1.
Chao Meng-Fu (crater)
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Chao Meng-Fu is a 167 kilometer-diameter crater on Mercury named after the Chinese painter and calligrapher Zhao Mengfu. Due to its location near Mercurys south pole and the planets axial tilt. Radar studies involving Arecibo, Goldstone, and the Very Large Array detected a number of highly-radar-reflective depolarized areas on Mercury, many of these reflective features appear to coincide with craters imaged by Mariner 10, with the largest feature at the south pole corresponding to Chao Meng-Fu crater. The luminosity and depolarization of the reflections are much more characteristic of ice than of the silicate rocks making up Mercurys crust. Still, these reflections are too dim to be pure ice, however, with no direct confirmation, it is always possible that the observed radar reflectivity from Chao Meng-Fu and similar craters is due to depositions of metal-rich minerals and compounds. NASAs MESSENGER mission may provide evidence for or against the presence of ice when it begins orbiting Mercury in 2011. Chao Meng-Fus ice may have originated from impacts of water-rich meteorites, a geothermally heated ocean beneath Chao Meng-Fu crater serves as the home of an alien species in Stephen Baxters Vacuum Diagrams. Gerald Nordleys short story Crossing Chao Meng-Fu depicts rock-climbers struggling to traverse the crater, mark Ansons novel Below Mercury is set in an abandoned ice mine below Chao Meng-fu crater
Chao Meng-Fu (crater)
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General
Chao Meng-Fu (crater)
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Chao Meng-Fu crater
2.
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
Chinese name
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The signature of
Sun Yat-sen; in English Chinese people usually keep their names in Chinese order unless they live or travel abroad
3.
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
Chinese surname
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Many village names in China are linked to surnames. Pictured is Jiajiayuan (贾家源), i.e. "
Jia Family 's Spring", in Honggang Town,
Tongshan County, Hubei
4.
Zhao (surname)
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Zhao is the 1st surname in the famous Hundred Family Surnames – the traditional list of all Chinese surnames – because it was the emperors surname of the Song Dynasty when the list was compiled. The romanized spelling is shared with the much rarer family name Zhào, Zhao is one of the most ancient of Chinese surnames, and its origins are partly shrouded in legend. During the reign of King Mu of Zhou, an officer named Zaofu proved exceptionally adept at training horses and driving chariots and won the respect of King Mu. During a battle with the state of Xu, an ethnically different state which was resisting Zhou rule, Zaofu drove a chariot into the battle. In gratitude, King Mu enfeoffed Zaofu as the lord of Zhao, zaofus descendants took Zhao as a surname to mark their prestigious association with the city. Records such as Sima Qians Records of the Grand Historian say that Zaofu was a descendant of legendary kings Zhuanxu, Shaohao, the town Zhao became part of the state of Jin during the Warring States period, when the Zhou Dynasty began to collapse. In 403 BC, Jin split into three states, one of which was the state of Zhao. During this period, the ancestral name Ying split into 14 clan names, Lian, Xu, Jiang, Qin, Zhao, Huang, Liang, Ma, Ge, Gu, Mou, Zhong, Fei. The Zhao clan rulers of State of Qin and State of Zhao were highly successful, the Zhao name experienced a great revival after Zhao Kuangyin became the first emperor of the Song Dynasty in 960 AD, leading to 300 years of Zhao rule over China. Rimer, J. Thomas and Yamazaki Masakazu trans, on the Art of the Nō Drama, The Major Treatises of Zeami. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, the Ancient Refugees From Religious Persecution in Japan, The Tribe of Hada – Their Religious and Cultural Influence. Shinsen Shōjiroku 出自秦始皇帝三世孫孝武王也 McCullough, William H, the Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 2, Heian Japan. The Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 2, Heian Japan, ben Ami-Shillony, The Jews and the Japanese, The Successful Outsiders, pp. 135–7 Dual origins of the Japanese, common ground for hunter-gatherer and farmer Y chromosomes
Zhao (surname)
–
Zhao / Chao / Chiu
5.
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
Simplified Chinese characters
–
Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters
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The slogan 战无不胜的毛泽东思想万岁 (Zhàn wúbù shèng de Máo Zédōng sīxiǎng wànsuì; Long live the invincible
Mao Zedong Thought) on
Xinhua Gate in Beijing.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
The first batch of Simplified Characters introduced in 1935 consisted of 324 characters.
6.
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
Traditional Chinese characters
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Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese characters
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Job announcement in a Filipino Chinese daily newspaper written in Traditional Chinese characters.
Traditional Chinese characters
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A Series of Reading workbook in Traditional Chinese used in some Elementary schools in the Philippines.
7.
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
Pinyin
–
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak
Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Pinyin
–
In
Yiling,
Yichang,
Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin
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
Courtesy name
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Courtesy name (Zi)
9.
Pseudonym
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A pseudonym or alias is a name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which can differ from their original or true name. Historically, they have taken the form of anagrams, Graecisms. Pseudonyms should not be confused with new names that replace old ones, actors, musicians, and other performers sometimes use stage names, for example, to mask their ethnic backgrounds. A collective name or collective pseudonym is one shared by two or more persons, for example the co-authors of a work, such as Ellery Queen, the term is derived from the Greek ψευδώνυμον, literally false name, from ψεῦδος, lie, falsehood and ὄνομα, name. A pseudonym is distinct from an allonym, which is the name of another person and this may occur when someone is ghostwriting a book or play, or in parody, or when using a front name, such as by screenwriters blacklisted in Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s. See also pseudepigraph, for falsely attributed authorship, sometimes people change their name in such a manner that the new name becomes permanent and is used by all who know the person. This is not an alias or pseudonym, but in fact a new name, in many countries, including common law countries, a name change can be ratified by a court and become a persons new legal name. He then changed his name again to Malik El-Shabazz when he converted to Islam, likewise some Jews adopted Hebrew family names upon immigrating to Israel, dropping surnames that had been in their families for generations. The politician David Ben-Gurion, for example, was born David Grün in Poland and he adopted his Hebrew name in 1910, when he published his first article in a Zionist journal in Jerusalem. Criminals may use aliases, fictitious business names, and dummy corporations to hide their identity, a pen name, or nom de plume, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. Some female authors used male pen names, in particular in the 19th century, the Brontë family used pen names for their early work, so as not to reveal their gender and so that local residents would not know that the books related to people of the neighbourhood. The Brontës used their neighbours as inspiration for characters in many of their books, anne Brontë published The Tenant of Wildfell Hall under the name Acton Bell. Charlotte Brontë published Shirley and Jane Eyre under the name Currer Bell, emily Brontë published Wuthering Heights as Ellis Bell. A well-known example of the former is Mary Ann Evans, who wrote as George Eliot, Another example is Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, a 19th-century French writer who used the pen name George Sand. In contrast, some twentieth and twenty first century male romance novelists have used pen names. A few examples of male authors using female pseudonyms include Brindle Chase, Peter ODonnell and Christopher Wood. A pen name may be used if a real name is likely to be confused with the name of another writer or notable individual. Authors who write both fiction and non-fiction, or in different genres, may use different pen names to avoid confusing their readers, in some cases, an author may become better known by his pen name than his real name
Pseudonym
–
A young
George Sand (real name "Amantine Lucile Dupin")
10.
