1.
Prefecture-level city
–
Prefectural level cities form the second level of the administrative structure. Administrative chiefs of prefectural level cities generally have the rank as a division chief of a national ministry. Since the 1980s, most former prefectures have been renamed into prefectural level cities, a prefectural level city is a city and prefecture that have been merged into one unified jurisdiction. The larger prefectural level cities span over 100 kilometres, prefectural level cities nearly always contain multiple counties, county level cities, and other such sub-divisions. To distinguish a prefectural level city from its urban area. The first prefectural level cities were created on 5 November 1983, over the following two decades, prefectural level cities have come to replace the vast majority of Chinese prefectures, the process is still ongoing. Most provinces are composed entirely or nearly entirely of prefectural level cities, shijiazhuang and Zhengzhou are the largest prefectural level cities with populations approaching or exceeding some sub-provincial cities. A sub-prefecture-level city is a city with powers approaching those of prefectural level cities. There are total of three classification of prefecture-level city, Regular prefectural level city which consist of counties, county level cities, consolidated district-governed prefectural level city which only consist of districts as it subdivisions. Thus, Bloomington, Indiana is indicated on the map by a point, which is distinct from, and enclosed by, in China, however, large cities such as City of Xianning may, in reality, contain both urban and rural elements. Moreover, they may enclose counties or other cities, on a less detailed map, City of Xianning would be indicated by a point, more or less corresponding to the coordinates of its city government. Other populous areas may also be exhibited as points, such as County of Tongshan, with no indication that County of Tongshan is, in fact, enclosed by City of Xianning. On a more detailed map, City of Xianning would be drawn as an area, similar to a county of the United States and this convention may lead to difficulty in the identification of places mentioned in older sources. For example, Guo Moruo writes that he was born in Town of Shawan, within Prefecture of Leshan, and attended primary school in Town of Jiading. A modern map is unlikely to show either town, Shawan, because it is too small, and Jiading, because it is the seat of City of Leshan, and is therefore indicated on the map by a point labelled Leshan. A more detailed map would show Shawan as a district within City of Leshan, statistics of China such as population and industrial activity are generally reported along prefectural city lines. Thus, the relatively unknown City of Huangshi has 2.5 million residents, more than most European capitals, but upon closer inspection, furthermore, Huangshi contains several other cities, such as City of Daye. If a person wished to calculate the population of the area of Huangshi, and had a map of Huangshi, and a table of its population by district
2.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
China
–
China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
4.
Provinces of China
–
Provinces, formally provincial-level administrative divisions or first-level administrative divisions, are the highest-level Chinese administrative divisions. There are 34 such divisions, classified as 23 provinces, four municipalities, five autonomous regions, the Peoples Republic of China claims sovereignty over the territory administered by the Republic of China, claiming most of it as its Taiwan Province. The ROC also administers some offshore islands which form Fujian Province and these were part of an originally unified Fujian province, which since the stalemate of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 has been divided between the PRC and ROC. Note that every province has a Communist Party of China provincial committee, the committee secretary is in effective charge of the province, rather than the nominal governor of the provincial government. The government of each province is nominally led by a provincial committee. The committee secretary is first-in-charge of the province, second-in-command is the governor of the provincial government, the Peoples Republic of China claims the island of Taiwan and its surrounding islets, including Penghu, as Taiwan Province. The territory is controlled by the Republic of China, a municipality or direct-controlled municipality is a higher level of city which is directly under the Chinese government, with status equal to that of the provinces. In practice, their status is higher than that of common provinces. The governor of each region is usually appointed from the respective minority ethnic group. A special administrative region is an autonomous and self-governing subnational subject of the Peoples Republic of China that is directly under the Central Peoples Government. Each SAR has an executive as head of the region. The regions government is not fully independent, as policy and military defence are the responsibility of the central government. Notes,1, as of 20102, per km23, km24, Abbreviation in the parentheses is informal 5, Since founding in 1949, however, the PRC has never controlled Taiwan. Taiwan currently administers Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, the subject of whether or not Taiwan is part of China is often debated, with no clear conclusion. The Ming Dynasty kept the system set up by the Yuan Dynasty, however. By the time of the establishment of the Qing Dynasty in 1644 there were 18 provinces, in addition, there was a zongdu, a general military inspector or governor general, for every two to three provinces. Outer regions of China were not divided into provinces, military leaders or generals oversaw Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, while vice-dutong and civilian leaders headed the leagues, a subdivision of Mongolia. The ambans supervised the administration of Tibet, in 1884 Xinjiang became a province, in 1907 Fengtian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang were made provinces as well
5.
Hubei
–
Hubei is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the Central China region. The name of the province north of the lake, referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The provincial capital is Wuhan, a major thoroughfare and the political, cultural. It borders Henan to the north, Anhui to the east, Jiangxi to the southeast, Hunan to the south, Chongqing to the west, the high-profile Three Gorges Dam is located at Yichang, in the west of the province. The Hubei region was home to sophisticated Neolithic cultures, by the Spring and Autumn period, the territory of todays Hubei was part of the powerful State of Chu. During the Warring States period Chu became the major adversary of the upstart State of Qin to the northwest, which began to assert itself by outward expansionism. As wars between Qin and Chu ensued, Chu lost more and more land, first its dominance over the Sichuan Basin, then its heartland, which correspond to modern Hubei. In 223 BC Qin chased down the remnants of the Chu regime, Qin founded the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, the first unified state in the region. Qin was succeeded by the Han dynasty in 206 BC, which established the province of Jingzhou in what is now Hubei, the Qin and Han played an active role in the agricultural colonization of Hubei, maintaining a system of river dikes to protect farmland from summer floods. Towards the end of the Han Dynasty in the beginning of the 3rd century, the incursion of northern nomadic peoples into the region at the beginning of the 4th century began nearly three centuries of division into a nomad-ruled north and a Han Chinese-ruled south. Hubei, to the South, remained under southern rule for this entire period, until the unification of China by the Sui dynasty in 589. After the Tang dynasty disintegrated in the 10th century, Hubei came under the control of several regional regimes, Jingnan in the center, Wu to the east, and the Five Dynasties to the north. The Song dynasty reunified the region in 982 and placed most of Hubei into Jinghubei Circuit, Mongols conquered the region in 1279, and under their rule the province of Huguang was established, covering Hubei, Hunan, and parts of Guangdong and Guangxi. The Ming dynasty drove out the Mongols in 1368 and their version of Huguang province was smaller, and corresponded almost entirely to the modern provinces of Hubei and Hunan combined. While Hubei was geographically removed from the centers of the Ming power, during the last years of the Ming, todays Hubei was ravaged several times by the rebel armies of Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng. The Manchu Qing dynasty which had much of the region in 1644, soon split Huguang into the provinces of Hubei. The Huangshi/Daye area, south-east of Wuhan, became an important center of mining, in 1911 the Wuchang Uprising took place in modern-day Wuhan, overthrowing the Qing dynasty and establishing the Republic of China. In 1927 Wuhan became the seat of a government established by left-wing elements of the Kuomintang, led by Wang Jingwei, during World War II the eastern parts of Hubei were conquered and occupied by Japan while the western parts remained under Chinese control
6.
