1.
Qing dynasty
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It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
2.
Emperor Xian of Han
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Emperor Xian of Han, personal name Liu Xie, courtesy name Bohe, was the last emperor of the Eastern Han dynasty in ancient China. He reigned from 28 September 189 until 10 December 220, Liu Xie was a son of Liu Hong and was a younger half-brother of his predecessor, Liu Bian. In 189, at the age of eight, he became emperor after the warlord Dong Zhuo, the newly enthroned Liu Xie, historically known as Emperor Xian, was in fact a puppet ruler under Dong Zhuos control. After Dong Zhuos assassination in 192, Emperor Xian fell under the control of Li Jue and Guo Si, the various regional warlords formally acknowledged Emperor Xians legitimacy but never took action to save him from being held hostage. In 195, Emperor Xian managed to escape from Changan and return to the ruins of Luoyang, where he soon became stranded. A year later, the warlord Cao Cao led his forces into Luoyang, received Emperor Xian, took him under his protection, and escorted him to Xu, although Cao Cao paid nominal allegiance to Emperor Xian, he was actually the de facto head of the central government. He skilfully used Emperor Xian as a card to bolster his legitimacy when he attacked and eliminated rival warlords in his quest to reunify the Han Empire under the central governments rule. Cao Caos success seemed inevitable until the winter of 208–209, when he lost the decisive Battle of Red Cliffs against the southern warlords Sun Quan, the battle paved the way for the subsequent emergence of the Three Kingdoms later. In late 220, some months after Cao Caos death, Cao Caos successor, Cao Pi, forced Emperor Xian to abdicate the throne to him. He then established the state of Cao Wei with himself as the new emperor – an event marking the end of the Han dynasty. The dethroned Emperor Xian received the noble title Duke of Shanyang from Cao Pi and spent the rest of his life in comfort and he died in 234 at the age of 53,14 years after the fall of the Han dynasty. Liu Xie was born in 181 to Emperor Ling and his Consort Wang, during her pregnancy, Consort Wang, fearful of Emperor Lings Empress He, had taken drugs that were intended to induce an abortion, but was not successful in her attempt. Soon after she gave birth to Liu Xie, the jealous Empress He poisoned her by putting poison in her food, Emperor Ling was enraged and wanted to depose her, but the eunuchs pleaded on her behalf, and she was not deposed. Liu Xie was raised personally by Emperor Lings mother Empress Dowager Dong and he Jin found out, and preemptively declared Liu Bian the new emperor. Later that year, Emperor Shao granted Liu Xie the title Prince of Bohai, after Liu Bian became emperor, He Jin became the most powerful official in the imperial court, and he and his advisor Yuan Shao quickly entered into a conspiracy to exterminate the eunuchs. One of these warlords was Dong Zhuo, who saw this as an opportunity to control the central government and he Jins plan was discovered by the eunuchs, who laid a trap for him and killed him. Yuan Shao then led his forces into the palace and killed the majority of the eunuchs, the remaining eunuchs initially took the young emperor and Liu Xie hostage, but were eventually forced to commit suicide when the battle turned against them. Dong Zhuo then murdered Empress Dowager He and the former Emperor Shao, in the spring of 190, a number of local officials, loosely forming a coalition led by Yuan Shao, quickly rose up against Dong Zhuo
3.
Ji Province
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Jizhou was one of the Nine Provinces of ancient China. It is referenced in Chinese historical texts such as the Tribute of Yu, Erya and it consisted of lands north of the Yellow River, including the modern province Hebei, and the municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin. In the late Han dynasty, much of northern China, including Jizhou, was controlled by the warlord Yuan Shao, in 200, Yuan Shao was defeated by the rival warlord Cao Cao at the Battle of Guandu, and died shortly thereafter. His sons Yuan Shang and Yuan Tan took control of his territories, in the following years, Cao Cao launched an invasion of northern China, capturing Ye in 204 and decisively winning the Battle of White Wolf Mountain in 207. Cao Cao and his successors controlled Jizhou for the rest of the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period
4.
Henan
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Henan is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is 豫, named after Yuzhou, a Han Dynasty state that parts of Henan. Although the name of the province south of the river, approximately a quarter of the province lies north of the Yellow River. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou which literally means central plain land or midland, although the name is also applied to the entirety of China proper. Henan is the birthplace of Chinese civilization with over 3,000 years of recorded history, and remained Chinas cultural, economical, numerous heritages have been left behind including the ruins of Shang Dynasty capital city Yin and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the Eight Great Ancient Capitals of China, Luoyang, Anyang, Kaifeng, with an area of 167,000 km2, Henan covers a large part of the fertile and densely populated North China Plain. Its neighbouring provinces are Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Anhui, Henan is Chinas third most populous province with a population of over 94 million. If it were a country by itself, Henan would be the 12th most populous country in the world, behind Mexico, Henan is the 5th largest provincial economy of China and the largest among inland provinces. However, per capita GDP is low compared to eastern and central provinces. The economy continues to depend on its dwindling aluminum and coal reserves, as well as agriculture, heavy industry, tourism, high-tech industry and service sector is underdeveloped and is concentrated around Zhengzhou and Luoyang. Widely regarded as the Cradle of Chinese civilization along with Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, Henan is known for its historical prosperity, the economic prosperity resulted from its extensive fertile plains and its location at the heart of the country. However, its location also means that it has suffered from nearly all of the major wars in China. In addition, the floods of the Yellow River have caused significant damage from time to time. Kaifeng, in particular, has been buried by the Yellow Rivers silt seven times due to flooding, archaeological sites reveal that prehistoric cultures such as the Yangshao Culture and Longshan Culture were active in what is now northern Henan since the Neolithic Era. The more recent Erlitou culture has been identified with the Xia Dynasty. Virtually the entire kingdom existed within what is now north and central Henan, the Xia Dynasty collapsed around the 16th century BC following the invasion of Shang, a neighboring vassal state centered around todays Shangqiu in eastern Henan. The Shang Dynasty was the first literate dynasty of China and its many capitals are located at the modern cities of Shangqiu, Yanshi, and Zhengzhou. Their last and most important capital, Yin, located in modern Anyang, is where the first Chinese writing was created, in the 11th century BC, the Zhou Dynasty of Shaanxi arrived from the west and overthrew the Shang Dynasty
5.