Song Dynasty
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The Song dynasty was an era of Chinese history that began in 960 and continued until 1279. It succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, coincided with the Liao and Western Xia dynasties and it was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or true paper money nationally and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first known use of gunpowder, as well as the first discernment of true north using a compass, the Song dynasty is divided into two distinct periods, Northern and Southern. During the Northern Song, the Song capital was in the city of Bianjing. The Southern Song refers to the period after the Song lost control of its half to the Jurchen Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song Wars. During this time, the Song court retreated south of the Yangtze, the Southern Song dynasty considerably bolstered its naval strength to defend its waters and land borders and to conduct maritime missions abroad. To repel the Jin, and later the Mongols, the Song developed revolutionary new military technology augmented by the use of gunpowder, in 1234, the Jin dynasty was conquered by the Mongols, who took control of northern China, maintaining uneasy relations with the Southern Song. Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and his younger brother Kublai Khan was proclaimed the new Great Khan, though his claim was only partially recognized by the Mongols in the west. In 1271, Kublai Khan was proclaimed the Emperor of China, after two decades of sporadic warfare, Kublai Khans armies conquered the Song dynasty in 1279. The Mongol invasion led to a reunification under the Yuan dynasty, the population of China doubled in size during the 10th and 11th centuries. The Northern Song census recorded a population of roughly 50 million, much like the Han and this data is found in the Standard Histories. However, it is estimated that the Northern Song had a population of some 100 million people and this dramatic increase of population fomented an economic revolution in pre-modern China. The expansion of the population, growth of cities, and the emergence of a national economy led to the withdrawal of the central government from direct involvement in economic affairs. The lower gentry assumed a role in grassroots administration and local affairs. Appointed officials in county and provincial centers relied upon the gentry for their services, sponsorship. Social life during the Song was vibrant, citizens gathered to view and trade precious artworks, the populace intermingled at public festivals and private clubs, and cities had lively entertainment quarters. The spread of literature and knowledge was enhanced by the expansion of woodblock printing. Technology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished over the course of the Song, although the institution of the civil service examinations had existed since the Sui dynasty, it became much more prominent in the Song period
Song Dynasty
–
History of China
Song Dynasty
–
Northern Song in 1111
Song Dynasty
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Emperor Taizu of Song (r. 960–976), a court portrait painting
Song Dynasty
–
Pillow, sandstone with white and brown slip black, incised decoration, Northern Song dynasty, 12th century
11.
House of Zhao
–
The House of Zhao was the imperial clan of the Song Empire of China. The House of Zhao originated from the Zhao family of Zhuo Commandery and this Zhao family has a long history since the Spring and Autumn period. The Song dynasty Emperors hailed from the Guandong Zhao while the Longxi Li produced the Tang Emperors, the founder of the Song Empire, Zhao Kuangyin, was born in a military family. His father, Zhao Hongyin, moved from Zhuo Commandery to Luoyang, Zhao Kuangyin also had an elder brother Zhao Guangji, two younger brothers Zhao Kuangyi and Zhao Guangmei, and two younger sisters. During the reign of Emperor Zhenzong, the Yellow Emperor was claimed to be as an ancestor of the Song emperors, Zhao Kuangyin started his military career under the Later Han dynasty. However, he changed his stance, and came to serve Chai Rong. He also persuaded his father, who was a Later Han general and this caused the decline and collapse of the Later Han. With Chai Rongs trust, Zhao Kuangyin was assigned to be a guardian for Chai Rongs seven-year-old son, Guo Zongxun, through years of effort, Zhao Kuangyin conquered other rival states in the south and unified them under his newly established Song Empire. In order to prevent a military coup from happening again and to strengthen civilian control over the military, Zhao Kuangyin dismissed his generals. This inadvertently resulted in the Song Empire having a weak military later, Zhao Kuangyin reigned for 17 years and died suddenly and suspiciously in 976 at the age of 49. His younger brother, Zhao Kuangyi became the new emperor and it was suspected that Zhao Kuangyi murdered his brother for the throne, and did the same to his two nephews to prevent them from seizing the throne. The subsequent emperors – Emperor Zhenzong through Emperor Gaozong – were all descendants of Zhao Kuangyi, until Emperor Gaozong passed the throne to Zhao Shen, nevertheless, the Song Empire still thrived under Zhao Kuangyi s reign. But the threats of northern nomadic empires, such as the Khitan-led Liao Empire, Jurchen-led Jin Empire, on 20 March 1127, the Song capital, Bianjing fell to Jin forces during the Jin–Song Wars. After several days looting and raping, the Emperors Huizong and Qinzong, along with most of their members, were captured and taken to the Jin capital, Shangjing. This event is known as the Jingkang Incident. Many of these died from illness, hunger, torture. Some of them committed suicide to avoid being humiliated by the Jurchens, Emperor Huizongs ninth son, Zhao Gou, escaped from Bianjing and fled to southern China, where he reestablished the Song Empire with its capital at Linan and himself as the new emperor. As his only son died prematurely, Emperor Gaozong had to pass his throne to Zhao Shen, the imperial lineage now went back to Zhao Kuangyins line
House of Zhao
–
Map of Song
House of Zhao
–
Song Taizong (r: 976-9 97)
House of Zhao
–
Song Taizu (r: 960-76)
House of Zhao
–
Panorama of Along the River During Qingming Festival, 12th century original by Zhang Zeduan, the Capital of Song ─
Dongjing
12.
China
–
China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
China
–
Yinxu, ruins of an ancient
palace dating from the
Shang Dynasty (14th century BCE)
China
–
Flag
China
–
Some of the thousands of life-size
Terracotta Warriors of the
Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE
China
–
The
Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the
Chinese interior from incursions by
nomadic pastoralists of the northern
steppes.
