1.
World Heritage Site
–
A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
World Heritage Site
–
Site #252:
Taj Mahal, an example of cultural heritage site
World Heritage Site
–
Logo of the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
World Heritage Committee
World Heritage Site
–
Site #156:
Serengeti National Park, an example of natural heritage site
World Heritage Site
–
Site #274:
Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, an example of mixed heritage site
2.
Luoyang
–
Luoyang, formerly romanized as Loyang, is a city located in the confluence area of Luo River and Yellow River in Central China. It is a city in western Henan province. It borders the capital of Zhengzhou to the east, Pingdingshan to the southeast, Nanyang to the south, Sanmenxia to the west, Jiyuan to the north. Situated on the plain of China, Luoyang is one of the cradles of Chinese civilization. The name Luoyang originates from the location on the north or sunny side of the Luo River. Since the river flows from west to east and the sun is to the south of the river, Luoyang has had several names over the centuries, including Luoyi and Luozhou, though Luoyang has been its primary name. It has been called, during various periods, Dongdu, Xijing, during the rule of Wu Zetian, the city was known as Shendu The greater Luoyang area has been sacred ground since the late Neolithic period. This area at the intersection of the Luo river and Yi River was considered to be the center of China. Because of this aspect, several cities – all of which are generally referred to as Luoyang – have been built in this area. In 2070 BC, the Xia Dynasty king Tai Kang moved the Xia capital to the intersection of the Luo and Yi, in 1600 BC, Tang of Shang defeated Jie, the final Xia Dynasty king, and built Western Bo, a new capital on the Luo River. The ruins of Western Bo are located in Luoyang Prefecture, in the 1136 BC a settlement named Chengzhou was constructed by the Duke of Zhou for the remnants of the captured Shang nobility. The Duke also moved the Nine Tripod Cauldrons to Chengzhou from the Zhou Dynasty capital at Haojing, a second Western Zhou capital, Wangcheng was built 15 km west of Chengzhou. Wangcheng became the capital of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in 771 BC, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty capital was moved to Chengzhou in 510 BC. Later, the Eastern Han Dynasty capital of Luoyang would be built over Chengzhou, modern Luoyang is built over the ruins of Wangcheng, which are still visible today at Wangcheng Park. In 25 AD, Luoyang was declared the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty on November 27 by Emperor Guangwu of Han, for several centuries, Luoyang was the focal point of China. In AD68, the White Horse Temple, the first Buddhist temple in China, was founded in Luoyang, the temple still exists, though the architecture is of later origin, mainly from the 16th century. An Shigao was one of the first monks to popularize Buddhism in Luoyang, in 190 AD, Chancellor Dong Zhuo ordered his soldiers to ransack, pillage, and raze the city as he retreated from the coalition set up against him by regional lords from across China. The court was moved to the more defensible western city of Changan
Luoyang
–
Longmen Grottoes
Luoyang
–
Top:
Longmen Grottoes, Bottom left:
White Horse Temple, Bottom right:
Paeonia suffruticosa in Luoyang and Longmen Bridge
Luoyang
–
Museum of Luoyang Eastern Zhou Royal Horse and Chariot Pits
Luoyang
–
Statue of the
Duke of Zhou who founded a city here c. 1036 BC
3.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
–
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
4.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is 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
Simplified Chinese characters
–
Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters
–
The slogan 战无不胜的毛泽东思想万岁 (Zhàn wúbù shèng de Máo Zédōng sīxiǎng wànsuì; Long live the invincible
Mao Zedong Thought) on
Xinhua Gate in Beijing.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
The first batch of Simplified Characters introduced in 1935 consisted of 324 characters.
5.
Traditional Chinese characters
–
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
Traditional Chinese characters
–
Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese characters
–
Job announcement in a Filipino Chinese daily newspaper written in Traditional Chinese characters.
Traditional Chinese characters
–
A Series of Reading workbook in Traditional Chinese used in some Elementary schools in the Philippines.
6.
Standard Chinese
–
Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
Standard Chinese
–
A poster outside of high school in
Yangzhou urges people to speak Putonghua
Standard Chinese
–
Zhongguo Guanhua (中国官话/中國官話), or Medii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by
Étienne Fourmont (with
Arcadio Huang) in 1742
7.
Hanyu Pinyin
–
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
Hanyu Pinyin
–
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak
Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Hanyu Pinyin
–
In
Yiling,
Yichang,
Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin
8.
Wu Chinese
–
Wu is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese primarily spoken in the whole city of Shanghai, Zhejiang province, southern Jiangsu province and bordering areas. Major Wu varieties include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, Wenzhou/Oujiang, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Wu speakers, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Lu Xun and Cai Yuanpei, occupied positions of great importance in modern Chinese culture and politics. Wu can also be found being used in Shaoxing opera, which is only in national popularity to Peking opera, as well as in the performances of the popular entertainer. Wu is also spoken in a number of diaspora communities, with significant centers of immigration originating from Shanghai, Qingtian. Suzhou has traditionally been the center of Wu and was likely the first place the distinct variety of Sinitic known as Wu developed. Suzhou dialect is considered to be the most linguistically representative of the family. Due to the influence of Shanghainese, Wu as a whole is incorrectly labelled in English as simply, Shanghainese, among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech, Ngu nung nioe ngiu, Wu varieties have the largest vowel quality inventories in the world. The Jinhui dialect spoken in Shanghais Fengxian District has 20 vowel qualities, Wu Chinese, along with Min, is also of great significance to historical linguists due to their retention of many ancient features. These two languages have proven pivotal in determining the history of the Chinese languages. More pressing concerns of the present are those of language preservation, however, many analysts believe that a stable state of diglossia will endure for at least several generations if not indefinitely. Saying one speaks Wu is akin to saying one speaks a Romance language and it is not a particularly defined entity like Standard Mandarin or Hochdeutsch. They do this by affixing 話 Wo to their locations endonym, for example, 溫州話 Wēnzhōuhuà is used for Wenzhounese. Affixing 閒話 xiánhuà is also common and more typical of the Taihu division, Wu, the formal name and standard reference in dialectology literature. Northern Wu, Wu typically spoken in the north of Zhejiang and it by default includes the Xuanzhou division in Anhui as well, however this division is often neglected in Northern Wu discussions. Southern Wu, Wu spoken in southern Zhejiang and periphery, comprising the Oujiang, Wuzhou, Western Wu, A term gaining in usage as a synonym for the Xuanzhou division and modeled after the previous two terms since the Xuanzhou division is less representative of Northern Wu. Shanghainese, is also a common name, used because Shanghai is the most well-known city in the Wu-speaking region. The term Shanghainese is never used by linguists to refer to anything
Wu Chinese
–
Wu (Wú Yǔ) written in
Chinese characters
9.
Cantonese
–
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
Cantonese
–
Street in
Chinatown, San Francisco. Cantonese has traditionally been the dominant Chinese variant among Chinese populations in the Western world.
Cantonese
–
Gwóngdūng Wah / gwong 2 dung 1 waa 6 (Cantonese) written in
traditional Chinese (left) and
simplified Chinese (right) characters
Cantonese
–
Chinese dictionary from Tang dynasty. Modern Cantonese pronunciation is more similar to Middle Chinese from this era than other Chinese varieties.
10.
Southern Min
–
Southern Min, or Minnan, is a branch of Min Chinese spoken in certain parts of China including southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and southern Zhejiang, and in Taiwan. The Min Nan dialects are spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia. In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to Hokkien, including Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien, the Southern Min dialect group also includes Teochew, though Teochew has limited mutual intelligibility with Hokkien. Hainanese is not mutually intellgible with other Southern Min and is considered a separate branch of Min. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with Eastern Min, Pu-Xian Min, any other Min branch, Hakka, Cantonese, Shanghainese or Mandarin. Southern Min dialects are spoken in the part of Fujian. The variant spoken in Leizhou, Guangdong as well as Hainan is Hainanese and is not mutually intelligible with other Southern Min or Teochew, Hainanese is classified in some schemes as part of Southern Min and in other schemes as separate. Puxian Min was originally based on the Quanzhou dialect, but over time became heavily influenced by Eastern Min, eventually losing intellegility with Minnan. A forms of Southern Min spoken in Taiwan, collectively known as Taiwanese, Southern Min is a first language for most of the Hoklo people, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Southern Min while some non-Hoklo speak Southern Min fluently, there are many Southern Min speakers also among Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese immigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present-day Malaysia and Singapore. In general, Southern Min from southern Fujian is known as Hokkien, Hokkienese, many Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese also originated in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong and speak Teochew language, the variant of Southern Min from that region. Southern Min-speakers form the majority of Chinese in Singapore, with the largest group being Hokkien, despite the similarities the two groups are rarely seen as part of the same Minnan Chinese subgroups. The variants of Southern Min spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou, the variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Those Southern Min variants that are known as Hokkien in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants. The variants of Southern Min in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province are known as Teochew or Chaozhou. Teochew is of importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra. The Philippines variant is mostly from the Quanzhou area as most of their forefathers are from the aforementioned area, the Southern Min language variant spoken around Shanwei and Haifeng differs markedly from Teochew and may represent a later migration from Zhangzhou
Southern Min
–
Koa-a books, Min Nan written in Chinese characters
Southern Min
–
Distribution of Southern Min.
11.
Taiwanese Romanization System
–
The Taiwanese Romanization System is a transcription system for Taiwanese Hokkien. It is derived from Pe̍h-ōe-jī and since 2006 has been promoted by Taiwans Ministry of Education. It is nearly identical to Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet Romanization for Hakka apart from using ts tsh j instead of c ch j for the fricatives /ts tsʰ dz/, Taiwanese Romanization System uses 16 basic Latin letters,7 digraphs and a trigraph. In addition, it uses 6 diacritics to represent tones, nn is only used after a vowel to express nasalization, so it has no capital letter. Palatalization occurs when J, S, Ts, Tsh followed by i, so Ji, Si, Tsi, of the 10 unused basic Latin letters, R is sometimes used to express dialectal vowels, while the others are only used in loanwords. O pronounced ㄜ in general dialect in Kaohsiung and Tainan, ㄛ in Taipei, -nn forms the nasal vowels There is also syllabic m and ng. ing pronounced, ik pronounced. A hyphen links elements of a compound word, a double hyphen indicates that the following syllable has a neutral tone and therefore that the preceding syllable does not undergo tone sandhi. 臺灣閩南語羅馬拼音及其發音學習網, Taiwanese Romanization System learning site by Ministry of Education, Taiwan
Taiwanese Romanization System
–
Taiwanese Romanization System
12.
