonly removed before use. In Mexico and the Southwest United States, cebollitas are scallions that are sprinkled with salt and grilled whole and used with cheese, topped with lime juice, they typically serve as a traditional accompaniment to asado dishes. In Catalan cuisine, calçot is a type of onion traditionally eaten in a calçotada. A popular gastronomic event of the name is held between the end of winter and early spring, where calçots are grilled, dipped in salvitxada or romesco sauce. In Japan, scallions are cultivated in two separate ways, in Western Japan, leaf green scallions are typically consumed, where the green portion is consumed. In Eastern Japan, root green scallions are popular, the scallions are partially buried, so a portion of the stalk is kept underground. As a result, a significant part of the stalk remains white in color, the green portion of these root scallions are discarded, and the thick white portions of the scallion are consumed. In Japanese cuisine, scallions are used in abundance, as an accompaniment to tofu, noodle dishes, hot pots, in Vietnam, Welsh onion is important to prepare dưa hành which is served for Tết, the Vietnamese New Year. A kind of sauce, mỡ hành, is used in such as cơm tấm, bánh ít, cà tím nướng. Welsh onion is the ingredient in the dish cháo hành. In India it is eaten as an appetizer with main meals, in north India Coriander, Mint and Onion Chutney is made using scallions
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Calcium oxide
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Calcium oxide, commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline, crystalline solid at room temperature, the broadly used term lime connotes calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides of calcium, silicon, magnesium, aluminium, and iron predominate. By contrast, quicklime specifically applies to the chemical compound calcium oxide. Calcium oxide that survives processing without reacting in building such as cement is called free lime. Both it and a chemical derivative are important commodity chemicals, Calcium oxide is usually made by the thermal decomposition of materials, such as limestone or seashells, that contain calcium carbonate in a lime kiln. This is accomplished by heating the material to above 825 °C, annual worldwide production of quicklime is around 283 million tonnes. China is by far the worlds largest producer, with a total of around 170 million tonnes per year, the United States is the next largest, with around 20 million tonnes per year. Approximately 1.8 t of limestone is required per 1.0 t of quicklime, quicklime has a high affinity for water and is a more efficient desiccant than silica gel. The reaction of quicklime with water is associated with an increase in volume by a factor of at least 2.5, the major use of quicklime is in the Basic oxygen steelmaking process. Its usage varies from about 30–50 kg/t of steel, the quicklime neutralizes the acidic oxides, SiO2, Al2O3, and Fe2O3, to produce a basic molten slag. Ground quicklime is used in the production of aerated concrete blocks, quicklime and hydrated lime can considerably increase the load carrying capacity of clay-containing soils. They do this by reacting with finely divided silica and alumina to produce calcium silicates and aluminates, small quantities of quicklime are used in other processes, e. g. the production of glass, calcium aluminate cement, and organic chemicals. The hydrate can be reconverted to quicklime by removing the water by heating it to redness to reverse the hydration reaction, one litre of water combines with approximately 3.1 kilograms of quicklime to give calcium hydroxide plus 3.54 MJ of energy. This process can be used to provide a convenient portable source of heat, light, When quicklime is heated to 2,400 °C, it emits an intense glow. This form of illumination is known as a limelight, and was used broadly in theatrical productions prior to the invention of electric lighting, cement, Calcium oxide is a key ingredient for the process of making cement. As a cheap and widely available alkali, about 50% of the total quicklime production is converted to calcium hydroxide before use. Both quick- and hydrated lime are used in the treatment of drinking water, petroleum industry, Water detection pastes contain a mix of calcium oxide and phenolphthalein. Should this paste come into contact with water in a storage tank
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