13.
Scholar
–
It is the methods that systemically advance the teaching, research, and practice of a given scholarly or academic field of study through rigorous inquiry. Scholarship is noted by its significance to its particular profession, and is creative, can be documented, can be replicated or elaborated, the primary purpose of scholasticism is to find the answer to a question or to resolve a contradiction. It was once known for its application in medieval theology but was eventually applied to classical philosophy. The historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research, the question of the nature, and indeed the possibility, of sound historical method is raised in the philosophy of history, as a question of epistemology. History guidelines commonly used by historians in their work require external criticism, internal criticism, the empirical method is generally taken to mean the collection of data on which to base a hypothesis or derive a conclusion in science. It is part of the method, but is often mistakenly assumed to be synonymous with other methods. The empirical method is not sharply defined and is contrasted with the precision of experiments. The experimental method investigates causal relationships among variables, an experiment is a cornerstone of the empirical approach to acquiring data about the world and is used in both natural sciences and social sciences. An experiment can be used to solve practical problems and to support or negate theoretical assumptions. The scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, to be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, there are numerous examples of ethical concerns, including, Confidentiality of information used, Participants’ anonymity, Consent by participants, Security and benefits to individuals
Scholar
–
Scholar and His Books by
Gerbrand van den Eeckhout.
14.
Painting
–
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, thus, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols. In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, rather, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
Painting
–
The
Mona Lisa, by
Leonardo da Vinci, is one of the most recognizable paintings in the world.
Painting
–
Chen Hongshou (1598–1652), Leaf album painting (
Ming Dynasty)
Painting
–
Circus Sideshow (
French: Parade de cirque),
Georges Seurat, 1887–88
Painting
–
Cave painting of aurochs, (
French: Bos primigenius primigenius),
Lascaux,
France,
prehistoric art
15.
Calligrapher
–
Calligraphy is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a broad tip instrument, brush, a contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as, the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious, and skillful manner. Modern calligraphy ranges from functional inscriptions and designs to fine-art pieces where the letters may or may not be readable, classical calligraphy differs from typography and non-classical hand-lettering, though a calligrapher may practice both. It is also used for props and moving images for film and television, testimonials, birth and death certificates, maps, the principal tools for a calligrapher are the pen and the brush. Calligraphy pens write with nibs that may be flat, round, for some decorative purposes, multi-nibbed pens—steel brushes—can be used. However, works have also created with felt-tip and ballpoint pens. There are some styles of calligraphy, like Gothic script, which require a stub nib pen, Writing ink is usually water-based and is much less viscous than the oil-based inks used in printing. Normally, light boxes and templates are used to achieve straight lines without pencil markings detracting from the work, ruled paper, either for a light box or direct use, is most often ruled every quarter or half inch, although inch spaces are occasionally used. This is the case with litterea unciales, and college-ruled paper often acts as a guideline well, common calligraphy pens and brushes are, Quill Dip pen Ink brush Qalam Fountain pen Western calligraphy is recognizable by the use of the Latin script. The Latin alphabet appeared about 600 BC, in Rome, and by the first century developed into Roman imperial capitals carved on stones, Rustic capitals painted on walls, in the second and third centuries the uncial lettering style developed. As writing withdrew to monasteries, uncial script was more suitable for copying the Bible. It was the monasteries which preserved calligraphic traditions during the fourth and fifth centuries, at the height of the Empire, its power reached as far as Great Britain, when the empire fell, its literary influence remained. The Semi-uncial generated the Irish Semi-uncial, the small Anglo-Saxon, each region developed its own standards following the main monastery of the region, which are mostly cursive and hardly readable. Christian churches promoted the development of writing through the copying of the Bible, particularly the New Testament. Two distinct styles of writing known as uncial and half-uncial developed from a variety of Roman bookhands, the 7th-9th centuries in northern Europe were the heyday of Celtic illuminated manuscripts, such as the Book of Durrow, Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells. Charlemagnes devotion to improved scholarship resulted in the recruiting of a crowd of scribes, according to Alcuin, Alcuin developed the style known as the Caroline or Carolingian minuscule. The first manuscript in hand was the Godescalc Evangelistary — a Gospel book written by the scribe Godescalc. Carolingian remains the one hand from which modern booktype descends
Calligrapher
–
Calligraphy
Calligrapher
–
Calligraphy of the German word "Urkunde"(deed)
Calligrapher
–
Folio 27r from the Lindisfarne Gospels (c.700) contains the
incipit from the
Gospel of Matthew.
Calligrapher
–
Calligraphy in a
Latin Bible of 1407 on display in
Malmesbury Abbey,
Wiltshire, England. This bible was hand written in Belgium, by Gerard Brils, for reading aloud in a
monastery.
16.
Yuan Dynasty
–
The Yuan dynasty, officially the Great Yuan, was the empire or ruling dynasty of China established by Kublai Khan, leader of the Mongolian Borjigin clan. His realm was, by point, isolated from the other khanates and controlled most of present-day China and its surrounding areas. Some of the Mongolian Emperors of the Yuan mastered the Chinese language, while others used their native language. The Yuan dynasty is considered both a successor to the Mongol Empire and an imperial Chinese dynasty and it was the khanate ruled by the successors of Möngke Khan after the division of the Mongol Empire. In official Chinese histories, the Yuan dynasty bore the Mandate of Heaven, following the Song dynasty, the dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, yet he placed his grandfather Genghis Khan on the imperial records as the official founder of the dynasty as Taizu. In addition to Emperor of China, Kublai Khan also claimed the title of Great Khan, supreme over the other khanates, the Chagatai, the Golden Horde. As such, the Yuan was also referred to as the Empire of the Great Khan. However, while the claim of supremacy by the Yuan emperors was at times recognized by the khans, their subservience was nominal. In 1271, Kublai Khan imposed the name Great Yuan, establishing the Yuan dynasty, dà Yuán is from the clause 大哉乾元 in the Commentaries on the Classic of Changes section regarding Qián. The counterpart in Mongolian language was Dai Ön Ulus, also rendered as Ikh Yuan Üls or Yekhe Yuan Ulus, in Mongolian, Dai Ön is often used in conjunction with the Yeke Mongghul Ulus, resulting in Dai Ön Yeke Mongghul Ulus, meaning Great Mongol State. Nevertheless, both terms can refer to the khanate within the Mongol Empire directly ruled by Great Khans before the actual establishment of the Yuan dynasty by Kublai Khan in 1271. Genghis Khan united the Mongol and Turkic tribes of the steppes and he and his successors expanded the Mongol empire across Asia. Under the reign of Genghis third son, Ögedei Khan, the Mongols destroyed the weakened Jin dynasty in 1234, Ögedei offered his nephew Kublai a position in Xingzhou, Hebei. Kublai was unable to read Chinese but had several Han Chinese teachers attached to him since his early years by his mother Sorghaghtani and he sought the counsel of Chinese Buddhist and Confucian advisers. Möngke Khan succeeded Ögedeis son, Güyük, as Great Khan in 1251 and he granted his brother Kublai control over Mongol held territories in China. Kublai built schools for Confucian scholars, issued paper money, revived Chinese rituals and he adopted as his capital city Kaiping in Inner Mongolia, later renamed Shangdu. Many Han Chinese and Khitan defected to the Mongols to fight against the Jin, two Han Chinese leaders, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima, and the Khitan Xiao Zhala defected and commanded the 3 Tumens in the Mongol army. Liu Heima and Shi Tianze served Ogödei Khan, Liu Heima and Shi Tianxiang led armies against Western Xia for the Mongols
Yuan Dynasty
–
History of China
Yuan Dynasty
–
Yuan dynasty circa 1294
Yuan Dynasty
–
Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan dynasty
Yuan Dynasty
–
Painting of a 14th-century Yuan dynasty
junk
17.