Pinyin
–
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
Pinyin
–
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak
Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Pinyin
–
In
Yiling,
Yichang,
Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin
13.
Buddhist art
–
Buddhist art is the artistic practices that are influenced by Buddhism. Buddhist art followed believers as the spread, adapted. It developed to the north through Central Asia and into Eastern Asia to form the Northern branch of Buddhist art, in India, Buddhist art flourished and co-developed with Hindu and Jain art, with cave temple complexes built together, each likely influencing the other. During the 2nd to 1st century BCE, sculptures became more explicit, representing episodes of the Buddha’s life and these took the form of votive tablets or friezes, usually in relation to the decoration of stupas. Although India had a sculptural tradition and a mastery of rich iconography, the Buddha was never represented in human form. This period may have been aniconic, artists were reluctant to depict the Buddha anthropomorphically, and developed sophisticated aniconic symbols to avoid doing so. This tendency remained as late as the 2nd century CE in the parts of India. It has been argued that earlier anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha may have made of wood. However, no related archaeological evidence has been found, the earliest works of Buddhist art in India date back to the 1st century B. C. The Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya became a model for similar structures in Burma, the frescoes at Sigiriya are said to be even older than the Ajanta Caves paintings. Anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha started to emerge from the 1st century CE in Northern India, the two main centers of creation have been identified as Gandhara in today’s North West Frontier Province, in Pakistan, and the region of Mathura, in central northern India. Gandharan Buddhist sculpture displays Greek artistic influence, and it has suggested that the concept of the man-god was essentially inspired by Greek mythological culture. Artistically, the Gandharan school of sculpture is said to have contributed wavy hair, the Mathuran school contributed clothes covering the left shoulder of thin muslin, the wheel on the palm, the lotus seat, etc. Mathura and Gandhara also strongly influenced each other, during their artistic florescence, the two regions were even united politically under the Kushans, both being capitals of the empire. This expression of the Buddha as both man and God became the canon for subsequent Buddhist art. It is interesting to note that the Buddha is an extensively used subject in plastic arts such as sculpture, paintings and literature, Buddhist art continued to develop in India for a few more centuries. The pink sandstone sculptures of Mathura evolved during the Gupta period to reach a high fineness of execution. The art of the Gupta school was extremely influential almost everywhere in the rest of Asia, at the end of the 12th century A. D. Buddhism in its full glory came to be preserved only in the Himalayan regions in India
Buddhist art
–
Footprint of the
Buddha. 1st century,
Gandhara.
Buddhist art
–
Representation of the Buddha in the
Greco-Buddhist art of
Gandhara, 1st century AD.
Buddhist art
–
A Chinese wooden
Bodhisattva from the
Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE)
Buddhist art
–
Statue from a Buddhist monastery, 700 AD, Afghanistan
14.
Buddha
–
Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhārtha Gautama, Shakyamuni Buddha, or simply the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was an ascetic and sage, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the part of ancient India sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement common in his region and he later taught throughout other regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala. Gautama is the figure in Buddhism. He is recognized by Buddhists as a teacher who attained full Buddhahood. Accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death, various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later. Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the facts of the Buddhas life. Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, the Buddhas lifetime coincided with the flourishing of influential schools of thought like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Jainism. Brahmajala Sutta records sixty-two such schools of thought, thus, Buddha was just one of the many śramaṇa philosophers of that time. The times of Gautamas birth and death are uncertain, most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet accepted by all historians. It was either a republic, or an oligarchy, and his father was an elected chieftain. He obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, no written records about Gautama were found from his lifetime or some centuries thereafter. One Edict of Asoka, who reigned from circa 269 BCE to 232 BCE, another one of his edicts mentions the titles of several Dhamma texts, establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era. These texts may be the precursor of the Pāli Canon and they are written in the Gāndhārī language using the Kharosthi script on twenty-seven birch bark manuscripts and date from the first century BCE to the third century CE. The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different and these include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā. Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, a poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa in the first century CE. The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE, the Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE
Buddha
–
A statue of the Buddha from
Sarnath, 4th century CE
Buddha
–
Buddha by
Otgonbayar Ershuu
Buddha
–
Māyā miraculously giving birth to Siddhārtha.
Sanskrit,
palm-leaf manuscript.
Nālandā,
Bihar, India.
Pāla period
Buddha
–
Maya dream of the Birth of Gautama Siddharta
15.
Henan
–
Henan is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is 豫, named after Yuzhou, a Han Dynasty state that parts of Henan. Although the name of the province south of the river, approximately a quarter of the province lies north of the Yellow River. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou which literally means central plain land or midland, although the name is also applied to the entirety of China proper. Henan is the birthplace of Chinese civilization with over 3,000 years of recorded history, and remained Chinas cultural, economical, numerous heritages have been left behind including the ruins of Shang Dynasty capital city Yin and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the Eight Great Ancient Capitals of China, Luoyang, Anyang, Kaifeng, with an area of 167,000 km2, Henan covers a large part of the fertile and densely populated North China Plain. Its neighbouring provinces are Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Anhui, Henan is Chinas third most populous province with a population of over 94 million. If it were a country by itself, Henan would be the 12th most populous country in the world, behind Mexico, Henan is the 5th largest provincial economy of China and the largest among inland provinces. However, per capita GDP is low compared to eastern and central provinces. The economy continues to depend on its dwindling aluminum and coal reserves, as well as agriculture, heavy industry, tourism, high-tech industry and service sector is underdeveloped and is concentrated around Zhengzhou and Luoyang. Widely regarded as the Cradle of Chinese civilization along with Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, Henan is known for its historical prosperity, the economic prosperity resulted from its extensive fertile plains and its location at the heart of the country. However, its location also means that it has suffered from nearly all of the major wars in China. In addition, the floods of the Yellow River have caused significant damage from time to time. Kaifeng, in particular, has been buried by the Yellow Rivers silt seven times due to flooding, archaeological sites reveal that prehistoric cultures such as the Yangshao Culture and Longshan Culture were active in what is now northern Henan since the Neolithic Era. The more recent Erlitou culture has been identified with the Xia Dynasty. Virtually the entire kingdom existed within what is now north and central Henan, the Xia Dynasty collapsed around the 16th century BC following the invasion of Shang, a neighboring vassal state centered around todays Shangqiu in eastern Henan. The Shang Dynasty was the first literate dynasty of China and its many capitals are located at the modern cities of Shangqiu, Yanshi, and Zhengzhou. Their last and most important capital, Yin, located in modern Anyang, is where the first Chinese writing was created, in the 11th century BC, the Zhou Dynasty of Shaanxi arrived from the west and overthrew the Shang Dynasty
Henan
–
A
Yangshao pot carving of an owl
Henan
–
Map showing the location of Henan Province
Henan
–
Shang Dynasty oracle bone script, the first form of Chinese writing
Henan
–
Longmen Grottoes (Mt. Longmen),
Luoyang, Henan
16.
China
–
China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
China
–
Yinxu, ruins of an ancient
palace dating from the
Shang Dynasty (14th century BCE)
China
–
Flag
China
–
Some of the thousands of life-size
Terracotta Warriors of the
Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE
China
–
The
Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the
Chinese interior from incursions by
nomadic pastoralists of the northern
steppes.
17.
Limestone
–
Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not consist of grains at all, and are formed completely by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i. e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters and this produces speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance, the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most commonly marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock known as reefs, below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone typically does not form in deeper waters. Limestones may also form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments, calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits a characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors, especially with weathered surfaces, Limestone may be crystalline, clastic, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, quartz, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock, when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams, particularly there are waterfalls. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite. Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls, coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble
Limestone
–
Limestone outcrop in the
Torcal de Antequera nature reserve of
Málaga, Spain
Limestone
–
Limestone quarry at
Cedar Creek, Virginia, USA
Limestone
–
Cutting the limestone blocks at a quarry in
Gozo,
Malta
Limestone
–
Limestone as building material
18.
Xiangshan District, Hsinchu
–
Xiangshan District or Siangshan District is a district in southwest Hsinchu City, Taiwan. It is the largest of the three districts in Hsinchu City, xiangshan District was originally a township of Hsinchu County. On 1 July 1982, the area was incorporated into the newly formed Hsinchu City as a district. Area,54.85 km2 Population,76,836 It is most well known locally for the Hsiangshan Industrial Park and it is also home to three private universities, Chung Hua, Yuanpei and Hsuan Chuang. Lin Chih-chien, Mayor of Hsinchu City Siangshan District Office, Hsinchu City
Xiangshan District, Hsinchu
–
Xiangshan District
Xiangshan District, Hsinchu
–
Xiangshan District in Hsinchu City
19.
Yi River (China)
–
The Yi River is a tributary of the Luo River in the province of Henan, China. The river rises in Luanchuan County, and then flows through the counties of Song and it joins the Luo River at Yanshi. The rivers total length is 368 kilometres and it has a catchment basin of 6,100 square kilometres, the Yi-Luo river basin is of major archaeological significance
Yi River (China)
–
The Yi River near Longmenshan
20.
Chinese gate
–
A Paifang, also known as a pailou, is a traditional style of Chinese architectural arch or gateway structure that is related to the Indian Torana from which it is derived. The word paifang was originally a term for the top two levels of administrative division and subdivisions of ancient Chinese cities. The largest division within a city in ancient China was a fang, each fang was enclosed by walls or fences, and the gates of these enclosures were shut and guarded every night. Each fang was further divided into several pai, which is equivalent to a current day community, each pai, in turn, contained an area including several hutongs. This system of administrative division and subdivision reached an elaborate level during the Tang dynasty. For example, during the Ming dynasty, Beijing was divided into a total of 36 fangs, during the Tang dynasty, it was called a wutoumen, because the top of the two posts were painted black. A wutoumen was reserved for officials of rank 6 or higher, the construction of wutomen was standardized in the Yingzao Fashi of the mid Song dynasty. It consisted of two posts and a beam forming a frame and two doors. Paifangs come in a number of forms, one form involves placing wooden pillars onto stone bases, which are bound together with wooden beams. Another form is in the Han dynasty style, and is two matching towers, such as in Beihai, outside of China, the paifang has long been the symbol of Chinatowns. The largest outside of China can be found at Washington D. C. s Chinatown, in the past, Chastity Paifangs were given to widows who remained unmarried till death, praising what was seen as loyalty to their deceased husbands. Chinese architecture Chinese culture Chinatown Torana Torii Hongsalmun Ruins of St. Pauls Cathedral, Macao Triumphal arch
Chinese gate
–
Paifang in
Shunfengshan Park,
Shunde,
Foshan
Chinese gate
–
A decorated paifang in
Shanghai
Chinese gate
–
Dongsi, an intersection in
Beijing, had four paifangs in the 1920s.