Handan
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Handan is a prefecture-level city located in the southwestern part of Hebei province, China. It borders Xingtai on the north, and the provinces of Shanxi on the west, Henan on the south and Shandong on the east. Handan, whose name has not changed in its history, was the capital of the State of Zhao during the Warring States period. King Wuling of Zhao turned Zhao into one of the Qin states most stalwart foes, the city was conquered by the State of Qin after the virtual annexation of Zhao by Qin except for the Dai Commandery. The conquest of Zhao, particularly the Qin siege of Handan, is featured extensively in Chen Kaiges classic film, The Emperor, Handan was still regarded as a cultural and commercial centre during the Western and Eastern Han dynasties. It slowly declined, perhaps because of the battles that ravaged northern China following the Han Dynasty. It was also the birthplace in the 19th century of Yang-style tai chi chuan, modern-day Congtai Park is located on the site of the historical Zhao court. Next to Congtai Park is the legendary Xuebu Qiao, or Learning to Walk Bridge, legend has it that a noble from the state of Yan heard of a particularly elegant manner of walking unique to Handan. Arriving in Handan, he spent weeks trying to master the Handan style of walking on a bridge, in the process, however, he had forgotten how to walk normally and had to crawl back to Yan. This story inspired the Chinese expression, 邯郸学步, which means learning something difficult too intensely, the nearby Xiangtangshan Caves contain massive Buddha statues carved into the mountainside, some dating to the 6th century. Many of these statues were vandalised by occupying Japanese forces during World War II. Handan was prized by the Japanese invaders for its coal reserves. The population at the 2010 census was 941,427 for the 3 urban districts,2,845,790 for the built up area and 9,174,683 for the entire Prefecture-level city area of 12,068 km2. The municipal executive, legislative and judiciary are situated in Congtai District, as well as the CPC, Handan has a cold semi-arid climate Industrial growth in the city was due to its communication and transport activities. Coal mines at Fengfeng provide power for Handans iron, steel, chemical and cement plants along with other industries also benefit. The GDP per capita in Renminbi, aka yuan was estimated at ¥13,449 in 2005, according to a survey by Global voices China in February 2013, Handan is one of Chinas most polluted cities due to heavy industrial outputs. According to Handan government in 2007,40 ethnic groups were present in Handan, ethnic minorities represent 50,000 people, among which 48,000 Hui. There are 22 Hui schools and 5 Hui junior high schools in Handan, the most widespread religions in Handan are Chinese folk religions including Taoism, and Buddhism
6.
Hebei
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Hebei is a province of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is 冀, named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei, the name Hebei literally means north of the river, referring to its location entirely to the north of the Huang He 黄河. Hebei was formed in 1928 after the government dissolved the province of Chihli. Beijing and Tianjin Municipalities, which each other, were carved out of Hebei. The province borders Liaoning to the northeast, Inner Mongolia to the north, Shanxi to the west, Henan to the south, Bohai Bay of the Yellow Sea is to the east. A common alternate name for Hebei is Yānzhào, after the state of Yan, plains in Hebei were the home of Peking man, a group of Homo erectus that lived in the area around 200,000 to 700,000 years ago. Neolithic findings at the prehistoric Beifudi site date back to 7000 and 8000 BC, during the Spring and Autumn period, Hebei was under the rule of the states of Yan in the north and Jin in the south. Also during this period, a people known as Dí invaded the plains of northern China. During the Warring States period, Jin was partitioned, and much of its territory within Hebei went to Zhao, the Qin Dynasty unified China in 221 BC. The Han Dynasty ruled the area under two provinces, Youzhou Province in the north and Jizhou Province in the south, Hebei then came under the rule of the Kingdom of Wei, established by the descendants of Cao Cao. After the invasions of nomadic peoples at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the chaos of the Sixteen Kingdoms. Hebei, firmly in North China and right at the frontier, changed hands many times, being controlled at various points in history by the Later Zhao, Former Yan, Former Qin. The Northern Wei reunified northern China in 440, but split in half in 534, with Hebei coming under the eastern half, the Sui Dynasty again unified China in 589. During the Tang Dynasty, the area was formally designated Hebei for the first time, during the earlier part of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Hebei was fragmented among several regimes, though it was eventually unified by Li Cunxu, who established the Later Tang. During the Northern Song Dynasty, the sixteen ceded prefectures continued to be an area of hot contention between Song China and the Liao Dynasty. The Southern Song Dynasty that came after abandoned all of North China, including Hebei, the Mongol Yuan Dynasty divided China into provinces but did not establish Hebei as a province. Rather, the area was administrated by the Secretariat at capital Dadu. When the Manchu Qing Dynasty came to power in 1644, they abolished the southern counterpart, during the Qing Dynasty, the northern borders of Zhili extended deep into what is now Inner Mongolia, and overlapped in jurisdiction with the leagues of Inner Mongolia
7.
Yuan Shu
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Yuan Shu, courtesy name Gonglu, was a warlord who lived in the late Eastern Han dynasty. He rose to prominence following the collapse of the court in 189. Yuan Shu was said to be a cousin of the warlord Yuan Shao. After the death of He Jin, he led a force to slay the eunuchs as the Imperial Corps Commander of the Imperial Tiger Guards, Later, he participated in an alliance against Dong Zhuo led by Yuan Shao. After the dissension of this alliance, he vied with Yuan Shao over control of northern China, Yuan Shu allied with Yuan Shaos northern rival Gongsun Zan, and Yuan Shao in turn allied with Yuan Shus southern rival Liu Biao. Yuan Shu fled to Shouchun after repeated defeats by the armies of Cao Cao. This audacious action made him a target of the other warlords and his extravagant lifestyle and arrogance caused many of his followers to desert him. Following crushing defeats by the armies of Cao Cao, Liu Bei and he died shortly thereafter of sickness and in grief. Records of the Three Kingdoms, Volume 6, Biography of Yuan Shu, book of the Later Han, Volume 75
8.