Kublai Khan
–
Kublai Khan, born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu, was the fifth Khagan of the Mongol Empire, reigning from 1260 to 1294. He also founded the Yuan dynasty in China as a conquest dynasty in 1271, Kublai was the fourth son of Tolui and a grandson of Genghis Khan. He succeeded his older brother Möngke as Khagan in 1260, but had to defeat his younger brother Ariq Böke in the Toluid Civil War lasting until 1264 and this episode marked the beginning of disunity in the empire. Kublais real power was limited to China and Mongolia, though as Khagan he still had influence in the Ilkhanate and, to a lesser degree. In 1271, Kublai established the Yuan dynasty, which ruled over present-day Mongolia, China, Korea, and some adjacent areas, by 1279, the Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty was completed and Kublai became the first non-native emperor to conquer all of China. Kublai Khan was the son of Tolui, and his second son with Sorghaghtani Beki. As his grandfather Genghis Khan advised, Sorghaghtani chose a Buddhist Tangut woman as her sons nurse, on his way home after the Mongol conquest of Khwarezmia, Genghis Khan performed a ceremony on his grandsons Möngke and Kublai after their first hunt in 1224 near the Ili River. Kublai was nine years old and with his eldest brother killed a rabbit and his grandfather smeared fat from killed animals onto Kublais middle finger in accordance with a Mongol tradition. After the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty, in 1236, Ögedei gave Hebei to the family of Tolui, Kublai received an estate of his own, which included 10,000 households. Because he was inexperienced, Kublai allowed local officials free rein, corruption amongst his officials and aggressive taxation caused large numbers of Chinese peasants to flee, which led to a decline in tax revenues. Kublai quickly came to his appanage in Hebei and ordered reforms, Sorghaghtani sent new officials to help him and tax laws were revised. Thanks to those efforts, many of the people who fled returned, the most prominent, and arguably most influential, component of Kublai Khans early life was his study and strong attraction to contemporary Chinese culture. Kublai invited Haiyun, the leading Buddhist monk in North China, when he met Haiyun in Karakorum in 1242, Kublai asked him about the philosophy of Buddhism. Haiyun named Kublais son, who was born in 1243, Zhenjin, Haiyun also introduced Kublai to the formerly Daoist and now Buddhist monk, Liu Bingzhong. Liu was a painter, calligrapher, poet, and mathematician, Kublai soon added the Shanxi scholar Zhao Bi to his entourage. Kublai employed people of other nationalities as well, for he was keen to balance local and imperial interests, Mongol, in 1251, Kublais eldest brother Möngke became Khan of the Mongol Empire, and Khwarizmian Mahmud Yalavach and Kublai were sent to China. Kublai received the viceroyalty over North China and moved his ordo to central Inner Mongolia, during his years as viceroy, Kublai managed his territory well, boosted the agricultural output of Henan, and increased social welfare spendings after receiving Xian. These acts received great acclaim from the Chinese warlords and were essential to the building of the Yuan Dynasty, Möngke dismissed Mahmud Yalavach, which met with resistance from Chinese Confucian-trained officials
Kublai Khan
–
Portrait of Kublai Khan during the Yuan era.
Kublai Khan
–
Portrait of young Kublai by
Anige, a Nepali artist in Kublai's court
Kublai Khan
–
Kublai Khan was chosen by his many supporters to become the next Great Khan at the Grand
Kurultai in the year 1260. (a
Mughal painting)
Kublai Khan
–
Painting of Kublai Khan on a hunting expedition, by Chinese court artist Liu Guandao, c. 1280.
18.
Beijing
–
Beijing is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China and the worlds third most populous city proper. It is also one of the worlds most populous capital cities, the city, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by population after Shanghai and is the nations political, cultural. It is home to the headquarters of most of Chinas largest state-owned companies, and is a hub for the national highway, expressway, railway. The citys history dates back three millennia, as the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political centre of the country for much of the past eight centuries. Beijing was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium A. D, the city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Its art treasures and universities have made it centre of culture, encyclopædia Britannica notes that few cities in the world have served for so long as the political headquarters and cultural centre of an area as immense as China. Siheyuans, the traditional housing style, and hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing. The city hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and was chosen to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, many of Beijings 91 universities consistently rank among the best in China, of which Peking University and Tsinghua University are ranked in the top 60 universities in the world. Beijings Zhongguancun area is known as Chinas Silicon Valley and Chinas center of innovation. According to the 2016 InterNations Expat Insider Survey, Beijing ranked first in Asia in the subcategory Personal Finance Index, expats live primarily in urban districts such as Dongcheng and Chaoyang in the east, or in suburban districts such as Shunyi. Over the past 3,000 years, the city of Beijing has had other names. The name Beijing, which means Northern Capital, was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing, the English spelling is based on the pinyin romanisation of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. Those dialects preserve the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 京 as kjaeng, the single Chinese character abbreviation for Beijing is 京, which appears on automobile license plates in the city. The official Latin alphabet abbreviation for Beijing is BJ, the earliest traces of human habitation in the Beijing municipality were found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic Homo sapiens also lived more recently, about 27,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found neolithic settlements throughout the municipality, including in Wangfujing, the first walled city in Beijing was Ji, a city from the 11th to 7th century BC
Beijing
–
Clockwise from top:
Beijing CBD skyline,
Tiananmen,
Temple of Heaven,
National Center for the Performing Arts, and
Beijing National Stadium
Beijing
–
The museum at
Zhoukoudian
Beijing
–
The
Tianning Pagoda, built around 1120.
