Guangxu Emperor
This is a Manchu name. The Guangxu Emperor, personal name Zaitian, was the 11th emperor of the Qing dynasty, the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, his reign lasted from 1875 to 1908, but in practice he ruled, under Empress Dowager Cixi's influence, only from 1889 to 1898. He initiated the Hundred Days' Reform, but was abruptly stopped when the empress dowager launched a coup in 1898, after which he was put under house arrest until his death, his regnal name, "Guangxu", means "glorious succession". Zaitian was the second son of Yixuan, his primary spouse Yehenara Wanzhen, a younger sister of Empress Dowager Cixi. On 12 January 1875, the Tongzhi Emperor, died without a son to succeed him. Breaking the imperial convention that a new emperor must always be of a generation after that of the previous emperor, candidates were considered from the generation of the Tongzhi Emperor. Empress Dowager Ci'an suggested choosing one of Prince Gong's sons to be the next emperor, but was overruled by her co-regent, Empress Dowager Cixi.
Instead, Cixi nominated Zaitian and the imperial clan agreed with her choice because Zaitian was younger than other adoptable children of the same generation. Zaitian was named heir and successor to his late uncle, the Xianfeng Emperor, rather than his cousin and predecessor, the Tongzhi Emperor, so as to maintain the father-son succession law, he ascended to the throne at the age of four and adopted "Guangxu" as his regnal name, therefore he is known as the "Guangxu Emperor". He was adopted by Cixi. For her part, she remained as regent under the title "Holy Mother, Empress Dowager" while her co-regent Empress Dowager Ci'an was called "Mother Empress, Empress Dowager". Beginning in 1876, the Guangxu Emperor was taught by Weng Tonghe, involved in the disastrous upbringing of the Tongzhi Emperor yet somehow managed to be exonerated of all possible charges. Weng instilled in the Guangxu Emperor a duty of filial piety toward the Empress Dowagers Cixi and Ci'an. In 1881, when the Guangxu Emperor was nine, Empress Dowager Ci'an died unexpectedly, leaving Empress Dowager Cixi as sole regent for the boy.
In Weng's diaries during those days, Guangxu was seen with swollen eyes, had poor concentration and was seeking consolation from Weng. Weng too expressed his concern that Cixi was the one, suffering from chronic ill health, not Ci'an. During this time, the imperial eunuchs abused their influence over the boy emperor; the Guangxu Emperor had reportedly begun to hold some audiences on his own as an act of necessity. In 1887, the Guangxu Emperor was old enough to begin to rule in his own right, but the previous year, several courtiers, including Prince Chun and Weng Tonghe, had petitioned Empress Dowager Cixi to postpone her retirement from the regency. Despite Cixi's agreement to remain as regent, by 1886 the Guangxu Emperor had begun to write comments on memorials to the throne. In the spring of 1887, he partook in his first field-plowing ceremony, by the end of the year he had begun to rule under Cixi's supervision. In February 1889, in preparation for Cixi's retirement, the Guangxu Emperor was married.
Much to the emperor's dislike, Cixi selected Jingfen, to be empress. She became known as Empress Longyu, she selected a pair of sisters, who became Consorts Jin and Zhen, to be the emperor's concubines. The following week, with the Guangxu Emperor married, Cixi retired from the regency. After the Guangxu Emperor began formal rule, Empress Dowager Cixi continued to influence his decisions and actions, despite residing several months of the year at the Summer Palace. Weng Tonghe observed that while the emperor attended to day-to-day state affairs, in more difficult cases the emperor and the Grand Council sought Cixi's advice. In fact, the emperor journeyed to the Summer Palace to pay his respects to his aunt and to discuss state affairs with her. In March 1891, the Guangxu Emperor received the foreign ministers to China at an audience in the "Pavilion of Purple Light", in what is now part of Zhongnanhai, something, done by the Tongzhi Emperor in 1873; that summer, under pressure from the foreign legations and in response to revolts in the Yangtze River valley that were targeting Christian missionaries, the emperor issued an edict ordering Christians to be placed under state protection.
