1.
People's Liberation Army
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The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army is the armed forces of the Communist Party of China and the Peoples Republic of China. The PLA consists of five service branches, the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force. The PLA is the worlds largest military force, with a strength of approximately 2,183,000 personnel. In September 2015, Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the PLAs insignia consists of a roundel with a red star bearing the Chinese characters for Eight One, referring to the Nanchang Uprising which began on August 1,1927. The PLA is under the command of the Central Military Commission of the CPC and its commander in chief is the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. The Ministry of National Defense, which operates under the State Council and this conception of the role of the PLA requires the promotion of specialised officers who can understand modern weaponry and handle combined arms operations. Units around the country are assigned to one of five Theater commands by geographical location, Military service is compulsory by law, however, compulsory military service in China has never been enforced due to large numbers of military and paramilitary personnel. In times of emergency, the Peoples Armed Police and the Peoples Liberation Army militia act as a reserve. They were then known as the Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army, between 1934 and 1935, the Red Army survived several campaigns led against it by Chiang Kai-Shek and engaged in the Long March. After the Japanese surrendered in 1945, the Communist Party merged the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army and they eventually won the Chinese Civil War, establishing the Peoples Republic of China in 1949. The PLA then saw a reorganisation with the establishment of the Air Force leadership structure in November 1949 followed by the Navy leadership the following April. In 1950, the structures of the artillery, armoured troops, air defence troops, public security forces. The chemical warfare defence forces, the forces, the communications forces. During the 1950s, the PLA with Soviet assistance began to transform itself from a peasant army into a modern one, part of this process was the reorganisation that created thirteen military regions in 1955. The PLA also contained many former National Revolutionary Army units and generals who had defected to the PLA, Ma Hongbin and his son Ma Dunjing were the only two Muslim generals who led a Muslim unit, the 81st corps, to ever serve in the PLA. Han Youwen, a Salar Muslim general, also defected to the PLA, in November 1950, some units of the PLA under the name of the Peoples Volunteer Army intervened in the Korean War as United Nations forces under General Douglas MacArthur approached the Yalu River. Under the weight of offensive, Chinese forces drove MacArthurs forces out of North Korea and captured Seoul. The war also served as a catalyst for the modernisation of the PLAAF
2.
Cultural Revolution
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The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement that took place in China from 1966 until 1976. The Revolution marked the return of Mao Zedong to a position of power after the Great Leap Forward, the movement paralyzed China politically and negatively affected the countrys economy and society to a significant degree. The Revolution was launched in May 1966, after Mao alleged that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society at large, to eliminate his rivals within the Communist Party of China, Mao insisted that these revisionists be removed through violent class struggle. Chinas youth responded to Maos appeal by forming Red Guard groups around the country, the movement spread into the military, urban workers, and the Communist Party leadership itself. It resulted in factional struggles in all walks of life. In the top leadership, it led to a purge of senior officials, most notably Liu Shaoqi. During the same period Maos personality cult grew to immense proportions, a large segment of the population was forcibly displaced, most notably the transfer of urban youth to rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed, Cultural and religious sites were ransacked. Mao officially declared the Cultural Revolution to have ended in 1969, after Maos death and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976, reformers led by Deng Xiaoping gradually began to dismantle the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution. In 1958, after Chinas first Five-Year Plan, Mao called for grassroots socialism in order to accelerate his plans for turning China into an industrialized state. In this spirit, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, established Peoples Communes in the countryside, many communities were assigned production of a single commodity—steel. Mao vowed to increase production to twice 1957 levels. The Great Leap was an economic failure, uneducated farmers attempted to produce steel on a massive scale, partially relying on backyard furnaces to achieve the production targets set by local cadres. The steel produced was low quality and largely useless, the Great Leap reduced harvest sizes and led to a decline in the production of most goods except substandard pig iron and steel. Furthermore, local authorities frequently exaggerated production numbers, hiding and intensifying the problem for several years, in the meantime, chaos in the collectives, bad weather, and exports of food necessary to secure hard currency resulted in the Great Chinese Famine. Food was in shortage, and production fell dramatically. The famine caused the deaths of millions of people, particularly in poorer inland regions, the Great Leaps failure reduced Maos prestige within the Party. Forced to take responsibility, in 1959, Mao resigned as the President of the Peoples Republic of China, Chinas de jure head of state
3.
