1.
Chang'an
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Changan is an ancient capital of more than ten dynasties in Chinese history, today known as Xian. Changan means Perpetual Peace in Classical Chinese, during the short-lived Xin dynasty, the city was renamed Constant Peace, yet after its fall in AD23, the old name was restored. By the time of the Ming dynasty, the name was changed to Xian, meaning Western Peace. Changan had been settled since Neolithic times, during which the Yangshao Culture was established in Banpo in the citys suburb, from its capital at Xianyang, the Qin dynasty ruled a larger area than either of the preceding dynasties. The imperial city of Changan during the Han dynasty was located northwest of todays Xian. During the Tang dynasty, the area to be known as Changan included the area inside the Ming Xian fortification, plus small areas to its east and west. The Tang Changan hence, was 8 times the size of the Ming Xian, during its heyday, Changan was one of the largest and most populous cities in the world. Around AD750, Changan was called a million peoples city in Chinese records, while modern estimates put it at around 800, 000–1,000,000 within city walls. According to the census in 742 recorded in the New Book of Tang,362,921 families with 1,960,188 persons were counted in Jingzhao Fu, the strategic and economic importance of ancient Changan was mainly due to its central position. The roads leading to Gansu, Sichuan, Henan, Hubei, the site of the Han capital was located 3 km northwest of modern Xian. As the capital of the Western Han, it was the political, economic and it was also the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, and a cosmopolitan metropolis. By 2 AD, the population was 246,200 in 80,000 households and this population consisted mostly of the scholar gentry class whose education was being sponsored by their wealthy aristocratic families. In addition to civil servants was a larger underclass to serve them. Initially, Emperor Liu Bang decided to build his capital at the center of the sun and this location was the site of the holy city Chengzhou, home of the last Zhou emperors. The magical significance of location was believed to ensure a long-lasting dynasty like the Zhou. However, in practice the strategic value of a capital located in the Wei Valley became the deciding factor for locating the new capital. To this end, it is recorded c 200 BC he forcibly relocated thousands of clans in the aristocracy to this region. First, it kept all potential rivals close to the new Emperor and his adviser Liu Jing described this plan as weakening the root while strengthening the branch
2.
Luoyang
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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
3.
Middle Chinese
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The fanqie method used to indicate pronunciation in these dictionaries, though an improvement on earlier methods, proved awkward in practice. The mid 12th-century Yunjing and other rime tables incorporate a more sophisticated, the rime tables attest to a number of sound changes that had occurred over the centuries following the publication of the Qieyun. Linguists sometimes refer to the system of the Qieyun as Early Middle Chinese, the dictionaries and tables describe pronunciations in relative terms, but do not give their actual sounds. The Swedish linguist Bernard Karlgren believed that the recorded a speech standard of the capital Changan of the Sui and Tang dynasties. This composite system contains important information for the reconstruction of the system of Old Chinese phonology. The Middle Chinese system is used as a framework for the study. Branches of the Chinese family such as Mandarin, Yue and Wu can be treated as divergent developments from the Qieyun system. The reconstruction of Middle Chinese phonology is largely dependent upon detailed descriptions in a few original sources, the most important of these is the Qieyun rime dictionary and its revisions. The Qieyun is often used together with interpretations in Song dynasty rime tables such as the Yunjing, Qiyinlue, Chinese scholars of the Northern and Southern dynasties period were concerned with the correct recitation of the classics. Various schools produced dictionaries to codify reading pronunciations and the associated rhyme conventions of regulated verse, the Qieyun was an attempt to merge the distinctions in six earlier dictionaries, which were eclipsed by its success and are no longer extant. It was accepted as the standard reading pronunciation during the Tang dynasty, the Qieyun is thus the oldest surviving rime dictionary and the main source for the pronunciation of characters in Early Middle Chinese. The rime dictionaries organize Chinese characters by their pronunciation, according to a hierarchy of tone, rhyme, the fanqie system uses multiple equivalent characters to represent each particular initial, and likewise for finals. The categories of initials and finals actually represented were first identified by the Cantonese scholar Chen Li in an analysis published in his Qièyùn kǎo. The Qieyun classified homonyms under 193 rhyme classes, each of which is placed one of the four tones. A single rhyme class may contain multiple finals, generally differing only in the medial or in so-called chongniu doublets, the Yunjing is the oldest of the so-called rime tables, which provide a more detailed phonological analysis of the system contained in the Qieyun. However, the analysis shows some influence from LMC, which needs to be taken into account when interpreting difficult aspects of the system. The Yunjing is organized into 43 tables, each covering several Qieyun rhyme classes, and classified as, One of 16 broad rhyme classes, each described as either inner or outer. The meaning of this is debated but it has suggested that it refers to the height of the main vowel, with outer finals having an open vowel
4.
Buddhism
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Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
5.
Taoism
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Taoism, also known as Daoism, is a religious or philosophical tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao. The Tao is an idea in most Chinese philosophical schools, in Taoism, however. Taoism differs from Confucianism by not emphasizing rigid rituals and social order, the Tao Te Ching, a compact book containing teachings attributed to Laozi, is widely considered the keystone work of the Taoist tradition, together with the later writings of Zhuangzi. By the Han dynasty, the sources of Taoism had coalesced into a coherent tradition of religious organizations. In earlier ancient China, Taoists were thought of as hermits or recluses who did not participate in political life, Zhuangzi was the best known of these, and it is significant that he lived in the south, where he was part of local Chinese shamanic traditions. Women shamans played an important role in this tradition, which was strong in the southern state of Chu. Early Taoist movements developed their own institution in contrast to shamanism, shamans revealed basic texts of Taoism from early times down to at least the 20th century. Institutional orders of Taoism evolved in various strains that in recent times are conventionally grouped into two main branches, Quanzhen Taoism and Zhengyi Taoism. After Laozi and Zhuangzi, the literature of Taoism grew steadily and was compiled in form of a canon—the Daozang—which was published at the behest of the emperor, throughout Chinese history, Taoism was nominated several times as a state religion. After the 17th century, however, it fell from favor, Chinese alchemy, Chinese astrology, Chan Buddhism, several martial arts, traditional Chinese medicine, feng shui, and many styles of qigong have been intertwined with Taoism throughout history. Beyond China, Taoism also had influence on surrounding societies in Asia, Taoism also has a presence in Hong Kong, Macau, and in Southeast Asia. English speakers continue to debate the preferred romanization of the words Daoism and Taoism, the root Chinese word 道 way, path is romanized tao in the older Wade–Giles system and dào in the modern Pinyin system. In linguistic terminology, English Taoism/Daoism is formed from the Chinese loanword tao/dao 道 way, route, principle and the native suffix -ism. The debate over Taoism vs. Daoism involves sinology, phonemes, loanwords, Daoism is pronounced /ˈdaʊ. ɪzəm/, but English speakers disagree whether Taoism should be /ˈdaʊ. ɪzəm/ or /ˈtaʊ. ɪzəm/. In theory, both Wade–Giles tao and Pinyin dao are articulated identically, as are Taoism and Daoism, an investment book titled The Tao Jones Averages illustrates this /daʊ/ pronunciations widespread familiarity. In speech, Tao and Taoism are often pronounced /ˈtaʊ/ and ˈtaʊ. ɪzəm/, lexicography shows American and British English differences in pronouncing Taoism. Taoist philosophy or Taology, or the mystical aspect — The philosophical doctrines based on the texts of the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching and these texts were linked together as Taoist philosophy during the early Han Dynasty, but notably not before. It is unlikely that Zhuangzi was familiar with the text of the Daodejing, however, the discussed distinction is rejected by the majority of Western and Japanese scholars
6.
Confucianism
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Confucianism, also known as Ruism, is described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or simply a way of life. In the Han dynasty, Confucian approaches edged out the proto-Taoist Huang-Lao, the disintegration of the Han political order in the second century CE opened the way for the doctrines of Buddhism and Neo-Taoism, which offered spiritual explanations lacking in Confucianism. A Confucian revival began during the Tang dynasty of 618-907, in the late Tang, Confucianism developed in response to Buddhism and Taoism and was reformulated as Neo-Confucianism. This reinvigorated form was adopted as the basis of the imperial exams, the abolition of the examination system in 1905 marked the end of official Confucianism. The New Culture intellectuals of the twentieth century blamed Confucianism for Chinas weaknesses. In the late twentieth century Confucian work ethic has been credited with the rise of the East Asian economy, with particular emphasis on the importance of the family and social harmony, rather than on an otherworldly source of spiritual values, the core of Confucianism is humanistic. While Tiān has some characteristics that overlap the category of deity, it is primarily an impersonal absolute principle, Confucianism focuses on the practical order that is given by a this-worldly awareness of the Tiān. Confucian thought focuses on the cultivation of virtue and maintenance of ethics, Some of the basic Confucian ethical concepts and practices include rén, yì, and lǐ, and zhì. Rén is the essence of the human being which manifests as compassion and it is the virtue-form of Heaven. Yì is the upholding of righteousness and the disposition to do good. Lǐ is a system of norms and propriety that determines how a person should properly act in everyday life according to the law of Heaven. Zhì is the ability to see what is right and fair, or the converse, Confucianism holds one in contempt, either passively or actively, for failure to uphold the cardinal moral values of rén and yì. In the 20th century Confucianisms influence diminished greatly, in the last decades there have been talks of a Confucian Revival in the academic and the scholarly community and there has been a grassroots proliferation of various types of Confucian churches. In late 2015 many Confucian personalities formally established a national Holy Confucian Church in China to unify the many Confucian congregations, strictly speaking, there is no term in Chinese which directly corresponds to Confucianism. In the Chinese language, the character rú 儒 meaning scholar or learned man is used both in the past and the present to refer to things related to Confucianism. The character rú in ancient China has diverse meanings, Some examples include, weak, soft, to tame, to comfort and to educate or to refine. Rújiā contains the character jiā, which means family. Rújiào and Kǒngjiào contain the Chinese character jiào, the teaching or transmission, used in such terms as education
7.