Chinese gate
–
A paifang photographed in
Gansu Province (1933).
21.
Stelae
–
A stele is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in ancient Western culture as a monument. Grave steles were often used for funerary or commemorative purposes, Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines. The surface of the stele usually has text, ornamentation, or both, the ornamentation may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted. Traditional Western gravestones may technically be considered the equivalent of ancient stelae. The most famous example of an inscribed stela leading to increased understanding is the Rosetta Stone, an informative stele of Tiglath-Pileser III is preserved in the British Museum. Two steles built into the walls of a church are major documents relating to the Etruscan language, unfinished standing stones, set up without inscriptions from Libya in North Africa to Scotland were monuments of pre-literate Megalithic cultures in the Late Stone Age. The Pictish stones of Scotland, often carved, date from between the 6th and 9th centuries. An obelisk is a kind of stele. The Insular high crosses of Ireland and Britain are specialized steles, totem poles of North and South America that are made out of stone may also be considered a specialized type of stele. Gravestones, typically with inscribed name and often with inscribed epitaph, are among the most common types of stele seen in Western culture. Most recently, in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, the memorial is meant to be read not only as the field, but also as an erasure of data that refer to memory of the Holocaust. Steles have been the medium of stone inscription in China since the Tang dynasty. Chinese steles are generally rectangular stone tablets upon which Chinese characters are carved intaglio with a funerary, commemorative and they can commemorate talented writers and officials, inscribe poems, portraits, or maps, and frequently contain the calligraphy of famous historical figures. During the Han dynasty, tomb inscriptions containing biographical information on deceased people began to be written on stone tablets rather than wooden ones, erecting steles at tombs or temples eventually became a widespread social and religious phenomenon. Emperors found it necessary to promulgate laws, regulating the use of funerary steles by the population, Steles are found at nearly every significant mountain and historical site in China. The First Emperor made five tours of his domain in the 3rd century BC and had Li Si make seven stone inscriptions commemorating and praising his work, of which fragments of two survive. One of the most famous mountain steles is the 13 m high stele at Mount Tai with the calligraphy of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang commemorating his imperial sacrifices there in 725. A number of stone monuments have preserved the origin and history of Chinas minority religious communities
Stelae
–
Stele N from
Copán,
Honduras, depicting King K'ac Yipyaj Chan K'awiil ("Smoke Shell"), as drawn by
Frederick Catherwood in 1839
Stelae
–
The
funerary stele of Thrasea and Euandria, c. 365 BC
Stelae
–
Chinese ink rubbings of the 1489 (left) and 1512 (right) steles left by the
Kaifeng Jews.
Stelae
–
Grave Stela of Nehemes-Ra-tawy, ca. 760-656 B.C.E.,37.588E,
Brooklyn Museum
22.
Epigraphy
–
Specifically excluded from epigraphy are the historical significance of an epigraph as a document and the artistic value of a literary composition. A person using the methods of epigraphy is called an epigrapher or epigraphist, for example, the Behistun inscription is an official document of the Achaemenid Empire engraved on native rock at a location in Iran. Epigraphists are responsible for reconstructing, translating, and dating the trilingual inscription and it is the work of historians, however, to determine and interpret the events recorded by the inscription as document. Often, epigraphy and history are competences practiced by the same person, an epigraph is any sort of text, from a single grapheme to a lengthy document. Epigraphy overlaps other competences such as numismatics or palaeography, when compared to books, most inscriptions are short. Typically the material is durable, but the durability might be an accident of circumstance, epigraphy is a primary tool of archaeology when dealing with literate cultures. The US Library of Congress classifies epigraphy as one of the sciences of history. Epigraphy also helps identify a forgery, epigraphic evidence formed part of the discussion concerning the James Ossuary, the study of ancient handwriting, usually in ink, is a separate field, palaeography. The character of the writing, the subject of epigraphy, is a quite separate from the nature of the text. Texts inscribed in stone are usually for public view and so they are different from the written texts of each culture. Not all inscribed texts are public, however, in Mycenaean Greece the deciphered texts of Linear B were revealed to be used for economic. Informal inscribed texts are graffiti in its original sense, the science of epigraphy has been developing steadily since the 16th century. Principles of epigraphy vary culture by culture, and the infant science in European hands concentrated on Latin inscriptions at first, individual contributions have been made by epigraphers such as Georg Fabricius, August Wilhelm Zumpt, Theodor Mommsen, Emil Hübner, Franz Cumont, Louis Robert. The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, begun by Mommsen and other scholars, has published in Berlin since 1863. It is the largest and most extensive collection of Latin inscriptions, New fascicles are still produced as the recovery of inscriptions continues. The Corpus is arranged geographically, all inscriptions from Rome are contained in volume 6 and this volume has the greatest number of inscriptions, volume 6, part 8, fascicle 3 was just recently published. Specialists depend on such on-going series of volumes in which newly discovered inscriptions are published, often in Latin, Greek epigraphy has unfolded in the hands of a different team, with different corpora. The first is Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum of which four volumes came out, again at Berlin and this marked a first attempt at a comprehensive publication of Greek inscriptions copied from all over the Greek-speaking world
Epigraphy
–
The
Rosetta Stone in the
British Museum.
Epigraphy
–
Petroglyphs in
Wadi Rum (
Jordan)
Epigraphy
–
Trilingual inscription of
Xerxes at
Van Fortress in Turkey
Epigraphy
–
The high medieval
Prüfening dedicatory inscription, composed in
Latin and stamped in
Roman square capitals
23.
Buddhist pagodas
–
Some pagodas are used as Taoist houses of worship. Most pagodas were built to have a function, most commonly Buddhist. In some countries, the term may refer to other religious structures, the modern pagoda is an evolution of the Stupa which originated in Ancient India. Stupas are a structure where sacred relics could be kept safe. The architectural structure of the stupa has spread across Asia, taking on diverse forms as details specific to different regions are incorporated into the overall design. Another proposed etymology is Persian butkada, from but, idol and kada, temple, another etymology, found in many English language dictionaries, is modern English pagoda from Portuguese, from Sanskrit bhavati, feminine of bhagavatt, blessed from bhag, good fortune. The origin of the pagoda can be traced to the stupa, the stupa, a dome shaped monument, was used as a commemorative monument associated with storing sacred relics. In East Asia, the architecture of Chinese towers and Chinese pavilions blended into pagoda architecture, the pagodas original purpose was to house relics and sacred writings. This purpose was popularized due to the efforts of Buddhist missionaries, pilgrims, rulers, and ordinary devotees to seek out, distribute, on the other side, the stupa emerged as a distinctive style of Newari architecture of Nepal and was adopted in Southeast and East Asia. Nepali architect Araniko visited China and shared his skills to build stupa buildings in China and these buildings became prominent as Buddhist monuments used for enshrining sacred relics. Chinese iconography is noticeable in Chinese pagoda as well as other East Asian pagoda architectures, the image of the Shakyamuni Buddha in the abhaya mudra is also noticeable in some Pagodas. Buddhist iconography can be observed throughout the pagoda symbolism, Pagodas attract lightning strikes because of their height. Many pagodas have a decorated finial at the top of the structure, and when made of metal, also Pagodas come in many different sizes, as some may be small and others may be large. Pagodas traditionally have an odd number of levels, an exception being the eighteenth century pagoda folly designed by Sir William Chambers at Kew Gardens in London. The pagodas in Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia are very different from Chinese and Japanese pagodas, Pagodas in those countries are derived from South Indian Dravidian architecture. Tiered towers with eaves, Songyue Pagoda on Mount Song, Henan, China. Miruksa Temple Pagoda at Iksan, Korea, built in the early 7th century, bunhwangsa at Gyeongju, Korea, built in 634. Xumi Pagoda at Zhengding, Hebei, China, built in 636, daqin Pagoda in China, built in 640
Buddhist pagodas
–
Wooden five-story pagoda of
Hōryū-ji in Japan, built in the 7th century, one of the oldest wooden buildings in the world.
Buddhist pagodas
–
The
Iron Pagoda of
Kaifeng, China, built in 1049 CE
Buddhist pagodas
–
Five-story pagoda of Mt. Haguro, Japan
Buddhist pagodas
–
Wooden three-story pagoda of
Ichijō-ji in Japan, built in 1171 CE
24.
Northern Wei Dynasty
–
During the Taihe period of Emperor Xiaowen, court advisers instituted sweeping reforms and introduced changes that eventually led to the dynasty moving its capital from Datong to Luoyang, in 494. The Tuoba renamed themselves the Yuan as a part of systematic Sinicization, towards the end of the dynasty there was significant internal dissension resulting in a split into Eastern Wei and Western Wei. Many antiques and art works, both Daoist and Buddhist, from this period have survived, the Jin Dynasty had developed an alliance with the Tuoba against the Xiongnu state Han Zhao. In 315 the Tuoba chief was granted the title of the Prince of Dai, after Former Qins emperor Fu Jiān was defeated by Jin forces at the Battle of Fei River in his failed bid to unify China, the Former Qin state began to break apart. By 386, Tuoba Gui, the son of Tuoba Shiyijian, Later he changed his title to the Prince of Wei, and his state was therefore known as Northern Wei. In 391, Tuoba Gui defeated the Rouran tribes and killed their chief, Heduohan, initially Northern Wei was a vassal of Later Yan, but by 395 had rebelled and by 398 had conquered most of Later Yan territory north of the Yellow River. In 399 Tuoba Gui he declared himself Emperor Daowu, and that title was used by Northern Weis rulers for the rest of the states history, as the empires history progressed, this appeared to be a major contributing factor leading to corruption among officials. Not until the 2nd century of the empires existence did the state begin to distribute salaries to its officials, only an imperial consort who was successful in forging a golden statue could become the empress. All men, regardless of ethnicity, were ordered to tie their hair into a braid that would then be rolled and placed on top of the head. When a crown prince is named, his mother, if still alive, as a result, because emperors would not have mothers, they often honored their wet nurses with the honorific title, Nurse Empress Dowager. As sinicization of the Northern Wei state progressed, these customs, Five families formed a neighborhood Five lin formed a village Five li formed a commune At each of these levels, leaders that were associated with the central government were appointed. In order for the state to reclaim dry, barren areas of land, the Sui and Tang Dynasties later resurrected this system in the 7th century. During the reign of Emperor Daowu, the number of deported people from the regions east of Taihangshan to Datong was estimated to be around 460,000. Deportations typically took place once a new piece of territory had been conquered, as the Northern Wei state grew, the emperors desire for Han Chinese institutions and advisors grew. Cui Hao, an advisor at the courts in Datong played a part in this process. He introduced Han Chinese administrative methods and penal codes in the Northern Wei state, Chinese influence accelerated during the capitals move to Luoyang in 494 and Emperor Xiaowen continued this by establishing a policy of systematic sinicization that was continued by his successors. The royal family took the sinicization a step further by changing their name to Yuan. Marriages to Chinese families were encouraged, with this, Buddhist temples started appearing everywhere, displacing Taoism as the state religion
Northern Wei Dynasty
–
Asia in 500 AD, showing Northern Wei territories and their neighbors
Northern Wei Dynasty
–
Northern Wei
Buddha Maitreya,
443 CE.
Northern Wei Dynasty
–
Northern Wei
Buddhist statue. Dated 489.