Fujian
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Fujian, formerly romanised as Foken, Fouken, Fukien, and Hokkien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, the name Fujian came from the combination of Fuzhou and Jianzhou two cities in Fujian, during the Tang dynasty. While its population is chiefly of Han origin, it is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse provinces in China, most of Fujian is administered by the Peoples Republic of China. However, the archipelagos of Kinmen and Matsu are under the control of the Republic of China, thus, there are two provinces, the Fujian Province administered by the PRC and the Fujian Province of the ROC. Recent archaeological discoveries demonstrate that Fujian had entered the Neolithic Age by the middle of the 6th millennium BC, the Tanshishan site in suburban Fuzhou spans the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Age where semi-underground circular buildings were found in the lower level. The Huangtulun site, also in suburban Fuzhou, was of the Bronze Age in character, Fujian was also the place for the kingdom of Minyue. This is because the family of Yuè fled to Fujian after their kingdom was annexed by the State of Chu in 306 BC. Mǐn is also the name of the river in this area. Minyue was a de facto kingdom until the emperor of Qin dynasty, liu Bang was victorious and founded the Han dynasty, in 202 BC, he restored Minyues status as a tributary independent kingdom. Thus, Wuzhu was allowed to construct his fortified city in Fuzhou as well as a few locations in the Wuyi Mountains and his kingdom extended beyond the borders of contemporary Fujian into eastern Guangdong, eastern Jiangxi, and southern Zhejiang. The Han emperor eventually decided to get rid of the threat by sending a military campaign against Minyue. Large forces approached Minyue simultaneously from four directions via land and sea in 111 BC, the rulers in Fuzhou surrendered to avoid a futile fight and destruction, thus the first kingdom in Fujian history came to an abrupt end. The Han dynasty collapsed at the end of the 2nd century AD, sun Quan, the founder of the Kingdom of Wu, spent nearly twenty years subduing the Shan Yue people, the branch of the Yue living in mountains. These immigrants were primarily from eight families in central China, Lin, Huang, Chen, Zheng, Zhan, Qiu, He, the first four remain as the major surnames of modern Fujian. Population density in Fujian remained low compared to the rest of China, only two commanderies and sixteen counties were established by the Western Jin dynasty. Like other southern provinces such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties era, the Southern Dynasties reigned south of the Yangtze River, including Fujian. During Sui and Tang eras a large influx of migrants came, the Tang dynasty oversaw the next golden age of China and culturally and economically benefited Fujian greatly, Fujians capital Fuzhous economic and cultural instions grew and developed. The later years of the Tang dynasty saw a number of upheavals in the Chinese heartland
4.
People's Liberation Army Air Force
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The Peoples Liberation Army Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the Peoples Liberation Army, the armed forces of the Peoples Republic of China. The PLAAF was officially established on 11 November 1949, as of 2014, the PLAAF has a strength of around 398,000 personnel and is the largest air force in Asia. The PLAAF was founded with Soviet assistance on November 11,1949, the PLA had operated few aircraft before that. The PLAs first organized air unit, the Nanyuan Flying Group, was formed only in the summer of 1949 from about 40 ex-Nationalist aircraft, its task was to defend Beijing, the nations new capital. The PLAAF fought the Korean War in Soviet-built MiG-15, known as the J-2 in Chinese service, the war also brought Soviet assistance for the indigenous aircraft industry. The Shenyang Aircraft Factory built the two-seat MiG-15UTI trainer as the JJ-2 and this prepared them to mass-produce derivatives of Soviet aircraft under license, starting with the J-5 in 1956, then the J-6 in 1959, and then the J-7 in 1967. The 1960s were a time for the PLAAF. The withdrawal of Soviet aid due to the Sino-Soviet split, a recovery began around 1965 as J-2s, J-5s, and some J-6s were provided to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Development of the J-8, Chinas first indigenous fighter, was initiated during the 1960s. The PLA Air Force underwent reorganization and streamlining as part of the reduction in force begun in 1985, before the 1985 reorganization, the Air Force reportedly had four branches, air defense, ground attack, bombing, and independent air regiments. In war, control of the Air Force probably reverted to the regional commanders, in 1987 it was not clear how the reorganization and the incorporation of air support elements into the group armies affected air force organization. The largest Air Force organizational unit was the division, which consisted of 17,000 personnel in three regiments, a typical air defense regiment had three squadrons of three flights, each flight had three or four aircraft. The Air Force also had 220,000 air defense personnel who controlled about 100 surface-to-air missile sites, in addition, it had a large number of early-warning, ground-control-intercept, and air-base radars manned by specialized troops organized into at least twenty-two independent regiments. In the 1980s the Air Force made serious efforts to raise the educational level, superannuated pilots were retired or assigned to other duties. All new pilots were at least middle-school graduates, the time it took to train a qualified pilot capable of performing combat missions reportedly was reduced from four or five years to two years. Training emphasized raising technical and tactical skills in individual pilots and participation in combined-arms operations, in 1987 the Air Force had serious technological deficiencies — especially when compared with its principal threat, the Soviet Union — and had many needs that it could not satisfy. After the fall of the USSR, Russia became Chinas principal arms supplier to the effect that Chinese economic growth allowed Russia to sustain its aerospace industry. In the late 1980s, the mission of the PLAAF was the defense of the mainland
5.