The Guangxu Emperor, while growing up had been instilled with the importance of frugality. In 1892, he tried to implement a series of draconian measures to reduce expenditures by the Imperial Household Department, which proved to be one of his few administrative successes, but it was only a partial victory, as he had to approve higher expenditures than he would have liked to meet Cixi's needs. 1894 saw the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War. During the war though the Guangxu Emperor was nominally the sovereign ruler of the Qing Empire, officials ignored him and instead sent their memorials to Cixi for her approval. Two sets of Grand Council memoranda were created, one for the emperor and the other for the empress dowager, a practice that continued until it was rendered unnecessary by the events in the autumn of 1898. Following the Qing Empire's defeat and forced agreement to the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the Guangxu Emperor expressed his wish to abdicate; the emperor and the Qing government faced further humiliation in late 1897 when the German Empire used the murders of two priests in Shandong Province as an excuse to occupy Jiaozhou Bay, prompting a "scramble for concessions" by other foreign powers.
Following the war and the scramble for
Tongzhi Emperor
The Tongzhi Emperor, born Zaichun of the Aisin Gioro clan, was the tenth emperor of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, the eighth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign, from 1861 to 1875, which lasted through his adolescence, was overshadowed by the rule of his mother, Empress Dowager Cixi. Although he had little influence over state affairs, the events of his reign gave rise to what historians call the "Tongzhi Restoration", an unsuccessful attempt to stabilise and modernise China; the only surviving son of the Xianfeng Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi, the Tongzhi Emperor attempted political reform in the period of the Tongzhi Restoration. His first regnal name was Qixiang, but this name was abandoned by Cixi in favour of "Tongzhi", a contraction of the classical phrase tong gui yu zhi, which means "restoring order together". An alternate interpretation reads it as "mother and son co-emperors", which fits the state of affairs, as the empress dowager wielded real power and ruled behind the scenes.
The traditional Chinese political phrase "attending audiences behind a curtain" was coined to describe Cixi's rule through her son. The Tongzhi Emperor became emperor at the age of five upon the death of his father, the Xianfeng Emperor, his father's choice of regent, was removed in favour of a partnership between his mother Empress Dowager Cixi, Empress Dowager Ci'an, his sixth uncle Prince Gong. While there had most been hopes that the Tongzhi Emperor would become a leader like the Kangxi Emperor, those hopes would soon come to naught, as the Tongzhi Emperor grew up to become an obstinate and dissolute young man. In the fall of 1872, the teenage emperor married several concubines; the Tongzhi Emperor had wanted to take up power prompting a quarrel at court regarding the dismantling of the regency and the timing of it. However, the two empresses dowager stuck by the intended date of February 23, 1873; the day after the Tongzhi Emperor took up the reins of power, the foreign powers requested an audience with the teenage emperor.
The request precipitated a sharp disagreement between the ministers at the foreign legations, who made it clear that they would not perform the ritual kowtow to the emperor, the Zongli Yamen, regarding the protocol to be observed. The Qing government was loath to hold the audience within the confines of the Forbidden City settling on the "Pavilion of Purple Light" at one of the lakeside palaces to the west of the Forbidden City, now part of Zhongnanhai; the audience was held on 29 June 1873. After the audience, the foreign representatives made clear their annoyance at being received in a hall used by the Qing emperors to receive envoys of tributary states. In the fall of 1874, the Tongzhi Emperor got into a clash with his ministers, which included his two uncles, Prince Gong and Prince Chun over the emperor's plans to rebuild the Old Summer Palace at a time in which the empire was bankrupt, over his dissolute behavior; the emperor reacted by firing the ministers, but Empresses Dowager Ci'an and Cixi intervened, he had them reinstated.
That December, it was announced that he was ill with smallpox, the empresses dowager resumed the regency. He died on 12 January 1875; the Tongzhi Emperor's death left the court in a succession crisis, as, although he was childless, his empress was pregnant. The empresses dowager designated the Tongzhi Emperor's three-year-old cousin, Zaitian, as the heir to the throne. Zaitian was biologically Prince Chun's son, but was symbolically adopted as the Xianfeng Emperor's son to make him eligible to succeed the Tongzhi Emperor. Zaitian was thus enthroned as the Guangxu Emperor, with Empresses Dowager Ci'an and Cixi resuming their roles as regents; the Tongzhi Emperor's empress died a few months later. Hong Xiuquan was peculiarly affected by the social instability of the Canton region, he belonged to a family of modesty well-off peasants from Hua county north of Canton, members of the Hakka community ubiquitous in the region. Hong created his own version of Christianity with a total transformation of the Chinese nation to start his Taiping Rebellion.