Beijing
–
Longevity Hill in Beijing where
Kublai Khan wrote his poem.
19.
Emperor Renzong of Yuan
–
Buyantu Khan, born Ayurbarwada, also known by the temple name Renzong (Emperor Renzong of Yuan, was the fourth emperor of the Yuan dynasty. Apart from Emperor of China, he is regarded as the eighth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire or Mongols and his name means blessed/good Khan in the Mongolian language. His name Ayurbarwada was from a Sanskrit compound Āyur-parvata, which means the mountain of longevity, Ayurbarwada was the first Yuan emperor who actively supported the adoption of confucian principles into the Mongolian administration system. The emperor, who was mentored by the Confucian academic Li Meng, succeeded peacefully to the throne, more importantly, Ayurbarwada reinstituted the civil service examination system for the Yuan dynasty. Ayurbarwada was the son of Darmabala and Dagi of the Khunggirat. He had been tutored by the Confucian scholar Li Meng, who affected his future political attitudes since his early teens. In 1305 Bulugan Khatun removed Ayurbarwada from the court and sent him to Honan as the prince of Huai-ning, however, his uncle Temür Khan died without an heir on February 2,1307, because his son Tachu had died a year earlier before him. The Darkhan Harghasun, the chancellor of the government who became aware of Bulugans plan, recalled Ayurbarwada. They successfully developed a strategy to imprison both Ananda and Bulugan, afterwards, Ayurbarwada welcomed his older brother Khayishan, who was still far away from Dadu, to succeed to the throne. After the latters coronation, Ayurbarwada was appointed the Crown Prince in June 1307, the brothers promised each other that their descendants would rule in succession. Ayurbarwada was made head of the top central administrative organs known as the Zhongshu Sheng under his brother and he was able to read and write Chinese and appreciate Chinese paintings and calligraphy in addition to his deep knowledge of Confucianism and Chinese history. Strongly influenced by Confucian political ethics, he was opposed to his brothers exploitative policies. Khayishans partisans had accused Li Meng of having advised Ayurbarwada to keep the throne for himself, Ayurbarwada spoke out in Li Mengs defence but accomplished nothing much in the end. His disagreement with his brothers high officials remained concealed until his own enthronement and he was saluted under the title of Buyantu in his accession kuriltai. These reversals of policies can be traced to Ayurbarwadas cultural and ideological orientation, strongly influenced by Confucian political ethics as he was, he was naturally opposed to the exploitative policies carried out by the Department of State Affairs under Khaishan. Ayurbarwada was highlighted for his reform based on Confucianism principle for the Yuan government. As soon as he ascended to the throne, he disbanded of the Department of State Affairs set up during Khayishans reign and he also abolished the Zhida paper notes and coins issued by the court of Khayishan, and restored the Zhongtong and Zhiyuan notes as the only official currency. The bureaucracy was trimmed to the 1293 level and new offices were reduced to the original status they had had in Kublais reign
Emperor Renzong of Yuan
–
Portrait of Buyantu Khan (Emperor Renzong) during the Yuan era.
Emperor Renzong of Yuan
–
A Yuan Dynasty blue-and-white
porcelain dish with fish and flowing water design, mid-fourteenth century,
Freer Gallery of Art.
20.
Guan Daosheng
–
Guan Daosheng was a Chinese poet and painter who was active during the early Yuan Dynasty. She is credited with being the most famous painter in Chinese history. remembered not only as a talented woman. She was born in Huzhou and was the wife of Zhao Mengfu, likely a descendant of the high-ranking Wu Xing official Guan Zhong, she was well-educated in her youth, where she grew up on her familys ancestral lands, nicknamed The Roost of the Esteemed. While married to Zhao, Guan gave birth to two sons and two daughters, who she raised alongside the one son and four daughters Zhao had with his previous wife, who died prior to his marriage to Guan. She especially often joined him on trips between the capital at Dadu and the southern cultural center of Huangzhou. In the year of their marriage, they embarked on a trip from their home in Wuxing to Dadu. All in all, she and her husband had six daughters, Guan Daosheng died in 1319 at the age of 58 after a long illness. She died on board the boat in Shandong on the way home. The text of his letter informing of her death and his journey home with her coffin, known as Zuimeng tie. In the three years he lived after her death, it is said that he painted mainly bamboo, one of her favourite subjects, in her memory. Today, their house and garden in Huzhou, Lianhuazhuang, and their tomb in the country at Dongheng have been restored. Guan appears to have become active as a painter around 1296 and she was talented in calligraphy and painting ink bamboo and plum with delicate and elegant strokes. It is believed that she and her husband did paintings together, the calligraphy of herself, her husband and one of their three sons, Zhao Yong, were collected in a scroll by the Yuan Emperor Ayurbarwada. He commented that it was a thing for a husband, wife. The imperial seal was applied to works and they became part of the Imperial Archives collection. Praise such as this helped lead to Guans 1317 reception of the title Madam of the Wei Kingdom from the imperial court in the capital. Indeed, some of Guans works received the seal of Emperor Renzong and his sister, Grand Princess Sengge Ragi. This style followed the tradition of an artist of the early Yuan whose name goes unrecorded in China but who is called Tan Zhirui in Japan, where his paintings were brought by Chan Buddhist monks
Guan Daosheng
–
Bamboo and Stone (竹石图), Guan Daosheng, ink on paper,
National Palace Museum, Taipei
21.