Jiang (rank)
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Jiang is the rank held by general officers in the military of both the Peoples Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan. The Peoples Liberation Army uses three levels at present while Taiwan uses four, with the equivalent to the fourth being treated as a field officer rank in the PLA. This difference is found in other militaries as well, in the British Army a brigadier is considered a field officer, while the equivalent rank in the United States Army, brigadier general, is considered a general officer. The PLA uses the rank names for all services, prefixed by hai jun or kong jun. While the ROC does the same for enlisted ranks and company-grade officers, because of the additional field officer rank in the PLA, ranks with the same Chinese name do not correspond to the same rank. A similar situation occurs in the militaries of North and South Korea with some ranks, under the rank system in place in the PLA in the era 1955-1965, there existed the rank of da jiang or Grand General. This rank was awarded to 10 of the leaders of the PLA in 1955. It was considered equivalent to the Soviet rank of генера́л а́рмии which is considered a five-star rank. Rank names are given using Hanyu Pinyin and traditional Chinese characters
6.
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
7.
Changting County
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Changting, also known as Tingzhou or Tingchow, is a county in western Fujian province, Peoples Republic of China. With a population of 480,000 and an area of 3,099 square kilometres, the majority of the population belongs to the Hakka people and speaks Changting dialect, a dialect of Hakka Chinese. The Changting dialect is mutually unintelligible with the Meixian dialect, which is another Hakka language spoken in Guangdong, the county seat is the town of Tingzhou. Main article, Tingzhou Prefecture Changting was originally the name of a prefecture, during the Chinese Civil War, this prefecture was the economic and financial centre of the Chinese Soviet Republic. Tens of thousands of people from Changting joined the Chinese Red Army, with the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, the prefecture was redesignated Longyan and its government was moved down to Xinluo. Changting has since been the name of a county only, within the region of Longyan. With the prosperity of road and railway transportation and more and more dams built along the river, Changting, once an important concentration place for travellers and goods, became isolated by big mountains. Changting lost its place as the center of western Fujian and became one of the poorest counties in Fujian province, today, the situation has improved a lot with first railroad in service in 2005 and first highway in service at the end of 2007. Located in the end of the Wuyi Mountains, Changting belongs to subtropical zone. The region enjoys abundant precipitation as the maritime air meets the cool air in the mountains. The county executive, legislature and judiciary are in Tingzhou Town, together with the CPC, chen Hong, number 1 badminton player on the world ranking list from 2002 to 2003. Hakka people Hakka Government website of Changting 客家先贤孙中山与美国
8.
Huang Yongsheng
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Huang Yongsheng was a general of the Chinas Peoples Liberation Army. In 1955 Huang was awarded the position of Shang Jiang, and Huang continued to rise throughout the 1950s and 1960s, because of Huangs close associations with Lin Biao, Huang was purged following Lins death in 1971. Huang Yongsheng was born in Xianning prefecture of Hubei province, Huang Yongsheng participated in the Autumn Harvest Uprising of 1927, and in December of the same year joined the Chinese Communist Party. In 1932, he was appointed the commander of the 31st Division of the 11th Red Army, during the war against Japan, he was appointed a regimental commander in the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army. In 1948, Huang was appointed the commander of the 6th Column of the Fourth Field Army, later in 1948 the 6th Column merged with other units into the 43rd Army, and Huang Yongsheng was appointed its commander. In 1949, he was commanding the 14th and 13th Army Groups, after the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China, Huang commanded the 13th Army Group, and later the 15th Army Group. During the Korean War, Huang commanded the 13th Army Group, during the Cultural Revolution, Huang Yongsheng commanded the Guangzhou Military Region. It was reported later that during the pro-communist riots in Hong Kong in 1967, he suggested invading and occupying the British colony, his plan. As a Chief of Staff of the PLA, in 1969, he was put in charge of building the system to house the PLA command headquarters in case of nuclear war. The chosen site for the facility was in his home prefecture of Xianning, during the Cultural Revolution, Huang became an ally of Chinas defense minister and vice-chairman, Lin Biao, eventually serving as Lins chief-of-staff. In the summer of 1971, immediately preceding Lins death, Huang issued a statement condemning Zhou Enlais plan to seek a closer relationship with the United States. Huang attempted to rationalize his position by stating that the United States was a declining capitalist power, Huang lost his position following Lin Biaos death. He was arrested on September 24,1971 - two weeks after Lin Biaos alleged plot to assassinate Mao, after the arrest, even his family did not know what was happening to him, until he was put on trial in 1980 and given a prison sentence. Huangs involvement in the plot to assassinate Mao Zedong was implied by the confession of Li Weixin, at his trial in 1980, the government of China agreed that Huang did not know anything about Lin Liguos plans to assassinate Mao, or of Lins flight from China. He died in Qingdao in 1983 and his grave is located on the Project 131 site, which is now a museum. Short online biography Huang Yongsheng article on baike