Chinese folk religion
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Worship is devoted to a multiplicity of gods and immortals, who can be deities of phenomena, of human behaviour, or progenitors of lineages. Stories regarding some of these gods are collected into the body of Chinese mythology, Chinese religions have a variety of sources, local forms, founder backgrounds, and ritual and philosophical traditions. Ling, numen or sacred, is the medium of the two states and the order of creation. After the fall of the empire in 1911, governments and elites opposed or attempted to eradicate religion in order to promote modern values. These conceptions of religion began to change in Taiwan in the late 20th century. Many scholars now view folk religion in a positive light, in recent times Chinese folk religions are experiencing a revival in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Chinese academic literature and common usage folk religion refers to specific organised folk religious sects, the Qing dynasty scholars Yao Wendong and Chen Jialin used the term shenjiao not referring to Shinto as a definite religious system, but to local shin beliefs in Japan. Other definitions that have used are folk cults, spontaneous religion, lived religion, local religion. Shendao is an already used in the Yijing referring to the divine order of nature. Around the time of the spread of Buddhism in the Han period, ge Hong used it in his Baopuzi as a synonym for Taoism. The term was adopted in Japan in the 6th century as Shindo, later Shinto. In the 14th century, the Hongwu Emperor used the term Shendao clearly identifying the indigenous cults, de Groot calls Chinese Universism the ancient metaphysical view that serves as the basis of all classical Chinese thought. In Universism, the three components of integrated universe — understood epistemologically, heaven, earth and man, and understood ontologically, Taiji, yin, contemporary Chinese scholars have identified what they find to be the essential features of the folk religion of China. According to Chen Xiaoyi 陳曉毅 local indigenous religion is the factor for a harmonious religious ecology. Professor Han Bingfang 韓秉芳 has called for a rectification of distorted names, distorted names are superstitious activities or feudal superstition, that were derogatorily applied to the indigenous religion by leftist policies. Christian missionaries also used the label feudal superstition in order to undermine their religious competitor, Han calls for the acknowledgment of folk religion for what it really is, the core and soul of popular culture. According to Chen Jinguo 陳進國, folk religion is an element of Chinese cultural. Chinese religious practices are diverse, varying from province to province and even from one village to another, for religious behaviour is bound to local communities, kinship, in each setting, institution and ritual behaviour assumes highly organised forms
8.
Zoroastrianism
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Ascribed to the teachings of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster, it exalts a deity of wisdom, Ahura Mazda, as its Supreme Being. Zoroastrianism was suppressed from the 7th century onwards following the Muslim conquest of Persia of 633-654, recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians at around 2.6 million, with most living in India and in Iran. Besides the Zoroastrian diaspora, the older Mithraic faith Yazdânism is still practised amongst Kurds, the religious philosophy of Zoroaster divided the early Iranian gods of Proto-Indo-Iranian tradition. The most important texts of the religion are those of the Avesta, in Zoroastrianism, the creator Ahura Mazda, through the Spenta Mainyu is an all-good father of Asha, in opposition to Druj and no evil originates from him. He and his works are evident to humanity through the six primary Amesha Spentas, Spenta Mainyu adjoined unto truth oppose the Spirits opposite, Angra Mainyu and its forces born of Akəm Manah. In Zoroastrianism, the purpose in life is to be among those who renew the world. to make the progress towards perfection. Its basic maxims include, Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta, which mean, Good Thoughts, Good Words, there is only one path and that is the path of Truth. Do the right thing because it is the thing to do. The full name by which Zoroaster addressed the deity is, Ahura, The Lord Creator and he proclaimed that there is only one God, the singularly creative and sustaining force of the Universe. He also stated that human beings are given a right of choice, Zoroasters teachings focused on responsibility, and did not introduce a devil per se. The contesting force to Ahura Mazda was called Angra Mainyu, or angry spirit, post-Zoroastrian scripture introduced the concept of Ahriman, the Devil, which was effectively a personification of Angra Mainyu. The name Zoroaster is a Greek rendering of the name Zarathustra and he is known as Zartosht and Zardosht in Persian and Zaratosht in Gujarati. The Zoroastrian name of the religion is Mazdayasna, which combines Mazda- with the Avestan language word yasna, meaning worship, in English, an adherent of the faith is commonly called a Zoroastrian or a Zarathustrian. An older expression still used today is Behdin, meaning The best Religion | Beh < Middle Persian Weh + Din < Middle Persian dēn < Avestan Daēnā. In Zoroastrian liturgy the term is used as a title for an individual who has formally inducted into the religion in a Navjote ceremony. The term Mazdaism /ˈmæzdə. ɪzəm/ is a typical 19th century construct, taking Mazda- from the name Ahura Mazda, the March 2001 draft edition of the Oxford English Dictionary also records an alternate form, Mazdeism, perhaps derived from the French Mazdéisme, which first appeared in 1871. In older English sources, the terms Gheber and Gueber were used to refer to Zoroastrians, however, Zoroastrian philosophy is identified as having been known to Italian Renaissance Europe through an image of Zoroaster in Raphaels School of Athens by Giorgio Vasari in 1550. The Oxford English Dictionary records use of the term Zoroastrianism in 1874 in Archibald Sayces Principles of Comparative Philology, Zoroastrians believe that there is one universal, transcendent, supreme god, Ahura Mazda, or the Wise Lord
9.
Monarchy
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The actual power of the monarch may vary from purely symbolic, to partial and restricted, to completely autocratic. Traditionally and in most cases, the monarchs post is inherited and lasts until death or abdication, occasionally this might create a situation of rival claimants whose legitimacy is subject to effective election. Finally, there have been cases where the term of a reign is either fixed in years or continues until certain goals are achieved. Thus there are widely divergent structures and traditions defining monarchy, Monarchy was the most common form of government until the 19th century, but it is no longer prevalent. Currently,47 sovereign nations in the world have monarchs acting as heads of state,19 of which are Commonwealth realms that recognise Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state. The monarchs of Cambodia, Japan, and Malaysia reign, the word monarch comes from the Greek language word μονάρχης, monárkhēs which referred to a single, at least nominally absolute ruler. In current usage the word usually refers to a traditional system of hereditary rule. Depending on the held by the monarch, a monarchy may be known as a kingdom, principality, duchy, grand duchy, empire, tsardom, emirate, sultanate, khaganate. The form of societal hierarchy known as chiefdom or tribal kingship is prehistoric, the Greek term monarchia is classical, used by Herodotus. The monarch in classical antiquity is often identified as king, the Chinese, Japanese and Nepalese monarchs continued to be considered living Gods into the modern period. Since antiquity, monarchy has contrasted with forms of democracy, where power is wielded by assemblies of free citizens. In antiquity, monarchies were abolished in favour of such assemblies in Rome, much of 19th century politics was characterised by the division between anti-monarchist Radicalism and monarchist Conservativism. Many countries abolished the monarchy in the 20th century and became republics, advocacy of republics is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchies is called monarchism. In the modern era, monarchies are more prevalent in small states than in large ones, most monarchs, both historically and in the modern day, have been born and brought up within a royal family, the centre of the royal household and court. Growing up in a family, future monarchs are often trained for the responsibilities of expected future rule. Different systems of succession have been used, such as proximity of blood, primogeniture, and agnatic seniority. While most monarchs have been male, many female monarchs also have reigned in history, rule may be hereditary in practice without being considered a monarchy, such as that of family dictatorships or political families in many democracies. The principal advantage of hereditary monarchy is the continuity of leadership
10.
Emperor Wen of Sui
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Emperor Wen of Sui, personal name Yang Jian, Xianbei name Puliuru Jian, nickname Naluoyan, was the founder and first emperor of Chinas Sui Dynasty. He was an administrator and a micromanager. The Sui Shu records him as having withdrawn his favour from the Confucians, giving it to the group advocating Xing-Ming, as a Buddhist, he encouraged the spread of Buddhism through the state. He is regarded as one of the most important emperors in Chinese history, during his reign began the construction of the Grand Canal. As a Northern Zhou official, Yang Jian served with apparent distinction during the reigns of Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou, when the erratic Emperor Xuan died in 580, Yang, as his father-in-law, seized power as regent. After defeating the general Yuchi Jiong, who resisted him, he seized the throne for himself and he was the first Chinese to rule North China after the Xianbei invasion which conquered that area from the Liu Song dynasty. Generally speaking, Emperor Wens reign was a period of prosperity not seen since the Han Dynasty. It was said there was enough food stored for 50 years. At the beginning of his reign, Sui faced the threat of Tujue to the north, and neighbored Tibetan tribes to the west, Goguryeo in the northeast, and Champa threatening the south. By the end of Emperor Wens reign, Tujue had split into an eastern and a western kaganate, Champa was defeated and, while not conquered, did not remain a threat. Emperor Wen is also famous for having the fewest number of concubines for an adult Chinese emperor. Emperor Wen was known for having only two concubines, with whom he not have had sexual relations until after the death in 602 of his wife Empress Dugu. The Yang of Hongnong 弘農楊氏 were asserted as ancestors by the Sui Emperors like the Longxi Lis were asserted as ancestors of the Tang Emperors, Yang Jians clan claimed descent from the Han Dynasty general Yang Zhen. Yang Zhens eighth-generation descendant Yang Xuan served as a governor for a Yan state during the Sixteen Kingdoms Period. Yang Jians father Yang Zhong followed the late-Northern Wei general Yuwen Tai and later became prominent in the successor state of Northern Wei, Western Wei. Yang Jians mother Lady Lü gave birth to him at a Buddhist temple in Fengyi, a Buddhist nun was impressed with his appearance, and raised him in his early years. Yang Jian attended the college for the sons of the nobility. When he was 14 years old, he was appointed to serve in the military under Yüwen Tai, in 555, on account of Yang Zhongs accomplishments, Yang Jian received several official ranks, including the title of the Duke of Chengji
11.