Horse
–
H. O. R. S. E. is a form of poker commonly played at the high-stakes tables of casinos. It consists of rounds of cycling among, Texas Hold em, Omaha hi-low split-eight or better, Razz, Seven card Stud. H. O. R. S. E. is a limit game, however, in some tournament situations, the final table is no-limit hold em. C. H. O. R. S. E adds Chowaha or Crazy Pineapple to the mix and this is convenient at such team events as BARGE, when it helps to have as many flop games as stud games. T. H. O. R. S. E. H. A. is another 8-Game Mix which includes more games than most other mixed poker games, pokerStars started offering this game in 2008. It consists of limit 2-7 Triple Draw, limit Texas hold em, limit Omaha Hi-Lo, limit Razz, limit Seven-card Stud, limit Seven card Stud Hi-Lo, no limit Texas hold em and pot limit Omaha. 10-Game, the latest variation on the poker games, overtook T. H. O. R. S. E. H. A. in the extent of its game inclusion. Full Tilt Poker also offers the 9-Game, which includes all poker variants from the 10-Game with the exception of Badugi, a 12 Game Mix has also been proposed as a variation and as an extension to the 10-Game mix. A13 Game Mix can also be constructed by adding No Limit Holdem to the games of the 12 Game Mix, made its debut at the World Series of Poker in 2002 with a $2,000 buy-in. John Hennigan won the event, earning $117,320, tournament made its debut at the 2006 World Series of Poker. Chip Reese won the event, earning $1,716,000 for first place, after Reese died at the end of 2007, the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy was created in his honor. The trophy is awarded to the winner of the $50,000 championship event since the 2008 World Series of Poker. The $50,000 buy-in tournament returned for the 2007 WSOP, the $50,000 event, which awarded $2,276,832 to first place, was won by professional player Freddy Deeb. Events with $2,500 and $5,000 buy-ins were also on the 2007 WSOP program, the 2008 $50,000 H. O. R. S. E event was won by Scotty Nguyen, who received $1,989,120 for his victory. This was also the first time that the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy had been awarded to the winner of the competition, event was won by David Bach, for $1,276,802. World Championship event was replaced by The Poker Players Championship, with an identical buy-in, event, the final table was no-limit hold em. Michael Mizrachi won the first Players Championship and with it the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy, the 2010 WSOP also featured a new $10,000 H. O. R. S. E. Championship, joining already-existing events with $1,500 and $3,000 buy-ins
Horse
22.
Zhao Yong
–
Zhao Yong, was a noted Chinese painter, calligrapher, and poet in the Yuan Dynasty. A native of Wuxing, he was the son of Zhao Mengfu. Zhao was a descendant of the Song Imperial family, the House of Zhao, Zhao became a high official with his fathers assistance. Following the style of Dong Yuan and Li Cheng, he had a talent for painting figures, landscapes
Zhao Yong
–
Zhao Yong, A Ride in Spring,
National Palace Museum, Taipei
23.
Wang Meng (artist)
–
Wang Meng was a Chinese painter during the Yuan Dynasty. He was born in Wuxing, now known as Huzhou, Zhejiang and he was a maternal grandson of Zhao Mengfu, thus making him a descendant of the Song Dynastys royal bloodline. Wang Meng is considered to be one of the Four Masters of the Yuan Dynasty, along with Huang Gongwang, Wu Zhen and they famously refused to serve the Mongolian rulers of their country. They exclusively painted landscapes, which believed to be the visible key to the invisible reality. They restricted their acquaintanceship to each other, and like-minded wen ren, Wang Meng was the youngest of the group, and the least famous in his own time. Nevertheless, his style influenced later Chinese painting. In contrast to the spare style of his compatriots, his ropy brushstrokes piled one on the other to produce masses of texture combined in dense. Many artists were influenced by the works of Wang Meng centuries after his death and his most famous works are the Ge Zhichuan Relocating, Forest Grotto at Juqu, Writing Books under the Pine Trees, The Simple Retreat, and Dwelling in the Qingbian Mountains. In 2011, a lesser work of his from a private collection. A History of Far Eastern Art, Harry N. Abrams Inc
Wang Meng (artist)
–
Wang Meng, Ge Zhichuan Relocating (葛稚川移居图),
Palace Museum, Beijing
Wang Meng (artist)
–
Writing Books under the Pine Trees,
Cleveland Museum of Art
24.
Ming dynasty
–
The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China – then known as the Empire of the Great Ming – for 276 years following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as one of the greatest eras of orderly government, although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1683. He rewarded his supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia, the rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances, the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade, haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced an influx of Japanese. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty, consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351, the Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352. In 1356, Zhus rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, with the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of ships, Zhus force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley, Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or Vastly Martial, as his era name. Hongwu made an effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces, Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule
Ming dynasty
–
History of China
Ming dynasty
–
Ming China around 1580
Ming dynasty
–
A
cannon from the
Huolongjing, compiled by
Jiao Yu and
Liu Bowen before the latter's death in 1375.
Ming dynasty
–
Portrait of the
Hongwu Emperor (ruled in 1368–98)
25.
Zhao Yiguang
–
Zhao Yiguang was a writer who lived during the Ming dynasty. His wife was Lu Qingzi, another writer, they were intellectuals. Zhao patronized his wifes books with his money, Zhao Yiguang and Lu had a son, Zhao Jun, who married Wen Congjians daughter, who was also from a gentry family and literati who wrote poems. The earlier painter Zhao Mengfu was part of their branch of the Song Royal family, two of his works are housed in the Wang qishu, they were titled the Jiuhuan shitu 九圜史圖 and the Liuhe mantu 六匌曼圖. They were part of the Siku Quanshu Cunmu Congshu 四庫全書存目叢書, house of Zhao Zhao Mengfu Song dynasty
Zhao Yiguang
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v
26.