Courtesy name
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A courtesy name, also known as a style name, is a name bestowed upon one at adulthood in addition to ones given name. This practice is a tradition in East Asian cultures, including China, Japan, Korea, formerly in China, the zi would replace a males given name when he turned twenty, as a symbol of adulthood and respect. It could be either by the parents or by the first personal teacher on the first day of family school. Females might substitute their given name for a zi upon marriage, one also may adopt a self-chosen courtesy name. In China the popularity of the custom has declined to some extent since the May Fourth Movement in 1919, a courtesy name is not to be confused with an art name, another frequently mentioned term for an alternative name in Asian culture-based context. An art name is associated with art and is more of a literary name or a pseudonym that is more spontaneous. The zì, sometimes called the biǎozì or courtesy name, is a name given to Chinese males at the age of 20. It was sometimes given to females upon marriage, the practice is no longer common in modern Chinese society. According to the Book of Rites, after a man reaches adulthood, it is disrespectful for others of the generation to address him by his given name. The zì is mostly disyllabic and is based on the meaning of the míng or given name. Yan Zhitui of the Northern Qi dynasty believed that while the purpose of the míng was to one person from another. The relation which exists between a persons zì and míng may be seen in the case of Chiang Kai-shek, whose ming was Zhōngzhèng. Thus he was also called 蔣中正（Chiang Chung-cheng）in some context, another way to form a zì is to use the homophonic character zǐ – a respectful title for a male – as the first character of the disyllabic zì. Thus, for example, Gongsun Qiaos zì was Zǐchǎn, and Du Fus and it is also common to construct a zì by using as the first character one which expresses the bearers birth order among male siblings in his family. Thus Confucius, whose name was Kǒng Qiū, was given the zì Zhòngní, the characters commonly used are bó for the first, zhòng for the second, shū for the third, and jì typically for the youngest, if the family consists of more than three sons. General Sun Jians four sons, for instance, were Sun Ce, Sun Quan, Sun Yi, the use of zì began during the Shang dynasty, and slowly developed into a system which became most widespread during the succeeding Zhou dynasty. During this period, women were also given zì, the zì given to a woman was generally composed of a character indicating her birth order among female siblings and her surname. For example, Mèng Jiāng was the eldest daughter in the Jiāng family, prior to the twentieth century, sinicized Koreans, Vietnamese, and Japanese were also referred to by their zì
9.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
10.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
11.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
12.
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
13.
Cantonese
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Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
14.
Jyutping
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Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
15.
Southern Min
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Southern Min, or Minnan, is a branch of Min Chinese spoken in certain parts of China including southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and southern Zhejiang, and in Taiwan. The Min Nan dialects are spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia. In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to Hokkien, including Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien, the Southern Min dialect group also includes Teochew, though Teochew has limited mutual intelligibility with Hokkien. Hainanese is not mutually intellgible with other Southern Min and is considered a separate branch of Min. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with Eastern Min, Pu-Xian Min, any other Min branch, Hakka, Cantonese, Shanghainese or Mandarin. Southern Min dialects are spoken in the part of Fujian. The variant spoken in Leizhou, Guangdong as well as Hainan is Hainanese and is not mutually intelligible with other Southern Min or Teochew, Hainanese is classified in some schemes as part of Southern Min and in other schemes as separate. Puxian Min was originally based on the Quanzhou dialect, but over time became heavily influenced by Eastern Min, eventually losing intellegility with Minnan. A forms of Southern Min spoken in Taiwan, collectively known as Taiwanese, Southern Min is a first language for most of the Hoklo people, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Southern Min while some non-Hoklo speak Southern Min fluently, there are many Southern Min speakers also among Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese immigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present-day Malaysia and Singapore. In general, Southern Min from southern Fujian is known as Hokkien, Hokkienese, many Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese also originated in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong and speak Teochew language, the variant of Southern Min from that region. Southern Min-speakers form the majority of Chinese in Singapore, with the largest group being Hokkien, despite the similarities the two groups are rarely seen as part of the same Minnan Chinese subgroups. The variants of Southern Min spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou, the variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Those Southern Min variants that are known as Hokkien in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants. The variants of Southern Min in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province are known as Teochew or Chaozhou. Teochew is of importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra. The Philippines variant is mostly from the Quanzhou area as most of their forefathers are from the aforementioned area, the Southern Min language variant spoken around Shanwei and Haifeng differs markedly from Teochew and may represent a later migration from Zhangzhou
16.
Taiwanese Romanization System
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The Taiwanese Romanization System is a transcription system for Taiwanese Hokkien. It is derived from Pe̍h-ōe-jī and since 2006 has been promoted by Taiwans Ministry of Education. It is nearly identical to Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet Romanization for Hakka apart from using ts tsh j instead of c ch j for the fricatives /ts tsʰ dz/, Taiwanese Romanization System uses 16 basic Latin letters,7 digraphs and a trigraph. In addition, it uses 6 diacritics to represent tones, nn is only used after a vowel to express nasalization, so it has no capital letter. Palatalization occurs when J, S, Ts, Tsh followed by i, so Ji, Si, Tsi, of the 10 unused basic Latin letters, R is sometimes used to express dialectal vowels, while the others are only used in loanwords. O pronounced ㄜ in general dialect in Kaohsiung and Tainan, ㄛ in Taipei, -nn forms the nasal vowels There is also syllabic m and ng. ing pronounced, ik pronounced. A hyphen links elements of a compound word, a double hyphen indicates that the following syllable has a neutral tone and therefore that the preceding syllable does not undergo tone sandhi. 臺灣閩南語羅馬拼音及其發音學習網, Taiwanese Romanization System learning site by Ministry of Education, Taiwan
17.