Tokyo National Museum.
Northern Wei Dynasty
–
Model of a Silk Road camel driver, Northern Wei period.
25.
Tang Dynasty
–
The Tang dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. It is generally regarded as a point in Chinese civilization. Its territory, acquired through the campaigns of its early rulers, rivaled that of the Han dynasty. The dynasty was founded by the Lǐ family, who seized power during the decline, the dynasty was briefly interrupted when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, proclaiming the Second Zhou dynasty and becoming the only Chinese empress regnant. In two censuses of the 7th and 8th centuries, the Tang records estimated the population by number of registered households at about 50 million people. Various kingdoms and states paid tribute to the Tang court, while the Tang also conquered or subdued several regions which it controlled through a protectorate system. Besides political hegemony, the Tang also exerted a powerful influence over neighboring states such as those in Korea, Japan. Like the previous Sui dynasty, the Tang dynasty maintained a service system by recruiting scholar-officials through standardized examinations and recommendations to office. This civil order was undermined by the rise of military governors known as jiedushi during the 9th century. Chinese culture flourished and further matured during the Tang era, it is considered the greatest age for Chinese poetry. Two of Chinas most famous poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, belonged to this age, as did many famous painters such as Han Gan, Zhang Xuan, there was a rich variety of historical literature compiled by scholars, as well as encyclopedias and geographical works. The adoption of the title Tängri Qaghan by the Tang Emperor Taizong in addition to his title as emperor was eastern Asias first simultaneous kingship, there were many notable innovations during the Tang, including the development of woodblock printing. Buddhism became an influence in Chinese culture, with native Chinese sects gaining prominence. However, Buddhism would later be persecuted by the state, subsequently declining in influence, although the dynasty and central government were in decline by the 9th century, art and culture continued to flourish. This family was known as the Longxi Li lineage, which includes the Tang poet Li Bai, the Tang Emperors also had Xianbei maternal ancestry, from Emperor Gaozu of Tangs Xianbei mother Duchess Dugu. He had prestige and military experience, and was a first cousin of Emperor Yang of Sui, Li Yuan rose in rebellion in 617, along with his son and his equally militant daughter Princess Pingyang, who raised and commanded her own troops. In winter 617, Li Yuan occupied Changan, relegated Emperor Yang to the position of Taishang Huang or retired emperor, and acted as regent to the puppet child-emperor, Emperor Gong of Sui. On the news of Emperor Yangs murder by General Yuwen Huaji on June 18,618, Li Yuan declared himself the emperor of a new dynasty, the Tang
Tang Dynasty
–
History of China
Tang Dynasty
–
Tang dynasty circa 700
Tang Dynasty
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Portrait painting of
Emperor Yang of Sui, commissioned in 643 by
Taizong, painted by
Yan Liben (600–673)
Tang Dynasty
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Emperor Taizong (r. 626–649) receives
Gar Tongtsen Yülsung, ambassador of
Tibet, at his court; painted in 641 AD by
Yan Liben (600–673)
26.
Wu Zetian
–
Wu was the only Empress regnant of China in more than four millennia. Wu was the concubine of Emperor Taizong, after his death, she married his successor—his ninth son, Emperor Gaozong, officially becoming Gaozongs huanghou in 655, although having considerable political power prior to this. After Gaozongs debilitating stroke in 660, Wu Zetian became administrator of the court, besides her career as a political leader, Wu Zetian also had an active family life. One of her grandsons became the renowned Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, in Chinese history and literature, Wu Zetian was known by various names and titles. Mention of her in the English language has increased their number. The exact birth name of Wu Zetian is no longer retrievable and she changed her name to Wu Zhao after rising to power, often written as 武曌, with 瞾 being one of the invented characters by Wu. Wu was her surname, which she retained, according to traditional Chinese practice, after marriage to Gaozong. Emperor Taizong gave her the art name Wu Mei, meaning glamorous, during her life, and posthumously, Wu Zetian was awarded various official titles. Both hou and huangdi are titles, born Wu Zhao, she is not properly known as Wu Hou until receiving this title in 655, nor is she properly known as Wu Zetian, her regnal name, until 690, when she took the title, huangdi. Various Chinese titles have been translated into English as empress, including empress in both the sense of empress consort and empress regnant, generally the emperor was male and his chief spouse was given a title such as Huanghou, often translated as empress or more specific empress consort. Since the time of Qin Shi Huang the Emperor of China used the title Huangdi, Wu Zetian was the only woman in the history of China to assume the title of Huangdi. Wu Zetian is said to be the woman in Chinese history to wear the yellow robe as a monarch. The Wu family clan originated in Wenshui County, Bingzhou, the birthplace of Wu Zetian is not documented in preserved historical literature and remains controversial. Some argue that Wu Zetian was born in Lizhou, while others insist she was born in the imperial capital of Changan. She lived from 17 February 624 –16 December 705, Wu Zetian was born in the seventh year of the reign of Emperor Gaozu of Tang. In the same year, an eclipse of the sun was visible across China. Her father Wu Shihuo was engaged in the business and the family was relatively well off. Her mother was from the powerful Yang family, during the final years of Emperor Yang of Sui, Li Yuan stayed in the Wu household many times and became close to the Wu family, whilst holding appointments in both Hedong and Taiyuan
Wu Zetian
–
Wu Zetian
Wu Zetian
–
History of China
Wu Zetian
–
Commemorative stele at
Qianling Mausoleum, where Wu Zetian and her husband Emperor Gaozong were buried
Wu Zetian
–
Maitreya statue from the reign of Wu Zetian
27.
UNESCO
–
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
UNESCO
–
UNESCO offices in
Brasília
UNESCO
–
UNESCO
UNESCO
–
UNESCO Institute for Water Education in
Delft
UNESCO
–
The Garden of Peace, UNESCO headquarters, Paris. Donated by the Government of Japan, this garden was designed by American-Japanese sculptor artist Isamu Noguchi in 1958 and installed by Japanese gardener Toemon Sano.
28.
World Heritage List
–
A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
World Heritage List
–
Site #252:
Taj Mahal, an example of cultural heritage site
World Heritage List
–
Logo of the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
World Heritage Committee
World Heritage List
–
Site #156:
Serengeti National Park, an example of natural heritage site
World Heritage List
–
Site #274:
Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, an example of mixed heritage site
29.
Grotto
–
A grotto is a natural or artificial cave used by humans in both modern times and antiquity, and historically or prehistorically. Naturally occurring grottoes are often small caves near water that are usually flooded or liable to flood at high tide, sometimes, artificial grottoes are used as garden features. The Grotta Azzurra at Capri and the grotto at the villa of Tiberius in the Bay of Naples are examples of popular natural seashore grottoes, the word grotto comes from Italian grotta, Vulgar Latin grupta, and Latin crypta. It is also related by an accident to the word grotesque. The rooms had sunk underground over time, the Romans who discovered this historical monument found it very strange, a sentiment enhanced by the fact that it was uncovered from an underworld source. This led the Romans to give it the name grottesche, or grotesque, grottoes were very popular in Greek and Roman culture. Spring-fed grottoes were a feature of Apollos oracles at Delphi, Corinth, the Hellenistic city of Rhodes was designed with rock-cut artificial grottoes incorporated into the city, made to look natural. According to tradition, Praenestes sacred spring had a native nymph, Tiberius, the Roman emperor, filled his grotto with sculptures to create a sense of mythology, perhaps channeling Polyphemus cave in the Odyssey. The numinous quality of the grotto is still more ancient, in a grotto near Knossos in Crete, Eileithyia was venerated, even farther back in time, the immanence of the divine in a grotto is seen in the sacred caves of Lascaux. The popularity of artificial grottoes introduced Mannerist style to Italian and French gardens of the mid-16th century, two famous grottoes in the Boboli Gardens of Palazzo Pitti were begun by Vasari and completed by Ammanati and Buontalenti between 1583 and 1593. One of these grottoes originally housed the Prisoners of Michelangelo, before Boboli grotto, a garden was laid out by Niccolò Tribolo at the Medici Villa Castello, near Florence. At Pratolino, in spite of the dryness of the site, there was a Grotto of Cupid, with water tricks for the unsuspecting visitor. The Fonte di Fata Morgana at Grassina, not far from Florence, is a garden building. It is decorated with sculptures in the Giambolognan manner, the outside of garden grottoes are often designed to look like an enormous rock, a rustic porch or a rocky overhang. Damp grottoes were cool places to retreat from the Italian sun, in Kuskovo at the Sheremetev estate there is a Summer Grotto, built in 1775. Grottoes could also serve as baths, an example of this is at the Palazzo del Te, in the Casino della Grotta, courtiers once bathed in the small cascade that splashed over the pebbles and shells encrusted in the floor and walls. Grottoes have also served as chapels, or at Villa Farnese at Caprarola and they were often combined with cascading fountains in Renaissance gardens. The grotto designed by Bernard Palissy for Catherine de Medicis château in Paris, there are also grottoes in the gardens designed by André Le Nôtre for Versailles
Grotto
–
A Marian grotto in Bischofferode (Germany)
Grotto
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Marian grotto with a lily pond in
San Thome Basilica, Chennai
Grotto
–
Grotto in an
iceberg with the
Terra Nova ship in the background (1911) during the 'British Antarctic Expedition' by
Herbert G. Ponting
Grotto
–
Grotto of the
Buttes-Chaumont in Paris.
30.