Heart Sutra
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The Heart Sūtra is a popular sutra in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Its Sanskrit title, Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya, can be translated as The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom, the Heart Sūtra is often cited as the best-known and most popular Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture. The text has been translated into English dozens of times from both Chinese and Sanskrit, the Heart Sūtra, belonging to the Perfection of Wisdom category of Mahāyāna Buddhism literature, is along with the Diamond Sutra, the most prominent representative of the genre. The text exists in two versions, a longer and a shorter, the shorter appears to be the original, while the longer has been extended by the addition of stereotypical passages typically associated with Buddhist sutras composed in India. The Chinese Buddhist canon includes both long and short versions, and both versions exist in Sanskrit, in the Tibetan canon only the longer version is preserved, although Tibetan translations without the framing text have been found at Dunhuang. The Chinese version of the text attributed to Xuanzang has 260 Chinese characters. This makes it one of the shortest texts in the Perfection of Wisdom genre, the Heart Sūtra is often said to contain the entire meaning of the longer Sutras. Conze estimates the date of origin to be 350 CE. Recent scholarship is unable to verify its existence before any earlier than the 7th century CE. The Chinese version attribute to Xuanzang is frequently chanted by the Chan, Zen, Seon, and Thiền schools during ceremonies in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam respectively. It is also significant to Shingon Buddhism, whose founder Kūkai wrote a commentary on it, and to the various Tibetan Buddhist schools, where it is studied extensively. The text has been translated into many languages, and dozens of English translations and commentaries have been published, the text was probably intended as a dhāraṇī rather than a sutra. According to Huilis biography, Xuanzang learned the sutra from an inhabitant of Sichuan, the earliest extant text of the Heart Sūtra is a stone stele dated to 672 CE. It contains the Chinese text also preserved in the Chinese Tripiṭaka, the stele was originally erected at Hongfu monastery, in Changan by Emperor Gao. Müllers Sanskrit edition of 1881, based on the Horyuji manuscript Apocryphal stories exist of earlier Chinese versions, zhi Qians version, supposedly composed in 200-250 CE, was lost before the time of Xuanzang. Edward Conze acknowledges that T250, the attributed to Kumarajīva, is the work of his student. It is not mentioned in a biography compiled in 519 CE, john McRae and Jan Nattier have argued that this translation was created by someone else, much later, based on Kumarajivas Large Sūtra. T251 in the Chinese Tripiṭaka is the first to use the title Heart Sūtra, Fukui Fumimasa has argued that 心經 actually means dhāraṇī scripture
Heart Sutra
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Chinese text of the Heart Sūtra by
Yuan dynasty artist and calligrapher
Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322 CE)
Heart Sutra
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Sanskrit text of the Heart Sūtra in the
Siddhaṃ script; replica of the 6th-century
palm leaf manuscript preserved at
Hōryū-ji (梵本心経并尊勝陀羅尼)
Heart Sutra
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Sanskrit manuscript of the Heart Sūtra, written in the
Siddhaṃ script.
Bibliothèque nationale de France
27.
Huzhou
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Huzhou is a prefecture-level city in northern Zhejiang province, China. Lying south of the Lake Tai, it borders Jiaxing to the east, Hangzhou to the south, and the provinces of Anhui and Jiangsu to the west and north respectively. At the 2010 census, its population was 2,893,542 inhabitants whom 757,165 lived in the area made of Wuxing District as Nanxun District is not being conurbated yet. Huzhou, in its aspect, is in the center of the Yangtze River Delta Economic Area. There are transportation links to the Provincial capital of Hangzhou 78 km away in the south, Jiangsu and Anhui province in the west, flowing quietly through the city is the Changxing-Huzhou-Shanghai Channel. It is also referred to as the Eastern Rhine River for the continuous barge transportation that goes on similarly to the internationally known Rhine River in Germany. The Express Xuancheng–Hangzhou Railway Station is located 8 km west of the city center and this railway line is part of the secondary tunnel in eastern China. 248 BC, Gucheng County was set up by the State of Chu.222 BC, Qin Dynasty,266, Kingdom of Wu, set Wuxing Shire, its administrative area including the modern Huzhou prefecture city and Hangzhou, Yixing. 602, Sui dynasty, changed the name of Wuxing to Huzhou, during the Tang Dynasty, Huzhou administered 5 counties, Wucheng, Wukang, Changxing, Anji, and Deqing. At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, Guian county was divided from the Wucheng county, during the Qing Dynasty, Huzhou administered 7 counties, Wucheng, Guoan, Wukang, Deqing, Changxing, Anji, and Xiaofeng. 1983, Huzhou prefecture level city was set up, the prefecture-level city of Huzhou administers six county-level divisions, including one economic development zone and two districts and threecounties. These are further divided into 66 township-level divisions, including 50 towns,10 townships, Huzhou Economic Development Zone Huzhou is known as the City of Silk, is one of the Four Capital-cities of Silk in China. Lotuses Garden The Lotus Garden is a garden located 20 minutes south on foot from the city center of Huzhou. The main attractions of the include the Lotus flowers that bloom seasonally in the three lake system, a large Koi pond near the north gate, a karaoke veranda. Also, barge-themed pedal boats are available for leisure boating, the garden was built in 1924 with stone foot paths and bridges bordering and crossing over the lake system. A variety of structures inhabit the 300 meter squared grounds including two halls, six pavilions, and two inlets, all following the design of traditional Chinese architecture. Sign posts describe local history and the halls maintain a Tea House where visitors may converse, a particular geological feature worth seeing are the ancient stones transferred from Lake Tai. Families pour into the garden on public vacation days while local people partake in Taiji exercise, or play card and Mahjong games every day, the garden is open during daytime hours and admission is free of charge
Huzhou
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Huzhou 湖州市
Huzhou
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Wide shot of the western pond in Lotus Garden, Huzhou, Zhejiang province, China
Huzhou
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A man-made waterfall in Lotus Garden, Huzhou, Zhejiang province, China
Huzhou
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Example of Zhou Shenji Hundun with flower dumplings
28.
Zhejiang
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Zhejiang, formerly romanized as Chekiang, is an eastern coastal province of China. The provinces name derives from the Zhe River, the name of the Qiantang River which flows past Hangzhou. Kuahuqiao culture was a neolithic culture that flourished in Hangzhou area in 6. Zhejiang was the site of the Neolithic cultures of the Hemudu, the area of modern Zhejiang was outside the major sphere of influence of the Shang civilization during the second millennium BC. Instead, this area was populated by peoples known as Dongyue. The kingdom of Yue began to appear in the chronicles and records written during the Spring, according to the chronicles, the kingdom of Yue was in northern Zhejiang. Shiji claims that its leaders were descended from the Shang founder Yu the Great, the Song of the Yue Boatman was transliterated into Chinese and recorded by authors in north China or inland China of Hebei and Henan around 528 BC. The song shows that the Yue people spoke a language that was mutually unintelligible with the dialects spoken in north, the Sword of Goujian bears bird-worm seal script. Yuenü was a swordswoman from the state of Yue, to check the growth of the kingdom of Wu, Chu pursued a policy of strengthening Yue. Under King Goujian, Yue recovered from its early reverses and fully annexed the lands of its rival in 473 BC, the Yue kings then moved their capital center from their original home around Mount Kuaiji in present-day Shaoxing to the former Wu capital at present-day Suzhou. With no southern power to turn against Yue, Chu opposed it directly and, in 333 BC, yues former lands were annexed by the Qin Empire in 222 BC and organized into a commandery named for Kuaiji in Zhejiang but initially headquartered in Wu in Jiangsu. Kuaiji Commandery was the power base for Xiang Liang and Xiang Yus rebellion against the Qin Empire which initially succeeded in restoring the kingdom of Chu. At the beginning of the Three Kingdoms era, Zhejiang was home to the warlords Yan Baihu and Wang Lang prior to their defeat by Sun Ce and Sun Quan, who eventually established the Kingdom of Wu. Despite the removal of their court from Kuaiji to Jianye, they continued development of the region, industrial kilns were established and trade reached as far as Manchuria and Funan. Zhejiang was part of the Wu during the Three Kingdoms, Wu, commonly known as Eastern Wu or Sun Wu, had been the economically most developed state among the Three Kingdoms. The historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms records that Zhejiang had the best-equipped, the story depicts how the states of Wei and Shu, lack of material resources, avoided direct confrontation with the Wu. In armed military conflicts with Wu, the two states relied intensively on tactics of camouflage and deception to steal Wus military resources including arrows and bows, the other two centers in the south were Jiankang and Chengdu. In 589, Qiantang was raised in status and renamed Hangzhou, some may have lost social privilege, and took refugee in areas south to Yangtze River
Zhejiang
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This tripod planter from the
Ming Dynasty was found in Zhejiang province. It is housed in the
Smithsonian in
Washington, D.C.