Emperor Yang of Sui
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Emperor Yangs original name was Yang Ying, but was renamed by his father, after consulting with oracles, to Yang Guang. Yang Guang was made the Prince of Jin after Emperor Wen established Sui Dynasty in 581, in 588, he was granted command of the five armies that invaded the southern Chen dynasty and was widely praised for the success of this campaign. These military achievements, as well as his machinations against his older brother Yang Yong, after the death of his father in 604, generally considered, though unproven, by most traditional historians to be a murder ordered by Yang Guang, he ascended the throne as Emperor Yang. Emperor Yang, ruling from 604 to 618, committed to large construction projects. He commanded the reconstruction of the Great Wall, a project which took the lives of six million workers. These expeditions, along with a series of campaigns against Goguryeo, left the empire bankrupt. With northern China in turmoil, Emperor Yang spent his last days in Jiangdu, Yang Guang was born in 569, during the reign of Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou. His parents were Yang Jian the Duke of Sui and Yang Jians wife Duchess Dugu Qieluo. He was their son, after Yang Yong, and he had at least one older sister, Yang Lihua. He was considered handsome and intelligent in his youth, and of Yang Jians and Duchess Dugus sons, sometime during Northern Zhou, on account of Yang Jians achievements, he was created the Duke of Yanmen. In 580, Yang Jian seized power as regent after Emperor Xuans death, in 581, he had Emperor Xuans son, Emperor Jing, yield the throne to him, ending Northern Zhou and establishing Sui Dynasty as its Emperor Wen. Emperor Wen created Yang Yong crown prince and created his other imperial princes. Yang Guang thus received the title of Prince of Jin, also in 581, Emperor Wen made Yang Guang the commandant at Bing Province, in charge of the provinces north of the Yellow River. In 582, Emperor Wen set up a branch of the bureau of his government at Bing Province. He made the official Wang Shao the deputy head and had him assist Yang Guang, later in 582, Emperor Wen took a daughter of his vassal Emperor Ming of Western Liang to be Yang Guangs wife and princess. It was said that Yang Guang loved and respected her, in 585, with Ashina Shetu under attack from one of his subordinate khans, the Datou Khan Ashina Dianjue, Emperor Wen in fact sent Yang Guang to aid Ashina Shetu. In 588, Emperor Wen moved Yang Guangs headquarters to Shouchun, in winter 588, Emperor Wen launched a major attack on rival Chen Dynasty. Yang Guang, his brother Yang Jun, and the general Yang Su were in command of the three prongs of the operation, with Yang Guang in command of the eastern prong as well as the overall operation
12.
Emperor Gaozu of Tang
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Emperor Gaozu of Tang, born Li Yuan, courtesy name Shude, was the founder of the Tang Dynasty of China, and the first emperor of this dynasty from 618 to 626. Under the Sui dynasty, Li Yuan was the governor in the area of modern-day Shanxi, in 615, Li Yuan was assigned to garrison Longxi. He gained much experience by dealing with the Göktürks of the north and was able to pacify them. Li Yuan was also able to support from these successes and, with the disintegration of the Sui dynasty in July 617. Using the title of Great Chancellor, Li Yuan installed a puppet emperor, Emperor Gong. His son and successor Li Shimin honoured him as Gaozu after his death, Emperor Gaozus reign was concentrated on uniting the empire under the Tang. Aided by Li Shimin, whom he created the Prince of Qin, he defeated all the contenders, including Li Gui, Dou Jiande, Wang Shichong, Xue Rengao. By 628, the Tang Dynasty had succeeded in uniting all of China and he abandoned the harsh system of law established by Emperor Yang of Sui as well as reforming the judicial system. These acts of reform paved the way for the reign of Emperor Taizong, which ultimately pushed Tang to the height of its power. In 626, Li Shimin, in a dispute with his brothers Li Jiancheng, the Crown Prince, and Li Yuanji, fearful of what Li Shimin might do next, Emperor Gaozu passed the throne to him and became Taishang Huang. According to the genealogy of the Tang ruling house, Li Yuans seventh-generation ancestor was Li Gao. After Western Liangs destruction, Li Gaos grandson Li Chonger served as a Northern Wei official, Li Yuans grandfather Li Hu served as a major general under Western Weis paramount general Yuwen Tai, and was created the Duke of Longxi and given the Xianbei surname Daye. Li Hu died before Yuwen Tais son Emperor Xiaomin of Northern Zhou founded Northern Zhou and his son and Li Yuans father Li Bing, of Han ethnicity, inherited the title of the Duke of Tang and married a daughter of the prominent Xianbei general Dugu Xin. At some point, he married Lady Dou, a daughter of Dou Yi the Duke of Shenwu and Northern Zhous Princess Xiangyang as his wife, during Emperor Wens reign, Li Yuan served three terms as provincial governor. Early in the reign of Emperor Wens son Emperor Yang, Li Yuan served as commandery governor, when Emperor Yang carried out his second campaign against Goguryeo in 613, Li Yuan was in charge of part of the logistics operation. Li Yuan took the opportunity to talented people to his staff. In fear, Li Yuan took up drinking and receiving bribes to try to show Emperor Yang that he did not have great ambitions, in 615, Emperor Yang placed him in charge of the operations against agrarian rebels in the Hedong region, but recalled him in 616. Later that year, Emperor Yang put him in charge of the key city of Taiyuan, traditional accounts, compiled during the reign of Li Yuans second son by the Duchess Dou, Li Shimin, emphasize the latters initiative and major role in instigating his fathers rebellion
13.
Ancient Chinese coinage
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Ancient Chinese coinage includes some of the earliest known coins. These coins, used as early as the Spring and Autumn period, the Spring and Autumn period also saw the introduction of the first metal coins, however, they were not initially round, instead being either knife shaped or spade shaped. Round metal coins with a round, and then later square hole in the center were first introduced around 350 BCE, the beginning of the Qin Dynasty, the first dynasty to unify China, saw the introduction of a standardised coinage for the whole Empire. Subsequent dynasties produced variations on these round coins throughout the imperial period, ancient Chinese coins are markedly different from coins produced in the west. Chinese coins were manufactured by being cast in molds, whereas western coins were cut and hammered or, in later times. Chinese coins were made from mixtures of metals such copper, tin and lead, from bronze, brass or iron, precious metals like gold. The ratios and purity of the coin metals varied considerably, most Chinese coins were produced with a square hole in the middle. This was used to allow collections of coins to be threaded on a rod so that the rough edges could be filed smooth. Official coin production was not always centralised, but could be spread over many mint locations throughout the country, aside from officially produced coins, private coining was common during many stages of history. Various steps were taken over time to try to combat the private coining and limit its effects, at other times private coining was tolerated. The coins varied in value throughout the history, some coins were produced in very large numbers – during the Western Han, an average of 220 million coins a year were produced. Other coins were of limited circulation and are extremely rare – only six examples of Da Quan Wu Qian from the Eastern Wu Dynasty are known to exist. Occasionally, large hoards of coins have been uncovered, the earliest coinage of China was described by Sima Qian, the great historian of c. While nothing is known about the use of shells as money, gold. They are not found in hoards, and the probability is that all these are in fact funerary items. Archaeological evidence shows that the earliest use of the spade and knife money was in the Spring, as in ancient Greece, socio-economic conditions at the time were favourable to the adoption of coinage. Inscriptions and archaeological evidence shows that cowrie shells were regarded as important objects of value in the Shang Dynasty, in the Zhou period, they are frequently referred to as gifts or rewards from kings and nobles to their subjects. Later imitations in bone, stone or bronze were used as money in some instances
14.