Yungang Caves
–
The Yungang Grottoes are ancient Chinese Buddhist temple grottoes near the city of Datong in the province of Shanxi. They are excellent examples of architecture and one of the three most famous ancient Buddhist sculptural sites of China. The others are Longmen and Mogao, the site is located about 16 km west of the city of Datong, in the valley of the Shi Li river at the base of the Wuzhou Shan mountains. They are an example of the Chinese stone carvings from the 5th and 6th centuries. All together, the site is composed of 252 grottoes with more than 51,000 Buddha statues and statuettes, in 2001, the Yungang Grottoes were made a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is classified as a AAAAA scenic area by the China National Tourism Administration, after the decline of the Jin Dynasty, the northern parts of China came under the control of the Northern Wei. They made the city of Pingcheng, now known as Datong, due to its promotion, Pingcheng saw an increase in construction work. The Northern Wei early adopted Buddhism as their state religion, the work on this first period of carving lasted until the year 465 AD, and the caves are now known as caves 16–20. The imperial patronage ended 494 AD with the move of the Wei court to the new capital of Luoyang, all other caves emerged under private patronage in a third construction period, lasting until 525, when the construction came to a final halt due to uprisings in the area. Since the end of the works, the sandstone of the grottoes has been exposed to heavy weathering, the ensuing centuries therefore saw several attempts to preserve the caves and to repair sustained damage. During the Liao Dynasty the caves saw some renewing of statues and the buildup of the 10 temples of Yungang from 1049 to 1060, however, they were destroyed again just some 60 years later in a fire. The wooden buildings extant in front of caves 5 and 6 were constructed in 1621, since the 1950s, cracks in the sandstone have been sealed by grouting, and forestation has been implemented in an effort to reduce the weathering due to sandstorms. Caswell, James O. Written and Unwritten, A New History of the Buddhist Caves at Yungang, Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press Vancouver,225. Leidy, Denise Patry & Strahan, Donna, wisdom embodied, Chinese Buddhist and Daoist sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, official website UNESCO World Heritage page about Yungang Grottoes Protecting the Yungang Grottoes from Air Pollution Damage
Yungang Caves
–
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Yungang Caves
–
Entrance to the Grottoes
Yungang Caves
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Cave 9
Yungang Caves
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Yungang Grottoe Buddha
31.
Datong
–
It had a population of 3,318,057 at the 2010 census of whom 1,629,035 lived in the built up area made of 3 out of 4 urban districts, namely Chengqu, Kuangqu and Nanjiao District. The town was founded as Píngchéng in 200 BC during the Han dynasty, located near the Great Wall Pass to Inner Mongolia, it blossomed during the following period and became a stop-off point for camel caravans moving from China into Mongolia and beyond. It was sacked at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, pingcheng became the capital of Northern Wei from 398 AD until 494 AD, when the well-known Yungang Grottoes were constructed during the later part of this period. The city was renamed Datong in 1048 AD and it was the Xijing of the Jurchen Jin dynasty prior to being sacked by the Mongols. It was sacked again at the end of the Ming dynasty in 1649 AD, Datong was close to the Beidi kingdom of Tai, which was conquered by the Zhou dynasty in 457 BC. It bordered on the Hu nomads and traded in horses, Tai was later a commandery or county. Datong is the northernmost city of Shanxi, and is located in the Datong Basin, with an area spanning latitude 39° 03–40°44 N. The urban area is surrounded on three sides by mountains, with only to the east and southwest. Within the prefecture-level city elevations generally increase from southeast to northwest, Datong borders Ulanqab to the northwest and Zhangjiakou to the east, Shuozhou to the southwest and Xinzhou to the south. The well-known Datong Volcanic Arc lies nearby in the Datong Basin, Datong has a continental, monsoon-influenced steppe climate, influenced by the 1,000 metres + elevation, with rather long, cold, very dry winters, and very warm summers. Monthly mean temperatures range from −10.6 °C in January to 22.0 °C in July, Due to the aridity and elevation, diurnal temperature variation is often large, averaging 13.3 °C annually. There barely is any precipitation during winter, and more than ¾ of the precipitation occurs from June to September. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 54% in July to 66% in October, sunshine is abundant year-round, kuang District is largely made up of separate mines throughout the metropolitan area. The Yungang Grottoes are a collection of caves located 16 km west of Datong. There are over 50,000 carved images and statues of Buddhas and bodhisattvas within these grottoes, most of these icons are around 1000 years old. Within the city itself, there are a few surviving sites of historical interest such as the Nine-Dragon Wall, the Huayan Monastery, further afield is the Hanging Temple built into a cliff face near Mount Heng. Most of the sites in this region date to the Tang and Ming dynasties. The railway locomotive works began to attract increasing numbers of enthusiasts from the 1970s
Datong
–
Datong 大同市
Datong
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Nine-Dragon Wall.
Datong
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Datong Drum Tower in 1907.
Datong
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The
Yungang Grottoes.
32.
Shanxi Province
–
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
Shanxi Province
–
Temple of
Guandi in
Datong.
Shanxi Province
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Map showing the location of Shanxi Province
Shanxi Province
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Chenghuangshen (City God) Temple of
Pingyao.
Shanxi Province
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Western gate of a Temple of Heshen (River God) in
Hequ,
Xinzhou.
33.
Mogao Caves
–
The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art spanning a period of 1,000 years. The first caves were dug out in 366 AD as places of Buddhist meditation, the Mogao Caves are the best known of the Chinese Buddhist grottoes and, along with Longmen Grottoes and Yungang Grottoes, are one of the three famous ancient Buddhist sculptural sites of China. An important cache of documents was discovered in 1900 in the so-called Library Cave, the caves themselves are now a popular tourist destination, with a number open for visiting. Dunhuang was established as a frontier garrison outpost by the Han Dynasty Emperor Wudi to protect against the Xiongnu in 111 BC. It also became an important gateway to the West, a centre of commerce along the Silk Road, as well as a place of various people. The construction of the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang is generally taken to have begun sometime in the fourth century AD. The story is found in other sources, such as in inscriptions on a stele in cave 332. He was later joined by a second monk Faliang, and the site gradually grew, members of the ruling family of Northern Wei and Northern Zhou constructed many caves here, and it flourished in the short-lived Sui Dynasty. By the Tang Dynasty, the number of caves had reached over a thousand, from the 4th until the 14th century, caves were constructed by monks to serve as shrines with funds from donors. The major caves were sponsored by such as important clergy, local ruling elite, foreign dignitaries. Other caves may have been funded by merchants, military officers, during the Tang Dynasty, Dunhuang became the main hub of commerce of the Silk Road and a major religious centre. The site escaped the persecution of Buddhists ordered by Emperor Wuzong in 845 as it was then under Tibetan control, as a frontier town, Dunhuang had been occupied at various times by other non-Han Chinese people. After the Tang Dynasty, the site went into a gradual decline, by then Islam had conquered much of Central Asia, and the Silk Road declined in importance when trading via sea-routes began to dominate Chinese trade with the outside world. During the Ming Dynasty, the Silk Road was finally officially abandoned, the biggest discovery, however, came from a Chinese Taoist named Wang Yuanlu who appointed himself guardian of some of these temples around the turn of the century. Some of the caves had by then been blocked by sand, in one such cave, on 25 June 1900, Wang discovered a walled up area behind one side of a corridor leading to a main cave. Behind the wall was a small cave stuffed with a hoard of manuscripts. Words of Wangs discovery drew the attention of a joint British/Indian group led by Hungarian archaeologist Aurel Stein who was on an expedition in the area in 1907. Stein negotiated with Wang to allow him to remove a significant number of manuscripts as well as the finest paintings, a well-known scholar Luo Zhenyu edited some of the manuscripts Pelliot acquired into a volume which was then published in 1909 as Manuscripts of the Dunhuang Caves
Mogao Caves
–
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Mogao Caves
–
Details of painting of the meeting of
Manjusri and
Vimalakirti. Cave 159.
Mogao Caves
–
Bodhisattva leading a lady
donor towards the Pure Lands. Painting on silk (Library Cave), Late Tang.
Mogao Caves
–
Abbot
Wang Yuanlu, discoverer of the hidden Library Cave
34.
Dunhuang
–
For the 2005 full-length documentary Dunhuang, directed by Zhou Bing. Dunhuang is a city in northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. The 2000 Chinese census reported a population of 187,578 in this city, Dunhuang was a major stop on the ancient Silk Road and is best known for the nearby Mogao Caves. It has also known at times as Shazhou and, in Uyghur. Dunhuang is situated in a rich oasis containing Crescent Lake and Mingsha Shan, named after the sound of the wind whipping off the dunes, administratively, the county-level city of Dunhuang is part of the prefecture-level city of Jiuquan. There is evidence of habitation in the Dunhuang area as early as 2,000 BC. Its name was mentioned in relation to the homeland of the Yuezhi in the Records of the Grand Historian. By the third century BC, the area dominated by the Xiongnu. Dunhuang was one of the four garrison towns established by the Emperor Wu after the defeat of Xiongnu. The name Dunhuang, meaning Blazing Beacon, refers to the beacons lit to warn of attacks by marauding nomadic tribes, Dunhuang Commandery was probably established shortly after 104 BC. Located in the end of the Hexi Corridor near the historic junction of the Northern and Southern Silk Roads. The Great Wall was extended to Dunhuang, and a line of fortified beacon towers stretched westwards into the desert, Dunhuang prospered on the heavy flow of traffic. The first Buddhist caves in the Dunhuang area were hewn in 353, during the Sui and Tang dynasties, it was the main stop of communication between ancient China and the rest of the world and a major hub of commerce of the Silk Road. Dunhuang was the city of all three main silk routes during this time. From the West also came early Buddhist monks who had arrived in China by the first century AD, the caves carved out by the monks, originally used for meditation, developed into a place of worship and pilgrimage called the Mogao Caves or Caves of a Thousand Buddhas. A number of Christian, Jewish, and Manichaean artifacts have also found in the caves. During the time of the Sixteen Kingdoms, Li Gao established the Western Liang here in 400 AD, in 405 the capital of the Western Liang was moved from Dunhuang to Jiuquan. In 421 the Western Liang was conquered by the Northern Liang, as a frontier town, Dunhuang was fought over and occupied at various times by non-Han Chinese people
Dunhuang
–
Dunhuang
Dunhuang
–
The ruins of a
Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) Chinese
watchtower made of
rammed earth at Dunhuang.
Dunhuang
–
White Horse Pagoda, Dunhuang
Dunhuang
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Tang Period (618-907) Buddhist sutra fragment from Dunhuang
35.