Zhejiang
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Map showing the location of Zhejiang Province
Zhejiang
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View of the
West Lake in
Hangzhou.
Zhejiang
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Temple of the
Chenghuangshen (City God) of
Hangzhou, by night, in Wushan,
Xihu.
29.
Mercury (planet)
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Mercury is the smallest and innermost planet in the Solar System. Its orbital period around the Sun of 88 days is the shortest of all the planets in the Solar System and it is named after the Roman deity Mercury, the messenger to the gods. Like Venus, Mercury orbits the Sun within Earths orbit as a planet, so it can only be seen visually in the morning or the evening sky. Also, like Venus and the Moon, the displays the complete range of phases as it moves around its orbit relative to Earth. Seen from Earth, this cycle of phases reoccurs approximately every 116 days, although Mercury can appear as a bright star-like object when viewed from Earth, its proximity to the Sun often makes it more difficult to see than Venus. Mercury is tidally or gravitationally locked with the Sun in a 3,2 resonance, as seen relative to the fixed stars, it rotates on its axis exactly three times for every two revolutions it makes around the Sun. As seen from the Sun, in a frame of reference that rotates with the orbital motion, an observer on Mercury would therefore see only one day every two years. Mercurys axis has the smallest tilt of any of the Solar Systems planets, at aphelion, Mercury is about 1.5 times as far from the Sun as it is at perihelion. Mercurys surface appears heavily cratered and is similar in appearance to the Moons, the polar regions are constantly below 180 K. The planet has no natural satellites. Mercury is one of four planets in the Solar System. It is the smallest planet in the Solar System, with a radius of 2,439.7 kilometres. Mercury is also smaller—albeit more massive—than the largest natural satellites in the Solar System, Ganymede, Mercury consists of approximately 70% metallic and 30% silicate material. Mercurys density is the second highest in the Solar System at 5.427 g/cm3, Mercurys density can be used to infer details of its inner structure. Although Earths high density results appreciably from gravitational compression, particularly at the core, Mercury is much smaller, therefore, for it to have such a high density, its core must be large and rich in iron. Geologists estimate that Mercurys core occupies about 55% of its volume, Research published in 2007 suggests that Mercury has a molten core. Surrounding the core is a 500–700 km mantle consisting of silicates, based on data from the Mariner 10 mission and Earth-based observation, Mercurys crust is estimated to be 35 km thick. One distinctive feature of Mercurys surface is the presence of narrow ridges
Mercury (planet)
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Mercury in greyscale, by
MESSENGER (2008)
Mercury (planet)
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Internal structure of Mercury: 1. Crust: 100–300 km thick 2. Mantle: 600 km thick 3. Core: 1,800 km radius
Mercury (planet)
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Gravity anomalies on Mercury—mass concentrations (red) suggest subsurface structure and evolution
Mercury (planet)
–
Map of Mercury's northern hemisphere by the
MLA instrument on
MESSENGER lowest (purple) to 10 km (6.2 mi) highest (red).
30.
Hanlin Academy
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The Hanlin Academy was an academic and administrative institution founded in the eighth-century Tang China by Emperor Xuanzong. Membership in the academy was confined to a group of scholars. One of its duties was to decide on an interpretation of the Chinese classics. This formed the basis of the Imperial examinations, which aspiring bureaucrats had to pass to attain higher level posts, painters working for the court were also attached to the academy. Holders of the title were considered part of Hanlin, a Ming dynasty Emperor granted a hereditary title within the Hanlin academy to a descendant of Mencius. A Ming Emperor awarded the office of Wujing boshi 五經博士 to the branch of the Duke Yansheng at Quzhou. Biographies of those who were awarded the title of Wujing Boshi in the Ming dynasty are found in Volume 284, confucian sages offspring were granted the office of Wujing Boshi. Present Day Political Organization of China by V. V, 端木子貢 Tuan1 Mu4 Tzu3 Kung4,8. 顓孫子張 Chuan1 Sun1 Tzu3 Chang1,13 and it was also granted to the cadet branch of the Confucius family at Quzhou. Zhang Zais offspring received the appointment as wujing boshi along with Zhu Xis, Cheng Haos, Cheng Yis, subordinated to the Hanlin Academy was the Bureau of Translators. In 1511 and 1579 departments for the languages of Ba bai and Thai were added, a Malay language vocabulary 滿剌加館譯語 for the Malay spoken in the Malacca Sultanate was compiled. A Cham language vocabulary 占城館 was created for the language spoken in the Champa Kingdom, the later Tongwen Guan set up by the Qing dynasty for translating western languages was subordinated to the Zongli Yamen and not the Hanlin. The Academy and its library were damaged in a fire during the siege of the Foreign Legations in Beijing in 1900 by the Kansu Braves while fighting against the Eight-Nation Alliance. Some of the incendiaries were shot down, but the buildings were an inferno, an attempt was made to save the famous Yung Lo Ta Tien, but heaps of volumes had been destroyed, so the attempt was given up. Many ancient texts were destroyed by the flames, the Academy operated continuously until its closure during the 1911 Xinhai Revolution. Education in China Academies Chen Cheng Academia Sinica, ROC Chinese Academy of Sciences, PRC Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, PRC Martin, Hanlin Papers, Or, Essays on the Intellectual Life of the Chinese. Sparks, Jared, Everett, Edward, Lowell, James Russell, the North American Review, Volume 119
Hanlin Academy
Hanlin Academy
Hanlin Academy
Hanlin Academy
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