CPC party chief
–
In most cases, it is the de facto highest political office of its area of jurisdiction. The term can also be used for the position of Communist Party organizations in state-owned enterprises, universities, hospitals. In post-Cultural Revolution Chinese political theory, the Communist Party is responsible for the formulation of policies, at every level of jurisdiction, a government leader serves alongside the party secretary. For example, in the case of a province, the provincial Party Secretary is the de facto highest office, the Governor is usually the second-highest-ranking official in the partys Provincial Committee, and holds the concurrent title of Deputy Party Committee Secretary. A similar comparison can be made for municipal Party Secretaries and Mayors, there have been rare instances where both Party Secretary and Governor positions were held by the same person, though this is not the common practice since the end of the Cultural Revolution. The Party Secretary is usually assisted by numerous Deputy Party Secretaries, until the 1980s, the leading position of a local party organization was called the First Secretary, its deputy the Second Secretary. The local party organizations each had its own Secretariat with numerous secretaries, at the provincial level, the party chief is known as CPC Provincial Committee Secretary, while the corresponding government position is known as Governor. At the prefecture or municipal level, the party chief is known as CPC Municipal Committee Secretary, at the county level, the party chief is known as CPC County Committee Secretary, while the corresponding government position is known as the County Governor. At the township level, the party chief is known as CPC Township/town Committee Secretary, at the village level, the local party chief, known as the Village Party Branch Secretary heads a committee of around ten people to make executive decisions related to the village. The process is not entirely formal, and therefore the party chief at this level is not considered part of the Chinese civil service. In writing and the media, the CPC designation before the title is not used often because it is assumed that Provincial Committee Secretary refers to the Communist Party secretary. Generally, a top government official will also hold the first deputy party chief position, a Deputy Party Secretary assists in the work of the Party Secretary. In provincial and most prefecture-level jurisdictions, there are two deputy party chiefs, the higher-ranked deputy party chief is generally also concurrently the head of the government of the party committees area of jurisdiction. The other deputy party chief is known as the zhuanzhi fushuji, literally, generally, the zhuanzhi deputy party chief is also the head of the party school of any given jurisdiction. A Party Branch or Party Group exists in almost all institutions of state which are not formally part of the Communist Party organization and these include government organs, Peoples Congresses, ministries, provincial and municipal departments and so on. These organizations are created by mandate of a Party Committee, serve to ensure that the policy guidelines of the party is followed at each respective institution. The Party Branch Secretary or Party Group Secretary is an office from that of the Party Committee Secretary. They do not have the organization and bureaucracy that is commonplace with a Party Committee
7.
Wong Tai Sin
–
Wong Tai Sin or Huang Daxian is a Chinese Taoist deity popular in Jinhua, Zhejiang and Hong Kong with the power of healing. The name, meaning the Great Immortal Wong, is the form of Huang Chuping or Wong Cho Ping. According to the text Self-Description of Chisongzi kept at the Wong Tai Sin Temple in Hong Kong, Wong Tai Sin was born Huang Chuping in 328 in Lanxi, Jinhua, western sources have him listed at c.284 to 364 CE. Wong Cho Ping is said to have experienced poverty and hunger and he began practising Taoism at the age of fifteen after meeting an immortal or saintly person on Red Pine Mountain in his hometown. Legend has it that he was able to transform stones into sheep forty years later, Wong Tai Sin later became known as the Red Pine Immortal, after the mountain where he had his hermitage, and his birthday is celebrated on the 23rd of the eighth lunar month. In the early 20th century, Leung Renyan spread the devotion to Wong Tai Sin from Xiqiao Mountain in Nanhai County, Leung arrived in Hong Kong in 1915 and upon renting an apartment in Wan Chai, set up an altar to Wong Tai Sin in his apartment. He later opened an herbal medicine shop nearby and moved the altar to the back of the shop, Leung would then fill their prescriptions, and the popularity of Wong Tai Sin grew probably due to several successful cures. Leungs shop was destroyed by fire in 1918, in 1921, Leung said that he received a message from Wong Tai Sin instructing him to build a new shrine. Leung and some Taoist priests were told to walk 3,000 paces northwards from Kowloon City Pier and they marked the place with a piece of bamboo in the ground, and using Fu Ji to consult Wong Tai Sin, were told that it was an auspicious site. The Taoist god of literature, Wenchang Dijun, told the priests, again via Fu Ji, eventually, the shrine was completed and was dedicated on the 20th of the seventh lunar month, and the gods communicated several name changes over the next few years through Fu Ji. In the same year, during the celebration of the birthday of Wong Tai Sin on the 23rd of the lunar month. Later on, Wenchang Dijun gave the name of the premises as Sik Sik Yuen, in 1925, the shrine was renamed Chik Chung Wong Sin Hall by the god Lü Ju, and it has been in use since then. Sik Sik Yuen was once restricted to Taoists and their members until 1934. The temple was opened to the general public in 1956. The revival of venerating Wong Cho Ping as Wong Tai Sin occurred at the end of the 19th century, prior to 1911, the Emperor of China was the primary divine religious symbol, often stretching the Mandate of Heaven into religious terms. The Wong Tai Sin area and Wong Tai Sin districts are named after the deity, today, Sik Sik Yuen is an educational and charitable foundation that, true to Leungs origins as a healer, runs a free clinic. In Hong Kong, there is one MTR station named after Wong Tai Sin, many tourists from all over the world visit Wong Tai Sin Temple every day
8.