Gansu Province
–
Gansu is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the northwest of the country. It lies between the Tibetan and Loess plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, the Yellow River passes through the southern part of the province. Gansu has a population of 26 million and covers an area of 425,800 square kilometres, the capital is Lanzhou, located in the southeast part of the province. Gansu is a compound of the names of Ganzhou and Suzhou, Gansu is abbreviated as 甘 or 陇, and is also known as Longxi or Longyou, in reference to the Long Mountain east of Gansu. Gansu is a name first used during the Song dynasty of two Sui and Tang dynasty prefectures, Gan and Su. In prehistoric times, Gansu was host to Neolithic cultures, the Dadiwan culture, from where archaeologically significant artifacts have been excavated, flourished in the eastern end of Gansu from about 6000 BC to about 3000 BC. The Majiayao culture and part of the Qijia culture took root in Gansu from 3100 BC to 2700 BC and 2400 BC to 1900 BC respectively, the Yuezhi originally lived in the very western part of Gansu until they were forced to emigrate by the Xiongnu around 177 BCE. The State of Qin, later to become the state of the Chinese empire, grew out from the southeastern part of Gansu. The Qin name is believed to have originated, in part, Qin tombs and artifacts have been excavated from Fangmatan near Tianshui, including one 2200-year-old map of Guixian County. In imperial times, Gansu was an important strategic outpost and communications link for the Chinese empire, the Han dynasty extended the Great Wall across this corridor, building the strategic Yumenguan and Yangguan fort towns along it. Remains of the wall and the towns can be found there, the Ming dynasty built the Jiayuguan outpost in Gansu. By the Qingshui treaty, concluded in 823 between the Tibetan Empire and the Tang dynasty, China lost a part of Gansu province for a significant period. After the fall of the Uyghur Empire, an Uyghur state was established in parts of Gansu that lasted from 848 to 1036 AD, during that time, many of Gansus residents were converted to Islam. Along the Silk Road, Gansu was an important province. Temples and Buddhist grottoes such as those at Mogao Caves and Maijishan Caves contain artistically and historically revealing murals. An early form of paper inscribed with Chinese characters and dating to about 8 BC was discovered at the site of a Western Han garrison near the Yumen pass in August 2006, the province was also the origin of the Dungan Revolt of 1862-77. Among the Qing forces were Muslim generals like Ma Zhanao and Ma Anliang who helped Qing crush the rebel Muslims, the revolt spread into Gansu from neighbouring Qinghai. Frequent earthquakes, droughts and famines have tended to slow progress of the province until recently
Gansu Province
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Jiayuguan Fort
Gansu Province
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Map showing the location of Gansu Province
Gansu Province
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The ruins of a
Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) Chinese
watchtower made of
rammed earth at
Dunhuang, Gansu province, the eastern edge of the
Silk Road
Gansu Province
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Semi-arid land, suitable for light grazing
36.
Sui dynasty
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The Sui Dynasty was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China of pivotal significance. It was succeeded by the Tang dynasty, which inherited its foundation. Founded by Emperor Wen of Sui, the Sui dynasty capital was Changan and they also spread and encouraged Buddhism throughout the empire. By the middle of the dynasty, the unified empire entered a golden age of prosperity with vast agricultural surplus that supported rapid population growth. A lasting legacy of the Sui dynasty was the Grand Canal, the dynasty, which lasted only thirty-seven years, was undermined by ambitious wars and construction projects, which overstretched its resources. Particularly, under Emperor Yang, heavy taxation and compulsory labor duties would eventually induce widespread revolts, the dynasty is often compared to the earlier Qin dynasty for unifying China after prolonged division. Wide-ranging reforms and construction projects were undertaken to consolidate the newly unified state, after crushing an army in the eastern provinces, Yang Jian usurped the throne to become Emperor Wen of Sui. In a bloody purge, he had fifty-nine princes of the Zhou royal family eliminated, Emperor Wen abolished the anti-Han policies of Zhou and reclaimed his Han surname of Yang. In his campaign for southern conquest, Emperor Wen assembled thousands of boats to confront the forces of the Chen dynasty on the Yangtze River. The largest of ships were very tall, having five layered decks. They were outfitted with six 50-foot-long booms that were used to swing and damage enemy ships, besides employing Xianbei and other Chinese ethnic groups for the fight against Chen, Emperor Wen also employed the service of people from southeastern Sichuan, which Sui had recently conquered. In 588, the Sui had amassed 518,000 troops along the bank of the Yangtze River. The Chen dynasty could not withstand such an assault, by 589, Sui troops entered Jiankang and the last emperor of Chen surrendered. Although Emperor Wen was famous for bankrupting the treasury with warfare and construction projects. He established granaries as sources of food and as a means to market prices from the taxation of crops. The large agricultural surplus supported rapid growth of population to historical peak, the state capital of Changan, while situated in a military-secured heartland of Guanzhong, was remote from the economic centers to the east and south of the empire. Emperor Wen initiated the construction of the Grand Canal, with completion of the first route that directly linked Changan to the Yellow River, Later Emperor Yang would enormously enlarge the scale of the Grand Canal construction. Externally, the emerging nomadic Turkic Khaganate in the north posed a threat to the newly founded dynasty
Sui dynasty
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History of China
Sui dynasty
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Sui dynasty circa 609 AD
Sui dynasty
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Sui dynasty
Bodhisattva, sandstone, Tianlongshan Grottoes,
Shanxi, 6th century.
Sui dynasty
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A Sui dynasty pilgrim flask made of
stoneware.
37.
Chinese Buddhism
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Chinese Buddhism has shaped Chinese culture in a wide variety of areas including art, politics, literature, philosophy, medicine, and material culture. Chinese Buddhism is also marked by the interaction between Indian religions, Nepalese religion Chinese religion, and Taoism, various legends tell of the presence of Buddhism in Chinese soil in very ancient times. Nonetheless, the consensus is that Buddhism first came to China in the first century CE during the Han dynasty. Generations of scholars have debated whether Buddhist missionaries first reached Han China via the maritime or overland routes of the Silk Road, after entering into China, Buddhism blended with early Daoism and Chinese traditional esoteric arts and its iconography received blind worship. A number of accounts in historical Chinese literature have led to the popularity of certain legends regarding the introduction of Buddhism into China. According to the most popular one, Emperor Ming of Han precipitated the introduction of Buddhist teachings into China, the next day he asked his officials, What god is this. The emperor then sent an envoy to Tianzhu to inquire about the teachings of the Buddha, Buddhist scriptures were said to have been returned to China on the backs of white horses, after which White Horse Temple was named. Two Indian monks also returned with them, named Dharmaratna and Kaśyapa Mātaṅga, however, neither the Shiji nor Book of Han histories of Emperor Wu mentions a golden Buddhist statue. The first documented translation of Buddhist scriptures from various Indian languages into Chinese occurs in 148 CE with the arrival of the Parthian prince-turned-monk An Shigao, an Shigao translated Buddhist texts on basic doctrines, meditation, and abhidharma. An Xuan, a Parthian layman who worked alongside An Shigao, Mahāyāna Buddhism was first widely propagated in China by the Kushan monk Lokakṣema, who came from the ancient Buddhist kingdom of Gandhāra. Lokakṣema translated important Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, as well as rare, early Mahāyāna sūtras on topics such as samādhi and these translations from Lokakṣema continue to give insight into the early period of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Harrison points to the enthusiasm in the Lokakṣema sūtra corpus for the ascetic practices, for dwelling in the forest. The Dharmaguptakas made more efforts than any other sect to spread Buddhism outside India, to such as Afghanistan, Central Asia, and China. Therefore, most countries which adopted Buddhism from China, also adopted the Dharmaguptaka vinaya and ordination lineage for bhikṣus, warder, in some ways in those East Asian countries, the Dharmaguptaka sect can be considered to have survived to the present. They appear to have carried out a vast circling movement along the routes from Aparānta north-west into Iran. The Mahīśāsakas and Kāśyapīyas appear to have followed them across Asia into China, for the earlier period of Chinese Buddhism it was the Dharmaguptakas who constituted the main and most influential school, and even later their Vinaya remained the basis of the discipline there. Initially, Buddhism in China faced a number of difficulties in becoming established, the concept of monasticism and the aversion to social affairs seemed to contradict the long-established norms and standards established in Chinese society. Gentry Buddhism was a medium of introduction for the beginning of Buddhism in China, it gained imperial, by the early 5th century Buddhism was established in south China
Chinese Buddhism
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Buddhist monks at Jintai Temple in
Zhuhai,
Guangdong,
China
Chinese Buddhism
Chinese Buddhism
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Jiangnan funerary jar, ca. 250-300 CE, decorated with a row of Buddhas seated on lotus thrones.
Chinese Buddhism
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White Horse Temple, traditionally held to be at the origin of Chinese Buddhism.
38.
Northern Song Dynasty
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The Song dynasty was an era of Chinese history that began in 960 and continued until 1279. It succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, coincided with the Liao and Western Xia dynasties and it was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or true paper money nationally and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first known use of gunpowder, as well as the first discernment of true north using a compass, the Song dynasty is divided into two distinct periods, Northern and Southern. During the Northern Song, the Song capital was in the city of Bianjing. The Southern Song refers to the period after the Song lost control of its half to the Jurchen Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song Wars. During this time, the Song court retreated south of the Yangtze, the Southern Song dynasty considerably bolstered its naval strength to defend its waters and land borders and to conduct maritime missions abroad. To repel the Jin, and later the Mongols, the Song developed revolutionary new military technology augmented by the use of gunpowder, in 1234, the Jin dynasty was conquered by the Mongols, who took control of northern China, maintaining uneasy relations with the Southern Song. Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and his younger brother Kublai Khan was proclaimed the new Great Khan, though his claim was only partially recognized by the Mongols in the west. In 1271, Kublai Khan was proclaimed the Emperor of China, after two decades of sporadic warfare, Kublai Khans armies conquered the Song dynasty in 1279. The Mongol invasion led to a reunification under the Yuan dynasty, the population of China doubled in size during the 10th and 11th centuries. The Northern Song census recorded a population of roughly 50 million, much like the Han and this data is found in the Standard Histories. However, it is estimated that the Northern Song had a population of some 100 million people and this dramatic increase of population fomented an economic revolution in pre-modern China. The expansion of the population, growth of cities, and the emergence of a national economy led to the withdrawal of the central government from direct involvement in economic affairs. The lower gentry assumed a role in grassroots administration and local affairs. Appointed officials in county and provincial centers relied upon the gentry for their services, sponsorship. Social life during the Song was vibrant, citizens gathered to view and trade precious artworks, the populace intermingled at public festivals and private clubs, and cities had lively entertainment quarters. The spread of literature and knowledge was enhanced by the expansion of woodblock printing. Technology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished over the course of the Song, although the institution of the civil service examinations had existed since the Sui dynasty, it became much more prominent in the Song period
Northern Song Dynasty
–
History of China
Northern Song Dynasty
–
Northern Song in 1111
Northern Song Dynasty
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Emperor Taizu of Song (r. 960–976), a court portrait painting
Northern Song Dynasty
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Pillow, sandstone with white and brown slip black, incised decoration, Northern Song dynasty, 12th century
39.