Chinese name
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Chinese personal names are names used by those from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora overseas. Prior to the 20th century, educated Chinese also utilized a courtesy name or style name called zi by which they were known among those outside of their family and closest friends. From at least the time of the Shang dynasty, the Han Chinese observed a number of naming taboos regulating who may or may not use a given name. In general, using the given name connoted the speakers authority, peers and younger relatives were barred from speaking it. Owing to this, many historical Chinese figures – particularly emperors – used a half-dozen or more different names in different contexts and those possessing names identical to the emperors were frequently forced to change them. Although some terms in the ancient Chinese naming system, such as xìng and míng, are used today, they were used in different. Commoners possessed only a name, and the modern concept of a surname or family name did not yet exist at any level of society.3 billion citizens. In fact, just the top three – Wang, Li, and Zhang – cover more than 20% of the population. This homogeneity results from the majority of Han family names having only one character. Chinese surnames arose from two separate traditions, the xìng and the shì. The original xìng were clans of royalty at the Shang court, the shì did not originate from families, but denoted fiefs, states, and titles granted or recognized by the Shang court. Apart from the Jiang and Yao families, the original xìng have nearly disappeared, xìng is now used to describe the shì surnames which replaced them, while shì is used to refer to maiden names. The enormous modern clans sometimes share ancestral halls with one another, nonetheless, however tenuous these bonds sometimes are, it remains a minor taboo to marry someone with the same family name. In modern mainland China, it is the norm that a woman keeps her name unchanged. A child usually inherits his/her fathers surname, though the law explicitly states that a child may use either parents or the grandparents. It is also possible, though far less common, for a child to both parents surnames. In the older generations, it was common for a married woman to prepend her husbands surname to her own. This practice is now almost extinct in mainland China, though there are a few such as the name change of Gu Kailai, but survives in some Hong Kong, Macau
18.
Chinese surname
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Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicized ethnic groups in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and among overseas Chinese communities. In ancient times two types of surnames existed, namely xing or lineage names, and shi or clan names, Chinese family names are patrilineal, passed from father to children. Women do not normally change their surnames upon marriage, except in places with more Western influences such as Hong Kong, traditionally Chinese surnames have been exogamous. The colloquial expressions laobaixing and bǎixìng are used in Chinese to mean ordinary folks, prior to the Warring States period, only the ruling families and the aristocratic elite had surnames. Historically there was also a difference between clan names or xing and lineages names or shi, Xing were surnames held by the noble clans. They generally are composed of a nü radical which has taken by some as evidence they originated from matriarchal societies based on maternal lineages. Another hypothesis has been proposed by sinologist Léon Vandermeersch upon observation of the evolution of characters in oracular scripture from the Shang dynasty through the Zhou, the female radical seems to appear at the Zhou period next to Shang sinograms indicating an ethnic group or a tribe. This combination seems to designate specifically a female and could mean lady of such or such clan, prior to the Qin Dynasty China was largely a fengjian society. In this way, a nobleman would hold a shi and a xing, after the states of China were unified by Qin Shi Huang in 221 BC, surnames gradually spread to the lower classes and the difference between xing and shi blurred. Many shi surnames survive to the present day, according to Kiang Kang-Hu, there are 18 sources from which Chinese surnames may be derived, while others suggested at least 24. The following are some of the sources, Xing, These were usually reserved for the central lineage of the royal family. Of these xings, only Jiang and Yao have survived in their form to modern days as frequently occurring surnames. Royal decree by the Emperor, such as Kuang, state name, Many nobles and commoners took the name of their state, either to show their continuing allegiance or as a matter of national and ethnic identity. These are some of the most common Chinese surnames, name of a fief or place of origin, Fiefdoms were often granted to collateral branches of the aristocracy and it was natural as part of the process of sub-surnaming for their names to be used. An example is Di, Marquis of Ouyangting, whose descendants took the surname Ouyang, there are some two hundred examples of this identified, often of two-character surnames, but few have survived to the present. Names of an ancestor, Like the previous example, this was also a common origin with close to 500 or 600 examples,200 of which are two-character surnames, often an ancestors courtesy name would be used. For example, Yuan Taotu took the character of his grandfathers courtesy name Boyuan as his surname. Sometimes titles granted to ancestors could also be taken as surnames, seniority within the family, In ancient usage, the characters of meng, zhong, shu and ji were used to denote the first, second, third and fourth eldest sons in a family
19.
Yuan (surname)
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Yuan is a Chinese surname ranked 37th in China by population. In Standard Chinese, the surname is transliterated Yuán or Yüen2, other romanizations include Yeu, Ion, Yuen, Oan, Wang, Won, and Viên. Pronunciation differs widely from region to region, according to tradition, the surname originated from a noble family of the ancient state of Chen, in what is now eastern Henan province. The written form of the character took its current standardised form around the 1st century, during the Han Dynasty, it was associated with the powerful Yuan clan of Runan and later during Jin and Southern Dynasties, with the Yuan clan of Chen. Historically, the name has been fast growing amongst Han Chinese, the surname is now held by more than 6.5 million people worldwide, and makes up 0. 54% of the population of mainland China. Because the Yangtze Delta region has historically exhibited high clan consciousness, there exist a number of Yuan genealogies. Renewed interest in ancestry outside mainland China has been encouraged by the PRC government, traditional sources trace the surname to Yuan Taotu, a 7th-century BC Chen nobleman, who was part of a collateral branch of the family of the marquis ruling that state. He selected the character in his grandfathers style name, Boyuan. Yuan Taotu was granted a feoff in Yangjia, in what is now Taikang county and this estate is regarded as the ancestral home of the earliest Yuan clan. Through its connection with the family of Chen, the Yuan house could also claim ancestry from the semi-legendary Emperor Shun. Descendants of Yuan house are mentioned by name in the Zuo Zhuan as holding office in the state of Chen until it was extinguished by Chu in 479 BC. An alternate, much less widely accepted theory, suggests that the surname Yuan is derived from Xuanyuan, after his death, the Yellow Emperors estates came to be called Yuanyi, and his descendants took their place of birth as a surname. Prior to the unification of China in 221 BC, the surname is known to have been present in the historical domain of Chen. Some members of the Yuan clan are known to have moved to Zheng, the process of emigration from the Yangjia heartland continued after unification. An example of this is the case of Yuan Ang, a minister to Emperor Gao of Han and his family was forced by banditry to move to Anling, in the area of modern Xian, some 500 km west of their ancestral homeland. The surname Yuan could be written in at least five different ways in early Han times, by the 1st century, the name had taken a largely standardised form, which remains to the present day. An early dictionary, the Shuowen, defines this character as a long garment, the Han text Qian fu lun suggests that the character was derived from either 1) the character ai, meaning sorrow, grief, or 2) a combination of the characters gong and gu. Until the end of the Han Dynasty, the heartland of the Yuan house was still in the area of the ancient state of Chen, around the 1st century, three Yuan clans rose to sufficient national importance to be mentioned in the dynastic histories
20.