Metropolitan area
–
As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions. The Greater São Paulo is a term for one of the multiple definitions the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil. A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration with zones not necessarily urban in character and these outlying zones are sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban zone, to other political entities. For example, El Monte, California is considered part of the Los Angeles metro area in the United States, in practice, the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Population figures given for one area can vary by millions. A polycentric metropolitan area is one not connected by continuous development or conurbation, in defining a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities form a nucleus that other areas have a high degree of integration with. The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines statistical divisions as areas under the influence of one or more major towns or a major city. However, this definition has become obsolete with the conurbation of several statistical divisions into a larger metropolitan areas. In Brazil, metropolitan areas are called metropolitan regions, each State defines its own legislation for the creation, definition and organization of a metropolitan region. The creation of a region is not intended for any statistical purpose, although the Brazilian Institute of Geography. Their main purpose is to allow for a management of public policies of common interest to all cities involved. They dont have political, electoral or jurisdictional power whatsoever, so living in a metropolitan region do not elect representatives for them. Statistics Canada defines a metropolitan area as an area consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core. To form a CMA, the area must have a population of at least 100,000. To be included in the CMA, adjacent municipalities must have a degree of integration with the core. As of the Canada 2011 Census, there were 33 CMAs in Canada, including six with a population over one million—Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. In Denmark the only area is Greater Copenhagen, consisting of the Capital Region of Denmark along with the neighboring regions Region Zealand. Greater Copenhagen has an population of 1.25 million people
9.
Time in China
–
The time in China follows a single standard time offset of UTC+08,00, despite China spanning five geographical time zones. The official national standard time is called Beijing Time domestically and China Standard Time internationally, daylight saving time has not been observed since 1991. The special administrative regions maintain their own authorities, with standards called Hong Kong Time. These have been equivalent to Beijing time since 1992, in addition, a second time standard is used in Xinjiang, two hours less than the Beijing Time, which is called Ürümqi Time or Xinjiang Time. In 1912, the Republic of China established five standard time zones, namely Kunlun, Sinkiang-Tibet, Kansu-Szechwan, Chungyuan, and Changpai. The unified time zone policy was adopted by the Communist Party of China or the Central People’s Government some time between 27 September 1949 and 6 October 1949, the date is unknown. However, recent research suggests that the policy was most likely adopted on 27 September 1949, daylight saving time was observed from 1986 to 1991. In 1997 and 1999, Hong Kong and Macau were transferred to China from the United Kingdom and Portugal, although the sovereignty of the SARs belongs to China, they retain their own policies regarding time zones for historical reasons. Due to their locations, both are within the UTC+08,00 time zone, which is the same as the national standard — Beijing time. Xinjiang Time, also known as Ürümqi Time, is set due to its location in the westernmost part of the country. The time offset is UTC+06,00, which is two hours behind Beijing, and is shared with neighbouring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Currently, timezone usage within Xinjiang is roughly split along the divide, with most ethnic Han following Beijing time. Some local authorities are now using both time standard side by side, the coexistence of two timezones within the same region causes some confusion among the local population, especially when inter-racial communication occur. Some ethnic Han in Xinjiang might not be aware of the existence of the UTC+6 Xinjiang Time because of language barrier, regardless, Beijing Time users in Xinjiang usually schedule their daily activities two hours later than those who live in eastern China. As such, stores and offices in Xinjiang are commonly opening from 10am to 7pm Beijing Time and this is known as the work/rest time in Xinjiang. Hong Kong maintains its own time authority after transfer of sovereignty in 1997, the Hong Kong Time is UTC+08,00 all year round, and daylight saving time has not been used since 1979. Greenwich Mean Time was adopted as the basis in 1904, before that, local time was determined by astronomical observations at Hong Kong Observatory using a 6-inch Lee Equatorial and a 3-inch Transit Circle. Macau maintains its own time authority after transfer of sovereignty in 1999, the Macau Standard Time is the time in Macau
10.
Vehicle registration plates of China
–
China, officially the Peoples Republic of China issues vehicles licence plates at its Vehicle Management Offices, under the administration of the Ministry of Public Security. Hong Kong and Macau have their own administrations on licence plates, Vehicles from Hong Kong and Macau are required to apply for licence plates, usually from Guangdong, to travel on roads in Mainland China. Vehicles from Mainland China have to apply for Hong Kong or Macau licence plates to enter those territories, taiwan, on the other hand, also has plates administered by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in the Republic of China. The number of registered cars, buses, vans, and trucks on the road in China reached 62 million in 2009, and is expected to exceed 200 million by 2020. The font used on the plates were said to be modified from the East Asian gothic typeface, the current plates are of the 1992 standard, which consist of the one-character provincial abbreviation, a letter of the alphabet, and five numbers or letters of the alphabet. Previously, all plates had used the five-number designation. As the number of motor vehicles grew, however, the number had to exceed what was the maximum previously allowable—90,000 or 100,000 vehicles, therefore, there had become a need to insert Latin letters into the license plate to increase the number of possible combinations. This was first done in the cities with only one prefix. Nanjing, for example, began the change only the first number. Further changes allowed the first two places, or the place alone on the plate to be letters, allowing 792,000 more combinations mathematically. More recently, cities have taken to having the letter alone being a Latin letter. The numbers are produced at random, and are computer-generated at the issuing office, numbers with a sequence of 6s, 8s, or 9s are usually considered to be lucky, therefore special sequences like 88888 or 86888 can be purchased. The older black plates are issued to those who are dual-use vehicles. Licence plates for Chinas Police Service, Armed Police Force, and Military are in a background, with red. Police Service plates have a format of X·LLNNN警. These plates are issued to police, some patrol vehicles, court. Chinese Peoples Armed Police Force uses the pinyin wujing abbreviation WJ, the first two small letters behind the WJ are area prefixes, WJ01-NNNNN. = Hainan The Alphabet Numeral behind the area shows the section of the Armed police
11.
Chinese language
–
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
12.