In late 1851, Taiping army occupied its first walled city Yongan. When 5-year-old Tongzhi Emperor ascend the throne in 1861, the Taiping rebellion was threatening Shanghai; this move prompted several foreign missions of British and Americans to the Heavenly Capital, to warn the Taiping against interference with Western commerce. Foreign neutrality was beginning to fray as Western intelligence of the Taiping revealed both its unorthodox religious ideology and its lack of understanding of the Western world. In order to save Shanghai, Tongzhi Emperor ordered Zeng Guofan to counter-attack the rebel. Zeng's appointment was the turning point in the Taiping war. Zeng was a virtual generalissimo directing a supra-provincial campaign by armies raised and led by his various lieutenants and proteges, supported by the extrodinary mobilization of revenues including the likin tax and customs revenues, his strategy was to move from the west down the Yangzi taking successive cities, while Li Hongzhang, his principal lieutenant, advanced from the east through Jiangsu toward Nanjing.
The Heavenly Capital fell in July 1864. Hong Xiuquan was dead, on June 1, 1864; the fall of the city was followed by a great massacre. Remnant Taiping forces fled south, including Hong's son the Junior King and Hong Rengan, to continue the movement, but both were soon captured and execut
Śarīra
Śarīra is a generic term referring to Buddhist relics, although in common usage it refers to pearl or crystal-like bead-shaped objects that are purportedly found among the cremated ashes of Buddhist spiritual masters. Relics of the Buddha after cremation are termed dhātu in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta. Śarīra are held to emanate or incite'blessings' and'grace' within the mindstream and experience of those connected to them. Sarira are believed to ward off evil in the Himalayan Buddhist tradition. Śarīra meant "body" in Sanskrit, but when used in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit texts to mean "relics", it is always used in the plural: śarīrāḥ. The term ringsel is a loanword from the Tibetan language. Both of these terms are ambiguous in English. Śarīra can refer to: Dharmakāya śarīra, which are sutras as told by the Buddha. According to Ding Fubao's Dictionary of Buddhist Terms, a Dharma body śarīra is "the Sutra as told by the Buddha: That, unchanging in what is told by the Buddha, is of the same property as the essence of the Buddha himself, hence it is called the'dharma body śarīra'".
Remains of the Buddha or other spiritual masters, either cremated remains or other pieces, including a finger bone or a preserved body, similar to the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox incorruptibles. Full body śarīra refers to Buddhist mummies, the mummified remains of spiritual masters. Broken-body śarīras refers to cremated remains; when used without qualification, it refers to the pearl-like remnant of a master left after cremation. Although the term śarīra can be used to refer to a wide variety of Buddhist relics, as listed above, it is used to refer to pearl or crystal-like bead-shaped objects that are purportedly found among the cremated ashes of Buddhist spiritual masters; these objects are considered relics of significant importance in many sects of Buddhism since they are believed to embody the spiritual knowledge, realizations or living essence of spiritual masters. They are taken as evidence of the masters' enlightenment and spiritual purity; some believe that śarīras are deliberately left by the consciousness of a master for veneration, that the beauty of the śarīras depends on how well the masters had cultivated their mind and souls.
Śarīra come in a variety of colours, some are translucent. Sariras are displayed in a glass bowl inside small gold urns or stupas as well as enshrined inside the master's statue. Śarīras are believed to mysteriously multiply while inside their containers if they have been stored under favorable conditions. Saffron threads are sometimes placed within or around the bowl containing individual śarīra as an offering. In the Korean Samguk yusa it is said that the monk Myojong received a śarīra from a turtle which caused others to treat the monk better; the occurrence of śarīra is not restricted to ancient times, many Buddhists have shown that śarīra are not limited to humans or masters. Many texts of Pure Land Buddhism report śarīras of some occurring recently; some Buddhists associate a student's spiritual life with the amount and condition of the śarīra they leave after cremation. Many Pure Land Buddhists believe. Many claim. There are reports that śarīra may multiply or disappear, depending on a keeper's thoughts.