Han dynasty
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The Han dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period. Spanning over four centuries, the Han period is considered an age in Chinese history. To this day, Chinas majority ethnic group refers to itself as the Han people and it was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han, and briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang. This interregnum separates the Han dynasty into two periods, the Western Han or Former Han and the Eastern Han or Later Han, the emperor was at the pinnacle of Han society. He presided over the Han government but shared power with both the nobility and appointed ministers who came largely from the gentry class. The Han Empire was divided into areas controlled by the central government using an innovation inherited from the Qin known as commanderies. These kingdoms gradually lost all vestiges of their independence, particularly following the Rebellion of the Seven States, from the reign of Emperor Wu onward, the Chinese court officially sponsored Confucianism in education and court politics, synthesized with the cosmology of later scholars such as Dong Zhongshu. This policy endured until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 AD, the Han dynasty was an age of economic prosperity and saw a significant growth of the money economy first established during the Zhou dynasty. The coinage issued by the government mint in 119 BC remained the standard coinage of China until the Tang dynasty. The period saw a number of limited institutional innovations, the Xiongnu, a nomadic steppe confederation, defeated the Han in 200 BC and forced the Han to submit as a de facto inferior partner, but continued their raids on the Han borders. Emperor Wu of Han launched several campaigns against them. The ultimate Han victory in these wars eventually forced the Xiongnu to accept vassal status as Han tributaries, the territories north of Hans borders were quickly overrun by the nomadic Xianbei confederation. Imperial authority was seriously challenged by large Daoist religious societies which instigated the Yellow Turban Rebellion. When Cao Pi, King of Wei, usurped the throne from Emperor Xian, following Liu Bangs victory in the Chu–Han Contention, the resulting Han dynasty was named after the Hanzhong fief. Chinas first imperial dynasty was the Qin dynasty, the Qin unified the Chinese Warring States by conquest, but their empire became unstable after the death of the first emperor Qin Shi Huangdi. Within four years, the authority had collapsed in the face of rebellion. Although Xiang Yu proved to be a commander, Liu Bang defeated him at Battle of Gaixia. Liu Bang assumed the title emperor at the urging of his followers and is known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu, Changan was chosen as the new capital of the reunified empire under Han
21.
End of the Han dynasty
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The end of the Han dynasty refers to the period of Chinese history from 189 to 220 AD, which roughly coincides with the tumultuous reign of the Han dynastys last ruler, Emperor Xian. During this period, the country was thrown into turmoil by the Yellow Turban Rebellion, eventually, one of those warlords, Cao Cao, was able to gradually reunify the empire, ostensibly under Emperor Xians rule, but the empire was actually controlled by Cao Cao himself. Cao Caos efforts to reunite the Han empire were rebuffed at the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 /209. The Han dynasty formally ended in 220 when Cao Caos son and heir, Cao Pi, Cao Pi became the emperor of a new state, Cao Wei. A year later, in response to Cao Pis usurpation of the Han throne, Liu Bei declared himself emperor of Shu Han, and in 229, Sun Quan followed suit, declaring himself emperor of Eastern Wu. The period from Emperor Xians abdication in 220 to the reunification of China under the Jin dynasty in 265 was known as the Three Kingdoms era in Chinese history. Towards the end of the reign of Emperor Ling of Han, Emperor Ling, convinced by Liu Yan, changed the Inspectors titles to Governor and granted them the authority to levy taxes and command armed forces within the borders. Liu Yan was commissioned as the Governor of Yi Province, while other important officials also became Governors, including Liu Yu. The increased influence of these provincial governors formed the basis on which later warlords would control large regions of the Han empire, Emperor Ling died in 189 and was succeeded by his 13-year-old son, Liu Bian, who became known as Emperor Shao. Empress He, now empress dowager, became regent to the emperor, while her older brother, General-in-Chief He Jin. He Jin and Yuan Shao plotted to exterminate all the Ten Attendants, a group of ten influential eunuch officials in the court, after the eunuchs discovered He Jins plot, they lured him into the palace and murdered him. In response, Yuan Shao led the guards on an indiscriminate massacre of the palace eunuchs. Dong Zhuo arrived on the scene and found Emperor Shao and the Prince of Chenliu, the young emperor appeared nervous and fearful, while the prince remained calm and composed, and gave orders to Dong Zhuo to escort them back to the palace. Dong Zhuo used the opportunity to control of state power. Not long later, Dong Zhuo deposed Emperor Shao and replaced him with the Prince of Chenliu, in the spring of 190, several provincial officials and warlords formed a coalition against Dong Zhuo, claiming that he was set on usurping the throne and had effectively kidnapped Emperor Xian. Yuan Shao, Administrator of Bohai, was nominated to be the leader of the coalition, the coalition armies was stationed at Henei and appeared to be ready to move on the capital Luoyang. However, the coalition was actually rather disorganized, and Yuan Shao did not have command over the entire alliance. Besides, the members were also hesitant to directly confront Dong Zhuo
22.
Huai River
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The Huai River, formerly romanized as the Hwai, is a major river in China. It is located midway between the Yellow River and Yangtze, the two largest rivers in China, and like them runs from west to east. Historically draining directly into the Yellow Sea, floods have changed the course of the river such that it is now a tributary of the Yangtze. The Huai is notoriously vulnerable to flooding, the Huai River-Qin Mountains line is generally regarded as the geographical dividing line between Northern and southern China. This line approximates the 0 degree January isotherm and the 800 mm isohyet in China and it also reflects the boundary established in 1142 by the Treaty of Shaoxing between the Jin dynasty in North China and the Southern Song in South China. The Huai River is 1,110 kilometres long with an area of 174,000 square kilometres. The Huai River originates in Tongbai Mountain in Henan province and it flows through southern Henan, northern Anhui, and northern Jiangsu, entering the Yangtze River at Jiangdu, Yangzhou. Historically, the Huai River entered the Yellow Sea at Yuntiguan through a broad and it was long used to irrigate the surrounding farmlands, and was the centre of an extensive network of canals and tributaries. Beginning in 1194, however, the Yellow River to the north repeatedly changed its course southwards to run into the Huai River. As a result, water from the midsection of the river could not easily flow into the lower section, the main stem of the Yellow River flowed through the levee breach for the next nine years, further disrupting the Huai river system. The result of changes was that water from the Huai River pooled up into Lake Hongze. Major and minor floods occurred frequently, with the area suffering droughts in between floods, in the 450 years to 1950, the Huai River saw, on average,94 major floods per century. Attempts to solve the Huai Rivers problems have focussed on building outlets for the Huai River into the Yangtze River, currently, the major part of the rivers flow enters the Yangtze River via Lake Hongze. The North Jiangsu Main Irrigation Canal also diverts some of its water along its old course to the sea. Several former tributaries also carry water to the sea
23.