Cash (Chinese coin)
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Cash was a type of coin of China and East Asia from the 2nd century BC until the 20th century AD. The English term cash referring to the coin was derived from the Tamil kāsu, the English word cash, meaning tangible currency, is an older and unrelated word from Middle French caisse. There are a variety of Chinese terms for cash coins, usually descriptive, confusingly, Chinese qián is also a weight-derived currency denomination in Chinese called mace in English. Traditionally, Chinese cash coins were cast in copper, brass or iron, in the mid-19th century, the coins were made of 3 parts copper and 2 parts lead. Cast silver coins were produced but are considerably rarer. Cast gold coins are known to exist but are extremely rare. Chinese cash coins originated from the barter of farming tools and agricultural surpluses, around 1200 BC, smaller token spades, hoes, and knives began to be used to conduct smaller exchanges with the tokens later melted down to produce real farm implements. These tokens came to be used as media of exchange themselves and were known as spade money, the hole enabled the coins to be strung together to create higher denominations, as was frequently done due to the coins low value. The number of coins in a string of cash varied over time, a string of 1000 cash was supposed to be equal in value to one tael of pure silver. A string of cash was divided into ten sections of 100 cash each, local custom allowed the person who put the string together to take a cash or a few from each hundred for his effort. Thus an ounce of silver could exchange for 970 in one city and 990 in the next, in some places in the North of China short of currency the custom counted one cash as two and fewer than 500 cash would be exchanged for an ounce of silver. A string of cash weighed over ten pounds and was carried over the shoulder. Paper money equivalents known as flying cash sometimes showed pictures of the number of cash coins strung together. The Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese all cast their own copper cash in the part of the second millennium similar to those used by China. The last Chinese cash coins were struck, not cast, in the reign of the Qing Xuantong Emperor shortly before the fall of the Empire in 1911, the coin continued to be used unofficially in China until the mid-20th century. Vietnamese cash continued to be cast up until 1933, in AD666, a new system of weights came into effect with the zhū being replaced by the mace with 10 mace equal to one tael. The mace denominations were so ubiquitous that the Chinese word qián came to be used as the word for money. Other traditional Chinese units of measurement, smaller subdivisions of the tael, were used as currency denominations for cash coins
15.
Northern Zhou
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The Northern Zhou followed the Western Wei, and ruled northern China from 557 to 581. The last of the Northern Dynasties of Chinas Northern and Southern dynasties period, like Western Wei and the Northern Wei dynasty that preceded it, the Northern Zhou states rulers were members of the Tuoba clan of the Xianbei. Northern Zhous basis of power was established by Yuwen Tai, who was paramount general of Western Wei, following the split of Northern Wei into Western Wei and Eastern Wei in 535. After Yuwen Tais death in 556, Yuwen Tais nephew Yuwen Hu forced Emperor Gong of Western Wei to yield the throne to Yuwen Tais son Yuwen Jue, establishing Northern Zhou. The reigns of the first three emperors – Emperor Xiaomin, Emperor Ming, and Emperor Wu were dominated by Yuwen Hu, until Emperor Wu ambushed and killed Yuwen Hu in 572 and assumed power personally. With Emperor Wu as a ruler, Northern Zhou destroyed rival Northern Qi in 577. However, Emperor Wus death in 578 doomed the state, as his son Emperor Xuan was an arbitrary, the imperial Yuwen clan, including the young Emperor Jing, was subsequently slaughtered by Yang Jian. The area was known as Guannei 關內, the Northern Zhou drew upon the Zhou dynasty for inspiration. The Northern Zhou military included Han Chinese
16.
Chen dynasty
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The Chen dynasty, also known as the Southern Chen dynasty, was the fourth and last of the Southern Dynasties in China, eventually destroyed by the Sui dynasty. Chen is the only dynasty named after the house in Chinese history. After Northern Zhou destroyed Northern Qi in 577, Chen was cornered, to make matters worse, its final emperor Chen Shubao was an incompetent and indulgent ruler, and Chen was eventually destroyed by Northern Zhous successor state Sui. During the short-lived dynasty, the Chams to the south resumed raids against the region of Jiaozhi, the raids ended with the conquest of the Southern Chen by the Sui. The Sui general Yang Su suppressed various Chen rebels in campaigns during the early 590s
17.
Tang dynasty
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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
18.
China
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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
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Vietnam
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Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 92.7 million inhabitants as of 2016, it is the worlds 14th-most-populous country, and its capital city has been Hanoi since the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1976, with Ho Chi Minh City as a historical city as well. The northern part of Vietnam was part of Imperial China for over a millennium, an independent Vietnamese state was formed in 939, following a Vietnamese victory in the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Following a Japanese occupation in the 1940s, the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War, thereafter, Vietnam was divided politically into two rival states, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified in what is known as the Vietnam War, the war ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Vietnam was then unified under a communist government but remained impoverished, in 1986, the government initiated a series of economic and political reforms which began Vietnams path towards integration into the world economy. By 2000, it had established relations with all nations. Since 2000, Vietnams economic growth rate has been among the highest in the world and its successful economic reforms resulted in its joining the World Trade Organization in 2007. It is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Vietnam remains one of the worlds four remaining one-party socialist states officially espousing communism. The name Việt Nam is a variation of Nam Việt, a name that can be traced back to the Triệu Dynasty of the 2nd century BC. The word Việt originated as a form of Bách Việt. The form Vietnam is first recorded in the 16th-century oracular poem Sấm Trạng Trình, the name has also been found on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bao Lam Pagoda in Haiphong that dates to 1558. Then, as recorded, rewarded Yuenan/Vietnam as their nations name, to also show that they are below the region of Baiyue/Bach Viet. Between 1804 and 1813, the name was used officially by Emperor Gia Long and it was revived in the early 20th century by Phan Bội Châus History of the Loss of Vietnam, and later by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party. The country was usually called Annam until 1945, when both the government in Huế and the Viet Minh government in Hanoi adopted Việt Nam. Archaeological excavations have revealed the existence of humans in what is now Vietnam as early as the Paleolithic age, Homo erectus fossils dating to around 500,000 BC have been found in caves in Lạng Sơn and Nghệ An provinces in northern Vietnam. The oldest Homo sapiens fossils from mainland Southeast Asia are of Middle Pleistocene provenance, teeth attributed to Homo sapiens from the Late Pleistocene have also been found at Dong Can, and from the Early Holocene at Mai Da Dieu, Lang Gao and Lang Cuom. The Hồng Bàng dynasty of the Hùng kings is considered the first Vietnamese state, in 257 BC, the last Hùng king was defeated by Thục Phán, who consolidated the Lạc Việt and Âu Việt tribes to form the Âu Lạc, proclaiming himself An Dương Vương
20.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
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Standard Chinese
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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
22.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
23.
Wu Chinese
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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
24.
Cantonese
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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
25.
Jyutping
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Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
26.
Southern Min
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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
27.
Taiwanese Romanization System
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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
28.
History of China
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Written records of the history of China can be found from as early as 1500 BC under the Shang dynasty. Ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian and the Bamboo Annals describe a Xia dynasty, with thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the worlds oldest civilizations, and is regarded as one of the cradles of civilization. Much of Chinese culture, literature and philosophy developed during the Zhou dynasty. This is one of multiple periods of failed statehood in Chinese history, between eras of multiple kingdoms and warlordism, Chinese dynasties have ruled parts or all of China, in some eras control stretched as far as Xinjiang and Tibet, as at present. In 221 BC Qin Shi Huang united the warring kingdoms and created for himself the title of emperor of the Qin dynasty. Successive dynasties developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the emperor to control vast territories directly, in the 21 centuries from 206 BC until AD1912, routine administrative tasks were handled by a special elite, the Scholar-officials. Young men were selected through difficult examinations and were well-versed in calligraphy and philosophy. What is now China was inhabited by Homo erectus more than a million years ago, recent study shows that the stone tools found at Xiaochangliang site are magnetostratigraphically dated to 1.36 million years ago. The archaeological site of Xihoudu in Shanxi Province is the earliest recorded use of fire by Homo erectus, the excavations at Yuanmou and later Lantian show early habitation. Perhaps the most famous specimen of Homo erectus found in China is the so-called Peking Man discovered in 1923–27, fossilised teeth of Homo sapiens dating to 125, 000–80,000 BC have been discovered in Fuyan Cave in Dao County in Hunan. The Neolithic age in China can be traced back to about 10,000 BC, Early evidence for proto-Chinese millet agriculture is radiocarbon-dated to about 7000 BC. The earliest evidence of cultivated rice, found by the Yangtze River, is carbon-dated to 8,000 years ago, farming gave rise to the Jiahu culture. At Damaidi in Ningxia,3,172 cliff carvings dating to 6000–5000 BC have been discovered, featuring 8,453 individual characters such as the sun, moon, stars, gods and these pictographs are reputed to be similar to the earliest characters confirmed to be written Chinese. Chinese proto-writing existed in Jiahu around 7000 BC, Dadiwan from 5800 BC to 5400 BC, Damaidi around 6000 BC, some scholars have suggested that Jiahu symbols were the earliest Chinese writing system. With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, Later, Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture, which was also centered on the Yellow River from about 3000 BC to 2000 BC. Bronze artifacts have been found at the Majiayao culture site, The Bronze Age is also represented at the Lower Xiajiadian culture site in northeast China. Sanxingdui located in what is now Sichuan province is believed to be the site of a ancient city. The site was first discovered in 1929 and then re-discovered in 1986, Chinese archaeologists have identified the Sanxingdui culture to be part of the ancient kingdom of Shu, linking the artifacts found at the site to its early legendary kings
29.