Chinese postal romanization
–
Postal romanization was a system of transliterating Chinese place names developed by the Imperial Post Office in the early 1900s. The system was in use until the 1980s. For major cities and other places that already had widely accepted European names, with regard to other place names, the post office revised policy several times. Spellings given could reflect the pronunciation, Nanjing pronunciation, or Beijing pronunciation. At a conference held in 1906 in Shanghai, the post office selected a system of romanization developed by Herbert Giles called Nanking syllabary, although Beijing dialect had served as a national standard since the mid-19th century, the system adopted was based on Nanjing pronunciation. The system corresponded to traditional romanizations that were adopted in the 18th century when Nanjing dialect was considered standard. French-appointed administrators ran the post office at time, and they sought a less anglicized alternative to Wade-Giles. An imperial edict issued in 1896 renamed the Maritime Customs Post, reorganized this agency as a postal service. In 1899, Robert Hart, as general of posts. Although Hart asked for transliterations according to the pronunciation, most postmasters were reluctant to play lexicographer. The spellings that they submitted generally followed a system created by Thomas Francis Wade, the system had been developed in 1859 and was based on the Beijing pronunciation. It became the method of romanizing Chinese after Herbert Giles published a dictionary, using the system. The post office published a draft romanization map in 1903, disappointed with the Wade-based map, Hart made another attempt to promote localism in 1905. He directed the postmasters to submit romanizations not as directed by Wade, local missionaries could be consulted, Hart suggested. However, Wades system reflected pronunciation in most areas served by the post office, a more serious disadvantage was that the French viewed Wades system as anglophone. The top position in the post office was held by Postal Secretary Théophile Piry, until 1911, the post office remained part of the Maritime Customs Service. As customs inspector general, Hart was Pirys boss, but French backing effectively gave Piry a postal fiefdom, Piry responded to Harts moves by organising an Imperial Postal Joint-Session Conference in Shanghai in the spring of 1906. As it was a joint postal and telegraphic conference, it allowed Piry to go over Harts head, the conference resolved that existing spellings would be retained for all names already transliterated
13.
Standard Chinese
–
Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
14.
Pinyin
–
Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
15.
Wuhan
–
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies in the eastern Jianghan Plain at the intersection of the reaches of the Yangtze. Because of its key role in transportation, Wuhan was sometimes referred to as the Chicago of China by foreign sources. Holding sub-provincial status, Wuhan is recognized as the political, economic, financial, cultural, educational, the city of Wuhan, first termed as such in 1927, has a population of 10,607,700 people as of 2015. In the 1920s, Wuhan was the capital of a leftist Kuomintang government led by Wang Jingwei in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek. At the 2010 census, its built-up area made of 8 out of 10 urban districts was home to 8,821,658 inhabitants, with a 3, 500-year-long history, Wuhan is one of the most ancient and civilized metropolitan cities in China. During the Han dynasty, Hanyang became a busy port. Around that time, walls were built to protect Hanyang and Wuchang, the latter event marks the foundation of Wuhan. In AD223, the Yellow Crane Tower was constructed on the Wuchang side of the Yangtze River, cui Hao, a celebrated poet of the Tang dynasty, visited the building in the early 8th century, his poem made it the most celebrated building in southern China. The city has long been renowned as a center for the arts, under the Mongol rulers, Wuchang was promoted to the status of provincial capital, by the dawn of the 18th century, Hankou had become one of Chinas top four most important towns of trade. In the late 19th century, railroads were extended on an axis through the city. Also during this period foreign powers extracted mercantile concessions, with the riverfront of Hankou being divided up into foreign-controlled merchant districts and these districts contained trading firm offices, warehouses, and docking facilities. On October 10,1911, Sun Yat-sens followers launched the Wuchang Uprising, Wuhan was the capital of a leftist Kuomintang government led by Wang Jingwei, in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek during the 1920s. S. As the battle raged on through 1938, Wuhan and the region had become the site of the Battle of Wuhan. After being taken by the Japanese in late 1938, Wuhan became a major Japanese logistics center for operations in southern China, in December 1944, the city was largely destroyed by U. S. firebombing raids conducted by the Fourteenth Air Force. In 1967, civil strife struck the city in the Wuhan Incident as a result of tensions arising out of the Cultural Revolution. The city has been subject to devastating floods, which are now supposed to be controlled by the ambitious Three Gorges Dam, a project which was completed in 2008. In December 1858, James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, High Commissioner to China, and in the spring of 1861, Counselor Harry Parkes and Admiral Herbert were sent to Wuhan to open a trading port
16.
Three Gorges Dam
–
The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, China. The Three Gorges Dam is the worlds largest power station in terms of installed capacity, in 2014 the dam generated 98.8 terawatt-hours and had the world record, but was surpassed by Itaipú Dam that set the new world record in 2016 producing 103.1 TWh. Except for the locks, the dam project was completed and fully functional as of July 4,2012, the ship lift was complete in December 2015. Each main water turbine has a capacity of 700 MW, the dam body was completed in 2006. Coupling the dams 32 main turbines with two generators to power the plant itself, the total electric generating capacity of the dam is 22,500 MW. As well as producing electricity, the dam is intended to increase the Yangtze Rivers shipping capacity, China regards the project as monumental as well as a success socially and economically, with the design of state-of-the-art large turbines, and a move toward limiting greenhouse gas emissions. However, the dam flooded archaeological and cultural sites and displaced some 1.3 million people, the dam has been controversial both domestically and abroad. A large dam across the Yangtze River was originally envisioned by Sun Yat-sen in The International Development of China and he stated that a dam capable of generating 30 million horsepower was possible downstream of the Three Gorges. In 1932, the Nationalist government, led by Chiang Kai-shek, in 1939, Japanese military forces occupied Yichang and surveyed the area. A design, the Otani plan, was completed for the dam in anticipation of a Japanese victory over China. In 1944, the United States Bureau of Reclamation chief design engineer, John L. Savage, surveyed the area, Some 54 Chinese engineers went to the U. S. for training. In the case of water craft, groups of craft would be lifted together for efficiency. Some exploration, survey, economic study, and design work was done, after the 1954 Yangtze River Floods, in 1956, Mao Zedong authored Swimming, a poem about his fascination with a dam on the Yangtze River. In 1958, after the Hundred Flowers Campaign, some engineers who spoke out against the project were imprisoned, during the 1980s, the idea of a dam reemerged. The National Peoples Congress approved the dam in 1992, out of 2,633 delegates,1,767 voted in favour,177 voted against,664 abstained, Construction started on December 14,1994. The dam was expected to be operational in 2009, but additional projects, such as the underground power plant with six additional generators. The ship lift was completed in 2015, the dam had raised the water level in the reservoir to 172.5 m above sea level by the end of 2008 and the designed maximum level of 175 m by October 2010. Made of concrete and steel, the dam is 2,335 m long, the project used 27. 2×10^6 m3 of concrete, used 463,000 T of steel, and moved about 102. 6×10^6 m3 of earth
17.