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
Yuan dynasty
–
History of China
Yuan dynasty
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Yuan dynasty circa 1294
Yuan dynasty
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Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan dynasty
Yuan dynasty
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Painting of a 14th-century Yuan dynasty
junk
40.
Emperor Xuanwu of Northern Wei
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Xuanwu was an emperor of the Xianbei dynasty of Northern Wei. He is known within China as Beiwei Xuanwudi and he was born Tuoba Ke, but later changed his surname so that he became Yuan Ke. During Xuanwus reign, Northern Wei appeared, outwardly, to be at its prime, Xuanwu was an avid Buddhist and often personally lectured on the Buddhist sutras. During his reign, Buddhism effectively became the state religion, Tuoba Ke was born in 483, as the second son of Emperor Xiaowen. His mother was Xiaowens concubine Consort, Gao Zhaorong, little is known about his childhood, including whether he was raised by his mother Gao or not. In 496, Xiaowen changed the name of the clan from Tuoba to Yuan. Xiaowen deposed him, and in 497 created Yuan Ke crown prince to replace Yuan Xun, later that year, Gao, who was in Pingcheng, travelled south to rejoin her son in Luoyang, but she died on the way. Historians generally believe that she was murdered by Xiaowens wife, Empress Feng Run, later in 499, Xiaowen, while on a campaign against rival Southern Qi, grew ill and died. Yuan Kes attendants largely suspected Yuan Xie of wanting to take the throne himself, Yuan Ke, at age 16, then took the throne as Xuanwu at Luyang, before the army could return to Luoyang. Xuanwu initially wanted to make Yuan Xie, who was popular and well-regarded, prime minister, but Yuan Xie refused, by 500, Xuanwu recalled Yuan Xie to be prime minister. Gao Zhao, in particular, became powerful during Xuanwus reign. However, Northern Wei did not take further actions when Southern Qi was subsequently thrown into war during the rebellions of the generals Cui Huijing. In 501, the general Yu Lie and Yuan Xiang warned Xuanwu that Yuan Xi was growing corrupt and Yuan Xie was growing too popular, traditional historians generally regard this as the starting point of Northern Weis decline. Late in 501, Yuan Xi, displeased that his power wa being stripped and his plot was discovered, however, and he was executed. From this point on, Xuanwu grew increasingly suspicious of members of the imperial clan, later in 501, Xuanwu created Yu Lies niece, Consort Yu, empress. Later that year, with Xiao Yans forces crushing Xiao Baojuans, however, Xuanwu only authorized small scale attacks, which were generally fruitless. Xiao Yan soon defeated Xiao Baojuan and by 502 had overthrown Southern Qi, in 504, Xuan Xiang, who had taken over Yuan Xis posts, was accused by Gao Zhao of corruption. He was demoted to commoner rank, and died soon thereafter, at Gaos suggestion and despite Yuan Xies opposition, Xuanwu subsequently put the imperial princes under heavy guard, effectively putting them under house arrest
Emperor Xuanwu of Northern Wei
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A stone-carved tomb statue with sword standing guard outside the
Luoyang tomb of Emperor Xuanwu
Emperor Xuanwu of Northern Wei
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The
coffin and resting place of Emperor Xuanwu at his tomb in
Luoyang
41.
Emperor Gaozong of Tang
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Emperor Gaozong of Tang or Emperor Kao-tsung of Tʻang, personal name Li Zhi, was the third emperor of the Tang dynasty in China, ruling from 649 to 683. Emperor Gaozong was the son of Emperor Taizong and Empress Zhangsun, Emperor Gaozong was aided in his rule by Empress Wu during the later years of his reign after a series of strokes left him incapacitated. After his death, he was interred at the Qianling Mausoleum along with Wu Zetian, historians have generally viewed Emperor Gaozong as a weak ruler, inattentive to the business of the state and leaving such business to his powerful wife Empress Wu. Further, territory previously conquered that belonged to both Eastern and Western Tujue were subjected to repeated rebellions and he was the ninth son of his father, Emperor Taizong, and the third son of his mother, Emperor Taizongs wife Empress Zhangsun. In 631, he was created the Prince of Jin, in 633, he was made commandant of Bing Prefecture, but remained at the capital Changan rather than reporting to Bing Prefecture. When Empress Zhangsun died in 636, Emperor Taizong was particularly touched by the grief that Li Zhi displayed, and from that point on particularly favored him. Sometime while he was the Prince of Jin, at the recommendation of his grand aunt Princess Tongan, he married the grandniece of Princess Tongans husband Wang Yu as his wife, the plot was discovered in 643, and Emperor Taizong deposed Li Chengqian. He was initially going to make Li Tai the new crown prince, the powerful chancellor Zhangsun Wuji – Empress Zhangsuns brother—suggested that he make Li Zhi crown prince, a possibility that Li Tai was apprehensive about. Li Tai tried to intimidate Li Zhi, who had been friendly with Li Yuanchang, by pointing out to Li Zhi that Li Yuanchang had been part of the plot and that he should be concerned for himself. When Emperor Taizong noticed Li Zhi worrying about this and was told by Li Zhi of Li Tais intimidation and he exiled Li Tai, and on 30 April,643, he created Li Zhi the new crown prince. He made Zhangsun and two other senior chancellors, Fang Xuanling and Xiao Yu, senior advisors to Li Zhi, and made another chancellor, Li Shiji, late in 643, Emperor Taizong issued an edict to select beautiful women among good households to serve as Li Zhis concubines. However, after Li Zhi declined such treatment, Emperor Taizong cancelled the edict, three other concubines of his bore his other sons Li Zhong, Li Xiao, and Li Shangjin. Zhangsun repeatedly opposed the idea, and Emperor Taizong did not carry this out and he also left senior officials Gao Shilian, Liu Ji, Ma Zhou, Zhang Xingcheng, and Gao Jifu to assist Li Zhi. After the campaign ended in later that year, as Emperor Taizong was leading the army back from the front. In 646, with Emperor Taizong still recovering, he transferred some of the authorities to Li Zhi. Li Zhi stayed at the palace and attended to Emperor Taizong in his illness. In 647, a commoner named Duan Zhichong submitted a petition to Emperor Taizong, asking him to pass the throne to Li Zhi, Li Zhi, concerned that Emperor Taizong might be offended, was worried and grieving, and Zhangsun suggested that Duan be executed. Emperor Taizong did not take offense and did not punish Duan or Li Zhi, meanwhile, Li Zhi began to build a Buddhist temple named Dacien Temple in commemoration of his mother Empress Zhangsun, and the temple was completed in 648
Emperor Gaozong of Tang
–
Gaozong
Emperor Gaozong of Tang
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Estimated territorial extent of Emperor Gaozong's empire.
42.
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
Qing Dynasty
–
History of China
Qing Dynasty
–
Flag (1889–1912)
Qing Dynasty
–
An Italian map showing the "Kingdom of the
Nüzhen " or the "
Jin Tartars", who "have occupied and are at present ruling China", north of
Liaodong and
Korea, published in 1682
Qing Dynasty
–
Qing era brush container
43.
Second Sino-Japanese War
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The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from July 7,1937 to September 9,1945. The First Sino-Japanese War was fought from 1894 to 1895, China fought Japan, with some economic help from Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged into the conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. Many scholars consider the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to have been the beginning of World War II, the Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy to expand its influence politically and militarily in order to access to raw material reserves, food. The period after World War One brought about increasing stress on the Japanese polity, leftists sought universal suffrage and greater rights for workers. Increasing textile production from Chinese mills was adversely affecting Japanese production, the Depression brought about a large slowdown in exports. All of this contributed to militant nationalism, culminating in the rise to power of a militarist fascist faction and this faction was led at its height by the Imperial Rule Assistance Associations Hideki Tojo cabinet under the edict from Emperor Shōwa. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements, the last of these incidents was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, which is traditionally seen as the beginning of total war between the two countries. Since 2017 the Chinese Government has regarded the invasion of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army in 1931, initially the Japanese scored major victories, such as the Battle of Shanghai, and by the end of 1937 captured the Chinese capital of Nanjing. After failing to stop the Japanese in Wuhan, the Chinese central government was relocated to Chongqing in the Chinese interior, by 1939, after Chinese victories in Changsha and Guangxi, and with Japans lines of communications stretched deep into the Chinese interior, the war reached a stalemate. The Japanese were also unable to defeat the Chinese communist forces in Shaanxi, on December 7,1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the following day the United States declared war on Japan. The United States began to aid China via airlift matériel over the Himalayas after the Allied defeat in Burma that closed the Burma Road, in 1944 Japan launched the invasion, Operation Ichi-Go, that conquered Henan and Changsha. However, this failed to bring about the surrender of Chinese forces, in 1945, the Chinese Expeditionary Force resumed its advance in Burma and completed the Ledo Road linking India to China. At the same time, China launched large counteroffensives in South China and retook the west Hunan, the remaining Japanese occupation forces formally surrendered on September 9,1945 with the following International Military Tribunal for the Far East convened on April 29,1946. China was recognized as one of the Big Four of Allies during the war, in the Chinese language, the war is most commonly known as the War of Resistance Against Japan, and also known as the Eight Years War of Resistance, simply War of Resistance. It is also referred to as part of the Global Anti-Fascist War, which is how World War 2 is perceived by the Communist Party of China, in Japan, nowadays, the name Japan–China War is most commonly used because of its perceived objectivity. In Japan today, it is written as 日中戦争 in shinjitai, the word incident was used by Japan, as neither country had made a formal declaration of war
Second Sino-Japanese War
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The dead bodies of victims massacred in the
Rape of Nanking on the shore of the
Qinhuai River, with a Japanese soldier standing nearby.
Second Sino-Japanese War
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Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theatre from 1942 to 1945.
Second Sino-Japanese War
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Japanese troops entering
Shenyang during the Mukden Incident
Second Sino-Japanese War
–
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek announced the
Kuomintang policy of resistance against Japan at
Lushan on July 10, 1937, three days after the
Marco Polo Bridge Incident.
44.