Xia dynasty
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The Xia dynasty is the first dynasty in traditional Chinese history. It is described in ancient historical chronicles such as the Bamboo Annals, the Classic of History, according to tradition, the dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him. The Xia was later succeeded by the Shang dynasty, the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project concluded that the Xia existed between 2070 and 1600 BCE. The first documentary reference to the Xia dates from more than a years later. Therefore, despite efforts by Chinese archaeologists to link the Xia with Bronze Age Erlitou archaeological sites, the Xia dynasty was described in classic texts such as the Classic of History, the Bamboo Annals, and the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian. According to tradition, the Huaxia were the people of the Han Chinese. Traditional histories trace the development of the Xia to the legendary Three Sovereigns, according to ancient Chinese texts, before the Xia dynasty was established, battles were frequent between the Xia tribe and Chi Yous tribe. The Xia tribe slowly developed around the time of Zhuanxu, one of the Five Emperors, based on this, tradition ascribes the ancestry of the Xia clan to Zhuanxu. Gun, the father of Yu the Great, is the earliest recorded member of the Xia clan, when the Yellow River flooded, many tribes united together to control and stop the flooding. Gun was appointed by Emperor Yao to stop the flooding and he ordered the construction of large blockades to block the path of the water. The attempt of Gun to stop the flooding lasted for nine years, after nine years, Yao had already given his throne to Shun. Yu was highly trusted by Shun, so Shun appointed him to finish his fathers work, Yu was dedicated to his work. People praised his perseverance and were inspired, so much so that other tribes joined in the work, yus success in stopping the flooding increased agricultural production. The Xia tribes power increased and Yu became the leader of the surrounding tribes, soon afterwards Shun sent Yu to lead an army to suppress the Sanmiao tribe, which continuously abused the border tribes. After defeating them, he exiled them south to the Han River area and this victory strengthened the Xia tribes power even more. As Shun aged, he thought of a successor and relinquished the throne to Yu, yus succession marks the start of the Xia dynasty. As Yu neared death he passed the throne to his son, Qi, instead of passing it to the most capable candidate, the Xia dynasty began a period of family or clan control. It is believed that Zhenxun was one of the capitals of the dynasty, jie, the last king, was said to be corrupt
30.
Shang dynasty
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The Shang dynasty or Yin dynasty, according to traditional historiography, ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Zhou dynasty. The classic account of the Shang comes from such as the Book of Documents, Bamboo Annals. The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project dated them from c.1600 to 1046 BC, the Shang dynasty is the earliest dynasty of traditional Chinese history supported by archaeological evidence. Tens of thousands of bronze, jade, stone, bone, the Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of Chinese writing, mostly divinations inscribed on oracle bones – turtle shells, ox scapulae, or other bones. More than 20,000 were discovered in the scientific excavations during the 1920s and 1930s. The inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, many events concerning the Shang dynasty are mentioned in various Chinese classics, including the Book of Documents, the Mencius and the Zuo Zhuan. Working from all the documents, the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian assembled a sequential account of the Shang dynasty as part of his Records of the Grand Historian. His history describes some events in detail, while in other cases only the name of a king is given, a closely related, but slightly different, account is given by the Bamboo Annals. The Annals were interred in 296 BC, but the text has a complex history, the name Yīn is used by Sima Qian for the dynasty, and in the current text version of the Bamboo Annals for both the dynasty and its final capital. It has been a name for the Shang throughout history. Since the Records of Emperors and Kings by Huangfu Mi, it has often used specifically to describe the later half of the Shang dynasty. In Japan and Korea, the Shang are still referred to almost exclusively as the Yin dynasty, however it seems to have been a Zhou name for the earlier dynasty. The word does not appear in the bones, which refer to the state as Shāng. It also does not appear in securely-dated Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, xie is said to have helped Yu the Great to control the Great Flood and for his service to have been granted a place called Shang as a fief. Sima Qian relates that the dynasty itself was founded 13 generations later, when Xies descendant Tang overthrew the impious and cruel final Xia ruler in the Battle of Mingtiao. The Records recount events from the reigns of Tang, Tai Jia, Tai Wu, Pan Geng, Wu Ding, Wu Yi and the final king Di Xin. According to the Records, the Shang moved their capital five times, Di Xin, the last Shang king, is said to have committed suicide after his army was defeated by Wu of Zhou. Legends say that his army and his equipped slaves betrayed him by joining the Zhou rebels in the decisive Battle of Muye, according to the Yi Zhou Shu and Mencius the battle was very bloody
31.
Zhou dynasty
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The Zhou dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang dynasty and preceded the Qin dynasty. This period of Chinese history produced what many consider the zenith of Chinese bronze-ware making, the dynasty also spans the period in which the written script evolved into its almost-modern form with the use of an archaic clerical script that emerged during the late Warring States period. He even received sacrifice as a harvest god, the term Hòujì was probably an hereditary title attached to a lineage. Jus son Liu, however, led his people to prosperity by restoring agriculture and settling them at a place called Bin, tai later led the clan from Bin to Zhou, an area in the Wei River valley of modern-day Qishan County. Taibo and Zhongyong had supposedly fled to the Yangtze delta. Jilis son Wen bribed his way out of imprisonment and moved the Zhou capital to Feng, the Zhou enfeoffed a member of the defeated Shang royal family as the Duke of Song, which was held by descendants of the Shang royal family until its end. This practice was referred to as Two Kings, Three Reverences, according to Nicholas Bodman, the Zhou appear to have spoken a language not basically different in vocabulary and syntax from that of the Shang. A recent study by David McCraw, using lexical statistics, reached the same conclusion, the Zhou emulated extensively Shang cultural practices, perhaps to legitimize their own rule, and became the successors to Shang culture. At the same time, the Zhou may also have connected to the Xirong, a broadly defined cultural group to the west of the Shang. According to the historian Li Feng, the term Rong during the Western Zhou period was used to designate political and military adversaries rather than cultural. The proto-Zhou were first located in the Shaanxi-Shanxi highland, where they absorbed elements from the Guangshe culture, King Liu moved his people to the lower Fen Valley and to the western bank of the Yellow River, where they resumed agriculture. His son Qing Jie, led the Zhou to the valley of the Jing River. They stayed there until Dan Fu moved again to the Wei Valley in order to avoid incursion by the Rongdi nomads. During this period, the Zhou mingled with the Qiang people, in all these stages, the advanced Shang bronze culture constantly imparted its influence on the Zhou. The Qi area was the region in all these influences would come to fruition. The contact among the proto-Zhou, the native Shaanxi Longshan, the Qiang, King Wu maintained the old capital for ceremonial purposes but constructed a new one for his palace and administration nearby at Hao. Although Wus early death left a young and inexperienced heir, the Duke of Zhou assisted his nephew King Cheng in consolidating royal power. Wary of the Duke of Zhous increasing power, the Three Guards, Zhou princes stationed on the eastern plain, to maintain Zhou authority over its greatly expanded territory and prevent other revolts, he set up the fengjian system
32.
Western Zhou
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The Western Zhou period was the first half of the Zhou dynasty of ancient China. It began when King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang dynasty at the Battle of Muye, the dynasty was successful for about seventy-five years and then slowly lost power. The former Shang lands were divided into fiefs which became increasingly independent of the king. In 771, the Zhou were driven out of the Wei River valley, few records survive from this early period and accounts from the Western Zhou period cover little beyond a list of kings with uncertain dates. King Wu died two or three years after the conquest, because his son, King Cheng of Zhou was young, his brother, the Duke of Zhou assisted the young and inexperienced king as regent. Wus other brothers, concerned about the Duke of Zhous growing power, formed an alliance with other regional rulers, the Duke of Zhou stamped out this rebellion and conquered more territory to bring other people under Zhou rule. The Duke formulated the Mandate of Heaven doctrine to counter Shang claims to a right of rule. With a feudal system, royal relatives and generals were given fiefs in the east, including Luoyang, Jin, Ying, Lu, Qi. While this was designed to maintain Zhou authority as it expanded its rule over an amount of territory. When the Duke of Zhou stepped down as regent, the remainder of Chengs reign, the fourth king, King Zhao of Zhou led an army south against Chu and was killed along with a large part of the Zhou army. The fifth king, King Mu of Zhou is remembered for his visit to the Queen Mother of the West. Territory was lost to the Xu Rong in the southeast, the reigns of the next four kings are poorly documented. The ninth king is said to have boiled the Duke of Qi in a cauldron, the tenth king, King Li of Zhou was forced into exile and power was held for fourteen years by the Gonghe Regency. Lis overthrow may have accompanied by Chinas first recorded peasant rebellion. When Li died in exile, Gonghe retired and power passed to Lis son King Xuan of Zhou, King Xuan worked to restore royal authority, though regional lords became less obedient later in his reign. The twelfth and last king of the Western Zhou period was King You of Zhou, some scholars have surmised that the sack of Haojing might have been connected to a Scythian raid from the Altai before their westward expansion. Most of the Zhou nobles withdrew from the Wei River valley and this was the start of the Eastern Zhou period, which is customarily divided into the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. It is possible that the Zhou kings derived most of their income from lands in the Wei valley
33.