Yiling District
–
Yiling District is a district of the prefecture-level city of Yichang, Hubei province, Peoples Republic of China. Created in July 2001, the district includes most of the former Yichang County, with the exception of Yichang center city, the land area of Yiling District is 3424 square km, population 510,000. Both Gezhouba Dam and the Three Gorges Dam are located within the district, the Xiling Bridge spans the Changjiang in the western part of Yiling District, connecting the towns of Letianxi and Sandouping on the northern and southern sides of the river. To add to the confusion, Yiling Bridge is not within Yiling District - rather, 宜昌市夷陵区政府网站 - Official site of the district government
18.
Warring States period
–
The Warring States Period derives its name from the Record of the Warring States, a work compiled early in the Han dynasty. The political geography of the era was dominated by the Seven Warring States, namely, Qin, The State of Qin was in the far west, with its core in the Wei River Valley and Guanzhong. This geographical position offered protection from the states of the Central Plains, the Three Jins, Northeast of Qin, on the Shanxi plateau, were the three successor states of Jin. These were, Han, south, along the Yellow River, Zhao, the northernmost of the three. Qi, located in the east of China, centred on the Shandong Peninsula, described as east of Mount Tai, Chu, located in the south of China, with its core territory around the valleys of the Han River and, later, the Yangtze River. Yan, located in the northeast, centred on modern-day Beijing, late in the period Yan pushed northeast and began to occupy the Liaodong Peninsula Besides these seven major states, some minor states also survived into the period. Yue, On the southeast coast near Shanghai was the State of Yue, Sichuan, In the far southwest were the States of Ba and Shu. These were non-Zhou states that were conquered by Qin late in the period, in the Central Plains comprising much of modern-day Henan Province, many smaller city states survived as satellites of the larger states, though they were eventually to be absorbed as well. Zhongshan, Between the states of Zhao and Yan was the state of Zhongshan, the Spring and Autumn period was initiated by the eastward flight of the Zhou court. There is no one single incident or starting point for the Warring States era, some proposed starting points are as follows,481 BC, Proposed by Song-era historian Lü Zuqian, since it is the end of the Spring and Autumn Annals. 476–475 BC, The author, Sima Qian, of Records of the Grand Historian who chose the year of King Yuan of Zhou. 403 BC, The year when Han, Zhao and Wei were officially recognised as states by the Zhou court, author Sima Guang of Zizhi Tongjian tells us that the symbol of eroded Zhou authority should be taken as the start of the Warring States era. The Spring and Autumn period led to a few states gaining power at the expense of many others, during the Warring States period, many rulers claimed the Mandate of Heaven to justify their conquest of other states and spread their influence. Other major states also existed, such as Wu and Yue in the southeast, the last decades of the Spring and Autumn era were marked by increased stability, as the result of peace negotiations between Jin and Chu which established their respective spheres of influence. This situation ended with the partition of Jin, whereby the state was divided between the houses of Han, Zhao and Wei, and thus enabled the creation of the seven major warring states. This allowed other clans to gain fiefs and military authority, and decades of struggle led to the establishment of four major families. The Battle of Jinyang saw the allied Han, Zhao and Wei destroy the Zhi family, with this, they became the de facto rulers of most of Jins territory, though this situation would not be officially recognised until half a century later. The Jin division created a vacuum that enabled during the first 50 years expansion of Chu and Yue northward
19.
Qin (state)
–
Qin was an ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty. Following extensive Legalist reform in the 3rd century BC, Qin emerged as one of the dominant powers of the Seven Warring States, the empire it established was short-lived but greatly influential on later Chinese history. Its courts and bureaus functioned without delays and with such smoothness that it was as if there were no government at all. According to the 2nd century BC historical text Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian, one of his descendents, Boyi, was granted the family name of Ying by King Shun. During the Xia and Shang dynasties, the Ying split in two, a branch in Quanqiu and another branch that lived east of the Yellow River. The latter became the ancestors of the rulers of the Zhao state, the western Ying at Quanqiu were lords over the Xichui, the Western March of the Shang. One, Elai, was killed defending King Zhou during the rebellion that established the Zhou dynasty, the family was allied with the marquesses of Shen, however, and continued to serve under the Zhou. A younger son of line, Feizi, so impressed King Xiao with his horse breeding skills that he was awarded a fief in the valley of Qin. Both lines of the western Ying lived in the midst of the Rong tribes, sometimes fighting their armies and sometimes intermarrying with their kings. In 771 BC, the Marquess of Shen formed an alliance with the Zeng state and Quanrong nomads, Duke Xiang of Qin led his troops to escort King Yous son King Ping of Zhou to Luoyi, where the new capital city of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty was established. In recognition of Duke Xiangs efforts, King Ping formally enfeoffed Duke Xiang as a feudal lord, King Ping further promised to give Qin the land west of Qishan, the former heartland of Zhou, if Qin could expel the Rong tribes that were occupying the land. The Qin viewed the Zhou rulers Wen and Wu as their predecessors, Qins interaction with other states in eastern and central China remained minimal throughout the Spring and Autumn period, except with its neighbour Jin, a large, mainstay vassal of the Zhou. During the early reign of Duke Mu of Qin, the Jin state was a power under the leadership of Duke Xian of Jin. However, after the death of Duke Xian, Jin plunged into a state of conflict as Duke Xians sons fought over the succession. One of them won the contention and became Duke Hui of Jin, Duke Mu of Qin sent relief food supplies and agricultural equipment to Jin. However, Qin was struck by famine later and by then, Jin had recovered, Qin and Jin engaged in several battles over the next few years. During the battles with Jin, Duke Mu heard that one of Duke Xians sons, Chonger, was in exile in the Chu state. After consulting his subjects, Duke Mu sent an emissary to Chu to invite Chonger to Jin, Duke Wen was grateful to Duke Mu and relations between Qin and Jin improved
20.