One's vow may be important. One legend holds that the translator Kumārajīva wanted to demonstrate that his translations were not false. There is evidence that under certain conditions of heating, human bones can form crystalline structures. In one chemical analysis, śarīras were found to be composed of the constituent elements of both bones and stones. Pearl relics are documented in the 2008 film, Unmistaken Child, among the cremation ashes of Geshe Lama Konchog. Javanese has a strong historical bond with the Hindu Sanskrit liturgical language. Śarīra is used in Archaic Javanese, preserving its original meaning of'body' or'human body'. The word finds its way into the modern Javanese language as "slira" with the same meaning. "Sliramu" and "sliraku" are used in poems or songs to replace "you" and "I", respectively. The word is used in both oral and written contexts. Cetiya Gallstones Rainbow body Sariras: Ringsels and Mummies Relics of Buddha Sacred Buddhist Relics Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, Episode no. 711 MIT News: Buddhist relics WNET New York Maitreya Relic Tour Sarira collection Buddhist relics collection
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
Eastern Wu
Wu known as Dong Wu or Sun Wu, was one of the three major states that competed for supremacy over China in the Three Kingdoms period. It existed from 220–222 as a vassal kingdom nominally under Cao Wei, its rival state, but declared independence from Wei and became a sovereign state in 222, it became an empire in 229 after Sun Quan, declared himself emperor. Its name was derived from the place it was based in — the Jiangnan region, historically known as "Wu", it was referred to as "Dong Wu" or "Sun Wu" by historians to distinguish it from other Chinese historical states with similar names which were located in that region, such as the Wu state in the Spring and Autumn period and the Wuyue kingdom in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. It was called "Eastern Wu" because it occupied most of eastern China in the Three Kingdoms period, "Sun Wu" because the family name of its rulers was "Sun". During its existence, Wu's capital was at Jianye, but at times it was at Wuchang. Towards the end of the Han dynasty, Sun Ce, the eldest son of the warlord Sun Jian, his followers borrowed troops from the warlord Yuan Shu and embarked on a series of military conquests in the Jiangdong and Wu regions between 194 and 199, seizing several territories occupied by warlords such as Liu Yao, Yan Baihu and Wang Lang.
Sun Ce broke off relations with Yuan Shu around 196-197 after the latter declared himself emperor — an act deemed as treason against Emperor Xian, the figurehead ruler of the Han dynasty. The warlord Cao Cao, the de facto head of government in the Han imperial court, asked Emperor Xian to grant Sun Ce the title of "Marquis of Wu". Sun Ce was succeeded by his younger brother, Sun Quan. Sun Quan, like his elder brother paid nominal allegiance to Emperor Xian while maintaining autonomous rule over the Wu territories. In 208, Sun Quan allied with the warlord Liu Bei and they combined forces to defeat Cao Cao at the Battle of Red Cliffs. Sun Quan and Liu Bei maintained their alliance against Cao Cao after the battle for the next ten years or so, despite having some territorial disputes over Jing Province. In 219, Sun Quan severed ties with Liu Bei when he sent his general Lü Meng to invade Liu's territories in Jing Province. Guan Yu, defending Liu Bei's assets in Jing Province, was captured and executed by Sun Quan's forces.
After that, the boundaries of Sun Quan's domain extended from beyond the Jiangdong region to include the southern part of Jing Province, which covered present-day Hunan and parts of Hubei. In 220, Cao Cao's son and successor, Cao Pi, ended the Han dynasty by forcing Emperor Xian to abdicate in his favour and established the state of Cao Wei. Sun Quan agreed to submit to Wei and was granted the title of a vassal king, "King of Wu", by Cao Pi. A year Liu Bei declared himself emperor and founded the state of Shu Han. In 222, Liu Bei launched a military campaign against Sun Quan to take back Jing Province and avenge Guan Yu, leading to the Battle of Xiaoting. However, Liu Bei suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Sun Quan's general Lu Xun and was forced to retreat to Baidicheng, where he died a year later. Liu Bei's successor, Liu Shan, his regent, Zhuge Liang, made peace with Sun Quan and reaffirmed their previous alliance. Sun Quan declared independence from Wei in 222, but continued to rule as "King of Wu" until 229, when he declared himself "Emperor of Wu".