Spring and Autumn period
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The Spring and Autumn period was a period in Chinese history from approximately 771 to 476 BC which corresponds roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. The periods name derives from the Spring and Autumn Annals, a chronicle of the state of Lu between 722 and 479 BC, which associates with Confucius. The gradual Partition of Jin, one of the most powerful states, marked the end of the Spring and Autumn period, in 771 BC, the Quanrong invasion destroyed the Western Zhou and its capital Haojing, forcing the Zhou king to flee to the eastern capital Luoyi. The event ushered in the Eastern Zhou dynasty, which is divided into the Spring and Autumn, during the Spring and Autumn period, Chinas feudal system of fengjian became largely irrelevant. The Zhou court, having lost its homeland in the Guanzhong region, held nominal power, during the early part of the Zhou dynasty period, royal relatives and generals had been given control over fiefdoms in an effort to maintain Zhou authority over vast territory. As the power of the Zhou kings waned, these became increasingly independent states. The most important states came together in regular conferences where they decided important matters, during these conferences one vassal ruler was sometimes declared hegemon. As the era continued, larger and more powerful states annexed or claimed suzerainty over smaller ones, by the 6th century BC most small states had disappeared and just a few large and powerful principalities dominated China. Some southern states, such as Chu and Wu, claimed independence from the Zhou, in Chengzhou, Prince Yijiu was crowned by his supporters as King Ping. The Zhou court would never regain its authority, instead. Though the king de jure retained the Mandate of Heaven, the title held little actual power, a total of 148 states are mentioned in the chronicles for this period,128 of which were absorbed by the four largest states by the end of the period. The kings prestige legitimized the military leaders of the states, over the next two centuries, the four most powerful states—Qin, Jin, Qi and Chu—struggled for power. These multi-city states often used the pretext of aid and protection to intervene, during this rapid expansion, interstate relations alternated between low-level warfare and complex diplomacy. Duke Yin of Lu ascended the throne in 722 BC, from this year on the state of Lu kept an official chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals, which along with its commentaries is the standard source for the Spring and Autumn period. Corresponding chronicles are known to have existed in states as well. In 717 BC, Duke Zhuang of Zheng went to the capital for an audience with King Huan, during the encounter the duke felt he was not treated with the respect and etiquette which would have been appropriate, given that Zheng was now the chief protector of the capital. In 715 BC Zheng also became involved in a dispute with Lu regarding the Fields of Xu. The fields had been put in the care of Lu by the king for the purpose of producing royal sacrifices for the sacred Mount Tai
34.
Warring States period
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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
35.
Qin dynasty
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The Qin dynasty was the first dynasty of Imperial China, lasting from 221 to 206 BCE. The strength of the Qin state was increased by the Legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the fourth century BC. It is also the shortest dynasty in Chinese history, lasting only 15 years with two emperors, Qin administration was by no means purely punitive, and was not harsher than was generally prevalent at the time. Though often anathema to Legalist philosophy, Confucianism and its values too coexisted with Legalism during the reign of the First Emperor, Qin administrative documents considered such matters as filial piety, and one circulated letter reads that The purpose of all standards. Is to teach and lead the people, rid them of dissoluteness and depravity. during its reign over China, the Qin sought to create an imperial state unified by highly structured political power and a stable economy able to support a large military. This allowed for the construction of projects, such as a wall on the northern border. For years, local rulers built walls along Chinas northern border to protect their villages from invaders, Three hundred thousand peasants and convicts were forced to work on this 1,400 mile wall. The Qin dynasty introduced reforms, currency, weights and measures were standardized. The Qins military was revolutionary in that it used the most recently developed weaponry, transportation, an attempt to restrict criticism and purge all traces of old dynasties led to the supposed burning of books and burying of scholars later espoused by Confucians. Despite its military strength, the Qin dynasty did not last long, the advisors squabbled among themselves, however, resulting in both their deaths and that of the second Qin emperor. Popular revolt broke out a few later, and the weakened empire soon fell to a Chu lieutenant. Despite its rapid end, the dynasty influenced future Chinese empires, particularly the Han, in the 9th century BC, Feizi, a supposed descendant of the ancient political advisor Gao Yao, was granted rule over Qin City. The modern city of Tianshui stands where this city once was, during the rule of King Xiao of Zhou, the eighth king of the Zhou dynasty, this area became known as the state of Qin. In 897 BC, under the regency of Gonghe, the became a dependency allotted for the purpose of raising and breeding horses. One of Feizis descendants, Duke Zhuang, became favoured by King Ping of Zhou, as a reward, Zhuangs son, Duke Xiang, was sent eastward as the leader of a war expedition, during which he formally established the Qin. The state of Qin first sent an expedition into central China in 672 BC. By the dawn of the fourth century BC, however, the tribes had all been either subdued or conquered. The resulting city greatly resembled the capitals of other Warring States, notably, Qin Legalism encouraged practical and ruthless warfare
36.
Han dynasty
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The Han dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period. Spanning over four centuries, the Han period is considered an age in Chinese history. To this day, Chinas majority ethnic group refers to itself as the Han people and it was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han, and briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang. This interregnum separates the Han dynasty into two periods, the Western Han or Former Han and the Eastern Han or Later Han, the emperor was at the pinnacle of Han society. He presided over the Han government but shared power with both the nobility and appointed ministers who came largely from the gentry class. The Han Empire was divided into areas controlled by the central government using an innovation inherited from the Qin known as commanderies. These kingdoms gradually lost all vestiges of their independence, particularly following the Rebellion of the Seven States, from the reign of Emperor Wu onward, the Chinese court officially sponsored Confucianism in education and court politics, synthesized with the cosmology of later scholars such as Dong Zhongshu. This policy endured until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 AD, the Han dynasty was an age of economic prosperity and saw a significant growth of the money economy first established during the Zhou dynasty. The coinage issued by the government mint in 119 BC remained the standard coinage of China until the Tang dynasty. The period saw a number of limited institutional innovations, the Xiongnu, a nomadic steppe confederation, defeated the Han in 200 BC and forced the Han to submit as a de facto inferior partner, but continued their raids on the Han borders. Emperor Wu of Han launched several campaigns against them. The ultimate Han victory in these wars eventually forced the Xiongnu to accept vassal status as Han tributaries, the territories north of Hans borders were quickly overrun by the nomadic Xianbei confederation. Imperial authority was seriously challenged by large Daoist religious societies which instigated the Yellow Turban Rebellion. When Cao Pi, King of Wei, usurped the throne from Emperor Xian, following Liu Bangs victory in the Chu–Han Contention, the resulting Han dynasty was named after the Hanzhong fief. Chinas first imperial dynasty was the Qin dynasty, the Qin unified the Chinese Warring States by conquest, but their empire became unstable after the death of the first emperor Qin Shi Huangdi. Within four years, the authority had collapsed in the face of rebellion. Although Xiang Yu proved to be a commander, Liu Bang defeated him at Battle of Gaixia. Liu Bang assumed the title emperor at the urging of his followers and is known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu, Changan was chosen as the new capital of the reunified empire under Han
37.
Xin dynasty
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The Xin dynasty was a Chinese dynasty which lasted from 9 to 23 AD. It interrupted the Han dynasty, dividing it into the periods of the Western Han, the sole emperor of the Xin dynasty, Wang Mang, was the nephew of Grand Empress Dowager Wang Zhengjun. After the death of her step-grandson Emperor Ai in 1 BC, after several years of cultivating a personality cult, he finally proclaimed himself emperor in 9 AD. However, while a creative scholar and politician, he was an incompetent ruler and he died in the siege, and the Han dynasty was restored by descendants of the former imperial clan. Wars With the Xiongnu - A translation from Zizhi tongjian Chapter 13–17 - pp 404–601 ISBN 978-1-4490-0605-1
38.
Three Kingdoms
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The Three Kingdoms was the tripartite division of China between the states of Wei, Shu, and Wu, following the Han dynasty and preceding the Jin dynasty. The term Three Kingdoms itself is something of a mistranslation, since each state was eventually headed not by a king, nevertheless, the term Three Kingdoms has become standard among sinologists. Academically, the period of the Three Kingdoms refers to the period between the foundation of the state of Wei in 220 AD and the conquest of the state of Wu by the Jin dynasty in 280. The earlier, unofficial part of the period, from 184 to 220, was marked by infighting between warlords in various parts of China. The middle part of the period, from 220 and 263, was marked by a more militarily stable arrangement between three states of Wei, Shu, and Wu. The later part of the era was marked by the conquest of Shu by Wei, the usurpation of Wei by the Jin dynasty, the Three Kingdoms period is one of the bloodiest in Chinese history. While the census may not have been particularly accurate due to a multitude of factors of the times, technology advanced significantly during this period. Shu chancellor Zhuge Liang invented the wooden ox, suggested to be a form of the wheelbarrow. Wei mechanical engineer Ma Jun is considered by many to be the equal of his predecessor Zhang Heng, although relatively short, this historical period has been greatly romanticized in the cultures of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. It has been celebrated and popularized in operas, folk stories, novels and in recent times, films, television. The best known of these is Luo Guanzhongs Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the authoritative historical record of the era is Chen Shous Records of the Three Kingdoms, along with Pei Songzhis later annotations of the text. There is no set time period for the era, and many definitions are given. The strictest rule of dating would be to deem the era to be from the point where all three states coexisted as independent states up until the downfall of the Shu-Han states. Mao Zonggang, a commentator on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, mentions in his commentary on Chapter 120 of the novel that, the Han royal house declined when the eunuchs abused the sovereign and officials subverted the government. In doing so, he suggests that the historiography of the Three Kingdoms should begin at the rise of the Ten Eunuchs to power. He further argues that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms defines the end of the era as 280, to end the tale before Hans enemy had itself met its fate would be to leave the reader unsatisfied. The novel could have ended with the fall of Wei, to end the tale before Hans ally had fallen would be to leave the reader with an incomplete picture. So the tale had to end with the fall of Wu, the power of the Eastern Han dynasty went into depression and steadily declined from a variety of political and economic problems after the death in 105 of Emperor He
39.