Bai Qi
–
Bai Qi, also known as Bo Qi, was a military general of the Qin state in the Warring States period of Chinese history. Born in Mei, as commander of the Qin army for more than 30 years and he was named by Chinese historians as one of the four greatest generals of the Warring States period, along with Li Mu, Wang Jian and Lian Po. He was promoted from Zuo Shu Zhang to Da Liang Zao by King Zhaoxiang of Qin and he had commanded wars against the states of Han, Wei, Zhao and Chu, seizing large areas of territory. In 278 BC, he led the Qin army to capture Ying, as a reward, he was given the title Lord Wuan. During the Battle of Changping in 260 BC, he succeeded Wang He as the commander of Qin army, the Zhao army was split into two parts and its supply lines and retreat route cut off by Bai Qi. More than 400,000 Zhao soldiers, including the Shangdang people who surrendered after Zhao Kuo was shot dead by Qin archers, were slain（坑殺buried alive) on the orders of Bai Qi. Bai Qi wanted to end Zhao once and for all, as the Zhao troops were psychologically affected by the Battle of Changping, Bai Qi hence stopped the attack and on his return journey to the State of Qin, he fell ill. In 257 BC, Qin started to besiege Handan, capital of Zhao, because Bai Qi was ill the Qin king had used another prominent general, Wang Ling who subsequently lost the battle. After about four months, when Bai Qi seemed to have recovered, however, the king insisted on continuing the attack. Bai Qi refused the command of the king with an excuse of his illness, the king, therefore, had to use Wang He, another prominent general of Qin, instead of Bai Qi, as the commander. This decision did not help the Qin army in the battle at all, Chu and Wei soon sent troops to assist Zhao. After more than five months of defeat at Handan, Qin had suffered major losses. The king asked Bai Qi to become commander again, Bai Qi once more used that he was sick to refuse the request. In Zhan Guo Ce, his intentions was revealed when he states that he would rather be executed by refusing the Kings order, rather than losing his long undefeated fame on the battlefield. Having been refused several times, the King become angry, removed all titles from Bai Qi and forced him to leave Xianyang, the capital of Qin. In addition, Fan Sui, persuaded the King of Qin that Bai Qi would join another state as a general, convinced by Fan Suis information, the King of Qin then forced Bai Qi to commit suicide in Duyou. Bai Qi sometimes appears as a god on Chinese and Taoist temples. He is noted in Chinese history as a symbol of brutality rather than for his military talent, the traditional Tofu dish of Gaoping, todays Changping, called Bai Qi meat is well known
21.
Three Kingdoms
–
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
22.
Qing dynasty
–
It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
23.
Guangxu Emperor
–
This is a Manchu name, the clan name is Aisin Gioro. The Guangxu Emperor, personal name Zaitian, was the emperor of the Qing dynasty. His reign lasted from 1875 to 1908, but in practice he ruled, under Empress Dowager Cixis influence, only from 1889 to 1898. He initiated the Hundred Days Reform, but was stopped when the empress dowager launched a coup in 1898. His regnal name, Guangxu, means glorious succession, Zaitian was the second son of Yixuan, and his primary spouse Yehenara Wanzhen, a younger sister of Empress Dowager Cixi. On 12 January 1875, Zaitians cousin, the Tongzhi Emperor, breaking the imperial convention that a new emperor must always be of a generation after that of the previous emperor, candidates were considered from the generation of the Tongzhi Emperor. Empress Dowager Cian suggested choosing one of Prince Gongs sons to be the next emperor, instead, Cixi nominated Zaitian and the imperial clan agreed with her choice. Zaitian was named heir and successor to his uncle, the Xianfeng Emperor, rather than his cousin and predecessor and he ascended to the throne at the age of four and adopted Guangxu as his regnal name, therefore he is known as the Guangxu Emperor. He was adopted by Empress Dowager Cixi as a son, for her part, she remained as regent under the title Holy Mother, Empress Dowager while her co-regent Empress Dowager Cian was called Mother Empress, Empress Dowager. Weng instilled in the Guangxu Emperor a notion of having to emphasise his filial piety towards the Empress Dowagers Cixi, in 1881, when the Guangxu Emperor was nine, Empress Dowager Cian died unexpectedly, leaving Empress Dowager Cixi as sole regent for the boy. However, Cixi had been suffering from ill health. During this time, the imperial eunuchs often abused their influence over the boy emperor, the Guangxu Emperor reportedly also had begun to hold some audiences on his own as an act of necessity. In 1887, the Guangxu Emperor would have been old enough to begin to rule in his own right, however, the previous year, several courtiers, including Prince Chun and Weng Tonghe, had petitioned Empress Dowager Cixi to postpone her retirement from the regency. Despite Cixis agreement to remain as regent, by 1886 the Guangxu Emperor had begun to write comments on memorials to the throne. In the spring of 1887, he partook in his first field-plowing ceremony, eventually, in February 1889, in preparation for Empress Dowager Cixis retirement, the Guangxu Emperor was married. Much to the dislike, Cixi had selected her own niece, Jingfen, to be the empress. She also selected a pair of sisters, who became Consorts Jin and Zhen, the following week, with the Guangxu Emperor married, Cixi retired from the regency. Even after the Guangxu Emperor began formal rule, Empress Dowager Cixi continued to influence his decisions and actions, despite residing several months of the year at the Summer Palace
24.
Great Britain
–
Great Britain, also known as Britain, is a large island in the north Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2, Great Britain is the largest European island, in 2011 the island had a population of about 61 million people, making it the worlds third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The island of Ireland is situated to the west of it, the island is dominated by a maritime climate with quite narrow temperature differences between seasons. Politically, the island is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, most of England, Scotland, and Wales are on the island. The term Great Britain often extends to surrounding islands that form part of England, Scotland, and Wales. A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the union of the Kingdom of England, the archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years, the term British Isles derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, the oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle, or possibly by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, There are two large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne. The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Breoten, Bryten, Breten, Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together. It is derived from the writings of the Pytheas around 320 BC. Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι. The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Priteni is the source of the Welsh language term Prydain, Britain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland. The latter were later called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans, the Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain and to Ireland as little Britain in his work Almagest. The name Albion appears to have out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain. After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a term only. It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself King of Great Brittaine, France, Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, politically to England, Scotland and Wales in combination
25.