His legitimacy was recognised by Shu. Sun Quan ruled for over his long reign resulted in stability in southern China. During his reign, Wu engaged Wei in numerous wars, including the battles of Ruxu and Hefei. However, Wu never managed to gain any territory north of the Yangtze River while Wei never succeeded in conquering the lands south of the Yangtze. A succession struggle broke out between Sun Quan's sons in the part of his reign — Sun Quan instated Sun He as the crown prince in 242 after his former heir apparent, Sun Deng, died in 241, but Sun He soon became involved in a rivalry with his younger brother, Sun Ba; the conflict resulted in the emergence of two rivalling factions, each supporting either Sun He or Sun Ba, in Sun Quan's imperial court. Sun Quan deposed Sun He and forced Sun Ba to commit suicide, while Lu Xun and many other ministers who took either Sun He's or Sun Ba's side in the struggle met with unhappy ends. Sun Quan appointed Sun Liang, as the crown prince after the incident.
Sun Quan was succeeded by Sun Liang, with Zhuge Ke and Sun Jun serving as regents. In 253, Zhuge Ke was assassinated in a coup launched by Sun Jun, the state power of Wu fell into Sun Jun's hands and was passed on to his cousin, Sun Chen, after his death. During Sun Liang's reign, two rebellions broke out in the Wei garrison at Shouchun in 255 and 257–258. Sun Jun and Sun Chen led Wu forces to support the rebels in the first and second rebellions in the hope of making some territorial gains in Wei, but both revolts were suppressed and the Wu forces retreated after suffering many losses. Sun Liang was deposed in 258 by Sun Chen, who installed Sun Xiu, another son of Sun Quan, on the throne. Sun Xiu killed Sun Chen in a coup with the help of Zhang Bu and Ding Feng. Sun Xiu died of illness in 264, a year. At the time, Wu was experiencing internal turmoil because rebellions had broken out in Jiaozhi in the south; the ministers Puyang Xing, Wan Yu and Zhang Bu decided to install Sun He's son, Sun Hao, on the throne.
In the
Yuan dynasty
The Yuan dynasty the Great Yuan, was the empire or ruling dynasty of China established by Kublai Khan, leader of the Mongolian Borjigin clan. It preceded the Ming dynasty. Although the Mongols had ruled territories including modern-day North China for decades, it was not until 1271 that Kublai Khan proclaimed the dynasty in the traditional Chinese style, the conquest was not complete until 1279, his realm was, by this point, isolated from the other khanates and controlled most of modern-day China and its surrounding areas, including modern Mongolia. It was the first foreign dynasty to rule all of China and lasted until 1368 which ended in Ming dynasty defeating the Yuan dynasty, the rebuked Genghisid rulers retreated to their Mongolian homeland and continued to rule the Northern Yuan dynasty; some of the Mongolian Emperors of the Yuan mastered the Chinese language, while others only used their native language and the'Phags-pa script. The Yuan dynasty 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. 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 the Proclamation of the Dynastic Name, Kublai announced the name of the new dynasty as Great Yuan and claimed the succession of former Chinese dynasties from the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to the Tang dynasty. In addition to Emperor of China, Kublai Khan claimed the title of Great Khan, supreme over the other successor khanates: the Chagatai, the Golden Horde, the Ilkhanate; as such, the Yuan was sometimes 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 western khans, their subservience was nominal and each continued its own separate development. In 1271, Kublai Khan imposed the name Great Yuan. "Dà Yuán" is from the clause "大哉乾元" in the Commentaries on the Classic of Changes section regarding the first hexagram Qián.
The counterpart in the Mongolian language was Dai Ön Ulus rendered as Ikh Yuan Üls or Yekhe Yuan Ulus. In Mongolian, Dai Ön was used in conjunction with the "Yeke Mongghul Ulus", resulting in ᠳᠠᠢᠦᠨᠶᠡᠬᠡᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯᠦᠯᠦᠰ, meaning "Great Yuan Great Mongol State"; the Yuan dynasty is known by westerners as the "Mongol dynasty" or "Mongol Dynasty of China", similar to the names "Manchu dynasty" or "Manchu Dynasty of China" which were used by westerners for the Qing dynasty. Furthermore, the Yuan is sometimes known as the "Empire of the Great Khan" or "Khanate of the Great Khan", which appeared on some Yuan maps, since Yuan emperors held the nominal title of Great Khan. 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 tribes of the steppes and became Great Khan in 1206, 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, conquering most of northern China.