Cao Wei
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Cao Wei was one of the three major states that competed for supremacy over China in the Three Kingdoms period. With its capital at Luoyang, the state was established by Cao Pi in 220, based upon the foundations laid by his father, Cao Cao, towards the end of the Eastern Han dynasty. Historians often add the prefix Cao to distinguish it from other Chinese states known as Wei, such as Wei of the Warring States period and Northern Wei of the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The authority of the ruling Cao family gradually weakened after the death of the second Wei emperor, Cao Rui, and eventually fell into the hands of Sima Yi, a Wei regent, and his family, in 249. Towards the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, northern China came under the control of Cao Cao, in 213, Emperor Xian granted Cao Cao the title of Duke of Wei and gave him ten cities as his dukedom. At that time, the part of China was divided into two areas controlled by two other warlords, Liu Bei and Sun Quan. In 216, Emperor Xian promoted Cao Cao to the status of a vassal king — King of Wei —, Cao Cao died on 15 March 220 and his vassal king title was inherited by his son Cao Pi. Later that year, on 11 December, Cao Pi forced Emperor Xian to abdicate in his favour and took over the throne, however, Liu Bei immediately contested Cao Pis claim to the Han throne and declared himself Emperor of Shu Han a year later. Sun Quan was nominally a vassal king under Wei, but he declared independence in 222, Cao Pi ruled for six years until his death in 226 and was succeeded by his son, Cao Rui, who ruled until his death in 239. Throughout the reigns of Cao Pi and Cao Rui, Wei had been fighting numerous wars with its two rival states — Shu and Wu. The Shu invasions were repelled by the Wei armies led by the generals Cao Zhen, Sima Yi, Zhang He and others, Shu did not make any significant gains in the expeditions. On its southern and eastern borders, Wei engaged Wu in a series of armed conflicts throughout the 220s and 230s, including the battles of Dongkou, however, most of the battles resulted in stalemate and neither side managed to significantly expand its territory. Around that time, as the Korean kingdom Goguryeo consolidated its power, Goguryeo initiated the Goguryeo–Wei Wars in 242, trying to cut off Chinese access to its territories in Korea by attempting to take a Chinese fort. However, Wei responded by invading and defeated Goguryeo, hwando was destroyed in revenge by Wei forces in 244. In 249, during the reign of Cao Ruis successor, Cao Fang and this event marked the collapse of imperial authority in Wei, as Cao Fangs role had been reduced to a puppet ruler while Sima Yi wielded state power firmly in his hands. Sima Yi died in 251 and passed on his authority to his eldest son, Sima Shi, Sima Shi deposed Cao Fang in 254 and replaced him with Cao Mao. After Sima Shi died in the year, his younger brother, Sima Zhao, inherited his power. In 260, Cao Mao attempted to back state power from Sima Zhao in a coup
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Shu Han
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Shu or Shu Han was one of the three major states that competed for supremacy over China in the Three Kingdoms period. The state was based in the area around present-day Sichuan and Chongqing, towards the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, Liu Bei, a warlord and distant relative of the Han imperial clan, rallied the support of many capable followers. Following the counsel of his advisor, Zhuge Liang, and Zhuges Longzhong Plan, Liu Bei took over Yi Province from the warlord Liu Zhang between 212 and 215 and wrestled control of Hanzhong from his rival Cao Cao in 219. From the territories he gained, Liu Bei established a position for himself in China during the years of the Han dynasty. However, in 219, the alliance between Liu Bei and his ally, Sun Quan, was broken when Sun sent his general Lü Meng to invade Jing Province, Liu Bei lost his territories in Jing Province to Sun Quan. Guan Yu, the general guarding Liu Beis assets in Jing Province, was captured and executed by Sun Quans forces. Cao Cao died in 220 and was succeeded by his son, Cao Pi, Cao Pi then established the state of Cao Wei and declared himself emperor. Liu Bei contested Cao Pis claim to the throne and proclaimed himself Emperor of Shu Han in 221. Although Liu Bei is widely seen as the founder of Shu, he never claimed to be the founder of a new dynasty, rather, Liu Bei ruled as emperor for less than three years. In 222, he launched a campaign against Sun Quan to retake Jing Province and avenge Guan Yu, however, due to grave tactical mistakes, Liu Bei suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Sun Quans general Lu Xun and lost the bulk of his army. He survived the battle and retreated to Baidicheng, where he died from illness a year later, Liu Beis son Liu Shan succeeded his father, making him the youngest of three rulers at only 16. Before his death, Liu Bei also appointed the chancellor Zhuge Liang, Zhuge Liang was the de facto head of the Shu government throughout Liu Shans reign and was responsible for masterminding most of Shus policies during his regency. When Liu Shan succeeded his father, Shu was the weakest of the three major powers, following his fathers defeat in 221, the portion of Jing Province previously held by Shu was now firmly under the control of Wu. This greatly limited Shu in terms of resources and manpower, Zhuge Liang advocated an aggressive foreign policy towards Wei, because he strongly believed it was critical to the survival of Shu and its sovereignty. Between the years of 228 and 234, he launched a series of five military campaigns against Wei, with the aim of conquering Changan, most of the battles were fought around present-day Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. However, aside from gaining Jiang Wei as an officer in 228, the Shu government was then headed by Jiang Wan, Fei Yi and others after Zhuge Liangs death, and Shu temporarily ceased its aggression towards Wei. The Wei regent Cao Shuang launched an invasion of Hanzhong in 244, despite being outnumbered 2-to-1, the Shu forces successfully defeated them at the Battle of Xingshi, with the humiliated Wei forces fleeing. Between 247 and 262, the Shu general Jiang Wei resumed Zhuge Liangs legacy by leading a series of campaigns against Wei
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Eastern Wu
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Wu, commonly known as Eastern Wu or Sun Wu, was one of the three major states that competed for supremacy over China in the Three Kingdoms period. It previously existed from 220–222 as a vassal kingdom nominally under Cao Wei, its rival state and it became an empire in 229 after its founding ruler, Sun Quan, declared himself Emperor. Its name was derived from the place it was based in — the Jiangnan region and it was called Eastern Wu because it occupied most of eastern China in the Three Kingdoms period, and Sun Wu because the family name of its rulers was Sun. During its existence, Wus capital was at Jianye, but at times it was also at Wuchang. Sun Ce broke off relations with Yuan Shu around 196-197 after the latter declared himself emperor — an act deemed as treason against Emperor Xian, the figurehead ruler of the Han dynasty. The warlord Cao Cao, who was the de facto head of government in the Han imperial court, Sun Ce was assassinated in the summer of 200 and was succeeded by his younger brother, Sun Quan. Sun Quan, like his brother, also paid nominal allegiance to Emperor Xian while maintaining autonomous rule over the Wu territories. In 208, Sun Quan allied with the warlord Liu Bei, Sun Quan and Liu Bei maintained their alliance against Cao Cao after the battle for the next ten years or so, despite having some territorial disputes over Jing Province. In 219, Sun Quan severed ties with Liu Bei when he sent his general Lü Meng to invade Lius territories in Jing Province, Guan Yu, who was defending Liu Beis assets in Jing Province, was captured and executed by Sun Quans forces. After that, the boundaries of Sun Quans domain extended from beyond the Jiangdong region to include the part of Jing Province. In 220, Cao Caos son and successor, Cao Pi, ended the Han dynasty by forcing Emperor Xian to abdicate in his favour, Sun Quan agreed to submit to Wei and was granted the title of a vassal king, King of Wu, by Cao Pi. A year later, Liu Bei declared himself emperor and founded the state of Shu Han, in 222, Liu Bei launched a military campaign against Sun Quan to take back Jing Province and avenge Guan Yu, leading to the Battle of Xiaoting. However, Liu Bei suffered a defeat at the hands of Sun Quans general Lu Xun and was forced to retreat to Baidicheng. Liu Beis successor, Liu Shan, and his regent, Zhuge Liang, made peace with Sun Quan later, Sun Quan declared independence from Wei in 222, but continued to rule as King of Wu until 229, when he declared himself Emperor of Wu. His legitimacy was recognised by Shu, Sun Quan ruled for over 30 years and his long reign resulted in stability in southern China. During his reign, Wu engaged Wei in numerous wars, including the battles of Ruxu, Shiting, however, Wu never managed to gain any territory north of the Yangtze River while Wei also never succeeded in conquering the lands south of the Yangtze. The conflict resulted in the emergence of two rivalling factions, each supporting either Sun He or Sun Ba, in Sun Quans imperial court. Sun Quan eventually deposed Sun He and forced Sun Ba to commit suicide, while Lu Xun, Sun Quan appointed his youngest son, Sun Liang, as the crown prince after the incident
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Sixteen Kingdoms