Thomas Francis Wade
–
Born in London, he was the son of Major Wade of the Black Watch and Anne Smythe of Barbavilla, County Westmeath, Ireland. He was educated at the Cape, in Mauritius, at Harrow, in 1838, his father purchased for him a commission in the 81st Foot. Exchanging into the 42nd Highlanders, he served with his regiment in the Ionian Islands, devoting his leisure to the study of Italian. On receiving his commission as lieutenant in 1841 he exchanged into the 98th Foot, then orders for Qing China. The scene of the First Opium War had at that time been transferred to the Yangtze River, there he took part in the attack on Zhenjiang and in the advance on Nanking. In 1845, he was appointed interpreter in Cantonese to the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, in 1852 he was appointed vice-consul at Shanghai. This formed the beginning of the maritime customs service. In 1855, Wade was appointed Chinese secretary to Sir John Bowring, for the purpose of arranging for a camping ground in the neighborhood of Tongzhou he accompanied Mr Harry Parkes on his first visit to that city. As early as 1866, Wade urged Chinese officials to discontinue their method of execution known as slicing, Wade was appointed British Minister to China in 1871 and remained in that position in 1883. He was knighted in 1875, and negotiated the Chefoo Convention in 1876 with Li Hongzhang, in 1888, he was elected the first Professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge. He held the position as a professor until his death in Cambridge at 77 and he served as president of the Royal Asiatic Society from 1887 to 1890. Wade was married to Amelia Herschel, daughter of John Herschel, designed to accompany the Hsin Ching Lu, or Book of Experiments,1859. 語言自邇集 Yü-yen tzu-erh chi, a course designed to assist the student of colloquial Chinese. 文件自集 Wen-chien tzu-erh chi, a series of papers selected as specimens of documentary Chinese, 漢字習寫法 Han-tzu hsi-hsieh fa, a set of writing exercises, designed to accompany the colloquial series of the tzu-erh chi, London,1867. In these books, Wade produced an early and innovative system of transliteration of Chinese pronunciation into the Latin alphabet, wades system was later modified by Herbert Giles, into the Wade system as modified by Giles, the system now more generally known as the Wade-Giles system. It was the dominant transliteration system for much of the 20th century, though it was replaced by the Pinyin system, it is still used in some publications and communities. Note on the condition and government of the Chinese empire in 1849, the Chinese Army, Containing Notices of Its Bannermen, Hánkiun, and Luhying Divisions, With Details Respecting Their Organization, Locations, Pay, Efficiency, &c. n. p. The Hsin Ching Lu, or, Book of Experiments, being the first of a Series of Contributions to the Study of Chinese, État général des forces militaires et maritimes de la China, solde, armes, équipements, etc. J. Corréard
26.
Li Hongzhang
–
Li Hongzhang, GCVO, was a Chinese politician, general and diplomat of the late Qing dynasty. He quelled several major rebellions and served in important positions in the Qing imperial court, including the Viceroy of Zhili and he was presented the Royal Victorian Order by Queen Victoria. Li Hongzhang was also known by other names and his courtesy names were Zifu and Jianfu. His pseudonyms were Shaoquan, Yisou and Shengxin, the posthumous name awarded to him by the Qing government was Wenzhong. He was also referred to as Li Zhongtang and Li Fuxiang, Zhongtang and Fuxiang referred to his appointments as Grand Secretary. He also held the noble peerage First Class Count Suyi and was honoured as First Class Marquis Suyi. Li was born in a family in Qunzhi Village, Modian Township,14 kilometres northeast of central Hefei. In 1843, he sat for the imperial examination in Lu Prefecture. Along the way, he wrote ten poems under the collection Entering the Capital to express his feelings, in 1844, Li obtained a juren position in the district-level examination, but failed to make it in the metropolitan-level examination. He then started taking classes under Zeng Guofan, in 1847, he sat for the metropolitan-level examination again and obtained a jinshi position at the young age of 24, and was admitted to the Hanlin Academy as a shujishi. At the same time, he continued taking classes under Zeng Guofan to improve his knowledge. Three years later, he took the examination in the academy. In January 1851, the God Worshipping Society led by Hong Xiuquan started the Taiping Rebellion in Guangxi Province, within about two years, the rebels had conquered many territories in southern China and established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with Nanjing as their capital. In 1853, the rebels, advancing from Wuhan, captured Anqing and killed Jiang Wenqing, the Xianfeng Emperor commissioned Lü Xianji, the Left Vice Secretary of Works, to travel to Anhui Province and recruit civilians to form militias to counter the rebels. Lü Xianji knew that Li was familiar with the situation in Anhui Province so he secured permission from the imperial court to bring Li along with him as an adviser. Li was later ordered to remain in Anhui to oversee the militia, in late 1853, the Taiping rebels defeated imperial forces and captured Shucheng County, Lü Xianji committed suicide. In the following year, Jiang Zhongyuan, the xunfu of Anhui Province, Li then became a subordinate of Fuji, the new xunfu, who ordered him to lead troops to attack the rebels. Li recaptured two counties and Lu Prefecture from the rebels within the following year, for his achievements, he earned the appointment of a daotai and the privilege of wearing a single-eyed peacock feather in his hat
27.