Ögedei offered his nephew Kublai a position in Hebei. Kublai was unable to read Chinese but had several Han teachers attached to him since his early years by his mother Sorghaghtani, he sought the counsel of Chinese Confucian advisers. Möngke Khan succeeded Ögedei's son, Güyük, as Great Khan in 1251, he granted his brother Kublai control over Mongol held territories in China. Kublai built schools for Confucian scholars, issued paper money, revived Chinese rituals, endorsed policies that stimulated agricultural and commercial growth, he adopted as his capital city Kaiping in Inner Mongolia renamed Shangdu. Many Han Chinese and Khitan defected to the Mongols to fight against the Jin. Two Han Chinese leaders, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima, 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. There were 4 Han Tumens and 3 Khitan Tumens, with each Tumen consisting of 10,000 troops.
The three Khitan Generals Shimobeidier and Xiaozhacizhizizhongxi commanded the three Khitan Tumens and the four Han Generals Zhang Rou, Yan Shi, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima commanded the four Han tumens under Ogödei Khan. Möngke Khan commenced a military campaign against the Chinese Song dynasty in southern China; the Mongol force that invaded southern China was far greater than the force they sent to invade the Middle East in 1256. He died in 1259 without a successor. Kublai returned from fighting the Song in 1260 when he learned that his brother, Ariq Böke, was challenging his claim to the throne. Kublai convened a kurultai in Kaiping. A rival kurultai in Mongolia proclaimed Ariq Böke Great Khan. Kublai depended on the cooperation of his Chinese subjects to ensure that his army received ample resources, he bolstered his popularity among his subjects by modeling his government on the bureaucracy of traditional Chinese dynasties and adopting the Chinese era name of Zhongtong. Ariq Böke was hampered by inadequate supplies and surrendered in 1264.
A
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2, it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island, the ninth-largest island in the world. In 2011, Great Britain had a population of about 61 million people, making it the world's third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan; the island of Ireland is situated to the west of Great Britain, together these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands, form the British Isles archipelago. The island is dominated by a maritime climate with quite narrow temperature differences between seasons. Politically, Great Britain is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, constitutes most of its territory. Most of England and Wales are on the island; the term "Great Britain" is used to include the whole of England and Wales including their component adjoining islands. A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the union of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland by the 1707 Acts of Union.
In 1801, Great Britain united with the neighbouring Kingdom of Ireland, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, renamed the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" after the Irish Free State seceded in 1922. The archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years: the term'British Isles' derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a collective name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, Roman-occupied Britain south of Caledonia; the earliest known name for Great Britain is Albion or insula Albionum, from either the Latin albus meaning "white" or the "island of the Albiones". The oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle, or by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, "There are two large islands in it, called the British Isles and Ierne".
Pliny the Elder in his Natural History records of Great Britain: "Its former name was Albion. Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne; the French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Bryten, Breten. Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together, it is derived from the travel writings of the Pytheas around 320 BC, which described various islands in the North Atlantic as far north as Thule. Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the island group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι; the peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Priteni or Pretani. Priteni is the source of the Welsh language term Prydain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland; the latter were called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans. Greek historians Diodorus of Sicily and Strabo preserved variants of Prettanike from the work of Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia, who travelled from his home in Hellenistic southern Gaul to Britain in the 4th century BC.
The term used by Pytheas may derive from a Celtic word meaning "the painted ones" or "the tattooed folk" in reference to body decorations. The Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain and to Ireland as little Britain in his work Almagest. In his work, Geography, he gave the islands the names Alwion and Mona, suggesting these may have been the names of the individual islands not known to him at the time of writing Almagest; the name Albion appears to have fallen out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain, after which Britain became the more commonplace name for the island. After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a historical term only. Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae refers to the island as Britannia major, to distinguish it from Britannia minor, the continental region which approximates to modern Brittany, settled in the fifth and sixth centuries by migrants from Britain; the term Great Britain was first used in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between Cecily the daughter of Edward IV of England, James the son of James III of Scotland, which described it as "this Nobill Isle, callit Gret Britanee".
It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself "King of Great Brittaine and Ireland". Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, it is often used to refer politically to the whole of England and Wales, including their smaller off shore islands. While it is sometimes used to refer to the whole of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, this is not correct. Britain can refer to either all island