Warring States period
–
The Warring States Period derives its name from the Record of the Warring States, a work compiled early in the Han dynasty. The political geography of the era was dominated by the Seven Warring States, namely, Qin, The State of Qin was in the far west, with its core in the Wei River Valley and Guanzhong. This geographical position offered protection from the states of the Central Plains, the Three Jins, Northeast of Qin, on the Shanxi plateau, were the three successor states of Jin. These were, Han, south, along the Yellow River, Zhao, the northernmost of the three. Qi, located in the east of China, centred on the Shandong Peninsula, described as east of Mount Tai, Chu, located in the south of China, with its core territory around the valleys of the Han River and, later, the Yangtze River. Yan, located in the northeast, centred on modern-day Beijing, late in the period Yan pushed northeast and began to occupy the Liaodong Peninsula Besides these seven major states, some minor states also survived into the period. Yue, On the southeast coast near Shanghai was the State of Yue, Sichuan, In the far southwest were the States of Ba and Shu. These were non-Zhou states that were conquered by Qin late in the period, in the Central Plains comprising much of modern-day Henan Province, many smaller city states survived as satellites of the larger states, though they were eventually to be absorbed as well. Zhongshan, Between the states of Zhao and Yan was the state of Zhongshan, the Spring and Autumn period was initiated by the eastward flight of the Zhou court. There is no one single incident or starting point for the Warring States era, some proposed starting points are as follows,481 BC, Proposed by Song-era historian Lü Zuqian, since it is the end of the Spring and Autumn Annals. 476–475 BC, The author, Sima Qian, of Records of the Grand Historian who chose the year of King Yuan of Zhou. 403 BC, The year when Han, Zhao and Wei were officially recognised as states by the Zhou court, author Sima Guang of Zizhi Tongjian tells us that the symbol of eroded Zhou authority should be taken as the start of the Warring States era. The Spring and Autumn period led to a few states gaining power at the expense of many others, during the Warring States period, many rulers claimed the Mandate of Heaven to justify their conquest of other states and spread their influence. Other major states also existed, such as Wu and Yue in the southeast, the last decades of the Spring and Autumn era were marked by increased stability, as the result of peace negotiations between Jin and Chu which established their respective spheres of influence. This situation ended with the partition of Jin, whereby the state was divided between the houses of Han, Zhao and Wei, and thus enabled the creation of the seven major warring states. This allowed other clans to gain fiefs and military authority, and decades of struggle led to the establishment of four major families. The Battle of Jinyang saw the allied Han, Zhao and Wei destroy the Zhi family, with this, they became the de facto rulers of most of Jins territory, though this situation would not be officially recognised until half a century later. The Jin division created a vacuum that enabled during the first 50 years expansion of Chu and Yue northward
Warring States period
–
History of China
Warring States period
–
Warring States about 350 BC
Warring States period
–
Tomb Guardian held at
Birmingham Museum of Art
Warring States period
–
A
jade -carved
dragon garment ornament from the Warring States period
45.
Bai Qi
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Bai Qi, also known as Bo Qi, was a military general of the Qin state in the Warring States period of Chinese history. Born in Mei, as commander of the Qin army for more than 30 years and he was named by Chinese historians as one of the four greatest generals of the Warring States period, along with Li Mu, Wang Jian and Lian Po. He was promoted from Zuo Shu Zhang to Da Liang Zao by King Zhaoxiang of Qin and he had commanded wars against the states of Han, Wei, Zhao and Chu, seizing large areas of territory. In 278 BC, he led the Qin army to capture Ying, as a reward, he was given the title Lord Wuan. During the Battle of Changping in 260 BC, he succeeded Wang He as the commander of Qin army, the Zhao army was split into two parts and its supply lines and retreat route cut off by Bai Qi. More than 400,000 Zhao soldiers, including the Shangdang people who surrendered after Zhao Kuo was shot dead by Qin archers, were slain（坑殺buried alive) on the orders of Bai Qi. Bai Qi wanted to end Zhao once and for all, as the Zhao troops were psychologically affected by the Battle of Changping, Bai Qi hence stopped the attack and on his return journey to the State of Qin, he fell ill. In 257 BC, Qin started to besiege Handan, capital of Zhao, because Bai Qi was ill the Qin king had used another prominent general, Wang Ling who subsequently lost the battle. After about four months, when Bai Qi seemed to have recovered, however, the king insisted on continuing the attack. Bai Qi refused the command of the king with an excuse of his illness, the king, therefore, had to use Wang He, another prominent general of Qin, instead of Bai Qi, as the commander. This decision did not help the Qin army in the battle at all, Chu and Wei soon sent troops to assist Zhao. After more than five months of defeat at Handan, Qin had suffered major losses. The king asked Bai Qi to become commander again, Bai Qi once more used that he was sick to refuse the request. In Zhan Guo Ce, his intentions was revealed when he states that he would rather be executed by refusing the Kings order, rather than losing his long undefeated fame on the battlefield. Having been refused several times, the King become angry, removed all titles from Bai Qi and forced him to leave Xianyang, the capital of Qin. In addition, Fan Sui, persuaded the King of Qin that Bai Qi would join another state as a general, convinced by Fan Suis information, the King of Qin then forced Bai Qi to commit suicide in Duyou. Bai Qi sometimes appears as a god on Chinese and Taoist temples. He is noted in Chinese history as a symbol of brutality rather than for his military talent, the traditional Tofu dish of Gaoping, todays Changping, called Bai Qi meat is well known
Bai Qi
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Ming dynasty portrait of Bai Qi
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Qin (state)
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Qin was an ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty. Following extensive Legalist reform in the 3rd century BC, Qin emerged as one of the dominant powers of the Seven Warring States, the empire it established was short-lived but greatly influential on later Chinese history. Its courts and bureaus functioned without delays and with such smoothness that it was as if there were no government at all. According to the 2nd century BC historical text Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian, one of his descendents, Boyi, was granted the family name of Ying by King Shun. During the Xia and Shang dynasties, the Ying split in two, a branch in Quanqiu and another branch that lived east of the Yellow River. The latter became the ancestors of the rulers of the Zhao state, the western Ying at Quanqiu were lords over the Xichui, the Western March of the Shang. One, Elai, was killed defending King Zhou during the rebellion that established the Zhou dynasty, the family was allied with the marquesses of Shen, however, and continued to serve under the Zhou. A younger son of line, Feizi, so impressed King Xiao with his horse breeding skills that he was awarded a fief in the valley of Qin. Both lines of the western Ying lived in the midst of the Rong tribes, sometimes fighting their armies and sometimes intermarrying with their kings. In 771 BC, the Marquess of Shen formed an alliance with the Zeng state and Quanrong nomads, Duke Xiang of Qin led his troops to escort King Yous son King Ping of Zhou to Luoyi, where the new capital city of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty was established. In recognition of Duke Xiangs efforts, King Ping formally enfeoffed Duke Xiang as a feudal lord, King Ping further promised to give Qin the land west of Qishan, the former heartland of Zhou, if Qin could expel the Rong tribes that were occupying the land. The Qin viewed the Zhou rulers Wen and Wu as their predecessors, Qins interaction with other states in eastern and central China remained minimal throughout the Spring and Autumn period, except with its neighbour Jin, a large, mainstay vassal of the Zhou. During the early reign of Duke Mu of Qin, the Jin state was a power under the leadership of Duke Xian of Jin. However, after the death of Duke Xian, Jin plunged into a state of conflict as Duke Xians sons fought over the succession. One of them won the contention and became Duke Hui of Jin, Duke Mu of Qin sent relief food supplies and agricultural equipment to Jin. However, Qin was struck by famine later and by then, Jin had recovered, Qin and Jin engaged in several battles over the next few years. During the battles with Jin, Duke Mu heard that one of Duke Xians sons, Chonger, was in exile in the Chu state. After consulting his subjects, Duke Mu sent an emissary to Chu to invite Chonger to Jin, Duke Wen was grateful to Duke Mu and relations between Qin and Jin improved
Qin (state)
Qin (state)
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History of China
Qin (state)
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State of Qin (
small seal script, 220 BC)
Qin (state)
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State of Qin (
bronzeware script, c. 800 BC)
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Wei (state)
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Wei was an ancient Chinese state during the Warring States period. Its territory lay between the states of Qin and Qi and included parts of modern-day Henan, Hebei, Shanxi, after its capital was moved from Anyi to Daliang during the reign of King Hui, Wei was also called Liang. Surviving sources trace the ruling house of Wei to the Zhou royalty, Gao and his descendents took their surname from his fief. After the destruction of Bi by the Xionites, Bi Wan escaped to Jin, after a successful military expedition, Bi Wan was granted Wei, from which his own descendants then founded the house of Wei. Jins political structure was changed after the slaughter of its ruling dynasty during. Afterwards, Jin ha no princely house and its political power diffused into extended relations, including the Wei. In the last years of the Spring and Autumn period, the founders of Wei, Zhao, King Weilie of Zhou finally legitimized the situation in 403 BCE, when he elevated the three houses heads to the rank of marquess. The state reached its apogee during the reigns of its first two rulers, Marquess Wen of Wei and Marquess Wu of Wei, the third ruler, King Hui of Wei, declared himself an independent sovereign and concentrated on economic developments, including irrigation projects at the Yellow River. Hui felt that Qin in the west was weak and their land a barren waste and he focused on conquering the well-settled eastern lands which were richer in known resources. However, a series of battles including the battle of Maling in 341 BCE checked Weis ambitions while Qins expansion went largely unimpeded, boosting its economy, early strengthening of the state of Wei resulted from adoption of legalist reforms proposed by Li Kui. Wei eventually lost the western Hexi region, an area of pastoral land on the west bank of the Yellow River between the border of modern-day Shanxi and Shaanxi, to Qin. Thereafter, it remained continuously at war with Qin, requiring the capital to be moved from Anyi to Daliang, Wei surrendered to Qin in 225 BCE, after the Qin general Wang Ben diverted the Yellow River into Daliang, destroying the capital in a flood. King Xiang died in 319 BCE and was succeeded by his son King Ai, however, the majority of scholars and commentators believe that King Ai, whose personal name is not recorded, never existed. It seems that Sima Qian assigned the part of the reign of King Hui to his son King Xiang. On the other hand, a minority of scholars believe King Ai did indeed exist, one day, Long began to weep. When questioned, Long said he saw his own future in how he had treated a fish, happy to have the catch at first, Long Yang had wanted to throw it back when he caught a better fish. He wept, I am also a previously-caught fish, I will also be thrown back. To show his fidelity to Long Yang, the king declared that, sources differ, however, in whether those two stars are 33 Capricorni and Delta Herculis or whether they are Chi Capricorni and Phi Capricorni
Wei (state)
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