Campaign against Dong Zhuo
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The Campaign against Dong Zhuo was a punitive expedition initiated by a coalition of regional officials and warlords against the warlord Dong Zhuo in 190 in the late Eastern Han dynasty. The members of the claimed that Dong had the intention of usurping the throne by holding Emperor Xian hostage. They justified their campaign as to remove Dong from power, the campaign led to the evacuation of the capital Luoyang and the shifting of the imperial court to Changan. It was a prelude to the end of the Han dynasty and, subsequently, the two scenes are often reenacted in Chinese opera along with other famous scenes from the novel. Both incidents however, are fictional, Hua was killed in a battle against Sun Jian, Liu, Guan and Zhang were not active in the campaign. Instead, they were fighting remnants of the Yellow Turban rebels in the north and thus did not duel with Lü Bu, following the death of Emperor Ling in 189, General-in-Chief He Jin summoned the frontier general Dong Zhuo from the northwest into the capital city of Luoyang. Dong was ordered to lead his troops into the city to aid He in eliminating the eunuch faction. However, before Dong Zhuos arrival, He Jins plan was revealed and he Jins associates led by Yuan Shao stormed the palace after the assassination and started massacring eunuchs. The young Emperor Shao and his brother, the Prince of Chenliu, were brought out of the palace by the surviving eunuchs during the chaos. The emperor lost the Imperial Seal during his escape and they were eventually discovered by a search party and escorted back to the palace safely by Dong Zhuo and his men. Subsequently, the warlord Ding Yuan was killed by his subordinate Lü Bu for opposing Dong Zhuos decision to depose Emperor Shao, Lü then defected to Dongs side. In 190, Dong Zhuo deposed Emperor Shao and installed the Prince of Chenliu on the throne, the prince became historically known as Emperor Xian. Dong appointed himself as Chancellor of State, an official post abolished almost 200 years ago, on March 26 in the same year, Dong had the Prince of Hongnong and Empress Dowager He killed. Since then, Dong Zhuo had established an influence in the imperial court. He was authoritarian and showed no regard for the monarchy as he made the final decisions on policies without consulting or seeking approval from the emperor. He eliminated several of his opponents in the court to further strengthen his grip over the apparatus of state. Yuan Shao fled from Luoyang after openly disagreeing with Dong Zhuos decision to depose Emperor Shao, Dong Zhuo feared that Yuan Shao might rise in revolt against him as Yuan was also an influential figure in politics as well. Dong heeded his advisors suggestions and proposed to the emperor to appoint Yuan as Grand Administrator of Bohai as an act of appeasement, while in Bohai, Yuan Shao was not appeased by Dong Zhuos proposal to appoint him as Grand Administrator
24.
Dong Zhuo
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Dong Zhuo, courtesy name Zhongying, was a politician and warlord who lived in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Dong Zhuo subsequently deposed Emperor Shao and instated Emperor Xian, Dong Zhuo rose to power in the Han imperial court and ruled the nation with tyranny and cruelty for a brief period of time. The following year, a coalition of officials and warlords launched a punitive campaign against Dong, forcing him to move the capital to Changan. Dong Zhuo was assassinated in 192 by his foster son Lü Bu as part of an orchestrated by Interior Minister Wang Yun. Dong Zhuo was born in Lintao, Longxi Commandery and was said to be a youth who was excellent in horseback archery in his early days. He travelled around the Qiang region and befriended many men of gallantry, when he grew up, he returned and started farming in the countryside, where he incidentally excavated a blade, which had obscure inscription fading from it which said slash the kings like logging. When he took the sabre to the famed scholar Cai Yong for appraisal, as a physically adept man with a good background, Dong became an imperial guard, and joined Zhang Huans campaign against Qiang rebels in Bing Province as a Major. He was rewarded with 9,000 rolls of silk for his performance. Dong was sent to quell the Yellow Turban Rebellion in the early 180s after a few subsequent promotions but he was defeated by the rebels and demoted. When the tribes of Qiang and Hu rebelled with local gentries Han Sui and Bian Zhang in Liang Province, Dong was reinstated as Knight General, during a battle with the Qiang tribes, Dong Zhuos army was outnumbered and a river sealed his retreat route. To prevent his army from being routed by the enemy, Dong ordered his troops to dam the river and he sent his men to cross the drained lower stream and break the dam in order to thwart any subsequent pursuits by the enemy. Despite failing the campaign, Dongs unit was the only unscathed unit of the Han forces, Dong Zhuo was henceforth promoted to General of the Van and Inspector of Bing Province. However, he refused to accept his new post as he was unwilling to leave his troops, realizing the Han authority was declining from its failure in subjugating the Qiang tribe, Dong focused on building his power in Liang. At the time, a Han military officer, Sun Jian, suggested to his superior that Dongs arrogance and insubordination to the court warranted a death sentence, but his advice was not heeded. Following the death of Emperor Ling in 189, General-in-Chief He Jin ordered Dong Zhuo to lead troops into Luoyang to aid him in eliminating the eunuch faction, before Dongs arrival, He Jin was assassinated by the eunuchs and the capital city fell into a state of turmoil. The eunuchs took Emperor Shao hostage and fled from Luoyang, Dong Zhuos army intercepted the eunuchs and brought the emperor back to the palace. At the same time, He Jins half-brother, General of Chariots and he Jin and He Miaos forces were without a leader and came under Dong Zhuos command when the latter led his ferocious Liang Province troops into the city. Lü then became Dongs adopted son and trusted aide, and assisted Dong to take control of the imperial capital of Luoyang
25.