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The period ended with the unification of northern China by the Northern Wei in the early 5th century. Cui Hong did not count several other kingdoms that appeared at the time including the Ran Wei, Zhai Wei, nor did he include the Northern Wei and its predecessor Dai, because the Northern Wei eventually became the ruling dynasty of northern China. Among the handful of the states founded by Han Chinese, several founders had close relations with ethnic minorities, the father of Ran Min, the founder of the Ran Wei, was adopted into a Jie ruling family. Feng Ba, who is considered by historians to be the founder of the Northern Yan, had been assimilated into Xianbei culture. Gao Yun, considered by historians to be the Northern Yan founder, was an ethnic Korean who had been adopted by Xianbei nobility. Due to fierce competition among the states and internal political instability, from 376 to 383, the Former Qin briefly unified northern China, but its collapse led to even greater political fragmentation. The Sixteen Kingdoms is considered to be one of the most chaotic periods in Chinese history, from the late Han Dynasty to the early Jin dynasty, large numbers of non-Han Chinese peoples living along Chinas northern periphery settled in northern China. Some of these such as the Xiongnu and Xianbei had been pastoralist nomads from the northern steppes. Others such as the Di and Qiang were farmers and herders from the mountains of western Sichuan, as migrants, they lived among Han Chinese and were sinified to varying degrees. Some attained official positions in the court and military and they also faced discrimination and retained clan and tribal affiliations. The War of the Eight Princes during the reign of the second Jin ruler Emperor Hui severely divided and weakened imperial authority, hundreds of thousands were killed and millions were uprooted by the internecine fighting. Popular rebellions against heavy taxation and repression erupted throughout the country, in Sichuan, Li Xiong, a Di chieftain, led a successful rebellion and founded Cheng Han kingdom in 304. Thus began the creation of independent kingdoms in northern China as Jin authority crumbled, most of these kingdoms were founded by ethnic minority leaders who took on Chinese reign names. Jin princes and military governors often recruited ethnic minorities into their armies in their suppression of rebellions and his regime, later renamed Zhao, is designated by historians as the Han Zhao or Former Zhao. After Liu Yuan died in 310, his son Liu Cong killed older brother Liu He, Liu Cong captured the Jin capital Luoyang and Emperor Hui in 311. In 316, Liu Congs uncle Liu Yao seized Changan and the Emperor Min, Sima Rui, a Jin prince who had moved to the South, continued the dynasty as the Eastern Jin from Jiankang. The collapse of Jin authority in the North led other leaders to declare independence, in 313, Zhang Gui, the ethnic Han governor of Liangzhou founded the Former Liang in modern-day Gansu. In 315, Tuoba Yilu, a Xianbei chieftain, founded the Dai in modern-day Inner Mongolia, after Liu Congs death, the kingdom was split between Liu Yao and General Shi Le
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Northern and Southern dynasties
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The Northern and Southern dynasties was a period in the history of China that lasted from 420 to 589, following the tumultuous era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Wu Hu states. It is sometimes considered as the part of a longer period known as the Six Dynasties. Though an age of war and political chaos, it was also a time of flourishing arts and culture, advancement in technology. The period saw large-scale migration of Han Chinese to the south of the Yangtze. The period came to an end with the unification of all of China proper by Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, during this period, the process of sinicization accelerated among the non-Chinese arrivals in the north and among the indigenous people in the south. Notable technological advances occurred during this period, the invention of the stirrup during the earlier Jin dynasty helped spur the development of heavy cavalry as a combat standard. Historians also note advances in medicine, astronomy, mathematics, intellectuals of the period include the mathematician and astronomer Zu Chongzhi. After the collapse of a united China under the Han dynasty in 220 due in part to the Yellow Turban. Of these, Cao Wei was the strongest, followed by Eastern Wu and Shu Han, after a 249 coup by Sima Yi, the Sima family essentially controlled Cao Wei and the conquest of Shu by Wei rapidly followed. Following a failed coup by the ruling Cao family against the Sima family, Sima Yan then founded the Jin Dynasty as Emperor Wu of Jin and the conquest of Wu by Jin occurred in 280, ending the Three Kingdoms period and reuniting China. The Jin dynasty was weakened after the War of the Eight Princes from 291-306. During the reigns of Emperor Huai and Emperor Min, the country was put into danger with the uprising of the northern non-Han people collectively known as the Five Barbarians. Invading non-Han armies almost destroyed the dynasty in the Disaster of Yongjia of 311, changan met a similar fate in 316. However, a scion of the house, Sima Rui, Prince of Langya, fled south of the Huai River to salvage what was left in order to sustain the empire. In the north, the Five Barbarians established numerous kingdoms, leading to the period being known as the Sixteen Kingdoms, eventually, the Northern Wei conquered the rest of the northern states in 386. The designation of specific households for military service in the system eventually led to a falling out in their social status. Faced with shortage of numbers, Jin generals were often sent on campaigns to capture non-Chinese people in the south in order to draft them into the military. The Northern dynasties began in 439 when the Northern Wei conquered the Northern Liang to unite northern China and it can be divided into three time periods, Northern Wei, Eastern and Western Weis, Northern Qi and Northern Zhou
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Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period
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The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, also called Five Dynasties, was an era of political upheaval in 10th-century imperial China. During this period, five states quickly succeeded one another in the Chinese Central Plain, while more than a dozen concurrent states were established elsewhere, mainly in south China. Traditionally, the era started with the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907 AD, many states were de facto independent kingdoms long before 907. After the Tang had collapsed, the kings who controlled the central plain crowned themselves as emperor, war between kingdoms occurred frequently to gain control of the central plain for legitimacy, and then over whole China. The last of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms states, Northern Han, was not vanquished until 979, the Five Dynasties were, Later Liang Later Tang Later Jin Later Han Later Zhou. The Ten Kingdoms were, Wu Wuyue Min Chu Southern Han Former Shu Later Shu Jingnan Southern Tang Northern Han and this era also led to the founding of the Liao dynasty in the north. Other regimes during this period were Yan, Qi, Zhao, Yiwu Jiedushi, Dingnan Jiedushi, Wuping Jiedushi, Qingyuan Jiedushi, Yin, Ganzhou, Shazhou, towards the end of the Tang, the imperial government granted increased powers to the jiedushi, the regional military governors. The Huang Chao Rebellion weakened the government, and by the early 10th century the jiedushi commanded de facto independence from its authority. Thus ensued the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, although he was originally a member of Huang Chaos rebel army, he took on a crucial role in suppressing the Huang Chao Rebellion. For this function, he was awarded the Xuanwu Jiedushi title, within a few years, he had consolidated his power by destroying neighbours and forcing the move of the imperial capital to Luoyang, which was within his region of influence. In 904, he executed Emperor Zhaozong of Tang and made his 13-year-old son a subordinate ruler, three years later, he induced the boy emperor to abdicate in his favour. He then proclaimed emperor, thus beginning the Later Liang. During the final years of the Tang Dynasty, rival warlords declared independence in their governing provinces — not all of whom recognized the emperors authority, Li Cunxu and Liu Shouguang fiercely fought the regime forces to conquer northern China, Li Cunxu succeeded. He defeated Liu Shouguang in 915, and declared himself emperor in 923, within a few months, thus began the Shatuo Later Tang — the first in a long line of conquest dynasties. After reuniting much of northern China, Cunxu conquered Former Shu in 925, the Later Tang had a few years of relative calm, followed by unrest. In 934, Sichuan again asserted independence, in 936, Shi Jingtang, a Shatuo jiedushi from Taiyuan, was aided by the Liao dynasty in a rebellion against the Later Tang. In return for their aid, Shi Jingtang promised annual tribute, the rebellion succeeded, Shi Jingtang became emperor in this same year. Not long after the founding of the Later Jin, the Khitans regarded the emperor as a ruler for China proper
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Liao dynasty
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The Liao dynasty was founded by Abaoji, Khagan of the Khitan people around the time of the collapse of Tang China. It was the first state to all of Manchuria. Almost immediately after its founding, the Liao dynasty began a process of territorial expansion, tension between traditional Khitan social and political practices and Chinese influence and customs was a defining feature of the dynasty. So different were Khitan and Chinese practices that Abaoji set up two parallel governments, Khitan women were taught to hunt, managed family property, and held military posts. Many marriages were not arranged, women were not required to be virgins at their first marriage, the Liao dynasty was destroyed by the Jurchen people of the Jin dynasty in 1125 with the capture of Emperor Tianzuo of Liao. However, the remnant Khitan, led by Yelü Dashi, established the Qara Khitai, the Liao dynasty was officially known as the Khitan（now known as Cathay） or Khitan state in 916. The name Great Liao began to appear as the name between 936 and 947. The dynasty name Liao means iron, but it refers to the Liao River in southern Manchuria. Since 983 the state became known as the Khitan, but Great Liao reappeared as the country name in 1066. Neither the origins, ethnic makeup, nor early history of the Khitans are well documented in historical records, the earliest reference to a Khitan state is found in the Book of Wei, a history of the Northern Wei Dynasty that was completed in 554. Several books written after 554 mention the Khitans as being active during the late third, the Book of Jin, a history of the Jin dynasty, refers to the Khitans in the section covering the reign of Murong Sheng. Samguk Sagi, a history of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, Twitchett and Klaus-Peter Tietze, it is generally held that the Khitans emerged from the Yuwen branch of the Xianbei people. Following a defeat at the hands of another branch of the Xianbei in 345, in 388 the Kumo Xi itself split, with one group remaining under the name Kumo Xi and the other group becoming the Khitans. This view is backed up by the Book of Wei. There are also several competing theories on the origin of the Khitans, beginning in the Song dynasty, some Chinese scholars suggested that the Khitans might have descended from the Xiongnu people. While modern historians have rejected the idea that the Khitan were solely Xiongnu in origin, there is support for the claim that they are of mixed Xianbei. By the time the Book of Wei was written in 554, the Khitans suffered a series of military defeats to other nomadic groups in the region, as well as to the Chinese Northern Qi and Sui Dynasties. Khitan tribes at various times fell under the influence of Turkic tribes such as the Uighurs and Chinese dynasties such as the Sui and this influence would significantly shape Khitan language and culture
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