Yantai
–
Yantai, formerly known as Zhifu or Chefoo, is a prefecture-level city on the Bohai Strait in northeastern Shandong Province, China. Lying on the southern coast of the Korea Bay, Yantai borders Qingdao on the southwest and it is the largest fishing seaport in Shandong. Its population was 6,968,202 during the 2010 census, of whom 2,227,733 lived in the area made up of the 4 urban districts of Zhifu, Muping, Fushan. The name Yantai derives from the watchtowers constructed on Mount Qi in 1398 under the reign of the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty, the towers were used to light signal fires and send smoke signals, called langyan from their supposed use of wolf dung for fuel. At the time, the area was troubled by the Dwarf Pirates, initially raiders from the states in Japan. It was also formerly romanized as Yen-tai, the major district of Yantai is Zhifu, which used to be the largest independent city in the area. It was variously romanized as Chefoo, Che-foo, Chi-fu, although this name was used for the city by foreigners prior to the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, the locals referred to the settlement as Yantai throughout. During the Xia and Shang dynasties, the region was inhabited by indigenous peoples known to the Chinese as the Eastern Barbarians. Under the Zhou, they were colonized and sinicized as the state of Lai. Lai was annexed by Qi in 567 BC, under the First Emperor, the area was administered as the Qi Commandery. Under the Han, this was renamed as the Donglai Commandery, following the Three Kingdoms Period, the area was organized by the Jin as the Donglai Kingdom or Principality, later returning to prefecture status as a jùn and then zhōu. Under the Tang and during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, it was known as Deng Prefecture and it was then organized as the Laizhou and then, under the Qing, Dengzhou Commandery. Up to the 19th century, however, the Zhifu area consisted of nothing, following the Second Opium War, the Qing Empire was obliged to open more treaty ports by the unequal 1858 Treaty of Tianjin, including Tengchow. Its port being found inadequate, Zhifu—about 30 miles away—was selected to act as the seat of the foreign commerce. The mooring was at considerable distance from shore, necessitating more time and expense in loading and unloading, the harbor opened in May 1861, with its status as an international port affirmed on 22 August. The official decree was accompanied by the construction of the Donghai Pass and it quickly became the residence of a circuit intendant, customs house, and a considerable foreign settlement located between the old native town and the harbor. Britain and sixteen other nations established consulates in the town, the principal traders were the British and Americans, followed by the Germans and Thais. The town also traded Chinese liquors and sundries for the seaweed grown in the shallows of the Russian settlements around Port Arthur. In 1875, the murder of the British diplomat Augustus Margary in Tengchong, Yunnan, led to a crisis that was resolved in Zhifu by Thomas Wade
28.
Second Sino-Japanese War
–
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from July 7,1937 to September 9,1945. The First Sino-Japanese War was fought from 1894 to 1895, China fought Japan, with some economic help from Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged into the conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. Many scholars consider the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to have been the beginning of World War II, the Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy to expand its influence politically and militarily in order to access to raw material reserves, food. The period after World War One brought about increasing stress on the Japanese polity, leftists sought universal suffrage and greater rights for workers. Increasing textile production from Chinese mills was adversely affecting Japanese production, the Depression brought about a large slowdown in exports. All of this contributed to militant nationalism, culminating in the rise to power of a militarist fascist faction and this faction was led at its height by the Imperial Rule Assistance Associations Hideki Tojo cabinet under the edict from Emperor Shōwa. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements, the last of these incidents was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, which is traditionally seen as the beginning of total war between the two countries. Since 2017 the Chinese Government has regarded the invasion of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army in 1931, initially the Japanese scored major victories, such as the Battle of Shanghai, and by the end of 1937 captured the Chinese capital of Nanjing. After failing to stop the Japanese in Wuhan, the Chinese central government was relocated to Chongqing in the Chinese interior, by 1939, after Chinese victories in Changsha and Guangxi, and with Japans lines of communications stretched deep into the Chinese interior, the war reached a stalemate. The Japanese were also unable to defeat the Chinese communist forces in Shaanxi, on December 7,1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the following day the United States declared war on Japan. The United States began to aid China via airlift matériel over the Himalayas after the Allied defeat in Burma that closed the Burma Road, in 1944 Japan launched the invasion, Operation Ichi-Go, that conquered Henan and Changsha. However, this failed to bring about the surrender of Chinese forces, in 1945, the Chinese Expeditionary Force resumed its advance in Burma and completed the Ledo Road linking India to China. At the same time, China launched large counteroffensives in South China and retook the west Hunan, the remaining Japanese occupation forces formally surrendered on September 9,1945 with the following International Military Tribunal for the Far East convened on April 29,1946. China was recognized as one of the Big Four of Allies during the war, in the Chinese language, the war is most commonly known as the War of Resistance Against Japan, and also known as the Eight Years War of Resistance, simply War of Resistance. It is also referred to as part of the Global Anti-Fascist War, which is how World War 2 is perceived by the Communist Party of China, in Japan, nowadays, the name Japan–China War is most commonly used because of its perceived objectivity. In Japan today, it is written as 日中戦争 in shinjitai, the word incident was used by Japan, as neither country had made a formal declaration of war
29.
County-level city
–
A county-level municipality, county-level city, or county city is a county-level administrative division of mainland China. County-level cities are governed by prefecture-level divisions, but a few are governed directly by province-level divisions. Most county-level cities were created in the 1980s and 1990s by replacing counties, a county-level city is a city and county that have been merged into one unified jurisdiction. As such it is simultaneously a city, which is an entity. County-level cities are not cities in the strictest sense of the word, since they usually contain rural areas many times the size of their urban and this is because the counties that county-level cities have replaced are themselves large administrative units containing towns, villages, and farmland. To distinguish a city from its actual urban area, the term 市区 shìqū. In France, an equivalent of a city is an agglomeration community. For example, in New South Wales such a unit may often be called a city, city of Blue Mountains is made of a number of towns. Another example would be municipal government in the Canadian province of Ontario and this agglomeration includes all of the townships in the county of Kent, with cities and towns like Wallaceberg, Thamesville, Dresden, Wheatley. This amalgamation as it is referred to, was controversial when it was forced upon the constituents through provincial legislation. Today, instead of each city having its own mayor and city councillors, as of January 2017, there are 360 County-level city in total, A sub-prefecture-level city is a county-level city with powers approaching those of prefecture-level cities. Examples include, Xiantao, Qianjiang, Tianmen and Jiyuan, administrative divisions of China Counties of the Peoples Republic of China Prefecture-level city List of cities in China
30.
Dianjun District
–
Dianjun District is a district of the city of Yichang, Hubei, Peoples Republic of China. It contains 3 townships with 23 villages, in 2004 it had 105,175 residents. The district is located on the bank of the Yangtze. Dianjun Districty is connected to Yichangs Xiling District by the Yiling Bridge, dianjun is served by the freight-only Yichang South Railway Station on the Yichang-Wanzhou Railway
31.
Xingshan County
–
Xingshan County is a county of western Hubei, Peoples Republic of China. It is under the administration of Yichang Prefecture-level City, the county occupies the mountainous north-western corner of Yichang prefecture, bordering on Badong County in the west and Shennongjia in the north. The highest mountains within the county are Mount Wanchao and Mount Wanfu, the county seat is in Gaofu town, this is the location that is simply marked as Xingshan on less detailed maps. Accordingly, some 20,000 residents had to be relocated from the flooded areas and it is officially part of the Three Gorges Reservoir Region. The county is divided into 8 county-level units,6 towns and 2 townships
_AN2125690.jpg)
.jpg)