Luoyang
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Luoyang, formerly romanized as Loyang, is a city located in the confluence area of Luo River and Yellow River in Central China. It is a city in western Henan province. It borders the capital of Zhengzhou to the east, Pingdingshan to the southeast, Nanyang to the south, Sanmenxia to the west, Jiyuan to the north. Situated on the plain of China, Luoyang is one of the cradles of Chinese civilization. The name Luoyang originates from the location on the north or sunny side of the Luo River. Since the river flows from west to east and the sun is to the south of the river, Luoyang has had several names over the centuries, including Luoyi and Luozhou, though Luoyang has been its primary name. It has been called, during various periods, Dongdu, Xijing, during the rule of Wu Zetian, the city was known as Shendu The greater Luoyang area has been sacred ground since the late Neolithic period. This area at the intersection of the Luo river and Yi River was considered to be the center of China. Because of this aspect, several cities – all of which are generally referred to as Luoyang – have been built in this area. In 2070 BC, the Xia Dynasty king Tai Kang moved the Xia capital to the intersection of the Luo and Yi, in 1600 BC, Tang of Shang defeated Jie, the final Xia Dynasty king, and built Western Bo, a new capital on the Luo River. The ruins of Western Bo are located in Luoyang Prefecture, in the 1136 BC a settlement named Chengzhou was constructed by the Duke of Zhou for the remnants of the captured Shang nobility. The Duke also moved the Nine Tripod Cauldrons to Chengzhou from the Zhou Dynasty capital at Haojing, a second Western Zhou capital, Wangcheng was built 15 km west of Chengzhou. Wangcheng became the capital of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in 771 BC, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty capital was moved to Chengzhou in 510 BC. Later, the Eastern Han Dynasty capital of Luoyang would be built over Chengzhou, modern Luoyang is built over the ruins of Wangcheng, which are still visible today at Wangcheng Park. In 25 AD, Luoyang was declared the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty on November 27 by Emperor Guangwu of Han, for several centuries, Luoyang was the focal point of China. In AD68, the White Horse Temple, the first Buddhist temple in China, was founded in Luoyang, the temple still exists, though the architecture is of later origin, mainly from the 16th century. An Shigao was one of the first monks to popularize Buddhism in Luoyang, in 190 AD, Chancellor Dong Zhuo ordered his soldiers to ransack, pillage, and raze the city as he retreated from the coalition set up against him by regional lords from across China. The court was moved to the more defensible western city of Changan
26.
Cao Cao
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Cao Cao, courtesy name Mengde, was a Chinese warlord and the penultimate Chancellor of the Eastern Han dynasty who rose to great power in the final years of the dynasty. As one of the figures of the Three Kingdoms period. During the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty, Cao Cao was able to secure the most populated and prosperous cities of the central plains and northern China. Cao had much success as the Han chancellor, but his handling of the Han emperor Liu Xie was heavily criticized and resulted in a continued, opposition directly gathered around warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan, whom Cao was unable to quell. Cao was also skilled in poetry and martial arts and wrote many war journals, Cao Cao was born in Qiao in 155. His father Cao Song was a son of Cao Teng. Some historical records, including the Biography of Cao Man, claim that Cao Songs original family name was Xiahou, Cao was known for his craftiness as an adolescent. According to the Biography of Cao Man, Cao Caos uncle complained to Cao Song about Cao Caos indulgence in hunting, in retaliation, Cao Cao feigned a fit before his uncle, who immediately rushed to inform Cao Song. When Cao Song went to see his son, Cao Cao behaved normally, when asked, Cao Cao replied, I have never had a fit, but I lost the love of my uncle, and therefore he deceived you. Afterwards, Cao Song ceased to believe his brother regarding Cao Cao, at that time, there was a man named Xu Shao who lived in Runan and was famous for his ability to evaluate a persons potentials and talents. Cao Cao paid him a visit in hopes of receiving an evaluation that would help him politically. At first, Xu Shao refused to make a statement, however, under persistent questioning, he said, You would be a capable minister in peaceful times. There are two versions of this comment in other unofficial historical records. At the age of 20, Cao Cao was appointed captain of Luoyang. Upon taking up the post, he placed rows of multicolored stakes outside his office and ordered his deputies to flog those who violated the law, regardless of their status. An uncle of Jian Shuo, one of the most powerful and this prompted Jian Shuo and other higher authorities to ostensibly promote Cao Cao to the post of governor of Dunqiu County while actually moving him out of the imperial capital. Cao Cao remained in position for little more than a year. Around 180, Cao Cao returned to court as a Consultant, when the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out in 184, Cao Cao was recalled to Luoyang and appointed Captain of the Cavalry and sent to Yingchuan in Yu Province to suppress the rebels
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Battle of Guandu
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The Battle of Guandu was fought between the warlords Cao Cao and Yuan Shao in 200 AD in the late Eastern Han dynasty. The battle, which concluded with a victory for Cao Cao, was a turning point in the war between the two warlords. It marked the beginning of Cao Caos gradual reunification of northern China, from 196 onwards, it became increasingly obvious that an armed confrontation between the warlords Cao Cao and Yuan Shao was inevitable. Yuan Shao was in control of the north of the Yellow River, namely the Hebei region. Cao Cao controlled most of the south of the Yellow River and had the Emperor Xian with him in the new capital city of Xu. The warlords saw each other as the barrier to their ambitions to conquer. Thus, it seemed that a trial of strength between the two warlords was inevitable, some years before the battle, Yuan Shaos advisors Ju Shou and Tian Feng had foreseen that Cao Cao would become a threat to their lord in his ambition to dominate China. They advised Yuan Shao to start a campaign against Cao Cao when the latter was building up his forces. Tension between Cao Cao and Yuan Shao started to build up after Cao Cao moved Emperor Xian from the old capital Luoyang, the geographical position of Guandu made it a militarily strategic position. It was near Yan Ford on the Yellow River and laid on the leading to the capital city Xu. Cao Cao recognized its importance and in the autumn of 199, he stationed troops there. Other deployments along the frontline included Liu Yan in Boma, Yu Jin in Yan Ford, Cheng Yu in Juancheng, and Xiahou Dun in Meng Ford. At the same time, Cao Cao sent Zang Ba to harass Qing Province, in the first month of 200, Liu Bei rebelled against Cao Cao and seized Xu Province after killing Che Zhou, Cao Caos appointed Inspector of Xu Province. Cao Cao, in a move, left his northern front exposed to Yuan Shao. Yuan Shao tried to use the opportunity to start a campaign south, but was daunted by Yu Jin, when Cao Cao returned to Guandu after his victory over Liu Bei, who sought refuge under Yuan Shao afterwards, Yuan Shao wished to renew the campaign against Cao Cao. The aide-de-camp Tian Feng, who had urged Yuan Shao to attack Cao Cao while he was away, advised against such a campaign, reasoning that they had lost their chance, Yuan Shao ignored Tian Fengs repeated remonstrations and imprisoned him under charges of demoralizing the army. Shortly after, Yuan Shao had Chen Lin draft a document condemning Cao Cao in what is essentially a declaration of war, at the time, Yuan Shaos army boasted of numbers up to 110,000, including 10,000 cavalry. Yuan Shaos general Yan Liang crossed the Yellow River and attacked Cao Caos fort at Boma, besieging it
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Yuan An
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Yuan An 袁安 was a prominent scholar, administrator and statesman at the Han Dynasty courts of Emperor Zhang and Emperor He. Yuan An is regarded as the founder of the powerful Yuan clan of Runan, born in Ruyang, Runan commandery to a gentry family, Yuan An inherited knowledge in the Book of Changes from his grandfather Yuan Liang, who had reached the position of magistrate around 25. With this learning, Yuan An established a reputation for himself in his native commandery, after some minor clerical experience, he was recommended as Filially Pious and Incorrupt by the Magistrate of Ruyang in 60 and travelled to Luoyang to serve at the imperial court. In 62, he left the capital and for the eight years he held the relatively insignificant positions of Chief. Then in 70, Yuan An received his first major assignment as Grand Administrator of Chu commandery, to investigate the Liu Ying, the King of Chu, who was accused of heresy and treason. In this role, the Hou Han Shu states that the masters of the capital respected him, in the sixth month of 83, Yuan An was promoted to become Grand Coachman, with the rank of one of the Nine Ministers. In the succeeding years, Yuan played a role in discussions at court regarding the stance of the Han Empire toward the Xiongnu peoples of the northern frontier. In a conference in 85, Yuan argued in favour of a diplomatic policy toward the Xiongnu opposed by Grand Commandant Zheng Hong. In particular, Yuan An spoke encouragingly about the practice of marriage alliances, the next year he replaced Diwu Lun as Minister of Works and in 87 was promoted again to become Minister over the Masses. The death of Emperor Zhang in 88 and the succession of his ten-year-old son Emperor He brought significant changes to the political landscape, the regents of the young emperor, Empress Dowager Dou and her brother Dou Xian, favoured a more militaristic policy to the Northern Xiongnu problem. Both their regional background and position at court encouraged them to seek the expansion of central authority through war. With the Grand Commandant Su You, Minister of Works Ren Wei and he argued that since the Northern Xiongnu had not invaded the frontier, there was no reason to waste resources on a distant expedition. Despite his strong opposition and that of other advisors, Lady Dou ordered the dispatch of an expeditionary force. In the summer of 89 a Chinese-led force advanced in three columns with minimal opposition and defeated the Northern Shanyu at Jiluo Mountain and pursued him westwards into the Altai ranges. A final offensive in 91 destroyed the Northern Xiongnu, creating a vacuum in its former territories which the Han empire would struggle to contain in the next two centuries. Yuan An died in 92 and a few months later the Dou clan fell in coup détat staged by Emperor He, Yuan was posthumously honoured by the Emperor and his eldest son Yuan Shang was given a post at the capital. Yuan Ans two younger sons, Yuan Jing and Yuan Chang 袁敞, reached the positions of Grand Administrator, after the collapse of the Han empire in 189, his great-great-grandsons Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu formed their own warlord fiefdoms in north China. In 1929 a commemorative stele recording landmarks in Yuan Ans life was uncovered at Yanshi county and it had been erected around 117, several decades after his death
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Records of the Three Kingdoms
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The Records of the Three Kingdoms is a Chinese historical text which covers the history of the late Eastern Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period. It is widely regarded as the official and authoritative text for that period. Written by Chen Shou in the century, the work combines the smaller histories of the rival states of Cao Wei, Shu Han. The Records of the Three Kingdoms provided the basis for the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century and it contains 65 volumes and about 360,000 Chinese characters which are broken into three books. The Book of Wei contains 30 volumes, the Book of Shu 15 volumes, each volume is organised in the form of one or more biographies. The amount of space a biography takes up is dictated by the importance of the figure, the original author was Chen Shou, who was born in present-day Nanchong, Sichuan, in the state of Shu. After the fall of Shu in 263, he became a historian under the government of the Jin dynasty. After the fall of Wu in 280, his work received the acclaim of the senior minister Zhang Hua. Prior to the Jin dynasty, both the states of Wei and Wu already had their histories, such as the Book of Wei by Wang Chen, the Weilüe by Yu Huan. Chen Shou created the Records of the Three Kingdoms with these works as a foundation. The Records of the Three Kingdoms used the year 220 AD — which marked the end of the Han dynasty — as the year in which the state of Wei was established. The Records of the Three Kingdoms referred the rulers of Wei as Emperors, the romantic and historical traditions for the Three Kingdoms period have been so confused over the centuries that the Records of the Three Kingdoms is often regarded as an invaluable resource. Although it contains errors, it is more historically accurate than the embellishments of writers in later periods. In its nature, the work is indeed a chronicle, much like those of early Medieval Europe written much later, the text is bland and little more than a collection of historical facts. A rough translation of an extract from Guan Yus biography is as follows, In the 24th year, the Former Lord became the King of Hanzhong. In the same year, Yu led his men to attack Cao Ren at Fan, Lord Cao sent Yu Jin to aid Ren. In autumn, great rains caused the Han River to flood, Jin, from this, we can establish reasonably accurately the flow of events and how history unfolded but almost nothing about society or elements of institutions or policies. The amount of creative imagination used in ancient Chinese historical narratives — of fictionalising — is impossible to estimate precisely
